Fathers and Sons

3 - Flower in the Station

Denny's frantic gaze tore across the train station as he rushed past throngs of wayfarers.

“Where is he?” He hissed into a breath, his head swishing from outline to outline.

A sudden jostle to his side lit his right shoulder on fire and he sucked in a sharp breath, cradling his arm.

How could a couple shots wreck his whole arm? Even slight touches burned like fire and that impediment made looking for his father even harder. Avoiding the hordes meant restricting his search to the less populated areas because he couldn't handle the pain of huddled bodies pressing against him.

Recovering from the pain, he realized his breaths were shortening. He needed to rest. He located a nearby arch and decided to prop himself against one of its columns in an attempt to catch some.

Pushing his long, prickly hair out of his eyes with his good arm, he watched his hagard breaths distil in the frigid November breeze. Each exhale produced white clouds, spilling and hurrying out from his lips before seamlessly merging with the invisible air.

Once watching his breath got boring, he took to examining the station around him. He was surprised to find it larger than he initially thought. His arch was one of many lining the open station and easily drawfed him by thirty, maybe forty feet. Tacking on another row of equally giant arches stacked on top, and he was looking at roughly a hundred feet of wall.

Gazing upwards, he saw the wall arches stop and ceiling arches begin. The sheer width of them causing him to gape. Immediately, he thought of one crashing down on him and shuddered. He shook the grim thought away but couldn't stop his eyes from flickering to the nearest exits. It was an open station which made him feel less trapped but even that didn't minimize how wide the station was. As big as a train maybe with how far back the arches went.

He swallowed at the thought of losing his father in a place this huge, realizing then he was stuck in an unfamiliar place without the one person he was familiar with. The choking feeling found him again and he decided it best to find something less daunting to focus on. His gaze wandered aimlessly around the station as he tried to focus on his breathing.

In time, it settled on a tender parting of a mother and son a few feet away. He had spotted many similar farewells over the course of his search, but on this particular parting he stared longer and more intently.

The mother's arms caressed her much taller son's neck as he bent down to kiss her forehead. They remained like that for the longest time, their mouths speaking what he assumed were there final goodbyes. He then noticed the son was in uniform. Was he heading to the borderland too, he wondered? Maybe they'd be in the same encampment. Even become roommates.

He chased away the musing and tore himself off his resting place. His vain fantasies were nothing more than that. Fantasies. Whoever the man was, he would be heading off to whatever place he needed to be. Meanwhile, he'd never even make it to the borderland by watching people all day. He needed to find his dad. Fixing his eyes on the other side of the station, he shot in its direction—

And crash.

There was a cry and a thud as he stumbled backwards, barely managing to latch onto the side of the arch. It wasn't the most elegant position, but better than landing on the floor and on his other arm. He winced when he thought of the pain.

Then realization hit. He had crashed into somebody.

Instinctively, his eyes fell to the platform floor where he expected to see the fallen individual. He found a suitcase strewn beside his feet and snatched it up before facing the other victim of the crash, apologies at the ready—