The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 23 - Accidently Re-enacting the Polar Express

Shadow and Sheira stared at me like I'd grown a second head, or at least they were just trying to process what the hell they'd just heard. Everyone else on the other hand was looking at me liked I'd gone completely mad and I'd just claimed that the government was being run by robotic badgers rather than we were all being carted off to Molly to be used as lab experiments. Which, to be fair, sounded just as crazy. You know that you've officially lost the plot when the doctor in the room is reaching for his med kit.

Shadow, still cool as a cucumber, crouched down next to me and looked me dead in the eye. "Are you sure? Because if you're certain about this we need to get off this train now. Are you one hundred percent sure of what you just saw?"

I nodded firmly, "Absolutely." Even if no one else believes me I knew what I saw and one way or another every person on this rattler was getting off alive, even if I had to drag them.

His expression turned grim, but he sighed wearily and turned to Sheira, "start packing, we're leaving."

Sheira and I promptly scrambled for our stuff shoving it into our backpacks while the rest of the inhabitants of the carriage stood and stared at us in horror. "Are you mad?" One woman said, "you're throwing away this chance for a little boy's nightmare?"

"I'm trying not to be offended here," I muttered from my corner. One way or another I had to convince everyone to leave but how the heck was I going to convince this lot that they were literally being driven to their deaths, or worse.

I heard Shadow scoff and what I could only presume was followed by an eye roll. "The last dream he had already happened, and someone died in it. They melted, yes...no, I didn't see it, but he described it pretty damn graphically! Listen to me you idiots I'm not taking chances now, not when we're in the middle of it."

A flurry of questions and protests flew in Shadow's direction and while he tried to reason with the scared and the desperate (Then again calling them idiots probably wasn't helping the situation), Sheira and I carefully examined the walls of the wooden carriage. Quite alarmingly there didn't seem to be much in the way of a door, or even a hinge in the wood, it was completely flat with no apparent way out, but Axel had come through, so where the hell was it? I exchanged a worried look with her, this was becoming a lot more suspicious than just a simple transport job.

Anyway, something felt really wrong about this place. And I'm not talking this soup tastes kind of funny off, I'm talking conspiracy levels of there's something really bad going on, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, it was like whatever it was it was just out of my reach. But this is still wood, so I can still burn it I thought to myself as I snapped my fingers to summon a flame...and nothing happened.

I frowned and tried again, and again, and again and again. Nothing was happening. I could feel the energy pulsing beneath my skin, but it was like a blocked pipe, it was pushing and pushing and couldn't get any further. Sheira was trying now but she couldn't even produce a snowflake. Okay, panic mode activate!

"Shadow..." I called out as he was just about to get lynched by the crowd. I waved my hand at him which now had weak flickers of smoke curling from it, "we've both got nothing."

He then proceeded to try, but only black sparks fizzled out from his fingers. He then swore so loudly he actually got slapped from one of the mothers who then screamed at him for inappropriate language in front of children while he raced towards us to try the space himself. But by now the others were trying and the only thing that could possibly happen, well, happened. Mass, unstoppable panic. There were screams of fear, people trying to tear the walls down by hand and shouts of "we're all going to die".