Regal Of All

Chapter III

"Shh... we have to stay calm," the girl whispered, and removed her hand from my mouth. The death-by-dragon-ordeal scene ended a minute earlier, it felt like time had stopped and now me and this other girl we the only ones left in the world. A few less than a dozen people were dead along with a lost boy and a broken train. With places to be and no communication, the passengers were scared and without food and shelter, were also very unprotected. This everyone knew. What nobody knew was that there was no fixing these problems quickly, which passengers couldn't seem to understand.

"Why can't we go?" "Where are we going now?" "How are we going to get there?" "Can't we get moving already?" "My husband is dead! HE'S DEAD! LET ME BE!" Wives and children forgot the rest of the world and sat and sobbed. I couldn't blame them, but the other 200 people had their own things going on. The workers found that the engineer had had a heart attack. These poor people had no idea what to do, and the highest ranked conductor ended up being in charge. Me and the girl were still inside the empty car, but banged on the window to alert the workers we were still in the musty box. They communicated that help would come soon.

We were sitting down on the torn up seats."I'm Kayelana. What's your name?" Death was so common nowadays, it didn't faze me for long.

"Are you really asking me at a time like this? You do know there are people are in agony outside and you are asking me for my name?!" she threw a look out a window, "If you must know it's Acacia."

"Oh, sorry. Um..." My cheeks heated up and I gazed out the window, then looked back at her and down at my nails. I started to fiddle with my bracelet. "Are you going to watch the Pugnam Games?"

"Oh, no. I'm competing, first year." Acacia flipped her long, thick hair that I'm sure weighed a ton. It was a pretty but unruly mess of tendrils and straightness, and light-brown and gold.

"Yeah, me too."

She smiled, "Is that why these bags are so heavy?"

"The duffel has my gear and things. The other some traveling stuff." I patted the fat bag in my lap.

"Some stuff? It's like you packed your house into one bag."

"Oops," I shrugged. "Sometimes, as in every time, I over pack. I don't get around much unless it's a day-trip for training."

"I travel a lot, it's good for the soul."

"Cool."

"Chouette, oui."

"You speak French?"

"Ouias."

"Is that a yes?"

"It means yeah."

"Ok." A few minutes of awkward silence passes, the kind where both parties was trying to think of something to say, then gave up; the kind where all parties wished they where somewhere else at that moment.

"Are you into boys?" She asked out of nowhere.

"Me?," I looked up. "Well, sometimes I see some that are good-looking or meet a guy that has a nice personality. But the truth is I really just don't have any time to be bothered with that stuff. Most of my life has been mastering the bow and training for the Pugnam Games."

"Ha, " she smiled, "Story of my life, right there. I just do a bit more sightseeing."

All at once the car's door was thrown open from the outside, we leapt up and hurried out. Once safely on the hard ground Acacia dumped my bag at my feet without a word and jogged off to one of the cars further back. I assumed she went to go get her luggage, at least I hoped she wasn't ditching me so quickly, seeing how not many people have been nice to me the past couple weeks. Everybody can be so uptight and snappy, it's kind of hurtful by some point.

I gazed around the setting, I saw at once it must have been a pretty sight beforehand. The 12 o'clock sky was milky blue that flowed up from the South which then cascaded into a pale blue set as a smoky sky. The forestry that lined the barren depression was lush and thick, the trees were a dark green that enclosed on the tart heat, not so much as protecting but trapping what lay there. The flat hard ground of blood-red dirt raced along on the floor of the depression, streaks of tarnished brown sand crackled through. The steep sides of a valley loomed behind the lining forests, the rock walls slid upwards just as a prison would; a chill ran up my spine despite the warm, dry air. I could see that the landscape had a stoic beauty which seemed almost poised in a patient anticipation, it was a terrible prettiness that made you want to run, in hopes that you wouldn't stop to stare and admire it's precious attractiveness.

Pushing those thoughts away, I turned my attention to the state of the train. The back end was a wreck, the last few carts were turned over and the ones that weren't were broken or semi-shattered, our only form of transportation was a depressing sight. The metal had dents in it and the outside had a powdery black coating one side, a vote was taken to leave the woman's body and cut off some hair in memory, meanwhile the men's families chose to take their loved ones ashes. As for the train, although, thankfully, the front end was still operable and perhaps one of the workers could figure out how to drive it.

Once everybody was organized with most of their belongings the workers herded us into all the cars that were still stable, I caught a glimpse of Acacia's hair as she disappeared into the car ahead of me. Finally the last operating car was disconnected from the first broken one, the train began moving away from the remains. Sitting once again in the middle car, I glanced behind me out of the window, the cool air inside the car did nothing to stop me from sweating a little bit, everything out side had a grey film over it. The eerie scene had blood-stained ground that looked to be branded into the soil, seeking revenge forever.