I’m just gonna come outright and say it. This fic is starting to drag. No hate or anything, but dayum man. You got Eaters crawling through the train windows, a flaming-staff lady going full action hero, and you just run away?
I’m not saying you gotta go full paladin and smite all the evil or anything, but at least try and fight back. Do something!
10161066
Seconded. Either make some moves and throw some hands or stop wasting our time with this fanfic.
MushroomCleric
Y’all are wild. Like any of you would do better if you were in his place. Z3ke said it himself: put yourself in his place. You’re sealed in a train car while nightmare mannequins start pulling out people’s souls. What would you do? Most everyone on this forum would pee themselves and curl up in the fetal position. No doubt in my mind that y’all would be begging for your mommies.
Zeke did what 99% of us would have done in his place: run away as fast as possible.
Fogbarrel
Yea. It’s pretty clear that Zeke is trying to keep this fic somewhat grounded and realistic. He’s not making his OC into some secret prince or a literal chosen one. He’s just some dood. I kinda dig it. It makes everything feel more realistic and gives actual stakes.
A lot of fics I read, the OC goes out there and kills ten people in the first two chapters and is like “meh, I’m okay with it.” Most fic protagonists are psychos, and that’s not realistic.
BrokenKing42
Sorry, but that’s not why I read fanfics. I read them for the escapism. I want to see someone rise up and become more than they are.
Zeke doesn’t need to go full demigod overnight, but c’mon. Give us something. Maybe he finds a cursed dagger in that sack or he stumbles across a rune that hurts the Eaters. Maybe he gets a class mid-fight and pulls out some powers that helps to fend them off. I don’t care what it is, just let him do something to fight back.
SoftLocked
Okay, but how would you write it? Be honest.
You want him to rummage through his burlap sack and all those offerings and pull out the perfect legendary artifact that’s gonna make him op? Maybe he gets some knife that gives him ninja shadow magic or something?
That’s not plot. It’s a loot box. It’s lazy writing 101.
HollowHeartsClub
I’m not here for the fights. I’m here for the lore.
Zeke has made the Eaters horrifying in the best way possible. He didn’t show them to us for the longest time, and when he did he turned them into creatures that fit in the uncanny valley. Also, I wanna know what they are. What kind of magic lets you eat souls with a handshake? Are they doing some kind of necromancy? And he described them as not having a mouth…so how the hell did that creature in the woods eat the old guy’s eye?
Tell me everything.
CradleofMirth
There’s so much more about them that I wanna know too.
Also, anyone else think the Eaters didn’t just stumble across that train? They were targeting Z3ke and still chasing him, even after he thought that he lost them when he got on the train. They targeted Z3ke and everyone that got attacked was just collateral damage. So the question is: why him? What made Z3ke so special that he pissed off the Eaters so much?
Was it because they saw him running through the Deadlands, trying to escape the Glens, and they wanted to have some fun with him? Was it because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and just drew their focus and attention?
BabyBloos
Theory: he stole from them.
Those offerings that everyone made back in Harbor Glen were meant for the Eaters, and he stuffed a bunch of stuff in his little burlap sack. It’s like stealing lunch money from a bunch of demons. Of course they’re gonna chase after him.
HotLance69
What if it’s simpler than that? The Glens have the Barter Drain. Maybe it’s something like a toll system. Trade is a form of paying tribute or tithe. And if you don’t trade then something bad chases after you.
Story told him not to get involved in all the bartering and Zeke left town without offering anything to the Eaters. What if they’re like some kind of demonic repo men? Zeke skipped out on his bill and they took offense to that.
VeneratedWitchHunter
If that’s the case then it would be a pretty big plot hole in this fanfic.
Argo never traded during his quest and he never got chased by the Eaters. He never even saw them. Since Argo is the only person who ever found anything closely resembling “actual evidence” about the Eaters, then this fic needs to hew as close as possible to his walkthrough.
MushroomCleric
I think Venerated is onto something. The townsfolk do trade with the Eaters.
- No Eaters were sighted inside Harbor Glen.
- The offerings are all objects that are old and cared for -or- they are something that can be used like canned food or knives.
- That creepy poem that Zeke found in the library about paying the Eaters makes it sound like they’re collecting a protection tax.
My theory is that the entire town of Harbor Glen is giving objects to the Eaters. They’re trading memories or pieces of themselves or physical objects in a sort of protection scam. That’s why all the NPCs are weird. They’re all hollow and empty-eyed like they paid something personal. Maybe it’s memories. Maybe it’s abilities or skills.
Zeke not only didn’t pay. He took. He broke the contract and now the Eaters are chasing after him.
Shootingblnks
Maybe that’s what it is…but I think it’s simpler. I think that the Eaters just like hunting him.
Remember what Z3ke wrote? He said something about feeling murderous joy coming from the Eaters. That means that they weren’t chasing because he took something from them. They were playing with him. Everyone on that train with Zeke is food, but he is a chew toy.
Maybe he did break some of the rules of the Glens and that’s why the Eaters are chasing him. But if that was the case they’d just kill him and be done with it. I think he’s just a game for them.
NullSigil
I’ve got a spicier take: Zeke is unanchored.
If you’re a creature that is lurking out in the Deadlands, there isn’t much out there to eat. Wouldn’t you get hyped if you saw someone racing their way through your territory? It’s like a new flavor just showed up and you want to take a bite.
Zeke’s probably the only unanchored character running around out there, and to them he looks like a feast.
10161066
Kay, but then why not kill him on the train?
They touched him. They had him, but they let him go. It doesn’t track to let him run free if they wanted a delicious snack.
Binary_Arcana
Because you can’t kill your narrator only ten chapters in. Gotta build the audience and collect all that revenue. It’s basic web serial economics.
Shootingblnks
^1016 That’s why my theory about Zeke being entertainment holds up.
The Eaters didn’t care about any of the other passengers once Zeke started to slip away. The moment that the train got decoupled and Zeke started putting some distance between him and the Eaters, they flipped the switch from creepy to full apex predator chase mode. That tells us one of two things: either the Eaters were there to punish him specifically, or they were having a blast toying with him until he started to get away.
I think it was the toying thing. When he threatened to end the fun they went crazy.
7Sniper
Unfortunately none of this matters since we can’t connect any of it to the source material.
Somebody (I forgot who) pointed out that there are blurry family portraits in Argo’s Harbor Glen walkthrough. That’s the only real in-game asset that even hints towards this fanfic dealing with true lore.
Sadly, all the Syndicate’s Wake servers are offline, so we’re all just speculating into the void here. No one can test any of these theories and no one can corroborate anything that Zeke says about the Eaters.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Not. A. Fanfic.
I keep having to say this but you guys aren’t listening. This is really happening to me. I’m not writing this to entertain you all. I’m writing it because you all refuse to help me unless I treat this like it’s a piece of fiction.
I didn’t run away from the Eaters because I’m a coward. Well..okay, maybe I am. But you’d all be cowards too in my place. I ran away because I saw a woman get her soul sucked out through her body and the only thought running through my mind at that moment was fuck that.
I’m not some kind of storybook hero who has a bunch of magic and powers and skills and a class. I don’t have the tri-force. I’m not secretly OP. I don’t have the force or a symbiote or a quirk or anything else that can help me. All I could boast at the time was a steel bladder that made sure I didn’t piss myself as I ran away.
SpiralSteves
Okay. Everyone is breezing past the more interesting aspect of the story.
**THE STAFF WIELDER**
Staff mains rise up. Sound off. Assemble.
Tall woman. Didn’t speak a word. Carried a flaming staff that burned with a green flame. She obviously moved like she’d been trained and she didn’t freak out over a bunch of monsters attacking a train. So, who was she? Legacy cameo? Hidden boss-tier character who is gonna be a future mentor to Zeke once he decides to stop speedrunning death?
DataDatum
Definitely got caster vibes from her. She waltzed around without armor and had a burning staff.
But she wasn’t your typical robe-wearing, fireball-yeeting wizard. Was she channeling the fire in her staff? Yo Zeke, did you see any glowing glyphs on her staff? Because if so, she had some embedded powers and wasn’t casting. A strong magic user with a tuned conduit? I’m thinking that she was either a pyroscribe or a witchmark warden.
TeethAndGoggles
Nah. She was fighting hand-to-hand, doing sweep-kicks and slapping Eaters around. That’s firmly in staffjack territory. Melee class that fuses martial techniques with spells. Usually used in a no-magic or low-magic zone. If she was casting and tanking then she could have been a high level adventurer. Maybe an elite.
KillSwitched
You guys are all thinking way too small. If you’re gonna introduce a badass character for later parts of the story, why not make her a Runebreaker?
You know those lunatics that burn pieces of their soul to fuel glyphfire? That green flame that she was using sounds like soulbound ignition. It was only ever seen in two endgame campaign events. If that was what she was doing then she was literally burning parts of herself to hold the line.
Heroic as hell but also pretty painful.
TVEye
All very interesting, but who was the jackass that decoupled the train?
Seriously Zeke, I get that your character is all “I’m not trained,” and “I don’t have any weapons,” but you can’t let that slide. You gotta do something about that.
StoryLeech
A little bit of a lore dump for Zeke since he’s given us more of the story. I figure that you’re due for some help and that can come in the form of info on everything that you’ve just shared.
You said you never played the game so you’re probably lost with all that we’re talking about. Think of the Fracture-verse as eight different genres in a trench coat. There are fantasy towns, cyberpunk dystopias, dieselpunk empires, arcane universities, corrupted megacities, wasteland raider communes, magic-powered biotech jungles, and more. Hell, there’s a zone that runs off of dream logic and nobody can figure out what that means or what the rules are.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
That woman you wrote about fighting the Eaters could have been from any one of those places. Or…she could have been carrying gear that came from three different zones. That’s why we’re all arguing about what class she was, and why we won’t really have a good answer for that until you bring her back into the story.
SpiralStaves
^TVEye. Before we send Zeke out on a roaring rampage of revenge, could the woman have won?
If the train car hadn’t been decoupled and cut loose, does anyone here think that she could have survived an entire car filled with Eaters trying to get at her? Or did the dude who decoupled the train save everyone by dumping her. Or was he just a coward playing hero?
PaperSnakes
She was probably doomed either way.
It looked like she was stuck in a hold-the-line situation. She was playing defense and she would have gotten tired eventually. And we still don’t know exactly what the Eaters are or what they want. They aren’t ghosts. They aren’t animals or creatures that you can just hit hard and hope they back off.
They might be wraith-class anomalies. Phantom constructs. Narrative predators that can’t be defeated because the devs don’t even want them to be fought in the first place. In fact, I’m almost leaning towards that with Zeke’s description about them.
Think about that Aliens horror game where the xenomorph is stalking you around the ship and you gotta find some way around him. The moment the xenomorph sees you, it’s game over man. Game over.. You can’t stand up to an alien with acid for blood and a tiny xenomorph tongue thing that shoots out of its mouth and bites you.
What if the Eaters are supposed to be similar to that? It’s a creature that you just run from and if you get caught by them it’s automatic game over. If that’s the case, the woman was screwed the moment that the Eaters got on the train.
TVEye
Counterpoint: if she had any sort of backup - like a caster or even a halfway decent healer - she could have held them off indefinitely. We’ve seen it happen in Siege events. Tight quarters + a good frontline fighter + proper support = deadly as shit.
That train car was narrow. She could’ve locked the place down and fended off the Eaters if she wasn’t worried about getting cut off or the train separating.
GutterMage78
Yo, Zeke. Is this the coin that you used to buy your train ticket?
[IMAGE ATTACHED: a worn born disk, etched with a stylized “C”. The edges are smoothed by age and there’s a faint shimmer to the carving.]
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Yep. That’s the one.
GutterMage78
HAHAHAAHAHAAHA
MushroomCleric
Dood.
Just…
Disappointed.gif
GrognarTheGreen
Oh man. This thread is a lootbox of bad decisions and I can’t stop opening it.
Byte-sized
LMAO
That’s like trading a Black Lotus for a bus pass. What else you got in your sack of mystery garbage? You’re gonna need to post your inventory before you accidentally hand over a phoenix feather for a hotel mint.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I’ll list out what I’ve got on hand, sure. But first, what was that coin? Was giving it away a mistake?
MushroomCleric
It was a gilder. It’s pre-fall currency from the Vash Dynasty which was the empire that ruled most of the Deadlands back before the Fracture. Long story short, the Deadlands used to have trees and grasslands and a bunch of life. It wasn’t completely forested and grassy, but it was much more alive than what’s out there now.
Something happened (everyone has different theories about it) that caused the entire region to become a post-apocalyptic wasteland. When that happened, the Vash Dynasty fell. There were coups and warlords and a bunch of towns that broke away to do their own thing.
A gilder isn’t the rarest drop you can find in the Deadlands. It’s got something like a 1 in 40 chance from an elite. But it is pretty valuable if you know what you’re doing. You can use them to open up some of the sealed vaults scattered about the Deadlands. You can trade them for high-tier reagents in The MIZ or Gearford. There’s a black market antiques vendor in The MIZ that takes gilders and other pre-fall objects and sells gear that you can’t get anywhere else.
TL;DR you gave away your shot at getting a bunch of rare shit in exchange for a train ticket you could have purchased for something like ten bucks. The conductor played you. The next time you get a bunch of loot you should drop descriptions of it in the forum and let us look over everything before you go out bartering.
StoryLeech
Wait, back up. If you got on the train after leaving Harbor Glen, there’s no way it would have taken you eight days to get to The MIZ. We ran the numbers and came up with a couple days on foot to get to where you needed to go.
If you were on the train, what happened to all that missing time?
Z3ke (Original Poster)
The easy answer is that I didn’t ride the train the entire way.
The decoupled section of the train was drifting further and further away into the distance. All I could do was stand there and stare at it as the Eaters clambered all over themselves and the car receded into the distance.
I saw the woman fall. She was absorbed into the mass of Eaters. She’d been a single heroic figure holding the line against a full-on Eater swarm, protecting every single person on that train. And I left her. I didn’t even know her name. I didn’t know her story. I didn’t say thank you for how she’d saved me and pushed the Eaters off me.
The presence that had been chasing me ever since I’d crawled from the crate was fading away as the train created distance. It didn’t disappear entirely. This felt more like it was taking a break. Like it was saying “hold tight, I’ll be back to chasing you shortly. Just gotta deal with something else right now.”
By the time it faded away entirely, I’d already started crashing. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. When your brain senses danger and threats it reacts and says hey, here’s a shit ton of drugs being pumped into your body to keep you safe. And when it’s all over, you need to pay the price of that “assistance.”
My body was crashing as I limped through the train car, past rows of passengers all frozen in shock or crying or hugging loved ones. When I reached the first empty seat, I collapsed into it. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking. My knees hurt from when I’d slipped in some blood and smashed into the floor. My ribs ached from the press of bodies that I’d forced my way through. And my ankle burned from where one of the Eaters had grabbed me.
I was exhausted and all I could do was sit down and stare at my hands and shiver uncontrollably. My body was shaking like it was freezing in the train car and I began to worry that I’d done real damage to myself somehow. I tried getting my shaking under control, but it just made it worse. When I tried looking around to force my attention away from how truly messed up I was…I saw him.
The douchebag who’d decoupled the train car.
He was not too far away, sitting there looking calm. Looking like someone who’d just consigned a brave woman to her death and had no problems with it. The douchebag was massive. Broad shoulders, shaved head, square jaw. A scar ran from his left temple down his cheek and a burn patch covered part of his neck. He was wearing a blue ragged coat over a mishmash of leather and salvaged armor plates.
I wanted to go over to him and confront him. I wanted to scream at his face and tell him he was a coward. I wanted to charge at him and attack him and push him from the train. Why should he be safe and free when he got that woman killed?
Instead, I just sat in my seat and waited for the adrenaline to work its way out of my body, all while trying to catch my breath and get the worst of the shakes under control. A few moments later, with the absolute worst behind me, I saw the conductor burst into the train car.
When I’d seen him back on the platform while I was racing for the train, the guy had looked polished and professional. But now? His uniform was soaked through with sweat and his eyes twitched. It was obvious, at least to me, that he was seconds away from a nervous breakdown.
He made a beeline towards me and jabbed a trembling finger in my face.
“What the hell did you bring on my train?” he screamed as he strode up to me.
Every head in the car swiveled around to take us in. All the passengers were suddenly very interested in finding out why the conductor was so angry with some random passenger, especially after the train had come under attack from nightmarish creatures.
“I didn’t…I didn’t bring them,” I stammered. I was caught flat footed by the conductor’s shouting and was still crashing from all the adrenaline so my words came out slow and sluggish.
“Bullshit,” he snapped. “They were chasing you. You jumped on this train and they followed. You think that they would attack us for nothing? You think they’d do all that for nothing? You’ve got something they want and I demand you tell me what it is.”
I could hear the murmurs start. Low voices rising. Passengers whispering and muttering. Their eyes darted my way. Angry glares were aimed at me and everyone was looking at me like I was the monster who’d attacked the train.
The conductor leaned closer, jabbing his finger at me.
“Whatever the hell those things were, they’re hunting you. And as long as you’re on this train, that means they’re hunting us too.”
The temperature in the train car dropped. There was a chill in the air and I knew it was coming from the mob of passengers around me. The fear from the attack was slowly morphing into anger. And anger makes people do stupid and violent things.
The asshole who’d decoupled the train cars and killed the woman slowly got up from his seat. I could see, out of the corner of my eye, the asshole come closer towards us. His eyes were locked onto me and his hands were curled into fists and he leaned close to the conductor as if waiting for him to give an order. He was ready to rush in and grab me and force me from the train.
“I should throw you out right now,” the conductor said, louder now, his voice cracking with the stress of the situation. “Let’s see how long it takes them to catch up with you again. While they’re after you, we’ll be safe.”
That was the tipping point.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I’m a really good bartender. And part of being a good bartender is being able to read a crowd. You need to get a feel for it. You can take the temperature of a group; when they’re angry, when they’re happy, when a fight is about to break out or a bunch of assholes are gonna piss all over everything.
I could feel the crowd around me start leaning towards violence. They were scared and angry and hurt and looking for someone to blame. The entire situation was starting to go Lord of the Flies on me and I was being cast in the role of Piggy, seconds away from getting brained with a rock. All it would take would be a single person making a violent move towards me for the crowd to act.
I needed to say something. I needed to say anything. I needed to buy time and calm the crowd enough that I could get out of the situation. My thoughts were scattered but I forced the words out.
“I paid for passage.”
It came out quiet and pathetic, even to my ears. I was like a child begging not to be sent to their room without supper. The passengers wouldn’t care about promises. They wouldn’t care that I traded for a ticket. They’d want me off the train as soon as possible. If they needed to get the asshole to push me out the window, that would be fine by them.
But something in the conductor shifted. At the word paid, he paused and glanced over his shoulder at the passengers behind him. He saw their faces tight with anger and then he turned back to me. I could see it in his eyes. He was wary. He was nervous. He could probably read the emotions radiating from the crowd and he suddenly didn’t want to start a riot or force me from the train.
“One more stop,” he said finally, his voice going flat. “That’s all you’re getting. You’re off at the next station.”
The big man - decoupler, coward, douchebag and now clearly self-appointed executioner - looked like he wanted to argue with the conductor. I didn’t know his name so in my head I just started calling him Asshole because that was exactly what he was.
Asshole gave the conductor a long, pointed glare which was answered when the conductor shook his head. A warning against further action.
With a huff, Asshole backed off and flopped down into a nearby empty seat. Silence followed as none of the crowd looked like they wanted to start anything without the backing of Asshole doing all the dirty work. Each of the passengers just went back to their seats, silent and furious and brooding and shooting me angry glares. The conductor gave me one last glance before turning on his heel and heading back to the front of the train.
I tried sinking lower into my seat to make myself seem smaller. I’d become the lightning rod for every angry glare, every whispered accusation, every sideways look from the passengers. To them I was the reason their friends were gone. I was why the windows had been shattered and why they’d been peppered with glass and why the Eaters had poured in. I was why the train had been attacked. It didn’t matter if it was true or not. It didn’t matter what I had or hadn’t done.
I was the outsider. I was the scapegoat. I was the albatross circling their ship, bringing back luck to their journey. And they all wanted me gone.
I slumped in my seat and stared out the window and tried to avoid any incidental eye contact with the other passengers. And as the Deadlands zipped past and I continued crashing from all the adrenaline, I started to get angry.
It started small. It was a steady fire that curled in my gut and whispered to me that I’d been wronged.
I’d paid. I’d paid for my ticket on this train. I was a passenger just like any other. That thought looped through my head like a song. I paid. I paid for this seat. I gave the conductor one of those bone coins or tokens or whatever the hell it was. I followed the rules. He took payment. He doesn’t get to throw me out now.
And yet here I was, being discarded again. Being tossed off another train. Being exiled to the middle of nowhere. Again. Treated like trash. Treated like an inconvenience because all the passengers were scared and they figured if they could just boot me from the train they’d be safe.
My jaw clenched and heat started rising in my chest. I was angry at the passengers. I was angry at the conductor. I was angry at the whole damn situation.
And I was angry at the Eaters. Those little shits were hunting me. They were toying with me. They were playing with me. It was some kind of sick game to them, like a cat batting around a mouse. They herded me through the Deadlands. Pushed me to run until I was dead on my feet. I was nothing but entertainment to them.
I was angry at fake-ass Lance Reddick from the Veilstrider. He’d know that I was new to this world. He’d know that I had no clue what was going on and I was a lost babe in the woods. But he didn’t help me or give me any advice or any kind of guidance. All he did was dump me at the closest train station with a smile on his face and no warning or explanation.
And what was I supposed to do in this new world? What was I supposed to be? What was my grand role? Why had I been isekai’d to this strange and dangerous place? Bartender. That’s what I was. That’s all I would ever be. In a world filled with magic and monsters, I was supposed to pour drinks and listen to problems. It was the exact same job that I’d done back home, except now I was forced to deal with soul-eating nightmares and a world that I didn’t understand. Why not just let me stay in New York?
My anger spilled over to the forum and all the posters. Sure, some of them had tried helping. Some of them. But they only answered my questions when I told them my story. They only helped if I danced for them. Performed for them. Entertained them. And even then, it wasn’t much help they were giving me. I was their little toy and all the scraps of advice or cryptic hints they dropped was conditional on me doing whatever they wanted.
What about the passengers? They were all shits too. They had sat back and watched as that woman fought the Eaters. None of them moved to help her. They hadn’t lifted a finger. Just panicked and ran away. They let her get swallowed up by monsters because they were too cowardly to fight back. All of them had been in this world longer than me. They all probably had classes and magic and weapons, yet none of them could be bothered to help her when she needed it.
But sure, I was the monster here. I was the sacrifice to be tossed from the train.
Then there was Asshole. Big man. Hero of the hour. The douchebag who pulled the lever and cut the train car loose and left the real hero behind to get eaten. That shit had decided that she was worth sacrificing. And he was strutting around the place, puffing his chest out, acting all important like he was the one who saved everyone, like he wasn’t the reason that she was dead.
He wanted to cast me as the villain?
Yea, I was pissed. I was pissed at the passengers. I was pissed at the conductor. I was pissed at the Eaters and the forum posters and the Asshole. But most of all, I was pissed at myself.
All I’d done since landing in this world was run away. I ran away from the crazy lady with the gun. I ran away from the creepy town that was decayed and rotted. I ran away from the presence that had chased me across the Deadlands. I ran away from the Eaters who’d attacked the train. I ran away from every single thing that had scared me since I came to this shitty world.
I never fought back. I never even tried. All I did was run. I ran because I was scared and weak and cowardly and didn’t know what else to do.
My fists clenched tightly in my lap, knuckles white as my rage began to build. I wanted to move. I wanted to pace the aisle and to shout at the passengers and pick a fight. I wanted to do something. But I forced myself to sit still. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jacket, trying to pin them down and stop them from reaching out and throttling the nearest passenger.
My right hand brushed up against something small and crumpled: the cigarette I’d snagged from the gutter back in Harbor Glen. It was the only cigarette that I still had on me. My body instantly started craving it. I didn’t have a match or a lighter, but the train had a bunch of kerosene lamps on the wall.
I stood and stepped towards one of the lamps to light the cigarette. The flame caught on the first try and the paper hissed softly as I took a drag and felt my body slowly uncoil. My movement drew every eye in the car, asshole included. Everyone was probably wondering where I was going or wondering why I was getting out of my seat or wondering if now was their chance to toss me from the train before the conductor noticed.
Their reactions pissed me off more and I took a long drag and let the smoke burn down into my lungs. Nobody said anything but they still shot me angry glances. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to smoke on the train, but fuck that and fuck them. I sat back in my seat and exhaled, slow and steady, letting the smoke curl around me.
Then I reached for my burlap sack and started digging through it. I was half hoping that I could find something useful, half hoping that I’d find anything that could pull my mind away from all the anger burning through me. A few moments of rifling through the sack and I found what I was looking for: a knife.
It was small and plain. Bone handle tucked into a cracked leather sheath. It was the kind of blade that was more useful for chores than fighting monsters. Five inches of dull steel. But it was something.
I didn’t have a belt on so I couldn’t secure it properly. Instead I just shoved the whole thing into my jacket pocket and felt the hilt sitting awkwardly against my ribs. My hand cradled the handle and held onto it like it was a lifeline.
Outside, the Deadlands rolled by as I stared out the window. Then, slowly, the train started to decelerate. A crumbling platform rose from the sand up ahead. It looked completely abandoned. There wasn’t any sign of lights or movements around.
I was being dumped at an abandoned train station once again. This was where they were going to leave me. I was being exiled at the edge of nowhere. I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt and the pressure ran up to my temples.
A minute later the train hissed to a stop and Asshole stood up from his seat. He made a production out of it, letting his coat fall back off his so he could parade his muscles and armor around. He cracked his knuckles and stretched a bit, slow and deliberate, as if he were prepping for a fight. He looked my way and started plodding towards me with his arms out and I tried to remember what his stance was called. Invisible lat syndrome? It was the same look that every 40 year old who lived at the gym and injected themselves with testosterone had. He was trying to puff himself up to look strong and intimidating.
It was all performative bullshit. It was posturing. If he was actually tough and worth something he would have helped that woman fend off the Eaters. Instead, he left her to die. And now he wanted to act like a big damn hero? No. He was just as much a coward as me.
Something inside me broke. I rose up out of my seat before he could reach me. One hand was wrapped around my burlap sack and the other rested on the knife in my pocket. Asshole kept walking towards me but I saw it. A flicker. A brief change in his posture. His eyes dropped to where I was keeping my hand in my jacket pocket and he knew something had changed.
“I’m going,” I said.
My voice came out even and controlled and calm, which surprised me a little with how solid I sounded.
“But if you think you’re gonna shove me off this train just to make yourself feel tall…don’t.”
He took another step, his chest puffed up as he tried to stare me down. I didn’t flinch.
Maybe it was all the rage that I’d been stewing in. Maybe it was all the exhaustion that had hit me from the last couple days. Maybe it was just the raw simple truth that I had nothing left and was done with all the bullshit. I let him see it. I let him know the simple fact that I’d fight if he pushed things.
Sure, I couldn’t win. I knew it. He knew it. The passengers knew it. Asshole was built like a tank and he’d probably been in more fights than I’d had meals. But if he wanted to try and act tough and push me from the train so he could feel big and strong, I’d pull out my knife and start slicing away. I would lose for sure. He’d probably take the knife from me and toss me anyway. But he’d bleed for it. That much I was sure of.
He paused, his teeth grinding behind his smug expression. He wanted to make an example out of me. He wanted to finish the show he started and be the hero to all the passengers. But he didn’t move any closer. He was just as much of a coward as I was.
I slung the sack over my shoulder and stepped off the train. The doors hissed closed behind me. The engine roared to life and the train pulled away slowly, carrying the frightened passengers.
I was alone again. Just me, the dust, the ruins of the Deadlands, a burlap sack filled with pilfered offerings, a knife in my pocket, and the slow-burning rage that beat in my chest like a second heart.