Nighter: A Town In The Middle Of Nowhere - Second Edition

Chapter 1 - The Farm And The Station

Eyes open. Blinded by the harsh light of the moon taking up the night sky. The moon was brighter that what she had ever seen before, but at the same time it was still darker than the endless void. She looked around at her surroundings. She was laying down. She was laying down in the middle of some sort of farm. Nothing like the ones she had seen in the picture books. Well, she'd never actually seen a real farm before, since she had been trapped in an urban jungle for as long as she could remember. But that was all she remembered. Hardly detailed. All she could remember was the tall buildings on the blue background of the sky. She stood up. The farm was filled with mystical creatures that vaguely represented livestock, grazing in a small paddock in the distance. There was unusual tall maroon coloured grasses and blood red coloured crops lacing the dark magenta soil she stood on. She wore a puzzled, no, fascinated look on her face. She had no idea where she was or how she had gotten herself in this situation, but there was one main thought on her mind: what was she going to do about it. A land beyond earth, she questioned to herself. It wasn't warm, nor cool. She was neither happy nor sad. She didn't know what to do about the emotions and feelings she was experiencing. She was Tyler Kathryn, age twenty at the time, in a town she couldn't quite identify. Or perhaps, remember.

He stood on the edge of the underground train platform, staring. What he was staring at, he didn't know. He felt like he had suddenly regained consciousness to his mind and soul. He looked around a bit, and noticed he was on train platform negative two, in a station that hadn't been in use for what looked like centuries. The tiled walls covered in splashes of mysterious substances, and the power lines above the rusted tracks were untwining and untangling with tiny blue sparks spurting out of the broken wires. The yellow bulbs, tinted with age, filled with innocent corpses of insects and other doomed souls, flickered with the sound and movement of civilisation above. He's never seen a train station like this before. Why would a train need metal string things for an energy source when they're powered by steam? Maybe it was some sort of incredible, world changing invention that hadn't been introduced to the town he was from. Small creatures, about the size of a mouse, were scurrying along the edges of the station, emitting repetitive small red flashes of light that lasted only just long enough to be noticed, producing a weak second light source in the dark forgotten tunnels. He thought for a bit, but something didn't feel normal. He felt young. He was young. Exactly seventeen years on the twentieth of February. He could remember some things, like that his name was Leonardo Smith, but couldn't remember many other things, like where he was specifically or why he was there. He knew he wasn't anywhere he'd ever been before, in a time he wasn't familiar with. His memories before the current moment were blurry.

The faint, oddly sweet scent of the unearthly crops drifted along with the mild, calming breeze, and the conversations between the livestock and the calming humming from wings of small insects filled in the silence. Her head throbbed with a light pain, headache like, and her mind felt broken. Her past memories were faint, non existent even. The only source of light was provided by the moon, which created an iridescence colouring the ground. Tyler walked along an imaginary path, trying to take in all the thoughts of the things she was seeing. The air flowed through her short, dark hair, and whistled past her ear. There was a short, sudden burst of wind flowing in and out of the tall grass that surrounded her, followed by a muffled sound of an item dropping by her feet. She stopped and looked down, confused. Maybe something dropped out of her pocket, she thought to herself. Or could it be a message from above? She couldn't see very much because of the thick, waist high grass blocking the view of the ground. She bent down, her body no longer visible through the tall, dense spread of the grass. The only sound her ears picked up now was an eerie silence. She pushed aside some of the maroon-red grass blocking her vision, revealing an item placed upon the magenta dirt. Something about the size of a coin, any coin, connected by a short, ribbon like chain. A necklace, maybe? She reached out her hand to pick it up when she heard a faint sound in the distance, later realising it wasn't just any sound. It was a voice. Someone was shouting words at her. Words she couldn't understand. Maybe because it was in a different language, or just because it was from a source far away, being muffled by the dense grass. She quickly stood back up, forgetting the necklace, scanning around for some sort of humanly figure in the distance. But she couldn't see anyone for miles, just extensive patches of grass, crops, and a few grazing livestock, then the night sky of the horizon. She heard the voice again, seeming to be closer to her this time. She looked up at the dark sky, just in case. Still, nothing to be seen. The voice cut through the quiet atmosphere one again, this time a lot closer than before, but for some reason still muffled. She hesitantly looked behind her, her body wanting to stop the motion, but her curious mind took control. She saw a tall figure, about 7 feet tall, standing about a meter away from her in the corner of her eye, standing stationary. She instinctively turned back around. She wanted to look back again, but was frozen with shock. There were floods of thoughts through her head. Plans on what to do, how to escape. Questions on whether she could use reason or would have to resort to force. She wanted to sprint away, to anywhere other than the place she was currently situated. She wanted to go home, but knew that was highly unlikely. She knew she was far beyond the world she called home.

She had decided on a plan. She pulled together enough courage to move her body around, and look at the figure one more time (just in case it was just a hallucination), before sprinting away as fast as her legs could take her. She slowly turned her head to the side, so she could just make out some of the details of the figure behind her, an angry face and what seemed to be a gun. She froze again as her eyes gazed in fear upon the long rifle in the hands of the stranger just a few steps behind her. Just a simple movement, and her life could be gone. The figure was waiting for movement. No matter how fast she could run, she could never outrun a bullet. She realised that she must've been trespassing, and the angry owner was just behind her, not looking like they were going to let her reason with them. She only had two options left, turn around and try to sort something out, or sprint for her life, dodging any bullet that could possible finish her life, and she'd never been the best conversation starter. She took a deep breath and sprinted as fast as she could, weaving left and right through the grass. The density of the grass was slowing her down and tiring her out, but she just kept running left and right unpredictably, as it's a lot harder to shoot a moving target. She quickly glanced back, to see the figure not chasing her, but loading and aiming their powerful weapon. She preyed for her life as she sprinted and weaved around the tall grass. She could just make out the edge of the farm, bordered by a tallish fence to mark the boundary. Through the gaps of the wire fence, she could see buildings. Of homes possibly. She was just a few leaps away from freedom, until she heard a earsplitting crack, like a whip hitting the floor being amplified by one thousand. She felt an immense force, almost pushing her forwards, upon her left leg, followed by an unimaginable amount of pain. Her left leg immovable, she fell down into the red grass, hands and body hitting the moist magenta soil.

She wanted to scream, but the farmer would know for sure where she landed, and that she was still alive. She was just a few meters away from the fence, crawling distance. The blood from her leg seeped into the soil where she lay. She dragged her body through the grass with all her strength towards the fence, knowing that she was being followed. She didn't have any time to spare, since crawling is a much slower method of movement than being able to use both your legs. The excruciating pain from the large wound on her lower leg was running up to her hip. She was determine to survive, pushing her body through the blood soaked soil. She could only just hear someone walking through the grass in the distance. The figure was approaching her, and quickly. She was now around a meter away from the fence, but she faced one major factor, stopping her from entering the other side. She turned her head around, and could see the farmer speedily approaching her, wading through the grass with ease. She was like a bird wanting to escape, but to no use due of the exitless metal cage enclosing her, preventing her of freedom. She'd run out of options with chance of survival, and her only plan now was to hide and wait for the moment to be over. If the person couldn't find her, she would surely die from blood loss from her wound. She grabbed one of the large blades of grass and wrapped it around her lower leg, to apply pressure to the wound. The sound of movement through the grass was getting closer and closer, to the point where she could see the grass being pushed aside. It was only a matter of minutes before the farmer would find her and end her life. She rested her back upon the fence, heart beating rapidly due to both exhaustion and shock. All her thoughts suddenly stopped uncontrollably, with only one thought remaining. The only thought being broadcasted through her brain; 24 Tasksonn Place, Nighter.