13.

A soft but tired voice was speaking close to her.

She sounded sweet, but sad and strained...

Was she facing a closed door too? It felt strange, hearing this woman worry with a bittersweet voice.

R - What can I do to help her?

Someone else more distant replied with a long and uninteresting explanation. There was nothing meaningful that she could do apparently... Was shy crying? One of her hands felt warm.

R - Mary... I know you’re thinking about the blue rose... I know you’re trying your best to remember, no matter what... No matter how weaken you are...

Please, don’t just give up...

Don’t die... Not yet... Please, I’m begging you, wake up. Don’t leave me...

R - Don’t leave me Mary...

~

She felt she was on the verge of crying too. Hearing her voice was too painful.

Mary-Esther suddenly woke up, a little conflicted and feeling uneasy.

She found that night already was set outside and inside. It was still raining. The windows were still continuously hit by the drops and their flow, on both sides of the train. It was the same music again, in a darker room.

The windows were trembling, as if the rain was aggressively trying to get in...

Just next to her, Blue was asleep or resting. It saw that she had awoken and stood up, ready to follow her again.

But she was still hearing that voice from before.

M - Blue... Have you just...

Had it spoken? No... The bird shrieked and jumped onto her arm as she was beginning to stand up.

It wasn’t Blue... Then that voice, she couldn’t put a name nor a face on it... But she wanted to.

It was painful not to know, being always left in the dark...

Anyway, the end was near... Soon, the nightmare would end, one way or another.

She raised her hand toward the door knob once more.

For some reason, she was now quite confident that it would open. Or at least she wanted to believe that she might be right against all logical odds... The small dream of hope before the end of delusions is always hard to prevent.

As she was putting her hand over the knob, she heard the sound of falling sand starting behind her. It slowly replaced the music of the rain...

Blue was becoming agitated. It recognised that sound too and it made it particularly nervous now.

It was surely scared of these things as well now...

Mary-Esther prayed one last time, and the door moved when she tried to open it.

It creaked horribly and was much heavier than every other door, but it did open for no apparent reason.

Her excitement hurt her heart for a moment, and Mary-Esther was about to thank aloud someone or something for their help, but through the opening a grey mist suddenly flew against her.

Smoke was flowing out of the airlock and into the room. She coughed and took a glance behind.

Swarms of large things were already crawling toward her, moving on too many legs to count. These huge spiders bigger than dogs were walking on every surface available toward their apparent preys. Even the ceiling was being covered with them. These balls with large soft and short legs were already too many to count.

She almost screamed when she looked at that swarm. Choosing maybe the lesser of two evils, she recklessly ran into the smoky airlock. Going ahead and away from them sounded like the better choice.

Blue was trying to fly nervously inside the airlock while Mary-Esther was heading to open the next door. She jumped inside the wagon and the lack of visibility brought by smoke leaking into the airlock.

A pipe along a wall was damaged and leaking the smoke, possibly because the engine might be close.

Behind the next door, Esther fell on a wooden floor, coughing.

She heard Blue flying over her head and going a little further, away from the smoke as well.

She lied seemingly dead for a second, and then mustered the strength to push herself up again. She stood up slowly, breathing again. She was a little under shock but didn’t hear the falling sand around her and wasn’t threatened by smoke either. She could discover the eighteenth wagon.

The rain had calmed down. Only the rumble of the train could be heard again. There was no smoke nor sand, and little lighting in here also. The floor was plain wood this time. A very different colour from the usual carpets was welcome as usual.

Lines of benches were back to back or facing each other. They ran along the walls and windows with curtains, and in the middle as well. Luggage racks were under all of the benches. It was a normal looking wagon. It was almost unpleasant and strange to find herself in such a normal place.

She recalled being in a similar one, not that long ago...

Mary-Esther was actually so surprised to discover that normality that she didn’t notice what happened meanwhile right behind her.

While the heavy door of the airlock was closing itself, two and a half of these monstrous spiders managed to slip in.

One had been cut in half by the door shutting itself without resistance. The thing only had four legs left, scattering dust instead of blood as it crawled silently toward her.

She was wandering in distant thoughts, walking slowly ahead of her in the main alley between the central two rows of benches. She was walking absent minded, gazing at the empty seats and pondering.

At the same time, the first of the things reached her.

While she was distracted by Blue acting nervously, it jumped against her legs and exploded softly in a cloud of smoke and dust.

A - Mary...

Mary-Esther had suddenly felt something cold touching her ankles and sending nervous shivers along her bones.

She had heard a sigh and her name whispered too close to her ear.

It couldn’t have been Blue, which was in front of her.

She turned around and was startled seeing the other one and a half remaining. She began walking backward.

She was scared. But the grey monsters were walking quite slowly. They were also shivering like her, until they eventually collapsed there. They suddenly fell for no apparent reason and quickly vanished to return to dusts.

She stopped, wondering but still anxious. Did they die just like that? Well, if they were truly living things before at least...

They weren’t pursuing her now and she couldn’t see any other in this place, which was a good start. Maybe some places were safe and the things could not go anywhere they pleased. Neither did she actually now that she thought about it. Some doors and the whole place itself kept slowing her down.

But something else was bothering her. Did she imagine that or had one of them just called her name aloud?

Blue waiting on a bench further, she kneeled on the floor to look at the marks left over the wooden flooring where these last things died. She brushed with her fingers some ashes lying there. They were cold.

Why they weren’t coming anymore made her think of another aspect of the problem. The main issue was maybe not why they stopped coming, but rather why they appeared to be pursuing her in the first place?

Why would these stuffed monsters exist here bothered her. They were maybe the most abnormal thing here.

She nonetheless gathered a handful of their ashes for that other spell, while thinking about these things.

She didn’t really expect Blue to reply to her concerns like in some fairy tales.

That voice calling her before reminded her of her mother.

Her real mother... She wondered now if she could still be alive.

Mary-Esther stood up and cleaned her hands on her dress as if she couldn’t care less about her behaviour now. She was giving up a little. She walked toward Blue, awaiting her nervously a little further.

She wondered whether these ashen creatures came from the locked room in which she had seen a fire before.

On a last step to reach the bird, the floor felt different. She shivered as she realised that it was trembling.

The sound of the train got louder and louder as she began panicking.

Something was collapsing with her on top, with cracking of wood and bending metals. She was paralysed by the shock.

She extended her hand toward Blue she had been about to reach, when she suddenly fell into the darkness below.

She didn’t scream and Blue didn’t move.

~

She felt herself falling so suddenly that she had been struck by paralysing fear more than anything. By the time she could move again after the scare, she was already lying on the floor below over the fallen rubbles. It happened really fast.

She crawled over the rubbles, in pain all over her frail body. She moved aside from the area where everything had collapsed.

The floor she found herself on was identical to the one above, aside for that wide hole in the ceiling and pile of rubbles there. She sat on a nearby bench to breathe and calm down. She called Blue as loudly as her voice allowed her.

After a second of fear, the bird showed itself, and jumped through the hole to reach her below. Seeing Blue again reassured her greatly.

She had hurt her feet and legs in the fall, so she wanted to rest for a few minutes. A diffuse pain was running along her bones from her feet to her spine, following her heartbeat.

Sitting next to the alley at first, she slid herself closer to a window. Sitting there and looking outside to the night sky, it felt a little less strange. She sighed.

Her reflection on the glass was darken because of the dim light within the place. Outside, she could guess a little the scenery, and see some stars sometimes. Heavy clouds were still covering most of the sky, but not all of it. It was still raining a little, but it was mostly over.

She heard herself sighing again. She wished it was only a few minutes ago that her true or false father had told her to sleep, while they were in a similar looking wagon.

Only looking back, this one here was still gigantic... Even though Blue was now with her, that lost time was still a little hurtful.

Blue shrieked a little, waking her up suddenly.

She had been dozing off, feeling bitter. She thanked the bird for calling her and tried to take that as the time to stand up and resume walking. The further she could go the better.

She walked a little more slowly, still a little in pain. She proceeded through an airlock as usual. The sound of the train’s engine was sounding closer now, and she could smell some normal smoke in the air. She might really be getting closer to her goal now, which reassured her.

The next wagon was also identical. An empty passengers wagon, without a soul in sight. That was a little spooky but that kind of emptiness she could manage. There was sufficient furniture for her phobia. Also there wasn’t this rose pattern carpet any longer to look at. It felt better, although somewhere she had become so accustomed to them she missed them a little now. Their absence made the place more foreign.

She walked her way toward the next door and felt it again. The floor was collapsing below her. It was like a sudden earthquake. Her body was suddenly and mercilessly pulled down through a ground falling into pieces.

She felt as if she was very suddenly pulled down and swallowed by a giant beast.

Blue had begun to fall with her that time, but flew away during the fall.

Mary-Esther fell heavily again on her bottom and yelled her pain for a moment. She wasn’t badly hurt thankfully. Some pieces of wood kept falling around following that landing.

Mary-Esther did not cry, but she was seriously in pain. Various parts of her body were aching now. She had yelled, and was trembling trying to stand up, gritting her teeth a little.

She complained, she cursed that damn place.

After a moment, she stopped acting childishly in front of Blue. She had to behave more as an adult if she wanted to make it...

She had a forceful smile and stopped complaining, focusing on pushing herself further instead.

She acted as if she was trying to reassure Blue she noticed, more than trying to convince herself.

She was trying so. Mary-Esther was wondering if they could make it. If she could make that blue rose open, and make it out of there...

She had almost everything required by Elise’s odd spell now. Taking a moment to rest, she took it out of her pocket. The rain from the muddy garden had damped the edges and erased some of it, but she could still read it.

She had the dust, the rose, the memento and the yellow cloth on herself. The blue colour would be easy to find, as would her tears. She had everything at hand.

She asked Blue for a feather with a kind voice. Blue only looked at her blankly, and she ended up helping herself. The bird jumped and shrieked when she plucked one of its feathers, understandably. It obviously didn’t like it.

She apologised, though Blue seemed to quickly get over it.

Mary-Esther giving up on some etiquette ripped a small piece of her already damaged dress. The two falls had already ripped it here and there noticeably. The cloth was between prime yellow and faded green.

She now had apparently everything on her...

She noticed some fireflies passing briefly before the windows. They passed outside like sparks in the night, very briefly.

The rain had stopped over time. Now they appeared like shooting stars... That was enough of a change and wish to go out to make her want to cry. She tried to force a tear to come out.

It didn’t work. She was not tearing up and couldn’t manage to force one out. Even when recalling to herself the moment when she had been forced of the room and abandoned...

Her heart ached recalling these bad moments, but no tear would come out. Even thinking of that ocean of love that spoiled and turned bitter, sour and painful, it didn’t do.

When she felt like she was drowning in that ocean of sorrow, she didn’t cry.

Even the perfumes of the roses didn’t force it.

She couldn’t.

And now that she thought about it, she realised she might never have.

She asked Blue with an anxious voice what was happening to her.

She put the various colourful tokens back into her pocket, leaving it at that for now.

Mary-Esther went to sit next to Blue to gaze at the fireflies outside. They made the night far prettier and magical.

She was sad, feeling that she ought to do that blue rose, one way or another. So why wouldn’t her body produce a single tear was a painful irony currently. She was the missing or failing piece currently.

Whether it was love or sadness, she ought to tear up someday, and would wait for it.

Blue was looking outside, not listening to her complains.

It looked agitated. The fireflies, glowing little lights seemed to awake her interest in something. Maybe it wanted to gobble some of them, or it was just attracted by these flying glows.

Blue suddenly flew closer to the door, and looked back at her. Mary-Esther smiled, thinking her bird was right. Enough rest for now. No matter what the blue rose’s importance was in her mind, the priority remained a little more pragmatic. Pushing these dreams aside to focus on maybe just one mystery at a time, she stood up to follow Blue ahead.

The flower could wait a little longer certainly.

Just a little longer she thought...

Looking at the fireflies outside, she was a little melancholic. She stood there for a few seconds, thinking about something she couldn’t yet put into words at that moment.

A melancholy that was only hers, and truly herself. Getting closer to another iceberg of her truth and reality. Between a promise to keep and a wish to escape her current fate, there was a deep melancholy there.

She simply never saw it before.

She couldn’t realise yet it might be a choice to make between the two.

She stood there a last second, seeing her reflection on the glass. What she thought that had been hers only, her reflection fading in the dark.

Mary-Esther moved on. Her body was aching but she was driven to see the end.

~

The twentieth wagon was the same again. A third normal wagon, on the second floor she was in at least.

Ah but there were more fireflies outside she noticed. Where was the train rolling to get such a sight?

It felt like a rain of lights and glows, falling nearly horizontally against the momentum of the train. These shiny particles were passing at greater speed, giving a slightly yellow light to the place, always trembling and moving.

Mary-Esther walked more carefully this time, keeping a hand on a bench at all time. She already felt hurt enough falling twice in the same trap or throat. She found herself right to beware. The floor did collapse again at one sudden point. As terribly as if someone heavy had been there, collapsing along with some of the benches from that level.

A wider collapse made an increasingly wide part of the floor fall down to the level below.

The floor was crumbling in extraordinarily fragile ways, and she found herself taken away nonetheless.

She fell along the bench she held on into a room filled with burning pipes and heavy machinery. It was darker and extremely noisy.

She had been surprised by the train getting torn apart so suddenly like that.

The bench reached the floor first and she crashed on it. For once she wasn’t too hurt by the landing. She wished aloud this would be the last fall, because that really hurt. Also she was now on the first floor and shouldn’t go further down before stopping the train.

She stood up again trembling, looking at the dim glows coming from the hole above. Some windows had been broken by the collapse, and a few fireflies were now sometimes straying inside the train.

The place was ruined, broken for good repairs or scrap. It did appear somehow as if things were getting worse the further she went.

She had one last different thought about it, recalling the layout of the last wagons and her previous falls.

There was no going back anymore...

Well, she had no desire to do so anyway. She did felt a little sad still, but she wanted most of all to see the end of it.

The conclusion to this insane journey was only a few more steps away she wanted to believe. It was near, she could feel it in her flesh and bones.

Her nervous heartbeat was swayed just thinking about it.

She climbed around the broken wrecks from the collapse, making her way out of this machine room slowly.

She could feel some of the cold winds from the night wrapping her from above. A little of fresh air from outside was brushing her.

She walked among the various heavy machines vibrating there. Blue was sticking with her, close and nervous as well.

Mary-Esther thought at first this might be the engine room moving the train, but she then realised it likely wasn’t. She was so eager to see the end that she expected to see it any time now. All she wanted to find was a main lever to shut everything down and stop this beast. But this here was more a boilers room or something alike, dealing with heat.

The air was quite hot and the machines just as much.

At the end she left through the same kind of door as usual.

One of the last airlocks, she wanted to believe it.

Behind it was a new staircase wagon, probably the last. It was looking like the first one at first glance. At least it looked just as fragile with the thin bridges hanging above the ground and between both ends of the wagon.

Catwalks they said. They looked paper thin to her, spooking her just as much from below, scared she might need to use them.

Blue suddenly flew away from her arm, up into the heights of the wagon. It left her alone quite suddenly.

She called it back but for the first time the bird didn’t obey. It only shrieked, as if to tell her to come up instead.

Perhaps it had found something.

She didn’t felt like she had any better choice anyway and began climbing the stairs after Blue.

It was shakier than before, almost trembling below her feet, because of the train itself. Maybe it was now rolling faster or a less even terrain. There were still quite a lot of fireflies outside she could see.

She heard the loud noise of the engine behind the door on the other end of the first floor. It was there. She was there at long last.

The door for once looked different, and that simple sight rejoiced her greatly, as it meant she was reaching the end.

The door was solidly locked. She had to sigh, but she realised that just above was surely the cockpit to control the engine.

The prospect gave her enough strength to quickly overcome these unfriendly staircases.

She made her way to the second floor with beating heart, reaching the read end as she climbed the stairs.

She then walked nervously and steadily over the thin bridge to reach the door ahead. Swarms of fireflies were passing by outside, so close to the windows that their light was fairly strong despite the lamps inside.

She reached a second door that was different, just like the one below to lead to the engine room. So she had to climb a little more to find the control room... And Blue was still up there as well, maybe it had figured it out as well.

Mary-Esther climbed in sweat her way to the third floor of this twenty-first wagon. It had seemed endless until she finally reached the end she thought. It wasn’t that big a number in the end, though the train was still an arc of far too unrealistic dimensions to her understanding of things...

She felt that it didn’t matter as much anymore. She was just about to stop it! She reached almost merrily the door at the end of the third floor. The control room was just behind...

She called Blue again as she opened door, as it was waiting for her on the fourth level. Blue shrieked a few times, as if unhappy. After a moment of doubt for both of them, the bird flew down to her, somewhat reluctant.

It landed on her arm as usual.

Blue was looking up toward her and whispering something, impatient.

Mary-Esther was surprised to see it act this way now. She told it she wouldn’t need to spend a lot of time in there. As soon as she would find and crank the lever to stop things for good inside this room, then she would go with Blue see what was so important above.

Whatever Blue might have found.

They entered the cockpit of the train.

~

After the airlock, Esther found a place with very dim light, quite asleep. Everything was calm.

She passed various machines and reached the empty conductor seats in front of the command panels. Even here, there was no one else but ghosts to meet...

She looked around for any clue. After what, she would just try to stop that metallic monster. She looked around various equipment and notes on a desk, tools and boxes. She noticed a map on the desk below some dusty papers. A map of the train and its floors. Most of it was too damaged to be properly read, the ink faded and the paper tattered. But she was still able to recognise a few things.

So there indeed was a balcony at the rear end, above the spiralling staircase that had a chandelier.

And it seemed there was another quite wide terrace right above the cockpit there. There was one place at each end of the train to truly see outside... Maybe they were meant to be the boarding places in stations as well.

There was a name written in a corner of the map. She dusted it with her fingers to read it. She could finally learn the name of this awful place she spent so much time in, unable to leave.

She expected it to sound like she was in an afterlife of a sort. Somewhere where one could go only after passing. Even Hell wouldn’t be a surprise anymore. Or perhaps Nifleimr, since it was roughly going north the whole time apparently.

Surprisingly the name was rather plain, although like most things, she felt like she heard that one before. It reminded her of something.

M - The wolf... But I thought that train was...

A luxurious train that crashed in the past? She heard about it.

The light was changing and it caught her attention. She looked around, and finally opened the curtains to look outside.

For the first time she could look ahead of the train. She could finally see what waited beyond.

An infinite night, cut brightly by wavy rivers of sparkling fireflies. Flows of embers...

There was only the darkest night in contrast to this surreal river spreading along the friction of the train.

All these fiery dots turned into real flames in front of her, until all she could see outside were waves of flames scaring her. From ground to sky, now it looked to her eyes as if all there was were fire and dust.

She was stepping back in growing terror, seeing the flames licking the windows in a continuous inferno.

The fear grew beyond what she experienced before, making her feel far colder and unsteady. That fire would kill her from terror, before she would even set foot outside.

Blue was screaming atrociously on her arm. She was only just noticing, in stupor from fright for a moment.

Blue was panicking even more than she was. Still, she couldn’t stop gazing outside at the bright fire.

~

The flames making the world outside were reflected inside her eyes, triggering something besides fear inside of her.

Everything turning quiet as her focus became hypnotic.

She couldn’t hear Blue crying anymore... She only heard her own heartbeat slowing down...

She felt it stopping slowly beating inside her chest. Yet she was feeling calm about that.

Then she began to feel the blood flow inside her limbs slowing down for a few seconds, until her body felt very strange and heavy.

She felt the warmth of her body beginning to fade away, to melt like snow under the sun.

She thought for a moment she might suddenly have passed away. She was still standing though. She could still see the fire outside and ahead of her, surrounding her. Something was missing for her mind to react now.

The fire was growing, swallowing the world outside and the train apparently. The sky and ground were turned to nothing but smoke and ashes. The air was radiant, and clearly about to engulf the train any moment.

The glass of the windows fissured. Ominous waves had begun constricting it. The train was sinking there.

Mary-Esther had fallen back and on her bottom when the glass began to shatter. She was petrified as the flames were beginning to slip inside the cockpit and burn what they could find.

Blue was screaming very loudly close to her ears. She managed to move a little, although she still couldn’t feel anything alive at all within her body. Something already had been incinerated inside of her.

She managed to stand up again despite her suddenly very numb feeling body. Everything was shaking around her as the fire was flowing inside like liquid gold.

She stepped forward into the blaze, to reach the brake levers. She managed to crank down most of them. The last ones were rusty or burning and now stuck. She put all her strength into it, feeling the heat getting dangerously closer. She couldn’t feel much at all now but still tried with all her might.

If not for herself, at least for Blue...

The lever broke and she cut her arm deeply over the sharp edge as she fell.

She groaned and gave up.

Without looking at her wound, she rushed to escape, picking up Blue wailing near the door.

She could hear her heart again, though faintly. Maybe she wasn’t done yet, but much to her worry, the train seemed to be meeting its end.

~

Entering the stairway, she discovered the place already invaded by flames. A level of liquid fire was rising from below. A blinding bright sea beginning to absorb this vessel. She saw strange butterflies of brightness flying from it and bouncing against each other in the air.

The flow of fire was climbing the walls, flowing along the windows, slowly rising in level below...

Mary-Esther couldn’t go downstairs anymore. There was only one way out.

Hopefully, looking outside, perhaps this wouldn’t be a death trap. She was left without any other choice for a chance to escape this moving coffin. For any chance of something now to survive.

She ran toward the last stairway and reached the top without releasing Blue from her grasp. She protected it from the bright fire below them with all her might.

She ignored the fountain that stood in the place of a door to the previous wagon. She ran across the last weak suspended bridge. A door leading outside on the side of the wagon was on her left, like the one she used to climb in. Trying to open it, she saw that the morning sky began to appear outside behind the wall of flames.

The door wouldn’t open. She yelled a few cursed words at it wildly. She ran then toward the balcony door. Almost throwing herself at it to open it, she hurt again her left arm against the knob, but it opened. She might have stained it with blood from her injury but she couldn’t care less about it right now.

She didn’t think, only focused on fleeing for their lives.

As she was rushing through the last airlock, the stained door behind shut itself before the flames could catch up with them.

She was reaching the last door, at the end of her hopes as well.

She saw morning lights instead of fire through the small window.

She was now only thinking of one thing, repeating it like a spell and last wish.

The blue rose... She had to protect Blue and the blue rose.

She had to.

While the train was crumbling behind her, sinking for good, she rushed outside, oblivious to everything else.

She had to save Blue from this place...

~