[b][color=bc8dbf]Stormy [/color][/b]

The station was large and grim and oppressive, squeezing at all sides with slime-slicked walls, dirty floors, worn smooth from the passage of a million million footsteps, and sagging ceilings, ablaze with electric iridescence from piteously humming lights. 

Stormy squeezed the iron on her finger. Each step forward into the belly of the earth was hard, as if she was striding through treacle, her limbs growing more and more leaden, more resistant to her will. Once she was at the bottom she must have weighed a tonne and one, and life passed by in a dream-like lethargy. An unfelt sweat was beginning to bead upon her brow, and small hairs clung to her neck and nape. The whispering voices were harsh here, spitting venom and red-hot coals. Stormy’s eyebrows gathered in a tight knot. She watched herself carry on forward. Shadows danced in defiance of the lights, and deep crimson afterimages played across her vision. Brown mosses and dead leaves fought for space in cracks and crevices. Wasted grey shapes skittered in darkness. Everything here seemed ill. 

There were others gathered in the station. It made sense. Grand events didn’t happen in isolation. Some of the faces she knew; Zoe, who she waved meekly at, Will, and Tristan. Others hid their names. Yet the gazes of all were like oil slicking across her. Brimming in their eyes she saw hatred and distrust. The whispers had risen to a grand crescendo now. Her heart was pounding. Her ribcage would burst. Sweat was a river, rushing down her face. Malice-tipped words sung into her flesh, as tangible as the world around her. Knees quivered. She fell onto a bench; cold steel and chipped paint. 

And then she arrived. The world was silenced. Her presence was galvanising. Yet the whisperers teetered in crystalline hush. All but one. The voice that had been heard, even in the cacophony. The one that told her that this was where she needed to be. 

[color=708090]"Greetings…
   The train is coming, after all."[/color]

At any other time, this revelation might have spurred a degree of excitement. Now, however, it didn’t do so. Stormy had always suspected the pixies or elves to be responsible for the urban legend that had sprung up around the very tracks no more than ten feet away. The human form was somewhat… disappointing. 

Not that Stormy cared much at that time. When the others spoke, it was as though they were trapped in a far-off cave, wrapped in cotton wool. She clutched her stomach. Tears gathered in bulbous droplets at the edges of her eyes. Breaths raked their way through her teeth, desperate to get into her lungs. The world spun. Everything seemed to shrink and grow, as if reality was made of rubber. Darkness encroached at the periphery of her vision, icy fingers reaching in…

Then it all went into a blinding white light. 

There was a dim awareness that she was still in the station, or at least, seated. Her head lolled to one side as she through the floor with glassy eyes that had pinpricks for pupils.