Less than 24 hours after leaving St. Chastity, as they sat inside the Megalopolis Aeroport, Mistress Duenna’s condition deteriorated further.  Her hands were shaking and her head bobbed and rolled like a doll with a spring in place of a neck.  And while everyone else griped, grumbled, and groused about the bitterly cold morning and the lack of indoor heating, Mistress Duenna was drenched in flop-sweat and complained incessantly of the unbearable heat.  Her eyes sagged and her eyelids opened and closed in a dopey fashion as if each eye was independent of the other.  Everyone who brushed up against the Mistress was assailed and assaulted with the question of the where wine could be purchased.  To her dismay, there was none to be found, and with each dosage of bad news her desperation multiplied and her stubborn denial intensified. 

Surely, there must something somewhere! 

Soon, her despair boiled over into aggression and hostility.  Her manner became quite bothersome until finally a gentleman, acting in no official capacity, reproached her and pointed out that they had already entered into the boarding queue and it was therefore too late.  She would just have to wait and endure her discomfort until they arrived at the Eyrie.  The words struck the Mistress as if she had been slapped in the face.  She cursed, formed an obscene gesture with her hand, directed it up into the air, then collapsed, her chin and shoulders sagging as her display of discontent finally surrendered into a pathetic whimper.

Mistress Duenna reached over and reached for Mataya’s hand.  Perplexed, Mataya froze.  What was this?  What was happening?  Mataya had no memory of ever physically touching Mistress Duenna before.  Had the rules of their hitherto relationship changed?  Clearly they had.  Mataya’s immediate instinct was to yank her hand away, but she could not bring herself to do so.  Her hand remained limp, and when she refused to squeeze back, the strength of Mistress Duenna’s grip only grew stronger until Mataya could no longer bear the pain.  Mataya squeezed back, and as she did so, Mistress Duenna reflexively relaxed her grip.

Mataya felt a keen sense of discomfort with the Mistress’ new persona.  It felt unnatural.  Adults are not supposed to be cling to youth within their care.  Aware that the appropriate response was one of sympathy, this emotion would not come easily.  After all, they had been enemies for as long as Mataya could remember.  After everything that had transpired throughout their contentious relationship, Mistress Duenna was undeserving of Mataya’s empathy.  Nonetheless, Mataya reciprocated the firm grip of Mistress Duenna’s hand.  After a reasonable amount of time passed, Mataya patted the rough and thickened exterior of Mistress Duenna’s hand several times as a tacit signal that she now wished to be let go.  Mataya released the tension in her hand and attempted to pull it away.  The Mistress, however, refused to let go.

It hadn’t occurred to Mataya before, but perhaps the reason for Mistress Duenna’s bitter objections to her assigned duties were not entirely due to the contempt that she felt towards Mataya.  This was something else.  Mataya was aware that there were those who suffered from a terrible fear of flight.
Perhaps it was travel that the Mistress detested and not Mataya herself.

Most likely, Mataya mused, a combination of both.

Mataya gripped her wrist with her opposite hand and gently tugged.  When Mistress Duenna failed to respond, Mataya turned and shot a probing glance over, across, under, and then up.  With eyebrows raised, she studied Mistress Duenna’s countenance.  “Mistress Duenna?  Are you all right?  Are you ill?  Mistress?  Should I fetch a doctor?”  To this, Mistress Duenna pulled her hand back and coiled up into a ball.

Mataya sat back and made an odd noise, equal part concern and irritation.  Whether she liked it or not, it seemed that she had no choice but to accept the reversal of their roles.  Mataya was now the chaperone and Mistress Duenna the defiant and petulant child who required care and coddling.  It was if Mataya was now the adult child caring for her elderly parent or grandparent.  She found this situation somewhat pleasing,  but also disquieting. 

If only the sisters could see the mistress now. 

After years of struggling to assert her authority, Mistress Duenna had now melted into a puddle of need and self-pity.  A petrified toddler trapped inside the crippled body of an aging adult?  It was a sad and pathetic vision.  At this rate, she would soon become an unimaginable and unmanageable burden.

With her eyes closed,  Mistress Duenna begin muttering a familiar prayer, her bloated mass surging backwards and forwards.  As she vocalized the rhythmic verse, creases in the skin of her face danced across her cheekbones from the corner of her eyes to the corner of her lips.  As she leaned forward, she raised her fists up to her forehead.  As she leaned back, she spread her palms out and pressed them tightly against her thighs then clawed at the fabric of her smock.  Every so often, she raised her right hand up to her forehead, traced the holy geometry across her shoulders and chest, then looked up and kissed her thumb.

The Mistress had earned the reputation of being quite the mystic — a weakness that Mataya had often exploited.  Mataya could hear the words often repeated in church curriculum: 

Faith has an unlimited capacity to provide comfort and certainty in the midst of chaos, uncertainty, and suffering, while superstition has an equal potential to accomplish the opposite.

Mataya did not fully understand the distinction between the two.  She had often posed the question:

Where does faith end and superstition begin?

But she was unable to decide upon a complete and satisfactory answer, other than that which she had been taught:

One is designed to bring comfort while the other to instill fear. 

She found this explanation dubious.   Although she expected to live for a very long time, Mataya suspected that it would not be long enough to unravel the mystery of the perennial puzzle referred to as faith.

As Mistress Duenna prayed, she fondled a leather pouch drawn around her neck, the presence of which seemed to offer her as much comfort as prayer if not more so.  With shaking hands, she managed to open the pouch wide enough to peek inside and verify its contents.  She carefully retrieved a small object, fondled it lovingly, then let out an audible sigh of relief. 

Mataya remembered Mistress Duenna’s favorite adage, whispered discretely so as not to be overheard by her superiors: 

When prayer comes up short, medicine often does the trick.

 

While the Mistress eagerly numbed her discomfort, Mataya wished to remain wholly awake and alert.  She too felt the overpowering fatigue of their travels thus far.  However,  Mataya’s weariness was offset by the thrill of adventure, the euphoria of anticipation, and the keen curiosity of her young mind.  With the Mistress all but unconscious, her attention was drawn in every direction.  She was fascinated by the novelty and diversity of people.  She couldn’t help but stare.  Within each person lie a story, one very different than her own. 

Directly behind Mataya, an abominable baby screamed with neither shame nor remorse.  There were no infants at St. Chastity and the sight of a child so young was both fascinating and repulsive.  Mataya stared long and hard until her gaze attracted attention at which point she turned forward, only to slowly turn back around and continue her study of this fascinating foreign creature.  The tiny distorted features of the infant barely seemed human at all.  The child’s skin seemed oddly thick, wrinkled, and lacked color as if it had never been exposed to sunlight.  The babies mouth was puckered and constantly suckling, even when there was nothing to suckle on.  Below its pudgy nose, two clear streams of thick liquid snot dripped down until it puddled around the child’s mouth.  Are not babies supposed to be cute, Mataya puzzled, nature’s way of preventing their mother’s from discarding them.  But this tiny creature was anything but cute and cuddly.  I myself shall never have any of those.

Sitting across the aisle facing her sat a large family which included eight tidy children, each wearing identical black suits, white shirts, hats with circular brims, and shiny leather shoes.  Each held a straw basket carrying litters of kittens and puppies with price tags attached to their collars.  Without thinking, Mataya stood up to attempted to pick up and hold a particularly cute kitten, but the young girl holding the basket quickly retreated, snatching the basket off the floor and onto her lap.  She looked up at Mataya with suspicion and disdain as if Mataya was a foreigner with whom contact was forbidden.

To her left, a small army of young soldiers hustled up the aisle wearing black top-hats, white gloves, and sky-blue coats fastened with bright brass buttons.  Their stiff black boots reached all the way up to their knees.  They marched with stiff necks and straight legs like toy soldiers with springs attached to their backs.  Their red faces expression.  Several marched in front while those in the rear pulled carts loaded with a variety of wooden chests, leather satchels, and large iron tools.  Others, the smallest of them all, scurried about with no obvious purpose.

Across the room, a petite schoolgirl sang for the passengers with a sweet dulcet voice.  She carried herself with a poise rare in someone so young.  Accompanying her was an aged man — her father most likely — sitting beside her straddling an exotic stringed instrument with a tall wooden neck and four strings.  The instrument produced an exotic baritone voice providing a complimentary harmony to the girl’s high-pitched singing voice.  In front of them on the ground lie an open case filled with coins and paper money guarded by a well-dressed and diligent monkey with sharp teeth and glowing red eyes. 

A violent ruckus interrupted the din.  A young woman wept and wailed as aeroport security aggressively aprehended her handsome young lover, taking him into their custody just as he attempted to board a flight.  The pretty girl begged and pleaded with the officers, please don’t hurt him, professing his innocence and offering herself as his alibi to his alleged crime.  When she refused a direct order to stand back and shut up a young officer turned and raised the back of his hand high above his head.  To this, the weeping young lover stepped back, cowered, and her words gave way to sobs and tears.  I love you, she shouted as her young beau was dragged off kicking, shouting, and throwing elbows in every direction.

The excitement in the room escalated further as a hideously bearded man, little more than a hairy skeleton, quite without his wits and cornered by men in white clothes, broke into exuberant song as he began to remove his clothing.  He pulled off his white under-shirt and twirled it above his head and danced a lurid dance.  Encouraged by the laughter and support from the crowd, he reached for his belt and began removing his pants.  Seizing the moment, the men with large arms dressed in white pounced on their prey.  Once restrained, with sunken shell-shocked eyes, he cried out desperately, begging for mercy, quoting the Holy Writ, and crying out for a legal advocate.  A right, he shouted, guaranteed him by the King himself.  As he searched the crowd for sympathetic eyes, heads quickly turned away.

As heads across the room redirected their attention away from the spectacle, Mataya a pair of twin boys, roughly her age, donned in leather with spiked multi-colored hair and matching serpent tattoos on their necks, staring malevolently at Mataya.  Their eyes moved across her body from top to bottom as their tongues slid across their lips.  The quartet of sinister eyes continued moving steadily up-and-down, never quite reaching high enough to look Mataya directly in the face, eventually resting on her neck, shoulders, and chest.  Mataya attempted to avert her gaze, but she could feel they weight of their eyes upon her.  For a split second, she looked over at them.  Her eyes met theirs, and as they did, an unpleasant chill ran down her spine.  Her face became hot.  A lump of pressure swelled within in her chest and a sharp pain materialized in the pit of her stomach.  Breathing heavily, she on a random location in the opposite direction and waited for the weight of their feasting eyes to lift.  Eventually, she looked back to see that the degenerate twins had left.  She sighed with relief.  None of the boys at St. Chastity would have ever dared to look at her in such a way.  Mataya soothed her nerves with the thought that, whoever these awful boys were, they would eventually get what was coming to them.

A warm pain accompanied by a wave of weakness swelled inside Mataya’s stomach.  Then, it withdrew into a hollow pit.  The sensation was so unfamiliar that she did not immediately recognize it.  She was hungry.  What an awful feeling.  She had read so often about the plight of the starving but never fully identified with their suffering.  Accompanying the sensation in her stomach was an enhanced sense of smell.  Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with the aroma of the food coming from the nearby cafeteria which deliberate blew fumes into the waiting room.  Such subterfuge, she groaned, should be unlawful.   She identified in detail the variety of rich and distinct smells of breakfast.  Above all else, she detected the pungent scent of pickled cabbage, roasted potatoes, glazed carrots, salted mutton, cherry cobbler, and orange-flavored tea.  The fragrance was so strong she could practically taste it.  Her mouth watered and her stomach grumbled.  The fascinating sights and sounds of her surroundings were replaced with uncontrollable cravings.  Her mind carried only thought.  Food.  For the first time in a very long time, her stomach growled at her as if it were alive and had a mind of its own.

 

As Mataya’s mind searched for distraction, mother nature responded with the sound of distant thunder.  The world woke and became larger than herself.  Larger than her weary bones and her empty stomach.  Mataya lifted her head and opened her eyes just in time to see the pink rays of dawn push their way through a low ceiling of thick dark clouds that extended all the way to the horizon.  Bursts of orange light peppered the sky.  The walls and the ceiling of the waiting room glowed as if a lit by a giant lantern.  Those asleep blinked and stirred as they gradually awakened.  Young children fought their way out of the grasp of the elderly hands that had been gripping tightly and keeping them close.  Younglings gathered together against the glass wall and pressed their faces to the glass and shielded their eyes with their hands.  Mother nature started her morning light show and their eager young minds, bored from monotony, were dazzled as they stared at the evolution of the dynamic skyline.  The child in Mataya wanted to leap up out of her seat and join them, but the strength of the tether between her and her chaperone restrained her.  Instead, she remained in her seat and enjoyed the view as best she could.

Since they had arrived at the waiting room, the darkness of the early morning painted the glass wall the same shade of unremarkable gray the other walls and ceiling.  Until now, Mataya had overlooked it.  But now, the glass itself seemed to come alive as if imbued with magic.  Mataya had never seen a single uninterrupted sheet of colorless glass so large.  She had no idea that man was capable of constructing such things.  In general, Mataya had rarely seen colorless glass.  The windows of St. Chastity were constructed from many small pieces of colored glass which together created a portrait.  Before the dawn of enlightenment and the age of science and reason, colorless glass was thought to be a product of black magic.  A product of the devil himself.  Long ago, such glass had been prohibited within churches, monasteries, and other religious institutions including St. Chastity.  In time, superstition faded and gave way to modern technology, but St. Chastity had preserved its windows many centuries.  She was aware of window made of clear glass at St. Chastity, but she had never peered through it as it was buried deep below the kitchen in a basement a where students were not allowed,  and even there, it was little more than a thin strip placed near the top of one wall to natural a modicum of natural light into the kitchen.  As Mataya squinted at the glare of the sparkling clear glass, something stirred within her.  Memories from when she was a very young child living in the family house which she once called home. 

Mataya sat back in her chair and blinked her eyes rapidly.  Her eyes felt tired and dry.  She used the index finger of each hand and poked them into the inner corner of each eye before using her knuckles to swipe sidewise and clear away the dust and dried mucus that had formed while she slept.   She didn’t remember, but apparently she had nodded off without realizing it.  Now, fully awake, she felt as though she were dreaming.  She stared directly into the light, mesmerized and stimulated by the riveting visual display.  Opaque only moments before, deep images of the distant horizon now flowed freely through the magical glass.  It was sensational.  And just as her eyes adjusted to the light, the clouds parted allowing a flood or rays which lit the walls and ceiling even more brightly.  The transformation was jarring.  Mataya inhaled deeply.  Her shoulders rose up above her ears.  The beauty which she beheld was considered by many as Proof of God (or Gods).  How could something so beautiful just happen by accident?   Must there not be somebody somewhere possessed the power to command that such light.  And how could such a brilliant landscape be a random?  How could something so beautiful create itself?

As striking as that built by god is that which by man.  Below the landscape lie a the vast, desolate surface, flawless in its perfect geometry.  Mother nature does not build straight lines or perfectly flat surfaces.  Only man could constructs such things.  And after studying it for several minutes, Mataya estimated that this perfectly flat surface stretched for miles in all directions.  In time, the light revealed an array of seams that divided the surface into a chessboard of perfect rectangles.  How did man figure out how to create such things?  Was this vast flat surface carved out of an existing bed of rock, or was each piece constructed separately and  pieced together?  It was like looking across the surface of the great lake on a gray day when the surface of the water lie still and flat, except that, for the most part, this surface did not reflect light.  Rather, it and dull and lacked reflection.  

Soon, Mataya could see a series of parallel highways leading away from the building off into the horizon, each marked with perfectly drawn stripes of opposing colors.  Red, and green.  Yellow, and blue.  Black and yellow.
Some lines were solid while others were a series of dashes and dots.  Within these highways traveled the flying carriages.  Some speeding up and away until they lifted off the ground while others descended beneath the clouds and slowly lowered themselves, at times appearing to hover motionless as it slowly approached before finally touching down and rolling across the surface. 

It was fascinating.  Mataya was enthralled.  She was witnessing a world of wonder that she never could have imagined.  And yet, within a few minutes, it all seemed so normal as it had always existed and always would. How could man have created such a technologically advanced society without harnessing the ability to fly?  It was a leap for mankind akin to the discovery of the horse that turned an infinitely large world into one small and finite.  Of course, it was not a just man, but a symbiotic union between Humans and Avians.  Once bitter enemies, the two species made peace and became close allies.  Together, they had accelerated the world into a new epoch.  Gone were the days when Humans were tied to parcels of land with their animals and crops and slaves.  Now, there was great cities filled with art, culture, and commerce.  How would Mataya ever be able to express her feelings of awe into words?  She would indeed be very busy working on her journal after arriving in the Eyrie.  It would take a week just to regale the stories of what she had witnessed in the last twelve hours.  She already had enough material to fill a notebook.  She hadn’t even arrived in the Eyrie and she had enough material to fill her first volume. 

Mataya stood.  Directly below, she could see the carriages parked as they were being prepared to take flight.  People and animals busily pushed and pulled carts and trucks of all different sizes carrying wooden boxes, trunks, and large leather pouches of all shapes, sizes, and colors.  

And then there were the Avians.  Gods, they are magnificent.  Awesome creatures.  Brilliant to behold.  So strong.  So powerful.  And yet the beauty of their form and the fluidity of their movement was aesthetically fabulous.  Such a vision to behold them up close.  What words could she use to describe the feeling of watching them fly for the very first time?  At a distance, their appearance resembled common birds, their biological precursors.  But up close, they were so much larger than she had ever imagined. 

And then, like a magnet flipping its polarity, her thoughts went dark.  Stories of the Great War took on a new life.  Regardless of what horrible things they may have done, how could any Human agree to participate in the killing of such a magnificent creature?  Humans are cruel.  Heartless.  To Mataya, the murder of such a majestic animal amounted to the rape of Gods and nature.  What other magnificent creatures scattered across the land and sea had man killed?  Her heart blead from reading stories of the great whales.  The giant mammoths of the frozen tundra.  Siberian Sabretooths.  Was there nothing so precious that men would not kill merely for profit?  No wonder the Avians waged war.  Just as it had lifted only moments before, Mataya’s heart sank.  She sighed as a single tear flowed down each cheek.  I am so tired.

Without realizing it, Mataya had left her seat and moved towards the front of the glass wall.  As her eyes adjusted to the rapidly changing light, Mataya’s attention was drawn below to a thin red carpet that extended away from the building out towards a parked carriage preparing to board its passengers.  Behind it, a queue of carriages lined up in succession within a narrow lane that led inward towards the ground floor then curved sideways across the face of the building.   Beyond it lie a series of similar lanes that, when viewed together, resembled tributaries, each parallel and systematically merging with each other until they finally fed into one of three primary lanes.

As soon as the passengers boarded the carriage, it pulled away and another moved forward and took its place at to edge of the red carpet.  Even before the carriage had come to a full stop, dozens of bodies descended, swarming over, on top, underneath, and around.   After the luggage was loaded into the rear of the aircraft, a small party of ladies and gentleman, well dressed and exceedingly refined,  gathered at the end of the carpet and began to board.  Even from a distance, their excitement and angst was palpable.  Mataya’s chest swelled as she visualized herself standing in that the very same spot.  It was only a matter of time now.  A chill ran down her spine and her face turned red and hot.  Beads of sweat ran down the back of her neck.  She bent slightly at the waist and her jaw dropped, gulping as much air as her lungs could hold. 

Mataya’s thoughts began to race.  Her brain was on fire.  Her nervous system was electrified.  Thousands of thoughts per minute pulsated through the synapses of her brain.  As her mind quantified and qualified, interpreted and translated, detected and deduced, she found that she had quit breathing altogether.  Both distressed and excited, her heart swelled as though it were trying to push its way out through from her ribcage.  She gulped for air like a helpless fish flopping on a dry dock.  Then, the room turned upside down and spun around her several times before flipping back right-side up.  The sensation was alarming.  Mataya swooned, closed her eyes, then placed her hand over her stomach, fearing that she may publicly vomit.

“Are you all right, dear?”  Inquired an elderly woman with a flourishing white hat, gown, and gloves.

Mataya swallowed and licked her lips.  “No.  I mean, yes.  I am fine.  Thank you for asking.  I do feel a bit tired.”

“You look dreadfully pale, dear.  Is this your first time?  Flying, that is to say?”

Mataya took a deep breath the exhaled.  “Yes.  Yes, it is.”

“Well then, I do say that you are in for quite a thrilling experience.  It is quite safe, you know.  I myself have flown hundreds of times.  Why, I feel safer in the air than I do on the ground.  You will be fine, dear.  I promise.  Just remember to drink lots of liquids.  Tea with lots of sugar is best.  And, if I may offer a word of advice, it would probably be best if you refrained from eating.  It is best more  comfortable to fly on an empty stomach.”

“Yes.  Thank you.”

“Travel while you are young.  While you can.  See the world before life traps you into a tiny space in a tiny town.  The world is a full of wonders.  See as much of it as you can while you are still young.  Life is a gift.  Don’t waste it.”

Don’t waste it!

Mataya was certain these words were spoken to her aloud, but when she turned her head, the elderly lady was not speaking.  I am going mad!

Mataya yearned for the comfort of her bed at St. Chastity.  She estimated that she could sleep a week straight.  Even on the cusp of her fulfilling her wildest dreams, to remain fully alert for the rest of the voyage was going to be a monumental challenge.  She was spent, mentally and physically.  If she dared close her eyes, would she be able to open them back up?  This was to be her very first flight and she wanted to experience everything.  Perhaps more importantly, how could she write about her adventures if she slept through them?  When they finally landed in the Eyrie and settled into their guest quarters, she would have to unpack her belongings, set up her desk, and write down everything while it was still fresh in her mind.   It was going to be a grueling thirty-six hours.  It was unbearable to think of, yet, at the same time, Mataya had never felt more alive.  Life, she mused, is the ultimate bonus after all.

Mataya returned back to her seat just in time to eject a pudgy little man with a thick black moustache all too anxious to take the weight off his aching feet.  Mataya assumed that a gentleman would automatically surrender his seat and was taken aback at his reluctance to do so.  After Mataya pointed out her traveling companion and her satchel on the floor, the pudgy little man relented.  Mataya, unaware that she too was behaving rudely, sat down, offering neither thanks nor a gesture of gratitude.  Instead, she groaned with relief as she cherished the sensation of her weight shifting away from the bottom of her soles.

The chatter in the waiting room turned to whispers before whispers turned into deathly silence.  Everyone rose to their feet and all heads craned to the back of the room as a platoon of Royal Guards paraded in through the rear entrance, pushing, and shoving as they cleared a path through the crowded aisle.  Soldiers brandishing pulse rifles barked orders, threatened, and demanded those blocking their path to make way or suffer royal wrath.  A senior officer, elderly, and more diplomatic, contrasted these harsh threats with justifications spoken in a commanding but apologetic voice.  Please, he urged.  Please make way.  Official business.  He proceeded to quote regulations that granted them the legal authority and moral justification for the suspension of individual liberty, using words such as obstruction, and hinderance. 

Bringing up the rear was a small cadre of soldiers wearing black shiny black boots that made a hollow clomping noise as they marched in lock step across the wooden floor.  Their gate was as steady as a beating heart.  Their strides were deliberate, practiced, and disciplined.  Soon, the entire floor vibrated from combined force of their heals striking against the floor.  As the phalanx formed within the interior of the room, the pounding grew loud, and ominous, as if they were marching into battle to the beating drums of war.  With one arm hanging straight down, each soldier brandished a billy-club, the weapon of choice to control an unruly mob within the confines of close quarters. 

One overly curious if not foolhardy passenger with long gray hair adorned with beads and rainbow-colored ribbons, moved too slowly.  For this transgression, he was struck in the stomach with a billy-club and shoved to the ground by his neck.  He lie stunned with wide eyes and mouth agape as he gasped for air.  The room collectively gasped.  A toddler began to cry.  Mommy, mommy, why are they hurting that poor man?  Several women vehemently voiced their outrage at what they felt was an unnecessary act of cruelty.  Several men instinctively leapt to their but were quickly warned off by fellow soldiers brandishing their billy-clubs with both hands.  As the offending guard prepared to kick the man in the ribs with the steel toe of his boot, he was ordered to stand down by several tweets of a high-pitched whistle.  A senior officer admonished the young cadet for his excess brutality and insubordination.  The cadet was threatened with one hundred hours of kitchen duty.  Perhaps peeling several tons of potatoes would give him time to reflect upon in his lack of discipline and restraint.  Mataya, sensing the decree as nothing more than an exercise in optics, found the idea of a soldier trading his uniform for an apron and a potato-peeler somewhat farfetched.

The soldiers collected themselves back into their rectangular formation and continued marching up the aisle.  A pair of officials, most likely civilians given their clothing, lack of weaponry, and the nature of their non-military stride, moved freely within a protective perimeter of soldiers.  Their tan leather jackets hung so far down that they dragged across the floor as they walked.  Their faces were cleanshaven and each wore round spectacles with gold rims.  Each carried underneath one arm a tall cylindrical hat lined with a strip of gray fur with white spots.  The gold color of the royal badges pinned to their jackets precisely matched the color of their spectacles.  

Royal Secretaries, whispered a faceless voice in the crowd.

V, I, Ps.

V.I.Ps?

A husband translated the acronym to his anxious wife.  Very … Important … Personas, he said, crisply with heavily trilled Rs and a strange clicking noise deep in his throat. 

Yet another man, crass, and rude, felt compelled to correct the translation.  Persons, not personas, you daft ape.

You mean Very … Incompetent … Persons,  joked another man, slurring his intoxicated words. 

Maybe you should keep your voice down.

Why? What will they do, arrest me?

They just might if you don’t keep quiet. 

And if they don’t, I might just knock a few of your teeth out meself.

And so the banter continued until a chorus of hushes rose then fell, lingering in the air like the hiss of a snake.

It occurred to Mataya that these men worked in the Eyrie, perhaps with Father.  With this, her curiosity piqued.  She sidled her way to the front and got as close to the parade as she could.  As the diplomats and their military escorts approached, Mataya detected the fragrance of sweet tobacco, licorice, and musk — odors that took her back to a time when she was a small child sitting on Father’s lap with her face burred into his corduroy jacket, sniffing deeply.

My heavens, child.  What on earth are you doing?  Father would ask.

Why, I’m making a memory, she would reply.

The diplomats attempted to project their stoicism, but Mataya could see concern on their faces.  Something was wrong.  Their tone was solemn and sober.  Their voices raised barely high enough to hear each other.  Their words serious, and spoken with discretion.  Despite their secrecy, the room had grown quiet, and they were quite close — so much so that Mataya was able to discern a few words, audible during the gaps in the sound of the marching soldiers.  She watched their lips and used her intuition to fill in the gaps as best she could.  Then, she heard a single word that seemed to resonate above all the rest: 

War.

Mataya felt a chill deep in her bones.  Such a small word.  One that requires only three letters.  Simple to speak, difficult to say.  It rolled off the tongue in a strange way and then lingered in the air.  First, the puckering of the lips.  Then, the tongue pressing up against back teeth.  It was a word that carried a powerful meaning.  One of fascination to those who had never experienced it.  Foreboding, and terror to those who had.  It dominated her history textbooks.  Glory to the victors and agony to those defeated.  Pride.  Greed.  Cruelty.  Many tried to use words to describe it.  Some wrote entire volumes while others used only a choice phrase.  War was hell.  Hell on earth.  History condemned it, but reveled in it as well.  History was obsessed with it, over.  War, one historian wrote, was like fire.  It devastated, consumed, and destroyed everything and everyone in its path. Yet, one could not help but stop to watch and gaze with wide eyes, mesmerized by the flames.  And like fire, all it takes is a small spark.  Then it spreads, and grows until it scorches the earth as if it were alive.  As if it was a living being that could think and breath and procreate.  But from its ashes, a new and better world inevitably emerged. 

The tall and lanky diplomat carried himself as a person of great influence, but one who did not covet nor relish power.  He was a man of few words.  When he did speak, others chose to listen.  He was guarded.  He spoke very few words and without passion.  He did not speculate, nor did he offer opinions nor did he make assertions.  He simply stated facts.  He had seen this before.  He seemed afraid. Very afraid.

He drew closer, so close that Mataya could see the detailed cracks in his face and detect the natural shade of his hair before it had turned gray.  His cheeks were hollow and his eyes sunk deeply into his skull.  The pinkish hue of his cheeks had long since gave way to the grayish look of one who consumed too much tobacco.  His pupils were wide and black.  As best she could tell, the color of his eyes was a shade of light gray.  Then, he looked up, and for a split second, their eyes met, and when he spoke, it was as if he was speaking directly to her. 

“The Eyrie is a golden bowl filled with precious gems.  But among the gems are scorpions.  We must take great care.  Prudence is of the essence.  We must gather our people.  Reveal what you must, but trust only those whom have proven themselves loyal. We must be on the qui vive.  There is no margin for error.  We cannot afford any mistakes.”

His companion, a stout and obsequious little man.  With his hands on his chest, he gasped, and wheezed.  His child-sized Adam’s apple quivered as it rose and fell.  “Spies?” he replied in a squeaky soprano voice.  “Spies in the Eyrie?  Why, that is –“

The tall diplomat whipped his head around, loomed over his cowering sidekick and glared through the slits of his eyes.  “Quiet,  you fool,” he hissed.  Then, he snapped his spine straight, lengthened his already considerable stride, and goose-stepped ahead.  Stung from being scolded, the short man’s shoulders sank and his jaw jutted out from the soft layer of fat that consumed his neck and chin.  Using both hands to place his hat securely on top of his head, he doubled his pace in an effort to catch up.  His tiny legs churned as he switched from a fast walk into a brief sprint before reverting back to a fast walk.   He pulled ahead of his long-legged comrade, then paused to catch his breath.  “Wait.  Wait I say!  Now hold on.  You can’t just –“

“Lower your voice.  For Gods’ sake, man.  Act like a professional.”

And then, they passed, lost within a sea of red soldiers, their distant voices drowned out by the thunder of boots pounding against wood.  Their words continued to resonate within Mataya’s mind, so much so that when she later awoke, she was uncertain whether or not what she had seen was real or a just a vivid dream created by the overactive imagination of her weary mind.

Mistress Duenna once again seized Mataya’s hand, sinking her fingernails deeply into the soft flesh of Mataya’s wrist.  The only color in her face was the vast network of tiny capillaries that her bulbous nose.  She shivered violently and her entire head was soaking wet as if it had been submerged within a bucket of water.  Beads of moisture pooled in the trenches of her furrow brow.  A drop of perspiration formed on the rounded tip of her potato-nose until it freely, allowing a new drop to begin forming.  Mistress Duenna chant a poem often recited by the terminally ill who wished for a quick and merciful death.  Her words slurred and spoken in burst between large breathes.

It was a frightfully unpleasant vision.  Mataya had heard rumors that the Mistress Duenna suffered mental breakdowns.  My great adventure and I’m sharing it with my foremost adversary!  The universe, apparently, toys with the fate of humans for its own amusement?  Apparently, the gods get bored sometimes as well.

Just as Mataya had managed to free herself, the Mistress’s once again grabbed her arm, this time with a firm hardened grip.  Mataya used her opposite hand to pry loose the Mistress’s chubby fingers one-by-one.  When she reached Mistress Duenna’s ring finger, she paused.  There, strangling the soft flesh just above the knuckle was Mistress Duenna’s Signet ring, worn for identification.  Mataya had never studied it up close.  It nearly identical to her Mataya’s ring.  Within the setting lie a detailed sigil composed of a mosaic of tiny precious stones depicting a great eagle triumphantly clutching an evil serpent with its powerful talons — the universal symbol of justice and the triumph of good over evil. Mataya lifted hers up to compare.  While the sigil was identical, the color scheme for students and faculty differed and the band itself was made of silver rather than gold.  Furthermore, the Mistress wore her ring on the opposite hand, a symbol of marriage — not to a man — but rather to to the church and to God.

Mataya leaned over and looked up at Mistress Duenna’s face at which the Mistress lowered her black veil.  Once lowered, the opaque fabric gifted the Mistress with total darkness as well as anonymity.  Mataya’s veil, on the other hand, was designed for an entirely different purpose.  Woven with a ultra-fine vertical stitch, it block the horizontal component of light waves allowing her to gaze into the intense sunlight of high altitudes and view her surroundings with greater clarity and contrast.  Once in the air, she would be able to enjoy the enhanced details of the clouds, sea, and mountains.  It was very expensive and gifted to her before the trip by an anonymous benefactor.  The thought of being lifted up and above the cloud at any moment rejuvenated her spirit.  

What a thrill it will be to fly!  I’m the luckiest person in the world!  My sisters at St. Chastity must be positively sick with with envy!
Vana-Gloria will turn green jealousy. 
I must write to her and pretend to be her very best friend!  Mataya smiled as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

 

The origins of pain were impossible to distinguish from one another.  Anguish spread throughout his body, creeping, merging, and intensifying, creating the sensation that his the heart was pumping liquid fire through his veins rather than blood.  The most unbearable pain came from his extremities.  His fingers, and toes.  His eyes. The tip of his nose.  His lips, tongue, and throat.  Unable to lift his hands up over his shoulders, the fine strip of gray hair around his bald head smoldered.  He could feel the skin underneath shriveling, and blistering.

Agony overwhelmed his conscious mind.  Rational thought was impossible.  Motion was driven by reflex, reaction, and instinct.  He frantically swat out the flames wherever he could.  Soon, he would lose control of his motor functions as his mind would be forced to sever its attachment to the body in order to spare itself from the extreme degree of suffering that the organism was ill-equipped to endure.  Awareness of his surroundings began to wane as he drifted into a state of shock. 

Pain provided entry into his mind, easily accessible to those who sought to invade.  And it was through this window that the disembodied voice returned, except now, it taunted him, mocking him, and laughing with cruel delight.  No one would be spared.  Neither the crew, nor the passengers.  Neither the rich, nor the poor.  Neither the young, nor the old.  Grotesque images were broadcast into his mind, images that flashed before him like a slideshow of the macabre.  Haunting pictures of the past, present, and future.  Babies screaming as their tender skin and fine hair burst into flames.  A young girl lying unconscious with with cyclones of fire shooting out of the sockets of her eyes, and black smoke jetting from her mouth and nostrils.  And then there were the screams.  The screams were worst of all because they were not projections into his mind.  They were real.

He was being punished for his disobedience.  They had offered to spare his life.  They had provided him light and instructed him to follow.  But, perhaps foolishly, he had refused. 

You could have come.
We would have given you the gift of life.
We offered to spare the children.
Behold what you have done!
Observe the price of defiance!
Look upon the consequences of cowardice!

The old-timer, known as “Sticky Britches” to his friends and fellow crew members, turned his head around and glimpsed to the rear of his car.  Smoke filled the cabin such that only the first few rows of passengers remained visible.  Cowered together beneath their wool shields, they held hands, cried out, and prayed.  So many innocent souls.  When they had first boarded the train, they were total strangers.  Now, they clung to each other as kin, bound by the shared fate of tragedy, suffering, and immanent death.  Why would anyone want to torture and kill the innocent?  Who, or what was this evil?

Join us, replied the disembodied voice.
Join us and we shall spare their lives.
It’s not too late.

The voice reached directly into his mind, yet he could feel its presence from a distance far away.  A safe distance.  And just how far would that be?  The towering flames that raged through the ancient forest reached up to the heavens, surrounding them, hunting them, chasing them at a supernatural speed.  No earthly creature could escape it.

Before the flames arrived, during their final boarding, a soft, sparkling, colorful light presented itself, offering him safe passage off the train, through the ditches and banks that ran along side the tracks and up into the hills to nearby caves.  Caves that led deep underground.  It beckoned to him.  Offered him life.  He had been given a choice.  The choice to live, or to die.  

Follow the light, the voice sang with an innocent melody.
Come.
Join us. 

Initially, he believed the words to be benevolent.  Spoken by a savior.  An offer of salvation from an angel of mercy sent to deliver him from a horrific fate.  But when he hesitated, his reluctance was met with vitriol.  The tenor of the voice changed.  It ceased to sweetly offer.  Instead, it gently commanded.  Then, it threatened.  The change was slight, but enough.  He understood.  It was not an offer of mercy.  It was blackmail.  He had been ensnared in a trap.  And when he resisted further, punishment was swift.  Images flickered and flashed before his eyes.  Shrieks that soared above the chorus of screams and the roar of the approaching inferno.  Explosions bloodied his ears and knocked him prostrate before the receding pressure drew him back up onto his knees.  Dazed and concussed, he froze.  Through the ringing in his ears, he could discern the tinkering sound of broken glass and felt as it exploded into the cabin, ricocheting off of the ceiling and walls before showering down upon his head.  Red hot shards of glass fell behind his collar against his neck, melting and fusing into his bare skin.  

As the train sped down into the river gorge, he was drowning in torment.   He could not breath, feel, nor see.  The simplest tasks became overwhelming obstacles.  And as soon as one crisis passed, two more appeared in its place.  Despite this, he somehow managed to resume his duties.  His conscious mind surrendered, but his subconscious mind emerged and seized control.  It was as if his muscles after so many years had retained memories of their own.  His body was driven by resolve.  To those observing him, it was if he was possessed by an invisible demon. 

Caught within a vice of agony, his physical senses overwhelmed, the old man could perceive only the faintest of impressions.  He could not string together any two ideas in any meaningful way.  There were only vague, mangled thoughts.  Distorted ideas and illogical concepts.  His intellect was overwhelm by despair and desperate desires.  His most urgent wish: that he, his fellow crew members, and the passengers, all doomed, would be granted a quick, and merciful death. 

Another explosion rocked the carriage.  Shards of glowing red glass flew above his ahead.  He pushed himself up and uncovered his face.  Thick warm blood oozed down the back of his neck.  His knees felt as if they too were on fire as the cartilage compressed and grinded into the consistency of oatmeal.  If he ever again stood, it was doubtful that he could ever walk.  He held his palms up in front of his face.  The blisters on his fingertips reached down to the bone.  If somehow he survived, he would probably never regain the use of his hands.  Perhaps worst of all, he had inhaled superheated vapors and black, oily, noxious smoke, searing the soft tissue of his lungs and filling them with liquid.  Ironically, in the midst of a firestorm, he may literally drown to death.

In a state of shock, there was little room for emotion.  Only the unbearable one remained.  Crushing guilt.  Brutal shame.  Not for what he had done, but for what he wished he had done.  What he felt he should have done.  For if the old man had been given a second chance, he would have chosen to have save himself and abandon the passengers and his friends, leaving them to die so that he may live.  Even now, he would willingly condemn them all to a horrific death, betraying his honor, and violating his sacred oath.  But it was moot.  Despite the renewed offer of life from the demons, to escape now would be impossible.  And if he had chosen to save himself, what kind of a life would have awaited him?  He would have been branded a coward.  A traitor to humanity who abandoned those who depended on him to keep their families safe.  At least now his family would be shielded from humiliation and disgrace.  He would be remembered as one forced to fight and die in a selfless attempt to save others.  Maybe he would be remembered as a hero.  A martyr whose family would be honored.  They would be showered with sympathy, and support.  Surrounded by dying and death, this thought was of cold comfort to him now.

To his left, a man leaned down, punched him, and screamed into his ear.  What was he doing?  If he opened his eyelids for too long, he would be blinded as the fluid in his eyes would boil and his corneas would fry like eggs.  He looked up, blinking rapidly.  He could not recognize the face before him as it was blackened with soot and ash and he could not understand the shouted words.  But he understood their meaning.  He lowered his head, closed his eyes, and then opened them as wide as he could.  Directly in front of him, the letters stenciled on the iron tank in bright red paint began to bubble and warp.  H20.  With his left hand, he rhythmically pumped the lever.  Water burbled and belched inside the bottom of the cylindrical tank then dribbled out through the spigot beneath.  The massive iron tank, capable of holding up to 300 gallons of fresh water, had not been completely filled before departure.  Now, at this moment, even if fully topped, it would not be nearly enough.  Soon, his efforts would be futile.  Nonetheless, he worked the pump with his left hand catching the expelled water with a wool blanket in his right hand.  The tank was nearly empty.  Water ceased to flow in a continuous stream.  Rather, it trickled, and the water he managed to capture in dribs and drabs was boiling hot.  The remaining water was beginning to evaporate.  Jets of steam escaped through pin-sized holes and crevices in the fittings and pipes, rising, curling, and swirling until it collided and mingled with the clouds of thick black smoke above.

The stream from the spigot finally ceased.  The tank was empty.  Sticky Britches mopped up moisture that remained on the floor beneath the tank.  Deliriously, he sponged every drop of water he could find with both hands.  With every stroke the color of the fabric turned from evergreen to charcoal gray.  After a few strokes, there was nothing left but a thick sludge of dirt, ash, and tiny prickly pebbles of shattered glass.  The gritty feel of the wool and glass shards scratching against the iron floor sent a chill down his spine.  His jaw clenched tightly, grinding his molars against each other until they shattered.

He could read the lips of his crewmember with the charcoal face.  “More!” he screamed.  “More!  Hurry up for Gods’ sake!  We need more!  Faster!  What are you waiting for?  Don’t stop!”  The man’s mouth, teeth, and tongue were blackened with coal dust and ash.  Only a small patch of pink flesh remained underneath his tongue, visible briefly as he shouted with his jaw open wider than physically possible. 

Sticky Britches closed his eyes and turned away, maintaining the optics of a task now performed mostly in vane.  His back and his arms kept rhythm with his screams — screams he could no longer hear but only feel in his chest and throat.  Only the high-pitched screams of the young women and children behind him were audible above the roar of the engine and the thunder of the inferno.  Their screams became cries.  Cries for help.  Cries that tugged at his heart.  They urged him, compelled him, begged him to keep moving.  Help us!  Their blood-curdling shrieks reminded him of the pigs in the slaughterhouse where he worked as a child as they were impaled on iron hooks and transported down the factory conveyor belt towards the band saw awaiting to slice them into symmetrical halves.  Now, it was the humans turn to scream in terror for their lives.  How little difference there really was between man and the beasts they so willingly and indifferently slaughtered. 

A clenched fist slammed against the side of his head.  “Faster,” the black-faced man shouted.

Yes.
Faster.
For all the good it will do.
You will die.
They will all die. 

Then, he could feel as the invaders exited his mind and closed the window behind them.

Sticky Britches threw a rectangular patch of soiled wool over his shoulder and into the air.  It was barely moist and the charcoal-sludge was drying instantly, making it not only useless, but perhaps even flammable.  Even if properly treated, the protection offered by these wool blankets was grossly inadequate.  In order to save on expenses, the company provided child-sized blankets for all passengers.  Only a few feet wide, they covered roughly half the surface area of an adult female and were just were barely large enough to cover the exposed skin of a man’s head and neck.  Thankfully, they were large enough to envelope the infants.

He was struck again.  He had barely the strength to look up at his tormentor. 

“Another!  We need another.  Put your back into it old man!”

In a single fluid motion, the very same hand opened to release a treated blanket and then receive one fresh.  He wetted it as best he could, passed it back, then was handed another.  And then another.  Until finally, it was over.  The tank was bone dry and there was nothing more he could do but to wipe the sweat from his face, neck, and chest.  There was nothing to do now but to use the last blanket to shield his own face and neck.

The children were covered first, then the women, the elderly, the able men, and lastly, the crew.  Row after row, passengers doubled over with their heads tucked between their knees, bobbing up and down as if for apples in a barrel filled with water, gasping at the thin layer of oxygenated air at their feet.  With their eyes and mouths closed, they periodically sat up sharply to adjust the wool shields draped across their backs before doubling over in search of their next breath.  They struggled to stifle their coughing and choking in order to conserve air and to escape the hot poisonous fumes and oily smoke that burned their eyes, nose, and throat.

Within a curious moment of silence came the sound of a faint puff.  Poof.  The sound resembled a children’s explosive device had been ignited and a pillow used to muffle the bang as it detonated.  The moments of silence afterward was even more odd.  The passengers waited with anticipation for an answer to their curios question.  Time seemed to stand still.  Then, without even the tiniest disturbance in pressure to reveal itself, a massive shock wave slammed the left side of the train.  The car imploded, sending shimmering shards of razor-sharp glass first in one direction, then back the other way, and then finally, rained down upon the passengers and crew.  Vortices squealed as accelerating air shrilled just above their heads.  The left side of the car rose up off the tracks, and just when it seemed that the carriage had reached the point of no return and was certain to topple over and derail, a second wave, identical in strength, but opposite, drew the car back down onto the tracks, the wheels bouncing several times before miraculously settling properly inside the rails.

Smoke and debris churned and swirled within miniature tornados until suddenly it out was sucked out through the windows, briefly emptying the atmosphere inside the cabin.  Darkness turned to blinding light.  Heads rose and twisted back and forth.  Bodies strewn about the cabin, their shattered limbs twisted and contorted like rag dolls.  Corpses lie on top of each other in piles.  Within the metallic frames where the clear glass windows once snugly fit dangled legs, severed torsos, and heads.  Freshly cut glass sliced clean through one man’s neck.  Blood flowed down his chest, stomach, puddling onto the floor beneath him.  Illuminated by the inferno, fresh blood appeared both as bright black a dull white.  Either way, it created a horrific contrast to the sea of lifeless black gray.  A fleeting flicker of sunlight exposed a snapshot painted entirely with various shades of red.  Lifeless eyes belonging to faces covered sparkled until heavy smoke slowly drifted back into the car, lowering and consuming them.  Those still alive were gifted the briefest possible amount of time to collect their belongings and account for their loved ones.  Hats, scarves, and wool shields littered the cabin, hanging from the walls, ceiling, and lying in sticky pools of blood decorated with nuggets of glass that sparkled like diamonds.  Within patches of the floor that somehow managed to remain free of blood, sand and shards of glass vibrated, mixed, then liquified into tiny puddles of molten silicon.  Pools of boiling blood turned black as they dried, emitting vapors imbued with the copper stench of death. 

Panicked heads bobbled frenetically atop hunched shoulders.  Passengers lunged, attempting to the aid their family, friends, and strangers who had been tossed out of their seats and into the aisle.  Eyes flitted about the cabin assessing the carnage with disbelief, examining the wounds of their fellow travelers, and attempting to explain the mystery of what had just happened.

“What the blazes was that?!”

“The stockpile of wood at Dennison’s mill,” a man shouted.  “It exploded.”

“Impossible!”

It was a logical conclusion from an educated man, but one that no one wished to believe.  For if true, it meant that the heart of the firestorm was less than five
miles away, gaining ten miles on then in just under twenty minutes.  It was inconceivable.  No force of nature could possibly travel at that speed.  And the ambient temperature required for lumber to explode?  700 degrees Fahrenheit, explained the educated man.

To most, it hardly mattered.  Their time would come.  Their fate all but sealed.  Soon, they would be joining their loved ones.  There would be no survival.  The temperature inside the carriage was nearly lethal.  Flames licked into the car through shattered windows trying to latch onto anything or anyone.  Exposed human hair spontaneously combusted.  A silver-haired man jumped into the aisle, dancing and shouting as he beat the top of his head.  The flammable hair-tonic he applied that morning turned him into a human torch with blue-green flames.  He thrashed wildly until finally collapsing into merciful unconsciousness.  A stout muscular bald man scooped him up off the ground and carried him into his aisle beside his wife, cradling him, offering him the small comfort they possibly could.  The elderly man’s wife sat in her seat with her head leaned back and her lifeless eyes gazing upward.  A frightened child broke free from the grip of his parents and ran down the aisle towards the exit before placing his hands over his chest, doubling over, then collapsing.

Young stewards, the nameless and faceless heroes, rushed up-and-down the aisle with wool blankets, jackets, shields, and what little water they managed to retain, stepping over corpses and aiding the surviving passengers whom they could reach.  But the heroes were too few and they themselves were weakened and injured while the victims too numerous and the fire and toxic gas pernicious.

A well-dressed gentleman fortuitously sitting in the front of the car in a backwards-facing stall held a circular timepiece inches from his face, his eyes straining to decipher the display that trembled in his hand.  His words mumbled through pinched lips and clenched teeth as he crunched numbers in his head, calculating velocities, distance, and time, so that he could cast away his shield and embrace his wife of over half a century during their final moments of life.  They would pass on to the next world just as they had lived within this one.  Together.

The faithful and the mystic, hummed hymns, clasped their hands together, looked to the heavens begging forgiveness for their mortal sins, and recited prayers and incantations designed to open the gates of the eternal garden and alert their deceased loved ones that they would soon arrive to join them.

An urgent voice shouted a terse command from the front engine.  The distinctive consonants of military lingo were systematically relayed from one car to the next until it reached the final car at the back of the train.  Then, a response daisy-chained its way back up to the front car to the conductor.  A discernable decrease in speed could be felt followed by series of violent whiplashes, forwards, and back.  The train curved sharply and began to decelerate.  As the train approached a lowland summit, the brushes and trees on both sides of the tracks vanished.  A large wooden plaque painted evergreen with sunshine yellow words and an ethnic font hung above the ticket depot and communications platform:

Welcome to Midgard!
Your Home away from Home.

Small shops, tiny homes, and barns flew by at an unusual rate.  The train was not decelerating as expected.  All attention was immediately drawn to the left hand side.  A mob of desperate faces with wide eyes stood upon a wooden platform, jumping, flailing, waving, and frantically shouting.  Men and women holding children in each arm and on top of their shoulders made their way to the edge of the platform.  Bodies began flinging themselves onto the side of the train, desperately grasping for something to hold onto.  The crowd screamed as a young boy lost his grip and fell onto the tracks underneath the train, his body sliced neatly into pieces, his pressurized blood spraying into the faces of those nearby.  Mothers ran along side the train attempting to hand their infants up to the train’s passengers through the jagged razor sharp gaps of shattered windows.

Just as the train seemed to contemplate a full stop, instead, it jerked forward and began to accelerate.  Enraged and hysterical, the faces of the stranded families exploded in disbelief.  Some stood frozen while others burst into violence.  Lewd gestures were displayed while others targeted the train with whatever projectiles they could find.  Within moments, a second plaque passed by the passengers more rapidly than the first:

Thank you for Visiting Midgard.
Please come again!

Many of the train’s passengers, confused, and distraught, demanded explanation and justification for what appeared to be an act of incalculable inhumanity.  “This is sinister!” a woman screamed.  “There were children for Gods’ sake!”  The elderly woman’s words faded away into a fit of coughing, spitting, and retching.  Another woman rose to her feet and traced the holy geometry across her shoulders and face.  “We are all going to burn in hell for this!  The devil will be waiting for us.  And we shall reap our eternal reward.”  Her husband, a hulk of man, grabbed her by the back of her hair and forced her back down into her seat.  She escaped his grip and turned to her neighbors in the adjacent, forward, and rear aisle.  “For heaven’s sake!  What are they doing?!  They can’t do this!  It is murder!  We are murdering children!”

A man sitting to her right sat up and uncovered his face.  “No,'” he stated with cold stoicism.  We are saving ourselves.  If the situation were reversed, what do you think they would have done?  They would have done exactly the same.  They would have saved themselves and their families.”  He covered his head, curled back down, and inhaled deeply, exhausted from the few words he managed to speak.  A man wearing colorful clothes and speaking in a foreign accent pointed to his tiny wife and child shriveled on his lap.  “We are having the children as well.  Should they not be being saved?”

The small woman, slapping, and scratching at her husband’s face, stood back up and waved her fist.  “Murderers!”  She screamed, then spat in the face of a steward moving to clear the mob of passengers who had stormed the exit door armed with an iron wrench clenched tightly in his fist.  The steward paused to regard the woman, glared at her with murder in his eyes and raised the iron bar above his head.  “Do you want to die?!  Or would you prefer to live?!”  He lowered his head, coughing, and wiping away black spit from his chin.  “They are already dead.  Would you like to join them?!  Because that can be arranged.”

The petite woman, struggling to breath, lowered her head, closed her eyes, and draped a wool shield over her head and shoulders.  After a few breathes, she popped her head back up.  “Murderer!”  The steward lifted the iron wrench and began to swing when her husband leapt up and seized his arm.  The steward lowered his arm, cursed at the cowering woman, and proceeded to move down the aisle towards the mob.  He stopped abruptly, turned around gripping his wrench tightly with both hands, and addressed the passengers behind him.

“The next person who opens their mouth will be thrown … *cough* … *gasp* … out an open window!  Now sit down … *cough* … and shut your stinking holes!”

As the train sped away from Midgard, thick woods reappeared along both sides of the tracks.  The cabin darkened as the train entered into a tunnel carved through the dense forest.  A glow from above penetrated the thick foliage from flames hopping across the tips of towering evergreen trees.  Powerful winds penetrated through the forest, peppering the train tracks with broken branches, small trees, and bushes with their roots ripped from the ground.  The cabin air filled with the burning leaves, pines, and needles from deciduous trees.  Opaque smoke imbued with oily resin and the scent of turpentine filled the tree tunnel.  The brief respite of fresh air was soon displaced by the noxious fumes.  As the train exited the botanical tunnel, large oaks lay at forty-five-degree angles exposing the raw moist earth beneath their foundation.  The train exited the forest into vast farmlands.  Despite any signs of fire, herds of spotted cows and long-horned goats lie on their sides as if peacefully sleeping.  Crimson barns sat exposed with missing roofs.  A cyclone of dry hay crossed moved onto the tracks directly in front of the train, filling the cars with cream-colored strands and fine particulates that briefly sparkled before they evaporated into smoke and ash.

The crystal pulse cannons mounted on top of the front car, installed to clear the tracks of foreign objects, began firing concentrated volleys of magnetic rounds.  The electronic twang, distinctive trill, and lingering electronic warble of the cannons was a novelty to the majority of passengers.  It gave them a modicum of hope.  Perhaps, armed with modern technology, they could prevail against the wrath of mother nature.  

The train crossed a stone bridge still intact and proceeded to race across the valley at maximum speed.  The conductor sounded the whistle, the result of a momentary burst of optimism.  After a period of turbulence, the train rocked back.  With its momentum maximized, the train hit a the beginning of a steep incline.  As it gained altitude, the air temperature continued to climb inside the carriages.  Unprotected flesh that touched metal melted and had to be ripped clean off.  The back of a gentleman’s trousers exploded as he soiled himself and ejected a stream of natural gas from his backside.  The screams of the passengers mixed with the roar of the storm and the rattling of the carriages created an unholy cacophony.

A final communication was received from the Midgard station.  The train had a 15 minute head start against the storm front.  There was a general optimism amongst the crew that they had narrowly escaped the horrific fate of those whom they had condemned.  But the behemoth iron vehicle was only capable of traveling 45 miles per hour and according to the last wire sent, the final act of a brave and selfless soul, the storm front was traveling at a speed somewhere between 60 and 75 miles per hour.  Just as the fire consumed the town of Midgard, he broadcast his calculations across every remaining line hoping that lives would be saved so that the death of his small community would not be in vane.  Armed with this knowledge, those whom it reached would hopefully realize that the storm could not be outrun.  Their only hope of survival would be an act of desperation.

This wasn’t the news that the conductor had hoped for.  They were losing ground and the boilers were already lit at full pressure.  At this rate, they were liable to explode before the train could find shelter.  Relying on his training and decades of experience, he managed to remain relatively calm.  Their survival dictated that he think and act fast.  He barked orders at his engineer, then ordered his steward to roll out a map of the immediate terrain.  Together with his steward, the son of his eldest sister, they studied the map, searching for sanctuary.

“There!” the steward pointed.  “A tunnel.”  The conductor shook his head.  No.  It was 75 miles away.  They would never make it that far.  The storm would overtake and consume them.  Furthermore, a tunnel would not be safe.  The fire would draw out and ingest all of the oxygen within the tunnel and they would suffocate.  And in the heat, the metal train would turn into a virtual oven, cooking the passengers alive.  Their only hope was to stop the train and evacuate the cars.  But where?

“High ground!  We need to find high ground!  Here!  Or, here!”

“No, you fool,” barked the conductor.  “Fire travels uphill.  We need to seek low ground.  A body of water.  Look.  See?  Here.  Right here,” he jabbed at the map so hard with his index finger that it tore the wrinkled yellow paper.  He stood erect with his hands folded behind his back.  “It is our only hope.”

“But –“

“Yes.  I know.  We will have to apply the brakes full-stop on a steep downward slope.”

“What if they — ?!”

“If they don’t hold, then we are all damned to hell.”  He lit up a pipe, savoring the taste of the sweet tobacco as if it would his last.

At the back end of the train, on each side of the tracks, the underbrush began to sparkle.  A young boy with wide eyes gasped in awe and excitement as he pointed to the display.  Fireworks!  His mother drew him down and covered his eyes.  Among the sparks, beams of yellow light burst through the windows through plumes of black smoke.  As the dark clouds swelled, they rose gently, swirling, rotating, and expanding in the shape of a mushroom like the rising steam of a piping-hot bowl of soup whose lid had been lifted in haste.  As the smoke dissipated, pinhole rays of light poked through, radiating with the intensity of the sun, scorching flesh and blinding those whose eyes were drawn to the light.

The glowing red front, previously many miles away, had gained ground, moving ever closer.  It was right on their heals.  It surrounded them, moving, breathing, and multiplying as if a sentient creatures.  It was an army of soldiers, created and sent to the vanguard of battle.  It attacked them from all sides.  As the fire reached mountain peaks, flames shot high up into the sky like giant horses rearing on their hind legs.  A separate regiment had split off and marched downward across the lowland terrain, sweeping through grasslands, pausing only periodically while it wrapped its tentacles around the low-hanging branches of the forest’s edge.  While the bulk of the inferno moved upward to conquer the tall trees perched on mountain peaks, the smaller, steadier regime continued to settle downward to scorch the earth of the valley below.  They were surrounded.  Cornered by the beast.

The train now sped at full sped along the perimeter of a large glade, gaining as much momentum as possible as it approached the final ascent to the underground pass.  The passengers removed their shields and peered out the window at a patch of blue sky.  The sun illuminated a lone evergreen tree safely perched on top of a small island.  We’re saved, many cheered.  Then, before their eyes, as if laced with dynamite, the tree exploded.  The initial shock, resembling the sound of a cannon, was followed by a secondary boom, softer, muffled, at pitch so low it was barely audible.  Like a single candle on a mammoth cake baked for a giant, the tree burned, sending a thin concentrated plume of smoke straight upward before curling and twisting before it reached the edge of the atmospheric boundary layer and swept away.  As the train began its uphill climb, hopes were dashed as bright blue skies turned to darkness.  High up on the mountain, borne by flaming debris, scores of small fires emerged and joined together just below the tree line.  As the fire climbed the mountain seeking fresh air and feasting on the tall trees, a sudden pressure collapse generated an inverted pressure wave that, upon reaching Human ears, resembled the sound of a bomb exploding underwater.  As the fire settled to the ground, rugged mountain shrubs were set ablaze, mimicking the sound of popping corn.

The train pushed ahead and entered into a tunnel carved from the rock of the mountainside.  The ground shook, and rumbled, tossing frightened passengers up off of theirs seats, bouncing them onto the aisle floor in the pitch black of total darkness.  The air grew thick.  The passengers struggled as they gasped for breathable air. Minutes later, a bright orange light illuminated the walls of the tunnel.  The train accelerated as it exited the mountain penetrating a wall of fire.  Flames shot into the cabin through broken windows, setting bodies aflame.  The passengers crouched onto the floor beneath their seats to dodge the insurgent conflagration.

The train began its final descent as flames encroached from each side.  As the train picked up speed, the fumes and smoke gradually gave way to fresh air.  Soon, the vast valley below revealed itself.  Passengers who dared to lift their heads gawked in disbelief.  On top of the surrounding mountain through which they passed only moments before, superheated matter generated a massive jet of gas.  Glowing red debris shot straight upward into the atmosphere.  On each peak stood a vertical column of revolving smoke that resembled pillars made of black stone, each rising tens of thousands of feet high up into the stratosphere.  As the orderly pillars reached up into the heavens, they spread into thick cones as if they had reached a plate of clear glass.  Competing columns pulled, and tugged, generating hurricane force winds that fluctuated frequently from one direction to the next.  As columns joined and grew, the powerful vorticity they generated realigned into one single massive vertical core.  Strands of curling flames coiled and collided, merged, and multiplied.  Flaming dust-devils spawned by the massive core turned into flaming maelstroms, and maelstroms into tornadoes of fire that snaked down the mountainside in search of oxygen and fuel.   Rocks and flaming trees swept up into the air rained down upon the train and its tracks.  The crystal guns began firing.  Again, and again, and again.  

The earth convulsed and rumbled below.  The bellow of the storm was deafening.  The metallic cars began to shake and vibrate with enough intensity that they bounced along the tracks.  The wooden stalls inside the carriage began to separate, rotate, and drift as the iron bolts attaching them to the floor snapped under the force of shear.  The walls buckled as if a giant fist was squeezing the cars in the palm of its hand.  Windows that had managed to remain intact exploded as their steel frames warped.  The outer structure whined and moaned under mechanical stresses and strains that the steel beams could no longer withstand.  Iron panels on the exterior of the train separated and flew off into the wind followed by passengers seated near the gaping holes.  

A faint but determined voice cried out, the words drifting with the wind and reaching the passengers ears through the shattered glass.  “Stop the train!  Stop the train! Stop it now, I say!  Do it, man!  Do it now!  Do it right ^#&@-ing now!  Full stop!”  Passengers repeated the words, relaying the message from car to car.  “That’s insane, one man protested.  We must not stop.”  Nonetheless, the train began to slow as the squealing sound of iron grinding against iron grew louder and louder still.  The train lurched, hurling the passengers forward, compressing them against the wooden stalls with enough force to whiplash their spines, fracture ribs, and sending broken teeth onto the floor.  The metallic wheels screeched as they skidded across the steel rails sending sparks up above the train.  Passengers covered their ears as the intensity and pitch rose higher and higher.  The wheels screeched, scraped, groused, then bounced.  The train limped on with the obvious thumping of damaged wheels and red-hot iron rails that melted and collapsed under the weight of the train.  One of the cars in the rear of the train derailed and was being dragged on its side along wooden planks and soft earth.  

Bonk bonk … bonk bonk … bonk bonk … bonk … bonk … b … bonk …

The train’s engines fell silent.  The sudden deceleration created the sensation of free-falling backwards off the edge of a cliff.  Passengers gagged, gasped, and vomited as they bounced back and forth against the backs of their stalls.  Those still conscious and lucid inquired as to what had happened.  Had the train been stopped intentionally?  Or had it been damaged beyond repair?  Were they stuck?  Was this it?    The answer to their question revealed itself almost immediately.  The conductor had issued the command to apply the train’s emergency breaks.  Where only moments before their senses could detect nothing but rancid smoke, a cool moist breeze laden with the welcome pungent odor of organic decay wafted into the car.  The residual black smoke swirled and the thin tails of wisps whisked themselves out through the windows.  Cool air filled the cars.  With caution, the passengers began to lift their heads, open their eyes, and throw off their shields.  Bodies began to stir, slowly lift, then scramble.  Passengers tried in vain to wake loved ones who had succumbed to the trauma of their wounds.  The relative silence was disrupted by the crunching sound made by the soles of boots stomping across broken glass.  Stewards ran up and down the aisle slapping, punching, and kicking at the passengers.

“Evacuate!  Evacuate!  Now!  Depart quickly if you value your life.  Grab the children.  To the exits.  Now! Move!  Move!”

An unusually calm steward systematically moved up the carriage checking each stall, first on the left, then on the right.  “The conductor has issued an emergency evacuation order.  Grab your children.  Leave your belongings.  Leave the dead.  Move.  Fast.  Run for your lives!  Save yourselves!  There is no time to waste!”

A brief stampede tapered off as the aisle quickly clogged with the infirm, deaf, and blind.  A human queue formed with each person placing both hands on the shoulders of the person in front.  Slowly, they pushed their way towards the exit located at the rear of the each car.  Like small mammals hurling themselves off of a cliff, one-by-one the passengers stepped down onto the stoop and jumped off the train and over the edge of the shallow bridge.  In freefall, many believed they were jumping from a great height, a height sufficient to grant merciful death.  Instead, they landed unexpectedly into the soft wet earth of a lowland marsh pocked with islands covered in bushes and tall green grass.  They waded out into the marsh and sank into the mud and muck, immersing themselves within a sea of murky brownish-green water.

A steward who had already disembarked, climbed back up onto the train and made his way up the aisle searching for survivors.  No one would be left behind.  It was his sworn duty.  The son of shoemaker, the youngest of twelve children, would rather take his own life than to return home to the shame and dishonor of shirking his duties in an act of cowardly self-preservation.  Through the ash, broken glass, and debris, through the smoke and flames,  he systematically checked each pew for survivors.  He shook lifeless bodies.  Grabbed heads and stared into dead eyes.  He rolled bodies over looking for any sign of life.  He found none.

And just as he turned to leave, he heard a moaning.  There was one soul, barely alive, who had not made it off the train.  In the front of the car in the small compartment off-limits to passengers, the elderly engineer known as “Sticky Britches”, the man who had taken control of the survival mission as the train first disembarked, the man who ordered the distribution of wool blankets and who had manned the spigot of the water tank, lie motionless, curled into a fetal position on the floor.  His hands reduced to that of a blackened skeleton.  His body lie twisted and broken.  Unable to move, he whispered his last words — a plea for mercy.

Yes.  Do it!

The youngest son of a shoemaker picked up a heavy iron bar from the floor and granted the man’s dying wish with a blow to the back of his skull.  The man whose leadership and dedication to honor, duty, and the lives of those he was sworn to protect, was granted the mercy of a quick and painless death, a mercy that he earned ten times over.  And if the young steward survived, he would make certain that the man’s family knew that that he had sacrificed his own life to save the lives of others.  He was a true hero.

Traumatized and badly burned, the remainder of the passengers plunged themselves into the muck, rolling and thrashing in a desperate frenzy to extinguish their smoldering clothes and soothe the excruciating pain of their burns and broken bones.  They scooped up mud and lathered it across their faces, scalps and necks.  Those who were able-bodied rose to their feet, trudging deeper into the marsh as far as their legs could carry them, searching for a grave for themselves and their loved ones.

The storm front descended from the summit and down into the valley.  The remaining soles panicked, moving deeper into the marsh. The greater the depth of the water the safer they would be.  Leaving as little of their bodies exposed as possible, they pushed themselves deeply into the mire and muck, coating their bodies with the slimy concoction laden with red clay.  Initially, many chose to insert themselves face first; however, they quickly rolled over onto their backs in a more efficient position from which to bury themselves deeply into the silt.

A young mother, no longer able to bear the suffering of her newborn, sang a final lullaby as she pushed her infant’s face first into the mud.  Leaning with all her weight, she pushed at the base of the her baby’s neck until she felt the soft snap of its tiny spine. Then, with her forearms laid flat, she dug herself a small trench that would serve as her own grave.  She snaked her dainty hands through the slop until she found her daughter’s hand.  Gripping it tightly, she visualized running with her child, now a spritely toddler with pigtails and a red checkered dress, hand-in-hand through the sunny golden fields of paradise.

The winds picked up as the sky grew jet black.  Thick black ink descended onto the surface of the water before the winds drew it up and back into the oncoming inferno.  The sky was on fire as if the sun had entered the earth’s atmosphere and was moments away from devouring the planet.  Robbed of oxygen and hot enough to melt steel,  toxic gas began exploding within the lungs of those who could no longer hold their breath.  Many chose death by drowning and attempted to ingest and inhale the putrid quagmire rather than burn or boil alive.  Those who had reached furthest into the swamp, stumbled quite by accident into an area of the marsh where the soil was rich with soft clay and free of rocks and sand where they were able to submerge themselves deeply enough to escape the scalding temperatures and intense radiation that penetrated below the surface of the water.  The monster passed only a few feet above their heads.

After the storm passed and the skies once again turned blue, souls began to emerge from their hollows in a state of shock.  They had lost all sense of time and direction and were uncertain as to the world in which they now lived and breathed.  Had they survived?  Or was this something else?  Had they passed on to the next life?

The morose survivors peeled themselves up and away from the soft earth like zombies rising from the grave.  Many were blind, and deaf, flailing about, grasping with their hands for something or someone to grab ahold of.  Dazed, the strongest of the survivors staggered and sloshed their way back to the steel carriage which they assumed would be sufficiently intact to serve as shelter.  Instead, in its place, a long stretch of mangled steel lie submerged into the swamp.  No traces of the bridge remained.  The conductor whose bravery and quick thinking had saved dozens of souls, lie face down, slumped over a dense patch of scorched swampland.  The exposed flesh of his back was blackened and covered in steaming red gravy with bubbles of melted blue nylon.

“Oh, Dear God.  May he rest in peace.”

“God?  Gods?  Which Gods?  Where?  Where are they?  Show them to me!  If they exist, they cannot hear you.  They are long gone.  They abandoned us, fleeing to save their own lives, leaving us here to die.”

“But we are alive.  Don’t you see?  Our faith has saved us.  We have are the chosen recipients of their mercy.  We surrendered our will and they have rewarded us with the gift of life.”

As they slowly regained their vision, they took in the unrecognizable vision of an earth scorched.