I awoke with a start as a sudden bump removed any drowsiness in my mind. As I looked around I saw three other people in a train carriage?
"What's going on?" I thought. "Ok calm down, let’s think about what can I remember first… Well, Wraith rat! I can't remember anything!" My thoughts start to race.
As I tried to remember, my thoughts become foggy and I started to get a headache, stopping me for a moment. And then I started looking at the others in the compartment with me.
The person next to me was a young man who looked to be around 18 or 19. He had light brown, well kept hair and was wearing fine quality, dark brown clothing with lines of sliver patterns on the cuffs. He was quite pale, not so much sickly but more as if he doesn't go outside often. He also had yellow eyes that made you think of gold. "Well off, middle class probably. Wait why do I know his eye colour when I can't even see them?" I whisper to myself, realizing his eyes were still closed.
Next was a woman who had dark crimson hair, almost the colour of blood. She looked to be a similar age as the brown clothed young man. Her hair fell down to her shoulders and in what looked like a braid in the back. She had well-tanned skin, which made me think she must have come from somewhere in Rugla. She was wearing an ocean blue trench coat that reminded me of the deep ocean, with light tan sleeves. Her shirt and pants were the same colour as her sleeves, and she wore rich, dark brown shoes. "Ok, noble maybe? Comes from Rugla probably, and has a shade dagger." I looked again but didn’t see any sign of a shade dagger, never mind a dagger of any sort. Why did I think that? Did I know her well enough to realise she carried a dagger?
The last person was around the same age as the others, by the looks of it. He had short spiky pale blue hair, with a silver band around his head. His skin was alabaster but had three inky black eye tattoos on the left side of his face. They almost looked like they were watching everyone. His clothes were ashen white robes with silver patterns that looked like some type of language, Eddan maybe? He also had a black necklace that was shaped like an eye with a ruby in the middle which I believed was a symbol of one of the gods. "Alright, he must be part of the coalition churches or at else a devout follower of the gods, as well as having a divine blessing." I thought to myself before realizing that once again, I had no way of knowing that!
But before I could do anything else, the speaker turned on with a static hiss. "All passengers please wake up if you haven't already and make your way to the common room area." The voice was a bit hard to understand due to the static that the speaker made. And the voice sounded almost happy, chipper?
But the voice got what it wanted as it did wake up the other three with a start. As the speaker turned off, I could hear movement in the compartment behind us. I brought my attention back to the room to see three just as confused faces looking at me. As I looked at them, I noted that the young lady had red eyes like rubies. The young man in the brown clothes had yellow eyes but they lack that golden glint I had predicted and finally, ash robes had no eyes but only black orbs like globes of obsidian. He must be an Ethereal, I thought.
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"What's going on?" a smooth, regal voice says. As I looked up, it came from the redhead.
She gave all of us a stern look, her forehead creasing in annoyance. "Well? Are you all mute or just slow?" she demanded, still giving all of us that annoyed look. Am I the only one who lost my memory, or does she just not care about that? I wondered fleetingly.
"Well, my lady, that would be the dragon's eye question, wouldn't it?" This coming from the brown-clothed young man in a rich silvery voice. He then glanced my way and gave me a questioning look.
He's perceptive too, or I'm overthinking things, I thought as I looked back at him. "I'm in the same boat as all of you, if you like it or not," I reply, shaking my head and giving the Ethereal the same look I received from brown clothes.
He gives a slow, gentle shake of his head but didn’t say anything. Interesting, wonder why he stays quiet? I thought to myself. There was a moment’s silence before brown clothes clapped his hands and stood.
"Well we could go to this 'common room' and hope there are some answers there," he suggested as he nods his head towards the door.
As he speaks, the red hair moves straight to the door and opens it. "Come on then, let's go." She looks back at us, as she walked through the door.
Brown-clothes just shrugged and followed after her. I looked at the Ethereal with a raised eyebrow. He only smiled and gestured to the door for me to go first.
As I entered the hallway, I noticed that the carriage was much wider than I would expect for a train. It's about 5 meters wide, so just how big is this train? The walls were made out of some type of dark wood - dark oak maybe? Well, that doesn't matter, I told myself as we walked. The floors had a deep red carpet, with golden trim on the sides. There were multiple doors that I could see, but they had some type of shadowy veil covering them. As I looked up, I saw an eerie, shadowy green glowing sign hanging from the roof that said "common room" and was pointing to the rear of the train. There are more signs, but they lack the same eerie glow, making them hard to read.
As we made our way to the common room, we started hearing loud shouting. "TO THE DEEP ABYSS, WHY DO NONE OF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON!" The voice was booming and gruff, coming from the door at the end of the hallway.
As we made our way in, I saw the person behind the loud voice. It was a giant of a man, wearing what looked to be a military uniform. It had different shades of white in a camo type of pattern. The clothes seemed to be made out of some type of heavy cloth. He had bone-white hair with baby-blue eyes and skin so pale it looked like snow.
And it appeared that his fury was directed at a thin black man wearing a waistcoat that appeared to be made of scarlet leather. His brawny arms had finely developed muscles and had electric-blue tribal tattoos. He had long black hair pulled back into a tail, tied with the same scarlet leather as the waistcoat, and piercing amber-yellow eyes. Sharp facial features made it all the easier to see his displeasure with the pale man.
But before anyone else in the room could do anything, the lights flickered and in the middle stood a towering, slender man. He was wearing a conductors uniform that was green but a shade so dark, it almost looked black and its face was completely covered by shadows. The thing gave off an unnatural feel to the air as the light gained a slight green tint.