Heros of Alteria

Fates Derailed

The funeral was short and sweet, the repast had been carried out with love and care, but the aftermath of the home-going had left Jeeve with a dull, aching feeling in his heart. Jeeve sat forlornly at the train station, waiting for his train to Lake Shore California. His extended family had suggested it to him after the incident, then grief stricken and depressed, he hadn't given it much thought, but now with a wee bit of rationale had decided it was a good idea.

His train wasn't scheduled to arrive for another hour, so he took the time to reflect on the past week's events. "I lost all of them . . ." His morbid mantra had did little to ease the pain he felt inside, his whole family dead and he wasn't there to stop it. "What could I have done? tackled the sniper?!" Jeeve threw his face into his palms and sighed, to be killed on a family vacation was much more dark than it sounded.

His family had been planning to go to Disney World for ages, and being the lazy millennial he was he hadn't put in for the time off in advance. So he begrudgingly said farewell to his parents and sister as they drove off to to the wondrous resort without him, he had no idea he'd be saying his final farewells to them.

A deranged gunman had somehow smuggled a high power sniper rifle into the theme park and had opened fire on the patrons. His family had been separated during the commotion and each one met a different fate. His father had taken a bullet to the head, the doctor assured him that the trajectory combined with where the bullet landed made for a quick and painless death. It made Jeeve rest a little easier at night knowing that, but his mother and sister's deaths would continue to haunt his dreams for many years to come. His mother and been trampled to death while looking for his sister. The stampede had left her so disfigured that he had to close the casket for the funeral. His sister had died just as terribly as her parents, she got caught up in the swing of the crowd that she was pushed off a railing and fell 40 feet to the ground. Her casket was also closed for the funeral.

Jeeve felt bile coming up in back of his throat and reluctantly swallowed it. The last thing he needed was to lose his lunch in a dingy old subway. Jeeve felt his anxiety getting to him, so he made the wise decision to continue in the book he was reading

Jeeve sat up and reached for his bag, pulling out a leather bound book and began to flip through it.

He had found it while cleaning out his parents attic, the best way to describe the book was . . . Strange and that was putting it lightly. The book was about . . . Animals? Or at least he thought it was. There was apparently some ruling order of animals who oppressed and controlled the others. At first Jeeve thought it was some journal that his grandpa kept, but the more he read on, the more the story seemed to jump off the pages. Though if he had to be critical, he would complain of how slow the story seemed to be. He had read into at least 100 pages and no major characters had been introduced, just the omnipresent evil force that kept the people in bondage. Even with the endless amount of pages left, it just seemed like the story wasn't finished.

Jeeve continued to spill through the pages of his unnamed novel when his reading was interrupted by a homeless man begging for money. "Please sir! I haven't eaten in days! I need a dollar just a dollar please?!" Jeeve let a sympathetic smile form on his face, he had always had a soft spot for the impoverished. Jeeve reached into his wallet and pulled out a 20 dollar bill giving it to the man with gusto.

"Thank you sir! Thank you so much! I could never repay you for this!"

"As long as you get a good meal, That's enough for me." The old homeless man hobbled away with a smile on his face, leaving Jeeve alone to himself to ponder the encounter. "I feel like there was more to that old man than what he led on . . ." Jeeve would have continued to ponder, but his train had arrived 45 minutes early, so he grabbed his duffel bag and began to board the train. Jeeve took an exaggerated look around the boxcar and sighed, of course he would be on a train by himself. It just seemed so fitting that a depressed individual would be on an isolated trip by themselves.