I Did Something Bad

Chapter One

So I'm going with shorter updates than my usual, but with having to work on my thesis during this weeks it's either like this or I'd update once a month. I hope you're ok with shorter chapters, let me know! Enjoy!

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A sudden stop of the train woke her up from her slumber, her head hitting the back of her seat as her eyes started to slowly flatter in the blinding light of the morning.

The woman started to slowly regain her consciousness, tilting her head to the side as she noticed the movements around her. People were getting out of the train, talking and scrambling with their luggage as they tried to cross the narrow passage between a seat and another. Karlie ran a hand over her mouth, quickly checking that she hadn't been drooling during her nap. Her head still felt heavy from the sleepiness and she would feel her eyes still fighting against the greyish light of the morning hitting her face. Soon the doors were closed, and the train started moving towards the next station, slowly and rhythmically trembling over the rail beneath it.

Karlie tried to move in a more comfortable position. She had been sleeping with her forehead rested on the window, her body unnaturally turned to the opposite side and now crossed by cramps. She stretched her neck, tilting her head as she tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her spine and shoulders, straightening her back against the seat.

She hated trains, and she hated the constant vibration of the carriage beneath her. Nausea had been running up her throat since she had got in her seat and was quickly coming back to her now that she had woken up from her slumber.

At least she had been in peace for a couple of hours.

The woman didn't even know for how long she had slept. The last thing she remembered was the sun setting over a river in Colorado, the blue skies sprinkled with violet clouds over the peeling green paint of the train. But now light was already creeping back into the sky from east, lighting up the endless green fields with feeble rays of an almost white sunrise. A light layer of fog covered the grass making the whole scene look like a vanishing memory emerging from a dream.

Karlie let out a deep breath, running a hand through her messy short hair as she tried to relax her sore back muscles. She had given up keeping her hair in her usual bun hours ago, when after an uncomfortable half an hour of having it pressed into her skull against the seat headrest, she had opted for letting her hair loose. Having her blonde locks falling over her neck had done nothing but worsen the heat she had been feeling and had made several drops of sweat ran down to her shoulders before the sun had disappeared.

Karlie extended her legs, trying to stretch them, or at least giving them a break for the soaring position they were in the small space between her seat and the one in front of her. There a redhead woman was sleeping peacefully, a straw hat covering part of her face as she held a little blonde kid under her protective arm. It was the tenth person that Karlie had as travel partner in the last forty-eight hours, and probably she was not going to be the last. Most of the people around her had got in and out of the train in a matter of hours, she had been there for more than two days.

Of course, she had done breaks. Even after the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad had been linked there weren't many trains going from Pennsylvania to California in one go, or people crazy enough to try it. She had spent a night in a Chicago hostel and another in a village somewhere in between there and Colorado, a town so small and abandoned that, tired as she was, she hadn't even found out in which state she had been. The woman had also made several stops in between a train and another, trying to cease the motion sickness hunting her during the awake hours.

But nevertheless, she was a wreak.

Or at least she felt like it.

Her legs felt sore for all the hours of sitting still, while the rest of her body was feeling all of her tiredness and the weight of days of travel. Her head was heavy with exhaustion and boredom while her nausea kept raging.