03 - Train of Wounds

The metal felt cold to my head. Somewhere in there, my brain was protesting profusely against the earlier collision. My heartbeat was echoing all throughout my limbs and body, confused and on-edge about the hit we just made.
Voices turned up, though the sounds were all muffled or muted. I only heard a loud beep, ringing throughout both of my ears. Constantly.
I didn’t see much movement. My eyes caught merely a glimpse of a door opening from the bottom level on the staircase next to me. But as quickly as it opened, it slammed close again not even a second later.

For a moment I was clung to the wall.
This can’t be happening to me. This is why I don’t travel
I closed my eyes, reaching for some sort of peace. Until, a voice quickly snapped me out of my state of trance.
“Out here! To the staircase!” The voice sounded young, spritely. It sounded like the kind of person who would keep calm in situations like these.
But before I could fully open my eyes, shadows already cluttered the connecting carriage of the cruiser around me.
There was another loud thud, plummeting the cruiser into another unstable state. It launched my body forward ever slightly, but I was able to keep myself standing. Not long after, a female voice echoed loudly above the mechanical static: “Fuck!”
The first voice spoke again: “We gotta move. Gizz–gizz”
I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but my head was pounding enough for me to not care right now.
In front of me, I noticed the shadows starting to come into vision more clearly. I saw their eyes cast upon me, looking me up and down before approaching the door on the left-hand side.
“C’mon, break it open already,” one of the voices urged.
“Uh’z kita—it’s stuck man,” a new voice yelled in what sounded like fear. He seemed a lot older than the others.
“Gizz—gizz!”, the young voice was yelling at this point.
Coming back to my senses more and more, I was able to get a better view of these people. There were three of them, all wearing masks over their mouths and necks. Thick, dark clothes also covered their bodies.
Something that did stick out were their races. Two pink faces immediately gave away Mo’az roots, though the third one was a bit of a puzzle. I tried to focus while their quick movements already moved them up and down the carriage. Until they all started to converge behind the staircases, away from the door.
At a glance, I noticed a soft beep and flickering light, pulsing over the door. However, as soon as I diverted my attention back to the group of three, I found the third one looking straight at me. It was a set of burning eyes, yellow or orange, I couldn’t exactly place it. But one of her eyes was different—dim, but brighter in a way. In an instant, it was almost like a flash of light ran through her eye. It almost felt like a spark of lightning. But it couldn’t have been.
Her face seemed more tainted in grey tones. Marks ran all over her features, with a notable, more red-ish one running over her cheek down to underneath the mask. If it wasn’t for the cloth that was tucked around her head, I would have known for sure what she was, but I wasn’t.

At that point, the door from the second level of the cruiser swung open. A middle-aged man stood in the doorway, right above the group of three, looking straight at me. He was coughing loudly before yelling out to me: ”What the fuck is goi—”
But before he could finish his sentence, the device above the door triggered. The door blew open. A loud explosion filled the room, before flooding it with debris. Pieces of metal and glass got launched everywhere. I felt a strong force pulling me towards the door. And while hopelessly searching for something to cling on, I felt blood dripping over my left shoulder. Dripping from what must have been a loose shard of glass.

It must have been the wind—the speed. Everything within the carriage was flying and falling. A vague glimpse of the outside showed me nothing. There was still the dust, the barren wasteland. I noticed waves of sand and dust raging over the land, some of which blowing its way inside at this point.
I clammed myself tightly onto the wall on the other side, holding on for my dear life. On the other side, I saw the man that had just bursted out of his carriage collapse onto the stairs. Underneath, the pack of three was yelling while making signals and moves:
“Gizz! go now!” The two Mo’az figures ran for the door, followed by the mysterious third member. And while they must have been unable to see over the edge of the cruiser, they had just jumped—they were gone, like that.

Mechanical noises and alarms echoed louder and louder throughout the room. Still in shock from what I had just witnessed, I realised that this cruiser wouldn’t last much longer. I tried to focus, tried to breathe over everything that had just happened. For a moment, my heartbeat slowed as I turned my attention inwards. The violent bursts of wind and movement tuned down. I noticed my breathing, but also the sharp pain in my shoulder. But as I instinctively reached for the wound, I lost my grip.
I only felt the smooth texture of the wall carefully slip over my fingertips. And then there was nothing else. The wind blew aggressively through my hair. Dust entered into my eyes, face, and pretty much every opening it could find, all while my body launched for the door.
My head was once more met with a sharp collision. The last thing I remembered is the view of an empty connecting carriage in front of me, while my body got dragged along with the wind and my head collided with the metal once again.

Boom, boom.
Boom, boom.

I woke up to a blue sky. My pulse was beating out of my brain. I had a headache so badly, I couldn’t even focus on the rest of my body.
Above me, I only saw the sun. Not a cloud to be seen, nothing exploring the sky other than a vast emptiness. But it all turned unimportant as I came back to life.
Burns stretched out over my body, walking over my limbs like insects. It almost felt like an infection, like a virus—reaching everywhere. I could feel the sands and stones having scrubbed and burnt against my body like it was sandpaper.
I couldn’t move. Every single motion reminded me once again of the pain. Especially a sting in my shoulder set up in a very nasty way.
I considered dying—not that I had a choice, but it would have been so much easier. If I wasn’t already dead of course. But never in my life had I been in such pain, who did this to me?

Far away, I heard indistinct sounds. It was like noises polluting some horizon, but saturated with all sorts of tones.
Maybe someone could save me. Maybe I wasn’t alone?
With great pain, I slowly managed to get my neck muscles moving again, during which I was again reminded of the gravelly chunks of sand below me. It also came with a gentle reminder of the burning heat I now found myself in.
That’s why I live in the fucking south. Away from this wasteland garbage. I thought to myself.

My eyes ever gradually managed to catch a glimpse of the world next to me—a lot was happening. First of all there was the cruiser. The fierce, indestructible bullet that had entirely folded to the ground. There was no sign of movement within the metal, though there was plenty of movement above and around. It was far enough away for me to be unable to distinctly point out the people, though it seemed like there were a lot of them.
If only they would find me. I don’t deserve this fate.
My attention shifted back to myself, back to the wound engraved in my shoulder. It was too painful for me to mute the occasional groan, though in this case that might have been for the better. If only they would hear me though.

Through the disturbed air—radiating from the heat—I saw something else in the distance. A bit further from the cruiser, there were clouds of dust. Mechanical vehicles, aided by what looked like gimbo riders or some other mount at least. They were running, or were they coming towards us?
Not long after, I saw the group split in half. This confirmed my suspicion that they were, in fact, going the other direction. A large group of riders turned back to the fallen cruiser. Noises of footsteps, of screams, it all turned up again. And the last thing I noticed before passing back out was a flag—The Sentinels were here, the good guys. They would save me. They would save everyone.

Something was here, I felt it on my body. I heard noises. I saw them lay their hands on me, take me. They were friendly. It tickled. They helped me. They tickled.

Tsjik

“Ow!” I shot upright. Around me, I saw nothing, but as I looked down, my shirt started moving rapidly. Before I could even raise my shirt, the creature already shot out the bottom end. I didn’t recognise this feller, but it quickly sprinted off after leaving me with just a tiny bitemark on my belly. I just watched his long squirrel flee the scene, but beyond that I didn’t see anything.
The wind was howling waves of dust over the barren lands. The pain still stung and burned everywhere, but for just a moment I couldn’t be bothered.
Rapidly, I turned my head towards the cruiser. It was still there, broken and folded. But this time, not a soul to walk around it.
What? Where did all the people go?
My gaze extended just a bit beyond the cruiser to where I had previously noticed the groups of riders. But this time, there was just nothing. No-one.

I looked down at my legs which appeared all red and scarred. It was only then that I felt the dryness of my throat. I was thirsty. How long had I been here?
But as my eyes shot all around me in a wild sense of panic, the worst of realisations hit me: I’m all alone.