With a loud screech and a hissing sound, the train slowed down to a halt from the breathtaking speed it had been firing with beforehand, the shrieking of its wheels upon the rail-tracks and the blaring hoots of its horns drawing Elmer to its window.

“Do you see that, Mabel?” Elmer deftly adjusted his round glasses from its rim back onto the bridge of his sharp nose. Then, with a grin, he let his hands fly to tightly clutch the window bars, while watching the crowded platform of the station from his coach. “We’re here,” he announced, quite like the station staff he wasn’t.

The train was not filled with a ton of passengers. There were so few on board that he and Mabel had gotten their assigned coach all to themselves.

They had departed from the countryside, and it was only expected that not many people would come from there to the city of Ur—there were not a lot who even lived there in the first place—and in all honesty he was glad.

He had been able to enjoy the journey, as well as take in all the scenery which they had passed through on their way, without having to worry that his restless prancing would be of bother to any passenger that might have shared his coach.

They had spent a day on the tracks, but it did not feel that long. He had been able to give himself only a bit of sleep as well, maybe an hour or two—scarcely three—before he lifted his eyes open once again to watch the aesthetic blur of the landscape as the train sped past it. And even though he had watched the sun go, and the moon come and go as well, he was anything but tired.

“Blimey! It’s so different from the train-stop in Meadbray.” He saw them all. He did not let his eyes miss a single thing or person.

The men that roamed were either dressed in formal suits and top hats, or just plain daytime vests—none went about without their canes though. While the ladies were garbed beautifully in full embroidered dresses, each with a distinct color than the other. And they all painted the station with a glorious hue different from the myriad colors of the sunlight, which made its way in from the high clock tower of the station.

It was full and bustling, and most people looked… expensive. Elmer found it hard to see anyone dressed the same way he was.

He wore tan high-waist pants with a white shirt and a button-on suspender. Around his waist was a small brown bag, and on his head sat the only form of expensive cap he could afford: an ivy cap.

It still made him feel good about himself though, after all, he had spent quite a lot on this attire. Three mints, after somewhat of a long hour of bargain, if he remembered correctly. A city boy had to look like one, he had told himself, only, he could not have been more wrong.

The city boys wore suits, not whatever he had on. The ones that wore clothing of similarity to his were the ones that the station guards chased about with truncheons. They were pickpockets.

As Elmer saw the disgusted looks on the faces of the expensive ladies and gentlemen, whenever one of those pickpockets ran by to escape a guard, it almost made him lose his grin. But he would not have that, not today. He was finally in the city, and he was going to savor it with whatever chance he got.

He dropped a hand from the window-bar, taking his eyes away from the ragged pickpockets as he turned to his little sister. “What do you think, Mabel? Beautiful, isn’t it?”

But she gave him no reply. Then Elmer pulled himself away from the window completely, doing the same for the grin he had not wanted to lose, and came to squat before his little sister where she sat.

Mabel was dressed in a long white petticoat with fichu frills about her neckline. Her brown eyes stared at him palely, or, just stared forward in truth, without a single glint of light in them. Her face was completely white and looked to be devoid of warmth; it was as though she was a mannequin, one made with utmost realism that it bore the flesh of a human.

Elmer took a hold of his sister’s gloved hands, which lay atop her lap, and squeezed them beneath his.

“I’m sorry we left on your birthday, but I had no choice. Mistress Eleanor said I had to leave this year and you know I could not leave you there.”

It was customary for every waif to pull out of the orphanage once they had turned seventeen, although Elmer had gotten to stay a year longer because of his sister. But that was all the mistress could have managed to help him with.

The thirtieth of September came, turning Mabel thirteen, and with that Elmer bid the mistress farewell and took his leave with his sister.

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. It’s here in this city that I’ll finally be able to help you,” he tried to assure Mabel with a smile, but she did not reciprocate. He missed her’s so much.

The train shook as it gave a final hissing sound, and Elmer realized that it had come to a stop. It was time to step out into the city he had wanted to come to for so long a time.

Elmer did not waste a single moment before he jumped to his feet and pulled their only luggage, a small leather suitcase of poor patchworks, from the bag compartment up above their coach.

He then dropped the bag on the floor, turned around and bent over in a crouch, before pulling Mabel from behind him to fall on his back limply. He slowly took her hands and placed them over his shoulders, then he wrapped her legs around his waist, using his left hand to support her weight while the other picked up the leather suitcase again.

“Let’s head into the city, shall we?” said Elmer as he fell into the crowd that had begun to exit the train.

The platform was loud, far louder than it had been when he was on the train, and it looked to be more packed.

Elmer stood in awe with a grin spread across his face, but a few bumps here and there reminded him that pickpockets existed. He quickly glanced down at his waist, and let a soothing sigh escape him as he found his bag still strapped across it.

He had dawdled here enough. It was time to move before something bad would happen, and he would end up living on the alleyways of streets. He could not let Mabel live such a life.

“Exit-area six,” Elmer muttered constantly as he rode through the crowd, searching for his designated exit-area.

He could not egress randomly, if he did he would get lost, or so the staff attendant at Meadbray’s train station had told him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Although… Where in the world was this exit-area? He could not seem to find it anywhere.

Elmer stopped his aimless walking as little bits of tiredness, from handling both the weight of Mabel on his back and the luggage in his hand, crept over his body. Continuing this way would just wear him out before he’d even left the station, and that would do him anything but good.

He scanned the platform instead, brushing off the murmurs that arose from the few stares which were placed upon him and his sister, as he looked for any sign of his exit-area.

He caught sight of exit-area three’s board, then he looked further and saw the one for exit-area eight.

Elmer noticed that the exit-areas were so far apart that it was impossible to see three of them in a row without walking for at least a good chunk of minutes. And also, their numbers were not arranged numerically. Who wickedly thought such a design was a good thing?

If he kept searching for exit-area six in the way he was doing now, then he would only get lost, and all his money might have been way gone before then. The pickpockets had done nothing to him yet, but their mere presence had already fed him with great anxiety.

He needed to be quick.

“Excuse me,” Elmer called out to the glancing passersby as his last option. “Do you know where I can find…” Every single one avoided him though, despite the stares they kept pouring on him and his sister.

The ladies would scurry off while covering half of their faces with a tiny hand-fan, while the men would tap their canes and avoid him or swear at him. It was almost as though he had a terrible disease.

Did he? Elmer wondered. He even sniffed his armpits to check if he had grown to have an appalling body odor, but he could smell nothing. Or were they avoiding him because of the way he was dressed? Did they really think he was such?

The thought made Elmer clench hard on his teeth in a paltry anger.

“Stupid people,” he muttered indistinctly.

“Are you lost, boy?” He heard a voice call out from beside him, and he turned sharply to where it came from.

Before him stood a lithe man that had quite a refined ambience. He was wearing a silk top hat and the same formal suit as everyone else, but his was completed with a long, black, single-breasted coat. And around his neck hung a blue scarf that made his flowery patterned cravat even more visible.

The man’s hands were covered in black leather gloves, and they were tightly wrapped around the golden ornamented handle of the cane he held.

Elmer saw nothing but resplendency, and his voice caught in his gullet.

“Well?” The man put in again, his tone well refined as he was.

“Yes.” Elmer cleared his throat. “I-I’m looking for exit-area six. Do you know where that is, sir?” Elmer scratched the back of his leg with the tip of his brown boots. Too much standing and walking about had made them itchy.

The man turned around, his stoic face covered with tender wrinkles, leading Elmer’s gaze.

“There.” He pointed to a massive two-legged wooden board, which stood ways away from them in the midst of a cluster of people. “That is an information board, you will find a map to your exit-area.” The man turned back to him.

“Oh!” Elmer’s mouth widened. “Thank you, sir.”

“Who is that?” the man questioned as Elmer was about to hurry off, seemingly curious about Mabel who was sprawled over his shoulders.

“My sister,” Elmer answered with a mild smile.

“Does she have a problem?” The man tilted his head slightly, and Elmer’s smile turned grim as his eyebrows furrowed in response.

Why was it always that question, every single person? There was nothing wrong with her. There was nothing wrong with his sister. She was just…

Elmer shook his head sullenly as he gave a reply, “No. She’s just asleep.” His nose instinctively twitched twice.

“Asleep?” The man fell into something of an incredulous wonder. “With her eyes open?”

Elmer took his eyes to look at Mabel’s pale face where it rested atop his shoulder. “That’s how she sleeps. That’s how she’s been sleeping for a while.” His voice had become so low that it was almost a whisper. Then he turned back to the man, who still watched him with gray eyes narrowed in curiosity. “Thank you for your help, sir. I’ll be off now.”

“Do just that.” The man tapped his forefinger three times on his cane’s handle, and with that Elmer was off.

…

“Blimey bugger!” Elmer exclaimed as he laid his eyes on the station’s map posted on the information board. “What’s with these twists and turns?!”

They all looked like snakes to him, the roads on the map, each coiling about one another in an attempt to confuse any living being that laid their eyes upon them. They did not fail to confuse him.

He knew nothing about maps, seeing as he only had the most basic of education the countryside had had to offer to an orphan. He could read and write words though, and he was good at math, but no one had mentioned to him that he’d one day have to read a map.

Elmer calmed himself with a sigh. There was no use putting his head through any more stress. All he had to do was find the exit-area on the map and trace the path. Easy peasy.

It took him less than five seconds to find exit-area six on the map, but it took him more than a minute to trace the path. The coils kept twisting him around, spinning his eyes and brain, but now he had finally gotten it. He was the one that had emerged victorious, not the map.

After a good while of walking ways down the station’s platform, Elmer spoke to himself.

“If I took the path correctly,” he whispered, “then exit-area six should be right after I see…” then he caught sight of it, “four!”

To solidify the feeling of triumph that had snuck upon him, he glanced further ahead of exit-area four and fed his eyes on an overhead board that had the number six on it.

Elmer grinned and picked up his pace as he hurried to make his way out of the station through the exit-area’s tunnel. He had survived the pickpockets. One victory out of many to come, if he was allowed to say so.

…

The light of day had never shined brighter for Elmer. The sun cast its light all over the buildings that surrounded the area, pouring its golden glow on the ornately detailed, towering spires of the larger buildings. But it did not discriminate against the lower two to three storey buildings which were designed asymmetrically with steep, gabled roofs.

They were nothing like the cottages at Meadbray, and even though they were all closely packed together, they still shared a formal ambience of organization and structure. The sight filled Elmer with amazement.

Only the orphanage itself seemed to have a bit of a similar look to the houses of this city, but even then—if it was here—it would feel out of place in the midst of the myriad structures that graced this street.

If there was anything that would make him feel even a little bit of disappointment, it was that he could find no meadows.

He loved the feel of the brush of green beneath his legs when he walked, and underneath his back when he laid on them, but he had expected as much when he had left the countryside. This was a city and it was meant to look like one.

The street was crowded with people and small water-puddles alike, but the folks were not packed together as dense as the train-station had been.

They were spread out more here in the wideness of the street, and it seemed like he did not have to worry about the pickpockets any longer, as he could see quite a number of officials dressed in black swallowtail coats with high-collars, parading with their thick baton in hand.

Elmer exhaled deeply and looked around. Now that he had no worries about losing his waist-bag, all that was left was searching for the so-called connecting transportations the staff-attendant had promised him, and in less than a second, he saw them.

They were not what he had expected, or at least he had never thought he would see them so soon. A wide smile quickly allowed itself to spread across his cheeks as he turned his eyes to Mabel happily. “Do you see that?” he said. “Those are steam cars.”