CxB
Stories
6
Chapters
85
Words
116.8 K
Comments
0
Reading
9 h, 43 m
-
The cutting became steadily more narrow after the little station, changing from a flattened path on the side of a hill to a narrow track obviously carved right out of the rock of the valley wall, looking barely wide enough for a train carriage.“The views are spectacular, at least?” Bug suggested as they walked along.Cy took a short break from walking ahead to peer over the edge.“I’ve never looked down on the top of a tree before.” He commented, then carefully stepped back to the middle of the…-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
As they continued up the valley, the path outside of the tracks became steadily narrower as the valley walls got closer and steeper. Lower down, any plants growing on the bank of the cutting had been far enough away not to be an issue, but now the bank was much closer, so whoever was pushing on that side would occasionally get hit by the branches as they rolled by.“Honestly, I wish they’d grown out a little more.” Said Cy.Bug, who was pushing alongside him and who had just extricated some twigs from…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
The trio stood there staring at the junction for a while.“Aside from the flying tracks, this is what I expected.” Commented Luce. “Rails, the lever thingy that operates the switching mechanism to go back and forth …”“A bunch of plants …” Bug contributed.“Probably a bunch of rust and dirt in that lever thing …” Continued Luce.They all grimaced, imagining trying to lift the railcart around another stuck junction, but without any help.“Floating tracks aren’t a thing, right?” Cy…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
The trio walked up the tracks towards the traffic light, Luce taking the opportunity to kick away anything blocking the track as she moved along. The light was bigger and more blocky than the ones in the village, looking more like a metal box on a pole than a collection of lamps, but the purpose seemed clear.“Only two lights?” Asked Cy. “Don’t the village ones have three?”“The village lights also have no glass, and birds nesting in them.” Bug pointed out. “This one at least has red and…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
Unexpectedly, the trio slept well.Initially, they’d been worried about whether to set a watch, or hide, or do something more sneaky than roll out blankets on the same station waiting room benches they’d slept on two nights ago, but tiredness and a sense of familiarity prevailed. Besides, as Bug had pointed out, there was no sign that anyone other than them had been here recently, and if there were any more wanderers out there heading down the valley, they would have surely seen them by now. They…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
In the morning, as they were packing up, Lumpy came up to their railcart with three small bundles. He still looked grey and exhausted, and still had bouts of nausea and vomiting, but despite seeming to be in worse shape than the rest of the villagers or the Wanderer, he was still able to move around, slowly helping where he could.“You may find these useful.” He said, handing over three large knives, one to each of the children. “There’s some survival stuff hidden in the handle; Keep them on you,…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
The scene in the morning was somehow the same as last night, but also very different.Sleeping figures still covered the platform and filled the workshop, but now everyone was covered with sheets or blankets, and instead of lying there unmoving and unresponsive, there were occasional twitches and mumbles, like someone having a bad dream. Outside the station, impromptu clotheslines crisscrossed the road, draped with familiar looking items.“Is that everyone’s clothes?” Cy wondered, looking out through…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
“Lumpy?” Cy asked, looking out over the sea of sleeping forms on the platform. “Why is everyone still unconscious?”He gestured to the forest of bags and tubes hanging from the rafters.“Are we keeping them this way?” Lumpy responded. “No, not entirely; Not by ourselves, anyway.”Lumpy was sitting on a folding chair by the platform edge with a bucket beside him in case of another bout of vomiting. He’d claimed that he wasn’t sick enough to be an invalid, though Cy privately thought it was…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
This is one of the earliest parts of the story in terms of writing, but happens at around the mid-point of the narrative.To be honest, that approach has turned out to be a huge pain in the arse, and is something I'm going to try to avoid in future, because not only will it need editing along with everything else, it'll also need editing just to get integrated with everything else.I'm putting it in here because this is sort of where it belongs, and so that I can continue to post the parts which come after…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
This is one of the earliest parts of the story in terms of writing, but happens at around the mid-point of the narrative.To be honest, that approach has turned out to be a huge pain in the arse, and is something I'm going to try to avoid in future, because not only will it need editing along with everything else, it'll also need editing just to get integrated with everything else.I'm putting it in here because this is sort of where it belongs, and so that I can continue to post the parts which come after…
-
27.4 K • Ongoing
-
- 1 2 … 9 Next
