02.

A - In October 1887, a Japanese prince visited Istanbul and the Sultan...

~

Mary-Esther woke up, to the sound of someone speaking next to her.

She was still sitting on an armchair, within a moving train. The hope that it might have all been a dream sadly faded away.

And there was no one else besides her there. That voice she thought she heard had been the dream.

She had hoped for a moment that one of her parents had been the one talking just there.

As she stood up, still anxious and conflicted, she decided to go look for them again.

Mary-Esther had a sad gut feeling about this, still fearful about this oversized place.

She went into one of the corridors there, opening the rooms one by one. They were numerous, some locked and the others empty. Inside these compartment rooms were two benches of poor factory, quite unlike the rest of the wagon. But these benches faced each other like she was expecting to see in other trains.

But everything was mostly dusty as if no one used them ever inside. While the corridor looked cared for, the rooms looked abandoned and misused.

She was about to reach the last rooms on this side of the wagon, and she felt that all of this she found was creepier than anything she had encountered or read about before.

These little compartment looked like ones from other trains, but without any windows, they looked like uncomfortable cells or boxes. And sometimes the lights inside weren’t functioning properly to top it off.

But when she was getting closer to the last door to try there, she heard finally someone talking. She heard the voices coming from inside, and she immediately knew it was theirs.

She rushed there, thinking her parents would soon be as relieved as she was!

She wasn’t lost anymore she felt, while opening the door to the only clean compartment found so far.

She had opened it a little too hastily and easily, making her lose footing and balance as she rushed inside.

It felt somehow darker once there in this room, so much she couldn’t see very well anymore, despite the working light. But they were there and that was enough relief to make her laugh nervously, and then spill out all that happened to her.

She began talking frantically, unable to stop herself. She told them how hard and scary these last few hours had been for her. How scared she had been. How lonely she had been...

She was looking at the ground as she finished talking, somehow uncomfortable looking at them. But the pain in her heart made her slowly look up to meet their eyes again.

She couldn’t see his face clearly. She could see hers however, and how shocked and embarrassed she looked, if not downright scared of her. They were not smiling or relieved as they were supposed to be...

They were frightened. If there was some human sympathy in her mother’s gaze, there was no maternal kindness however.

Mary-Esther felt lost. As if she was falling for a moment, the floor and walls rolling around her.

Her pain kept growing. And then came the worst possible words. The ones she would never have herself been able to imagine.

- I’m really sorry young miss... But aren’t you mistaken? We... don’t know you.

Mary-Esther felt a flow of despair now filling her inside, flooding her body from within.

- We don’t have any child... And I don’t think we’ve met before, Miss... What’s your name?

M - I... I’m Esther! Dad... Mom...

The woman stood up and helped her doing so too, but it felt as if a ghost was touching her. The hands felt cold and weightless on her.

Still under the shock, the girl didn’t realise until it was too late that this lady was accompanying her outside the room.

The door was already closing itself behind her while she stood agape facing the window and passing dawn landscape. Mary-Esther had a terrified look behind her shoulder at the woman closing the door.

She felt sad, scared, terribly tired again, and a little emotionless cold now altogether.

Her mother gave her a few last words through the door, that wouldn’t bring much hope right away back to her.

- I hope you will find the ones that are truly yours...

Mary-Esther stood there, unable to react. The door was now closed, and she heard a lock.

She felt then her legs abandoning her too.

She called for them again with a pitiful voice through the door, but no reply ever came.

She thought she was about to collapse from melancholia and what just happened to her. The word lost now held a far scarier and wider meaning for her.

She realised she had just been abandoned.

She felt it sink in like a fall of her body and soul in that awful abstract emptiness called loneliness.

Sitting on the carpet there, now her back resting against the wall facing the door, she realised it.

The door that led to the place closest of what should have been her home... The home had just rejected her.

She felt all alone in the world, and it scared her. Even though the world was currently limited to this strange train she was in for now... She was still inside that unrealistic train, moving toward an unknown location...

She had nothing else to do but discover it now.

Discover that awful world. To survive...

To find out here that train was heading to... To find help and somewhere else to belong to.

To find out what was that place she was in...

~