Henry and the War Against Worlds

The Invasion: November 8th, 2004

I'm sure you know all about what has happened. I mean it's all over the world and kinda hard to miss. My name is Richard Heartman. I'm a fireman for a steam engine known as Henry. Me and my partner Harry, who was Henry's driver, worked on the beautiful Island of Sodor, a sanctuary for steam engines.

6:45 AM

I awoke that fateful day at 6:45 am. It was November 8th, 2004 and the sun was rising over the horizon. I looked beside me to see my wife sleeping peacefully. I smiled and got ready for work, I didn't want Harry getting on my ass for being late again. As I left I made sure to leave present for my son's birthday beside his bed on his nightstand. They were one to one model recreation of his favorite engines Henry and Murdoch. I really hoped he liked them as they cost a lot of time and money to make.

7:23 AM

I arrived at Tidmouth sheds to find Harry getting ready to start steaming up Henry. I looked to see the other engines in the sheds being steamed up, I believe they were James, Gordon, Duck, and Molly. I walked up to Harry and he was a bit upset saying how I was late even though I was right on time. His belief was that if you're on time you're late. I just laughed and I got to work preparing Henry's fire. As we began leaving the sheds I noticed a massive storm looming in the distance. I was confused as I checked the news before I left and there wasn't supposed to be rain. I hoped that it wasn't as bad as it looked or that day would be a pain

1:37 PM

We had been sitting at Knapford with a passenger train when the storm neared. The loud bangs of the thunder and lightning echoed in the distance. Henry seemed to be tense as he started off at the storm. I chuckled and asked if he was planning on running off to his tunnel to hide again. He told me to bug off and I laughed. As the last of the passengers began to board, that's when it began. Billy had been shunting a small goods train when a massive lighting bolt struck the ground just in front of the station. The ground shook as we were thrown around and we thought it was an earthquake, boy were we wrong. We saw the ground the lighting hit was destroyed and was moving around. This massive robotic tripedal machine rose from the ground. The lights beamed upon us and everyone was petrified. Henry looked at Billy, who looked at the thing in horror, and told him not to move, but it was too late. Billy screamed in fear and his crew threw him in reverse in attempts to get away. Just as he began to run the robot raised two smaller arms which glowed a bright blue. The thing then shot a laser towards Billy and it was a direct hit. After a few seconds dust flew out of his cab and face or what was his face. Instead of the silly face we had known was replaced with a burned smoke box door.

In an instant the entire station went into chaos. The people on the platform ran for the coaches and the thing we later learned was deemed "tripod" began firing into the crowd. Dust flew everywhere Me and Harry looked at each other and we knew where we could be safe. Henry's Tunnel. Harry wasted no time and released the break, threw on the throttle and pulled the whistle for dear life hoping Cecil was still in the signal box balcony and just as we passed I saw the tripod turn its weapons. As we rounded the bend I heard the sound of Cecil's screams getting cut off by the weapon's firing. We didn't dare look back.

We saw other tripods looming in the distance firing their laser weapons. As we were running we passed Murdoch pulling slow goods. We heard the sound of his brakes screeching followed by a loud crash. We aren't too sure what happened to him. We managed to race into the tunnel and the tripod went right over us. Not sure how it didn't realize we were still in here, but I'm not complaining.

3:28 PM

We've been in here for about 2 hours now and we aren't all too sure what to do. None of the radios or phones we have are working. Harry said that they haven't worked since the lighting hit. So does that mean these things emitted an EMP knocking out all our ways to contact help? God, what are we going to do? I'm worried for my wife and son, I don't know if they're okay. Harry is keeping the passengers and Henry calm, we're probably going to head back down the line towards Tidmouth then Knapford and search for anyone who survived. If any engine is anywhere it's Tidmouth sheds.