Control Delusions Pt 2

“Clang Clang Chugga Chugga, Choo Choo Gnash Gnash”. Psychic undertones of the words stuck to Mond's tongue, like the stale taste of an awful song in the morning , already molding in your head. “We all cry, we all die, gotta run, gotta dash”

MF ran, and he hadn’t lied once to Mond. His pace was unbelievable, but only just so unbelievable as to keep pace from the oncoming death. Metal on icy metal led just a couple hundred meters ahead of thousands of scuttling skeletal legs that carried the corpse caravan.

“Clang Clang Chugga Chugga, Choo Choo Gnash Gnash” Mond wanted to speak up, to be more than dead weight, but the words choked him down. MF kept the pace, but his breath became heavier.

Head flung over shoulder, all Mond could see was the tracks of fate speeding by underneath. Speeding by fast, incredibly fast, he could hardly believe it. 

“Belive it-” the words escaped his mouth, too quiet to be audibly heard under the clamour around them. But words present none the less, escaping the sickly rhythm that clogged his mind. And he saw more than tracks, he saw legs, MF’s legs, and they were human, but moving at inhuman speed.

 “MF…” he lifted his head to the quickly exhausting man's ear, “Holy hell man, you really are a cyborg”.

Inhuman was the speed that kept pace with the demon train, but MF wasn’t inhuman, he was super human, and he went faster. The clouds of dark dust they cut through before now parted at their approach, sheer wind pressure commanding reverence from every particle that floated in their path.

“Mond!” he called up over his shoulder to his passenger, who’d adjusted his weight to a more secure position, “Get Sonne and the others on call now! We gotta let 'em know what's coming, phones in my pocket, I can’t stop pumping my arms or we'll lose momentum”

Mond shifted his arm from around MF’s neck to try and reach down for the cell phone, but felt a twinge of nervous pain when he attempted to grab for it, his fist still tightly curled in its necessary, unconscious grip. “Crap MF I can't! Gotta keep the electricity from flowing remem-” 

“Screw the electricity Mond just blow the damn powerbox!”

Blow the powerbox? He couldn’t do that, the very fact he felt he couldn’t do it meant he couldn't right? What if the machinery was well maintained, what if the reality of it was stronger than what he-, “Hell Mond we're racing a bleedin’ train! You can blow an old rusty fuse!” MF shouted, more frustrated than desperate.

Mond shut his eyes tight, picturing the junction box, trying to visualize rust and ash littering its vital components. “Come on, I can push my luck a little more, I can do it, I can…” 

The rust flaked off in his mind, the truth of the matter replacing his hopes. He grasped as hard as he could to the false memory, but just like the phantom cats in the road, the weight of reality pulled it from his grasp.

“Nngh, No! I can't right now MF it’s just not possible!”. Mond felt MF’s annoyance rumble through his body like a broken car. “Fine then, I get it. If you’re not gonna help though, at least hold still aight’?”

“Did I say I wasn’t gonna help?” Mond got himself stuck in this freakshow so he could escape that pampering attitude for good, and he wasn’t about to let these guys give it to him too.

“H-hey, What the hell kid? I said sit still!” MF glanced behind for just a moment, before momentum forced him to turn back forward. Mond locked his legs up around the huge man's trunk-like neck, letting the rest of his body dangle back down at his waist.

With one balled fist, he nudged the phone up in MF’s pocket till it was peaking out into the open, precariously rocking in and out from the heavy steps. Mond swung his loose hanging body, biting at the phone's edge to grab it with his teeth, “I just… gotta get… a little closer.”

Behind this absurd display, pulling in to a distance of only 200 meters from fleeing men was Number Nine's oil-steaming body hurdling forward at breakneck speed. Figmented bone and literal metal collided in a paradoxical marriage of death, with a literal one track mind set on their destruction.

“Tneer! Gawt it!” Mond gripped the cell phone in his jaws, flipping back upright in one heavy swing that sent MF into a gagging fit for a moment. He craned his neck side to side, “You’re a real piece of work ya’ know that?” “Naanke ooo” Mond hummed out gleefully before spitting the phone into MF’s open hand .

The phone's face flipped open instantly from the pumping motion of his arms, and soon began to ring. “MF, Mond! What’s going on? You cut off and- “ Sonne’s words were barely audible over the mechanical maelstrom that pursued them, only just understandable when the forward motion of MF’s arms brought it closer to their ears.

“Sonne where the hell is Roses? We need her back at the junction as soon as those old hag legs can get her there!” MF shouted into the phone, spit flying and nearly hitting Mond in the eye.

“The hell you say?” Roses’s voice came next, only phasing MF for a half-second before he screamed even louder, “I said we found the bloody train and we need you to smoke the thing before it turns us to bloody red stain on the track!” He screamed the last few words in a shrill attempt to outcry the whistle of pure pain that rang out from the demon train behind them.

When the bone rattling vibrations ceased, the noise of pursuit seemed like a gentle wind in comparison, and it seemed to calm tempers between the two. Roses could be heard breathing almost heavier than MF was, “Look Roses, I know it’s asking a lot I really really do, but this trains not like anything we've ever-” Roses interrupted, “Just get there in time, got it? We're all together and on the way now.” At that she hung up the phone.

MF focused ahead in silence, the crimson light of the crossways pouring its way distantly in the fog. He grunted and crushed the phone in one hand, tossing it back as hard as he could, “Eat this you steamin’ pile of junk”.

“What is she going to do?” Mond felt the sudden twist from intensity to somberness in the man. As if offended by its stolen attention, the train let loose its horrible whistle once again, pulling closer at a pace only one hundred meters behind.

Mond cringed from the auditory pain, but MF seemed purely focused on the opening that came closer with each clangorous step. Silhouettes could be seen standing in its center against the red glow, “Crap MF we gotta let them know to get out of the way!” “No…” MF replied quickly, “They're right where she has to be”.

______________________________________________________________________________

“Don’t cry Roses, don't you cry.” She dug her high black boots into the rumbling disturbed gravel at her feet, standing tall right where the tracks all met. Right behind her, Sonne and Vertigo watched down the tunnel MF and Mond had gone, movement disturbing the deep blue fog covering its abyssal path.

A small two headed figure appeared in the mist, soon followed by a looming shadow of death. Roses reached into her heavy, dark jacket and pulled out a smokey black iron revolver. In the same motion on the opposite side, she pulled out a blood red lipstick case, pouring its contents into her hand, a single old bullet.

Sonne laid a hand on her shoulder, which was immediately rolled off, “Sonne when this is over, im not coming back, I mean it”. She had said that the last time, and the first. If she survived, she would probably say it again. “One more time… it's just one”, she stuck a piece of chalk in the corner of her mouth, loading the bullet and spinning the chamber against her leg.

Sweat soaked into the antique gun’s leather grip, it shook violently when raised to her head. “One in six, one in six…” the shadows came closer, the hammering of metal feet echoing out of the tunnel. “It’s just one in six-”

Disgusting auditory vibrations of sheer bitter anger roared from the fog into the clearing, blowing back her night sky hair as MF and Mond came flying into view. 

out of the mist, Number Nine right on their heels like the devil itself.

The shaking stopped, the sweating ceased, amber eyes becoming crystal clear, more than ever before. “I survived one in two, this is nothing” she spit the chalk out at death, and hammered the trigger down.