The Experience of Being Alive

Chapter Nineteen

Binny came careening out of the dining hall and picked a direction at random. It was always left or right upon entering the grand hallway that circled the library. It was a ring after all. Binny chose right and ran.

And when Binny couldn't run anymore, she stopped dead center, crouching and huddling as she struggled to catch her breath. She didn't know how long she'd run, but she couldn't face anyone. She'd finally disgorged the feelings that had been gestating inside her for the last days and weeks, and what had happened?

Nothing really. Binny, at least so far, hadn't even gotten in trouble. She'd told everyone the truth and expected some sort of reaction. Anger, denial, recognition. Something. Not, indifference and apathy. Nobody seemed to care. She'd called Two the White Witch and even that hadn't gotten a rise out of her. She'd just replaced everyone's Turkish Delight.

Binny had told the emperor that he had no clothes, and nobody had cared. Except, except for Katniss. Katniss understood. And now Binny understood Katniss better. She had fought in her book to end one society that crushed the human spirit only to wake up one day to find herself in another. Except in this one, Katniss had no chance. There were no number of arrows Katniss could shoot in the Stacks that would make even the tiniest bit of difference.

So far Binny hadn't been trampled, crouching in the middle of the hallway, but the crowd was getting thicker as people went from where they ate to where they slept. Binny couldn't help but think of them as looking like cattle, moving from one pen to another.

Binny spotted a dark red door with a brass knob in the outer wall. She stood up, wiped her eyes and walked to it. Binny wasn't prepared for the cold wind and the snow swirls that formed around her ankles when she opened the door. But in a way, they were perfect. The sting of the cold felt good to Binny. Cleansing. It helped her refocus her jumbled mind.

Binny walked through the door into a snow covered parking lot of a train station. It was nighttime. Binny had no idea where she was. Very old looking cars, all black, peeked out from under the untouched piles of snow that covered every available surface. Binny looked up at the sign over the main entrance to the train station, it read "Vinkovci". Binny rushed in through the main doors.

At first she thought the station was empty. It wasn't just dark out, it appeared to be very very late. The station appeared to have shut down. Ticket counters were closed. All the little letters were removed from the sign on which train arrival and departure times were listed save for one – The Orient Express, which given the time listed should be arriving soon.

Binny heard voices. She looked down the length of the train station to see three people having a discussion in the distance. Binny was drawn to the energetic argument. Anything passionate, even an argument, seemed like a welcome break from the realizations she'd been wrestling with.

Binny walked past empty benches that dotted the train station. No doubt tomorrow in whatever book she was visiting the benches would be filled with travelers. Though, the thick snow and heavy wind outside the station might have something to say about that possibility.

"We should have jumped from the Tower." A raspy voice said.

"There's no art to that." A young man with a British accent said.

"Also, it's so much work to even get inside. The ghostwood door. And we need the sigul. I'm just feeling too lazy for all that." This voice was a young girl's and had some sort of accent that Binny couldn't quite place.

"And there's an art to this?" The first voice rasped.

"It's romantic," British accent replied.