Trapped

The sun rises up once more. K4, connecting herself back to her body, starts to get up from the seating in the back carriage. She looks to her left and notices Hino still sleeping. Without trying to make a noise, she walks into the front carriage and enables the engine; the sound wasn't definitely quiet.

"Uh – where are we?" she hears a quiet hino in the back carriage and decides to call out; his tiredness was evident.

"Welcome back to reality, Hino; we're about to start going." She continues to start the train up while laughing quietly to herself at the state of Hino.

A rapid pull pushes Hino off of his seat. He sits on the floor, still a bit startled from the pull. He shakes his black hair to try to put it into any form that isn't messy.

Slowly standing back up, he looks out the window, noticing the train has got moving; the sands of Ara are slowly becoming lesser in its views, finally realising that it will be the end of their time here.

The night came again, and they rested upon their last day in the Ara sands. The stars shone bright within the Ara sands, and the sky, without any pollution, was a starry art piece that would leave anyone inspired to do something to see it once more.

Just as fast as the night came, the day came just as fast; their eyes engraved their last sight of the Arabian sands before its eventual disappearance.

They start to enter a luscious green area filled with fields and trees. The train continues its tracks upon a dirt underlay and into the unknown. This area seemed to be closer to what the station resembled; it gave a nice sense of nature and freedom.

"Hey, K4. How much time do we have left?" he calls out, not remembering the amount left in their travel.

"We have around 12 days left in our journey; we never made it this far yet, so I have no idea how much time it takes." She looks out the front window, disorientated by all the trees and wildlife around them. Occasional noises from the wildlife suggested a vast activity of animals and birds, especially

In the distance, K4 spots a two-way track, the train approaching it slowly and finally stopping at the start of the turn. The nature around them gives a sense of mystery about which way would be the correct way.

They had a choice between going right or left; looking out of the carriage windows, K4 spots a sign that says Shilo in an easy-to-read way on the right. She then asks Hino

"What do you think, Hino?" She looks back at him still sitting down; his eyes wander around as he puts his head down.

He then glances up. "Let's just go with the sign." Without further questioning, K4 then starts to pull the train to the right. The tracks switch way, and the train continues to move. The greenery in this area makes it hard to see anything at this point, but in the far distance it looks like there is a small urban town that the tracks run through.

The train continues its journey upon the metal tracks, the urban city getting closer and closer to them; it was ruined and overgrown with greenery due to the six months of abandonment it faced.

"Hino, there might be people, so get your bow out," she quickly suggests to be sure of their safety.

Hino moves to his bow, his hands grabbing a tight hold of it; his black eyes look out the window, hoping to see no one in sight, and his eyes weren't deceiving him; it seemed safe so far.

The train continues its journey on at the brink of the entrance of the city until K4, who is looking out the front carriage, notices the tracks being disconnected. This wasn't unnatural due to multiple trains needing to connect in different ways; the train track points are in the opposite direction, meaning they needed to manually adjust it back.

K4 stops the train; it rests at the entrance of the urban city. There were some unfamiliar markings; upon closer inspection, the apartments had a flag. It was a red and yellow sun in the middle with a white outline around it. The colour choice was definitely weird.

"Hino, there seems to be someone here; have a look." Hino steps up and approaches the front carriage; his eyes start to look out the front window and scan the city front. There were apartments, but what he saw caught his eyes instantly: a figure on the rooftop of that flagged building, his dark, shadowy outline contrasting with the grey building.

thud

The train gets hit by something heavy; the man on top of the rooftop held no passive intention. Hino, without trying to kill, instantly rushes back to the carriage and out the door. His feet land upon the grassy landscape before the city, and he takes out an arrow; the laced tip reflects off the sunlight, and he draws it into the string of the bow.

He points the bow at the standing man above him; his bow locked on and his arrow in place, he pulls it back and lets go. The force of the string flings the bow upwards, hitting the man's head. His aim was exceptional.

The standing man instantly collapses down from the red building, falling down rapidly near the train. He lands hard on the ground, slightly breaking his bones and causing him to bleed out. Hino walks on the grass, slowly approaching the man; his eyes stare down at the weird markings.

His face was painted with the same red and yellow combination, his clothes were torn apart like a homeless person, and he didn't seem to be well taken care of; he looked middle-aged with his baldness that seemed a bit too suspicious.

"Hey, K4," he turns back to the train, his eyes in the mix of thoughts.

K4, looking at Hino staring down at the man, answers, "What is it, Hino?"

"This seems to be a tribe, or some sort of clan that rules this area. We will have to fight them to turn the tracks back on, or we could try sneaking." Both ideas were viable, but sneaking around seemed safer.

"Let's sneak around; your bow skills can assassinate if anyone spots us silently. Also, we don't know how many there are; even if there were forty people, it would be fine for us, but anything more is beyond our control."

K4, now wanting to join Hino, steps into the metallic carriage and then out the doors, letting her legs embrace the grass as well. She approaches the dead man and looks down at him, trying to analyse him.

"Yeah, it seems you're right about one thing; they are part of some weird clan." She then glances away, clearly disinterested in the man's death; it was just a random person after all.

They wander a bit deeper into the urban city; they notice the grey buildings were all flagged with the flags; it seemed to mostly be apartment buildings and small shops. They enter behind the grey building the man died from; they enter the alleyway and hear some rambling in the distance.

Taking the alleyway, they turn left and squeeze in between two more grey buildings. They peek out the exit of the alleyway and look at a mass gathering in the crowd.

"They all have the same yellow-red paint on them..." Hino, looking at them, calls out.

"Hey, Hino, take a look up there." She points at the front of the crowd; there is a robot and a man without the same paint standing on an elevated stage.

The robot yells. "This is our sacrifice! For our glorious leader!" He points at the man standing there.

Hino and K4 look at each other, knowing how this is going to go.

"Hino, let's find this panel before they finish their weird gathering." K4 starts to go back into the alleyway before hearing the loud screams of a man; the crowd is heard cheering with the robot yelling many ridiculous claims, which she didn't care about until

"Let the development free us all!"

K4 freezes in place, her mind wandering to a place unknown, 'pandemonium'.