John

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Aaaand posted. Sorry for the slowness, ugh.

Anyway, Librarian is there. Have fun with your new companion, Gabe.

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Meanwhile | Key Shop | The Librarian

“Bishop F one to...um...”

There was no time to measure time reliably while waiting in the Key shop.

He didn’t see the necessity to, anyways. He had plenty of things to think about after each trip into the city, and his handful of pastimes in case he ever wanted to rest a bit. He had learnt to enjoy the silence and darkness of his stay on the shelves as much as the madness brought by Cell City and the human realm. He enjoyed as well the conversations that nearby keys brought up in the shop, when there happened to be any. There weren’t any this time around.

“...D3? What on earth.”

Playing chess with oneself got boring pretty fast. In his more recent days, however, The Librarian found a way to add back the element of surprise originally unexpected moves from the opponent. Coming up with algorithms wasn’t easy, though, neither was keeping them in memory - even more difficult, of course, was trying to determine the fault when according calculations returned moves that were leagues out of the range of regular stupid.

He sighed. This game isn’t making sense anymore and he decided he might as well cut it short and start another one. And at about the same time as he made the decision, the system that informed him that it was also the only decision he could make at that time anyway.

Not all keys noticed the low humming sound before a signal broadcast of this sort. The Librarian himself only also realized it in around the eightieth year of his existence. It wasn’t that often that these messages came his way, for each of his stays in both the shop and in the city were typically rather lengthy. Nevertheless, he eventually came to learn the meaning of this perhaps unintentional phenomenon of his world, and the smile emerged on his face before the information was officially presented:



Moments Later | Gabe’s Apartment



L o a d i n g . . .



Snap.

An iPhone.

The Librarian spent a moment getting familiar with this environment. It wasn’t that often he got to visit one of these - he heard that the nature of this particular human software provider caused some difficulty for messages from the Key Shop to be sent to it in the first place. Still, it seemed to enjoy widespread use amongst humans. The general design of it, though, haven’t seemed to change much since the last time he’d seen one of these.

And they told him that modern phone screens have become much more spacious a living space.

It was raining outside. The Librarian liked rain. He enjoyed the ambient ticking sounds of raindrops making impact on various surfaces, he enjoyed the misty, peaceful, almost mystic atmosphere it provided. The humans said the smell of rain was equally loveable - a phone, unfortunately, lacked smell receptors. But still he liked the rain, Earth’s rain - consistently and predictably the clear droplets of liquid, unlike the madness that was weather in Cell City. Some from his realm called it boring and nonsensical, yet he saw no reason to be against it.

The room wasn’t especially luxurious either. A plain interior, not overly spacious and not overly decorated. A closet, a desk, beds. Wooden floor, balcony. An apartment, perhaps? 6AM and the human seemed to have left his bed, while who the key will assume to be his owner’s roommate was still sound asleep in his.

Taken his time evaluating the surroundings and having finished doing that without interruption, the Librarian decided it was about time to meet his new owner.

“Ahem.”

The key spoke into the room through the speakers of the phone. His first utterance, though, failed to catch the attention of the young man. Maybe he wasn’t loud enough. Or maybe the human mistook the voice to be that of his still-asleep roommate waking up.

Either way. The key smiled - in fact, laughed a bit internally to himself - before cranking the phone’s speakers to as much volume he could hit without clipping, inhaled, and spoke in a loud, bright voice into the morning air:

”Knock knock. Anyone home? Fantastic!”

He clapped his hands together and went on, even though a response from the other party had yet to be uttered; and put up the best smile he could manage:

”...The Librarian, at your service! - um."

A pause.

"I...won't mind if you go put some clothes on before I go on.”

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Posted.

Reminder regarding the content of the post that most of the people in the group probably never heard Leila speak much, and most certainly not her singing voice. So just imagine a faint, breathy voice you don't recognize humming the song the lot happened to just be singing and making jokes about. While you all walk in a dark, wicked forest with potentially moving trees. And while vigilance is focused outwards and into the woods, the voice comes from inside the group.

Weh.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

“...eh?”

Confused, Leila took several steps back as masses of billowing clouds accumulated around her as the dragon exhaled. The puffy chunks of white encircled the area she was standing in, temporarily blocking her sight. Instinctively, she waved her hands around in hope of spreading the clouds away and clearing her sight, while she stumbled backwards in the same attempt only to realize immediately that the stumble was a great mistake. Reminded by the feel in her right foot the moment it came into contact with the ground, she closed her eyes and held her breath and expected the wrenching pain that was bound to be shooting up from the ankle -

- yet nothing happened. Her foot supported her weight just fine. More than fine, actually. Instead, at the moment she felt very comfortable - calm, relaxed, and relieved of the crippling pain that once occupied most of her body. She inhaled and did not feel the ache in her ribs that had been present ever since the battle back in the caves. In those few seconds the many injuries sustained over this journey seemed to not be there anymore.

The clouds around her dissipated, leaving her standing there, still not fully comprehending what just happened. She looked down at her body and her hands - the clothing was still ragged and dirty, yet her body felt much better. The damp bloods of blood on her clothes remained, but they no longer felt like they stuck to the damaged tissue underneath it. The various cuts and bruises on her skin seem to have simply … vanished.

As if she wasn’t used to being in this state just yet, Leila let out a couple of coughs, and it looked like a few tiny puffs of dragon breath were propelled into the air.

“Ha, unlike those who reside in Nowhere, humans do not fully...”

She looked up to see the dragons, and turned around to look at her fellow lost souls. They, too, seemed to have experienced the healing effects of this cloud the dragons exhaled. Most notably Inadi’s arm, which Leila remembered being hurt severely earlier and - she’d admit - was a bit worried about.

Leila did not resist the urge to hop up and down slightly, landing on her once injured toes and heels, just for the weird, sort of ironic devilment of it.

The pair of dragons seemed to be rather content with this scene. The other one, seemingly not as much. The tension in this scene did seem to have lessened considerably though. Ace even came forward and joined her there, patting the nose of another dragon.

And then, as if she suddenly remembered something, Leila stopped in her bouncing acts and looked at the dragons again. She decided that the dragons probably didn’t like having to bend the necks down to the ground to talk with humans, and so this time, when she spoke, she took advantage of the fact that the loudest she could manage to usher was restricted no longer by that now-gone injury in the chest.

”...thank you!”

* * * *

So Vince is gone.

Vince’s funeral wasn’t the first one Leila attended, and certainly not the first one of a person that she didn’t know well.

It felt a bit different from the other ones though. She didn’t know why. She eventually settled on attributing that to its being held in a realm different than the one she was familiar with, although she knew that it was not the correct reason.

She almost hoped she got to know this person better before he went away.

* * * *

Angry trees.

Leila stayed quiet for most of the first part of their trip into Nowhere’s dark side. It wasn’t the normal calm, composed silence that was often seen from her, however; as her brows remained furrowed most of the time. The dark was never something she enjoyed, while this realm seemed to be themed around it. Her eyes eventually got accustomed to the low levels of signals in form of light, but being aware of everything happening in an environment like this proved to not be much better than having no clue whatsoever.

They kept the amulets the queen lent them. Leila still wore hers around her neck, dangling inside her renewed outfit she obtained from her later stay in Sol. The green glow probably was actually much fainter than it seemed, taking into account the increased sensitivity towards light her eyes were now tuned to. She pondered whether it would be a good thing if the light had been actually bright enough to illuminate the surroundings and not just the little area on her shirt. An illumination green in hue applied to this scene would probably have done the opposite of making it less unsettling, though.

Is that tree moving? What is in the leaves? What is that faint light in the distance? Are those falling leaves, and if so, why are they falling upwards? Sometimes she thought she’d seen wrong, sometimes it turns out to just be their shadows. Other times there really was no explanation for what was happening.

Her awareness was cranked to high levels as she took caution in every step she took, to the point of nearly not placing her foot anywhere not previously visited by the steps of someone else in front in their group. The guides were leading their path, although even they didn’t seem absolutely certain where they were headed. Had they a destination? Or were they just exploring aimlessly? Were they exploring but instead with the intention of finding something? Were they going in a straight line - everything in this forest looks so alike - or were they just walking around in circles?

The group paused to inspect a particular scene. Leila was almost certain when she agreed that it was one that they had once encountered - she would have been completely certain, if not that demanded her explain how that one tree somehow had materialized in a previously empty space within this time.

A straight line was just a circle of infinite radius, after all.

Leila mind would have wandered off to think about inversive geometry if it had been another day. Yet now, in this bizarre forest of crooked woods and twisted creatures, fear overrode the temptation of distraction.

Leila followed Jasper, Haku, and Inadi; staying near the centre of the group, where she felt more safe.

Some of the other lost souls were also conversing with one another. Most notably, the suggestion of “sacrificing” one of them in the case of danger, and who that sacrifice ought to be. Leila wasn’t sure what to feel about it, if anything - and she also couldn’t decide whether that by the fact that she would indeed prefer someone else to die instead of herself, she actually was agreeing with that notion.

Thoughts about Vince emerged and Leila decided she didn’t want to think about that anymore.

The sounds of conversation covered off most of what would have otherwise be heard from the distance depths of the forest, and Leila found it to be at least better than having to guess what the other sounds were. For a moment, though, the talking stopped, and things fell eerily silent. Refusing to change the state of ignorance towards whatever fearsome implications the environment might bring, Leila made her own attempts at covering out those signals - with the only thing she happened to be capable of coming up at the moment: incidentally: Ace’s “This is Halloween”.

Curious how Leila actually found that song to be somewhat familiar, although not remembering where exactly she heard it before. Perhaps it was sung in a way too different to bring up exact memories. Perhaps she had not heard of the song at all. She decided anyways that it sounded nice.

She started humming, in a faint voice just loud enough to distract herself and hopefully not anything else possibly lurking nearby, the tune to the song.

She didn’t know the lyrics, though.

na na na na na, na na na...

6 AM . . . Yesterday

Great to see you back, phones.

And loving the tone set by the IC posts so far. This is such an amusing cast. I look forward to the posts to come.

I should start work on my for for Lib soon enough so that Gabe can react, although it may or may not only be thrown up along with Julia's next depending on how soon Que(the key)'s post happens.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

In the wake of the battle just ended, Leila lay against the ground; her eyes half shut and body still except the slow rising and falling of her chest as she breathed, which was the only, barely noticeable, signal that she was still alive.

The scene she last remembered as an intertwined chaos of screams and cries seems to have long degenerated into a much more stable state. The sound of conversation and the occasional groans from the injured echoed only in the background, at a distance. Flames survived in small batches on the scorched land, but were withering. The once rampaging dragons -

- dragons.

At the thought of that her eyes widened and her upper body jolted up in a way that would remind one of the schoolgirl who woke up late to realize she forgot to set the alarm last night. Jolted up was, of course, jolted up as far as possible before the injury in her waist forced the muscles to give up and brought her back down, grunting in pain.

So that was what knocked her out, she thought, in her struggle to piece together the recent events that she could not remember.

She turned her head to the left, away from the scorching sun that pained her eyes. Behind the few batches of taller grass that obscured the range of her sight, she noticed the figure of the recently crowned Ice King, collapsed not far away and only just sitting up. There was no-one she knew on her right.

Ushering all of her strength she managed to lift herself off the ground, but only to have to stop in a crouching position on her ground. She was still dizzy. A few “hic”s escaped her throat as she felt like throwing up several times. She never did vomit, but the intense discomfort from contracting the already strained muscles was enough to endure.

In the middle of that she noticed an arm extended her way at the edge of her range of sight. She turned around to see it was Haku, who seemed to have been much quicker to recover. His mage’s robes, once a bright white that echoed the colour of the element he controlled, was now worn and torn in places and covered in specks of dirt and dust, much like her own clothes. He might or might not have said something to her, which she did not hear. She took the hand.

Assisted by the boy beside her, with half of her weight supported by an arm wrapped around him, the two of them walked together, in staggering (and seemingly-not-as-staggering, in Haku's case) steps towards the rest of the Lost Souls.

* * * *

The Lost souls were regrouped on the hillside. Everyone seemed to be there.

Leila looked upwards to see the mighty creatures standing in front of them. The sun - a bright light of the afternoon that seemed to never have left the sky since their arrival in Sol - showered rays from above, forcing her to narrow her eyes to see (she was perhaps too tired to bring up her hand) the silhouettes of the dragons. Three of them, standing tall - at least as tall as three story buildings, she gauged. How creatures of such a caliber could even function escaped her mind. A body structure that could hold up with that weight. A circulation system powerful enough to maintain it. And the dragons even flew! Muscles strong enough to propel those wings. And they did it elegantly. A sensory system powerful enough to control their movements with such intricacy...

The dragons also spoke. She was even more amazed by that fact.

One of the dragons shifted its stance, expanding and flapping its wings to provide a cushion for its landing. Leila only watched in awe as the winds that escaped the flapping wings swept across her face.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" She said, as her footsteps slowed down and stopped at the end of their little trip to rejoin the lot of humans, near Harper and Just besides the rock Inadi had made his seat.

The dragons stood aside one another. Leila found herself imagining the dragons as a family of sorts. She smiled. She actually enjoyed that thought - A family of glorious beasts. Guardians of a treasure, or something along those lines. That was a wild idea, of course, and she didn't spend much time entertaining it - and yet she enjoyed the thought.

Funny how she also almost thought one of those dragons almost looked like the little floofy one they met back at the caves.

She kept gazing up with intense interest throughout as most of the conversation happened between the other Lost Souls and the dragons. Amulets, dragons, witches, conspiracies. She didn't really understand what was happening. She didn’t know how the battle ended and how the dragons suddenly calmed down. She might have been able to piece back a few things from the traces in the conversation, though she was too distracted to listen anyway. But, somehow, for once, she was completely comfortable with not knowing. Perhaps she was just a bit too tired to think about it all, too tired to try to comprehend it. Yet the scene alone sufficed in making her feel glad. Neither was that a thing she could explain, but she was happy with that too.

Leila found the scene to be...calm, in a way. The sun was scorching, the smell of charcoal still filled the air, the heat was still unbearable - but everything seemed so peaceful. The battle ended. They were safe. For once in this journey in this realm of madness, she felt like everything was going to be okay.

Then she looked back at the dragons, in the same admiration as she did earlier. Only then did she notice that it was not only the humans who were worn out by the battle. The dragons, as mighty as they were, could also be seen with apparent signs of physical distress: scales worn and cracked, scrapes on the surface of their tough, study skin. The one that was seen with the magical trinket dangling from its neck (-so they did it after all-) seemed to be particularly upset. Reptilian faces don’t convey expressions all that well, but the stress the creature was experiencing was well evident. The dragon was fierce and had been growling angrily most of this time, yet each display of anger came also with anxiousness and despair, almost like that of a frustrated child; and he never did quite calm down completely despite the efforts of his companion. The large, feathered dragon besides him was not as beat-up as the other, yet worry masked her face as she asked the lost souls about their son.

Leila felt that bit sad about this.

She thought that maybe she should do something. Yet she did not know the answers to their questions - the whereabouts of the little fluffy dragon remained unknown to her.

Leila looked around a bit. Their discussions seemed to have come to a pause for the moment and some of the lost souls were having conversations of their own now. Slowly, Leila slid her arm away from Haku, shifting her weight back onto her legs as she took slow steps, tentative and small at first, forwards.

Since the dragons understood their speak…

Leila looked up again at the dragons as she stopped, a number of steps closer to them, with her feet barely managing to keep her standing. The faces of the dragons were close to each other and near the ground.

I’m sure your child is fine. She wasn’t sure if she thought that or said it out loud. She intended to say it, yet even if she did the loudest she could manage under this state was probably barely a dragon’s whisper and she doubted they would hear it. But she was almost certain that they would understand.

Leila tiptoed a bit so that her arms could reach high enough - it hurt, but she didn’t seem too bothered by that at the moment.

She proceeded to try to hug the dragon on the snout.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

A little heads up: I heard from Fox that the chapter ends tonight and said I was going to get a post up. Unfortunately, though, I have - as my schedules decree - a class to attend tonight that will last for three hours, and I will only return by 9:30PM (GMT+8) and be able to post then. The post is still happening, although it will be a bit later than my regular posting times. I'm sorry if this causes any confusion - and apologies in advance for any inconvenience this might cause.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

First of all, Phones, sad to see you go.

And in reply to the discussion.

Apologies.

There's pretty much no other way I will be able to put this. I pretty much messed up, and I'm sorry.

Apologies for constantly being that one person who's lagging behind, despite constantly being reminded and promising that I'll get more active "when things clear up" - an event which took me a while to realize that was just about never going to happen even though I keep looking forward to it. I was informed of the three day rule when I joined and I knew the best I could usher would be 2 posts per week and frankly I ended up not even keeping up to that standard.

Apologies for the lack of action in posts. I had become aware of this issue as well, although I didn't truly realize how troublesome it is until recently. Most importantly how I missed out of almost the entirety of the end scene with the dragons, into which I only threw in a catchup post and a reaction at a plan, and then proceeded to miss a cycle and ended up completely loosing track of what was happening. In a way this lack of action is directly related to the inconsistency in posting, which is my biggest problem. It could've been better than this - Fox mentioned the fight sequences back at the caves. It happened when exams were just over and I was enthusiastic and those posts were something I was satisfied with - that sequence was something I had an insane amount of fun with. I also proved that it wasn't really life that was hindering my progress, not as much as my own procrastination and my own being distracted. That feeling in the cave posts was something that I wished could be pulled off again at this end of a chapter. I failed.

Apologies for the lack of character development. This, by far, hurts the most out of all the things I read and write and think at this moment. I designed Leila to be distant from everyone else at first with the very explicit intention of changing that later on. I'm the most aware that "character" is no excuse here. I wrote a character that was nothing unless development happens and then I did nothing with it. I have no idea why. I don't know why I was hesitant. I'm sorry.

I remember seeing the interest check on this roleplay over at the old guild and it was a gorgeous idea. I thought I could push myself just that bit so that both the quality and quantity of my writing would meet the standards so that I could be part of this. I fell pretty pathetically short of both goals.

I'm very, very sorry about this.

I also have to say thank you, all of you, so much for calling me out on this nonsense. I feel absolutely guilty about the fact that I've been under-performing for so long - even I was aware of it myself - and it was put up with. I allowed it to continue and you had to tolerate it. I'm glad that things were finally pointed out.

Regrets out of the way, I guess it's about time I started fixing things up. Adjustments will be made accordingly. Attempts to correct what I did wrong will be carried out. Character interaction will start out slow, but I will ensure it happens. Same with the development I wanted to do for so long. I admit that I probably still won't be able to be one of the first people to post every cycle, and I probably will still miss out on a cycle once in a while when things in real life get into the way, but that will be kept at minimum and reports in the OOC are sure to be filed when necessary.

As indecent as everything I do has been so far, I dare to say here that I wish to stay. I've been slow, I've been confused, I've lost motivation at more than one point; I've caused all this trouble. But in the end I still want to be a part of this. And so I wish to stay, because you are all amazing people and this is an amazing place and I will probably never get over it if this goes away without me trying my best.

The Train has been a pleasant journey so far. And I intend that this journey continue.

6 AM . . . Yesterday

22nd June, 2014 | 05:50 AM | Julia Castor

Beep beep beep.

...Ugh.

There are a certain kind of people who simply wake up in the morning. At the sound of an alarm, the cry of a rooster, or whatever signature that told them it’s morning already. Sometimes the circadian clock itself suffices. Those people open their eyes, sit up and get off their beds without the slightest bit of hesitation, and go straight to being completely awake - out of sleep, and right into the day. They carry on to whatever tasks they have scheduled, with a perfectly clear mind, efficient, precise and reliable.

Julia Castor absolutely envied those people.

A hand extended out from below the blanket and upwards towards the desk that was situated near it. The fingers only managed to tap against the edge on the first try.

Beep beep beep.

The second time a more extended arm allowed the whole palm to land within the area of the desk’s surface. The smartphone, however, spinned a couple of times as the fingers hit its edges, and now lay once again out of reach on the desk.

….Hhhhhh…

Thud.

With a muffled collision, back against the ground, legs still stuck on the bed, and her torso along with a very messy blanket sheet lying twisted in between, the girl grunted and finally concluded that attempting to turn off the alarm is consuming too much effort to actually be worth it anymore.

Recovering from a position like this was always kind of hard. Pulling the whole body back up by the legs was impossible. Grabbing the edge of the bed or something around it and pulling the upper body back onto the bed was possible, but there was the risk of accidentally grabbing onto the mattress instead and pulling the whole thing down onto the ground along with herself instead. She could bring her upper body up with force from the waist but the the pose will be very awkward and uncomfortable and she was unsure what that was supposed to achieve.

Julia sighed and decided to just roll completely off the bed along with the blanket and get out of that mess afterwards.

With a great yawn she stood up on the wooden planks that composed the floor of the second floor apartment. The blanket unravelled and fell to the ground. Her fingertips felt like they came close to touching the ceiling as she stretched.

Beep beep beep.

Alright, alright, alright! I’m waking up.

She picked up the phone and tossed the blankets back onto her bed with her other hand as she did so, and at the same time pressing against the power button to bring up the screen with her right thumb. Also just then she noticed that her desk was to the left of her bed. What was she even doing trying to reach over and grab the phone with her right hand? No wonder she ended up tumbling off the bed. Oh well, it didn’t matter now. She’s awake already.

22nd June. Sunday. She didn’t have class and her shift that day didn’t start until afternoon. 05:50, the clock showed.

What on earth was she supposed to be doing awake at five fifty in the morning?

She wandered pointlessly around the little space her living quarters had to offer as she flipped the phone around between her fingers.

It was raining outside.

Julia looked out through the window. A moderate amount of rain more than a drizzle but not enough to be called heavy. There was also fog. Julia stared blankly at the window pane for a few seconds, watching raindrops collide with it once in a while, and droplets forming on the surface before gathering enough weight to start sliding down. There was silence except for the sound of the falling rain. She decided the scene had a nice atmosphere to it. She considered opening the window to let the rain come in a bit - paper on her desk, possibly not a good idea. But still the rainy day was pretty. A part of her was almost tempted to go out into the rain and get soaked on purpose. A morning shower - she internally laughed at the pun. Maybe she should go propel the pun even further. Walk out there onto the balcony. Without getting dressed. Morning shower in the -

- no. That's a ridiculous idea.

- the apartment didn't even have a balcony. What even?

Beep beep beep.

Wait, what? That wasn’t even the alarm.

Recovering from the random musings, Julia realized that. Idly flipping the cellphone right side up again, she looked at the screen.

YOU HAVE ONE(1) NEW MESSAGE.

* * * *

Julia sat on the side of her bed, phone in hand. The blankets were piled onto the corner along with her pillow - not tidily because she hasn’t given up the possibility of going back to sleep, although she knows from experience that it was not possible. She also knew from experience that she never could sleep properly with the pillow under her head, but she kept the pillow anyway.

She also went and got dressed, in the sense of pulling something out of the closet and throwing it on. In this case, the selected piece of clothing happened to be a white button-down shirt. Julia owned a number of similar shirts. She slid her arms into the sleeves - her arms and back had to be kept warm, she thought. June meant the start of summer, but with a climate like this one it also meant a higher risk of catching the cold from the temperature difference of the mornings and evenings, and having to awkwardly explain why one could be all sneezing coughing in under the summer heat.

She didn’t bother doing all of the buttons, though. Not like she’s going to need to go out soon. Besides she probably wasn’t awake enough to do them correctly even if she decided to back then.

So there she sat by the bed, legs crossed, shirt halfheartedly worn, hair kept only to the degree that just ensures no strands end up in her eyes, and finger scrolling idly the screen of her smartphone.

The interface displayed on the screen was one offered by the “Key Shop” - an app that just happened to be installed into her phone that morning.

She tried deleting it, but it refused to be removed. The system told her errors have occurred, some with error codes that she didn’t understand, which were just about as good to her as a complete lack of further information, which was the case for another number of error messages. After a while of trying all the things the user-friendly software design had to offer - all that Julia could find, at least - and with nothing working, she decided that she should go downstairs later and ask Bernard for help perhaps. Boy downstairs was a hardcore computer specialist, as can be known from the numerous pieces of paper packages of electronic compartments constantly piled at his doorway, and the landlord paying him equally frequent visits asking him for advice on electronics and demanding him to move the broken screens out of the hallway. He’s a nice lad, really - Julia thought. Really friendly. Questionable sense of fashion. But hey, that’s kind of cute in its own way.

“Bernard is an old man’s name” was the standing joke.

But then the phone wasn’t exactly malfunctioning. And since it still worked, Julia decided it probably wasn’t critical to go ask for help immediately. Maybe when she’s about to go to work later? Or perhaps when she came back in the evening. For now, though, she saw no harm in messing around with it some more since she’s going to get it checked later anyway.

Free keys. If this was some sort of advertisement or publicity stunt she didn’t really get it. But there are publicity stunts whose actual intention is to be incomprehensible, so that’s probably wasn’t something to really worry about.

The later pages of the Key Shop were locked. The first page, though, which she was free to browse, displayed an array of keys. Things are quite literal so far. The keys looked delicately decorated - more works of art than tools; like some of those lovely little trinkets or similar pieces of decoration people would spend time crafting.

YOU ARE ALLOWED ONE(1) ITEM

Everything in the visible catalog so far was labelled free. Curious.

That relieves the stress of the fear of accidentally clicking on something when one intended to scroll - Julia thought as she moved further down to page. Some of the designs were sharp, modern; and others equally elegant but in a more old-fashioned way. Some even had the texture, perhaps intentionally, of specks of rust, which added to the feel of the entire design. This one key with the clover keychain looked particularly pretty th-

*click*

* * * *

Ding.

Eh?

Julia’s immediately regretted turning to look at the door with such a dramatic gesture. Her neck wasn’t doing well with sudden movements after being still and supporting a head that stared at a phone screen for most of the morning.

She put the phone back onto the desk, app left open, as she stood up and yelled something at the door that signalled whoever was there to wait for a moment. Who could it possibly be? She didn’t expect a visitor this early in the morning. A bit panicky she drove her fingers to do the rest of the buttons on her shirt -

- oh snap, wrong one -

- done. Found a pair of shorts to put on, combed down with her fingers the clots of hair still poking conspicuously out into the air. She headed over and opened the door, nearly tripping over in the process.

“Yes?”

No-one was there.

Huh.

Julia shut the door again, wondering what just happened; and tossed the two books on the ground that came close to serving as a trap earlier back onto the shelves where they belonged.

...Was this parcel on the desk before?

Julia went over and inspected the package. Her full legal name, shipping information, a stamp. She loosened the strings and removed the packaging. Paper, and then a cardboard box. The cardboard box was padded, perhaps to protect the contents from impact? The content was a smaller cardboard box. This one seemed much more delicate. It was made of that kind of rough paper boards, brownish in colour. It carried a nice texture. Some words were inscribed on it, yet they belonged to a language she did not recognize. Removing the second box from its container, Julia opened it.

Inside lay a heavy, rusty metal object. The key that she saw in the key shop, along with its keychain - an emerald green trinket with a white clover pattern embedded in it. Beside the key was a little batch of cute white flowers - a great decorative addition. The flowers were beautiful too.

There was something on the back of the box’s lid though. A piece of paper, a note of sorts. Curious, Julia removed it and read:

1. Use on any door, gate or lock…

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Posted.

"image"

Leila@convection plan: if we're going to try this I had better be wrong about how this is going to work