On a Train Ride to Another World

The siren expelled all sense of feeling from him; heaving, sensations . . . all were fleeting, flying in the same direction as their echoes.

Life . . . hmm . . . that's all that stayed behind, flaunting its aptitude for vivacity throughout a moment's splash. Oh yes, and that very second stayed too, or appeared, traveling from far away as if it brought with it a welcome of sensational guests, for light and sound and fraying nerves all shocked into life as a breeze brushed past images of blurred people.

"All aboard!" The coarse voice sprayed consciousness around his head, pushing its seeping tones against the walls of his once so still solace-if you could call it such a solace.

Larken, our noble character, set his eyes upon a soldier of a man just contiguous to his position. The man was tall, a stark contrast to the milieu of grays and blacks that huddled around, yet at the same time, the man was a prosaic statue of something that wanted so much to be something more-something that words couldn't even begin to define by mere efforts threaded with tones and qualities.

Larken turned his eyes away.

There was a slice of expectation that spoke through the air now; it seemed all but spent, yet it still drifted along as it wound its frolicking rhythms against the ears of those not listening.

But, there was one who heard its opus of beckoning, and that character jolted toward the splices of noise, eyes and ears straining to tune into the last of its whispers. And, as Larken reached for another sign of life from the tone, a jarring recoil replied to his efforts.

A murmur of color and a whisper of wishful adventure collided in a starving reflection that grazed Larken's azure eyes. Then, the blaze halted . . . It fell . . . It watched as its character did the same.

Everything stopped. Life stopped breathing. Time ticked still. Veins ceased pulsing. Beats of the air trembled for movement.

Crack!

The mirrors of his eyes shattered.

Darkness.

Beats, yawns, rushes of the wind's untold stories all swept by his face. He breathed deeply, opening his eyes.

Color . . . dazzling lights . . . everything savory and whole lunged into his pupils. He shut his sight away.

Toooooooowooooo!

"All aboooaaaard!"