Bells rang in the air, steam exhaled as trains settled into the station and as others departed.
Off steps a young boy onto the platform. Short and black wavy hair poked through his hood, his eyes indiscernible.
In his hand was a brown briefcase, hard and heavy.
He was the only one who got off his train. The rest of that specific platform was empty. Aisle all to himself.
He clumsily bumbled around, first walking in one direction, then noticing a sign which told him he was going in the wrong direction, he turned the other way, before double-checking a piece of paper in his hands, scanning it a couple of times and then going back in the original direction he went.
Fifteen minutes after the train's arrival, the boy finally found his way out of the train station.
"London…" The young softly muttered. He revelled in the atmosphere, taking his hood off and letting the soft snow petals melt into his skin.
He exhaled. A cloud of white smoke came out, revealing a wide grin at its end.
"Finally! Master… tch, he left me on Prince Edward Island. That place doesn't even have direct trains to here! It doesn't have trains going anywhere, I had to take a carriage to Halifax!"
The boy grumbled, bashing his master.
He soon disappeared into the foggy mist, eyes locked on the inconceivable piece of paper in his hands.
…
Earlier.
"Tickets please", a pleasant-looking lady stuck her head around the corner and into the cabin. It was empty but for a boy, average height, not older than 15. Not much else could be made out since he covered himself in robes.
The boy was leaning against a glass window, sound asleep with drool running down his chin. Gross, but slightly adorable, she thought.
She fully entered the cabin and tapped on the boy's shoulder.
Bang. Startled, he jumped to his feet and hit his head on the overhead racks. A metallic clang rang out from the brown briefcase on the rack. A myriad of metallic clinking could also be heard from the boy's body.
The boy yelped in pain, startling the stewardess.
His head was now buried in the soft red cushions of the seat opposite the one he was just sitting on. Allowing himself a few more moments of comfort, he stayed there until the numbness receded.
He sat back up to face the stewardess, but something was wrong. Robes, his robes. His hood had fallen back, revealing his face. His eyes.
The steward looked upon the boy. His left eye was red, the surrounding skin a deep purple, the eye black, and instead of a distinctly coloured iris and pupil, it was just filled with two concentric red circles.
"Cursed," escaped her pale lips. Not knowing what to do.
The boy averted his gaze in awkwardness. "Ah, here's my ticket."
The stewardess flinched when he reached his hand out. With shaky hands, she plucked the ticket from his hands, avoiding contact. Like when she'd been tasked with cleaning the bathrooms. The same grim, queasy sensation crept up her spine.
She quickly retracted her hand and scanned the paper.
In a quivering voice, she asked, "Mr… Mr Riven, I suppose?" Even his name was terrifying.
Riven smiled, dimples showing. "Yes, that's me. Um, about the eye. Can we talk about i-"
The stewardess returned the ticket with a stiff nod as she muttered a farewell and vanished behind the door.
Riven exhaled hard and slumped over, sitting back down and putting his hood back up.
The train kept chugging along, so he went back to what he was doing before falling asleep. Looking outside the window at the sunken forest view.
Unfortunately for him, the train tracks were dug beneath the forest, so half the window was being taken up by dirt, and only the top half would bless his eyes with some greenery.
"Adam, is there gonna be a problem?"
From the rack above, his briefcase opened itself with a click. A silver sphere floated freely, humming softly. Intricate, labyrinthine and ancient carvings covered the surface from its body to the eight majestic angel-esque wings. Only the glassy lens betrayed the feeling of it being an antique.
The black glass lens was currently displaying a sombre, slightly annoyed cartoonish face made of light blue pixels. It flapped its wings to arrive in front of Riven.
"In the future," it intoned, voice calm and metallic, "I advise you to remain vigilant at all times. The current situation is manageable. If you hurry."
The orb, Adam, remained levitating in the air as he reprimanded Riven, the wings were stationary at this point.
Riven obediently sat there with his eyes closed and listened as Adam continued to lecture him. He sat there in silence as he dared not interrupt when he got like this, even if he felt that it was an overreaction.
"Be sober and vigilant. For your adversary, the devil, is like a roaring lion, travelling around and seeking those whom he might devour."
But it was getting ridiculous, he muttered under his breath, "Come on, do you need to give me a lecture right now? Didn't you just say that I needed to deal with this quickly? I'll go right now, you can finish this later."
Adam's preaching paused.
As Riven's face paled at the seething aura emanating…
a knock on the door.
Knock knock. "Um, excuse me. Do you mind if I come in?" A darling voice asked.
Adam, still raging, returned to the briefcase.
Riven answered the door, sliding it open.
A girl with glasses was meekly waiting for him, a book in hand, it was a thick book with a cover featuring a richly detailed, circular mosaic with a symbol of the sun at the centre. An orange coloured necklace with a sun motif hung proudly from her neck.
"Are you a follower of Solion? Sorry, but I'm not interested in listening to any more preaching." He added softly, "I just wanted a quiet train ride. Now I got in so much shit."
With a hum, the girl cautiously peeked behind Riven to take a look at the cabin.
"Oh, sorry. Were you not the one preaching just now? I don't see anyone in there."
The girl was confused. "I've never heard those specific passages before, they sounded extremely profound, akin to something you'd hear from one of the 7 orthodox bibles. But I've studied those, and that verse was entirely new to me."
Sigh. "It's nothing, I didn't say anything. Maybe you were just hearing things. Yeah, don't worry about it." There was a sharpness to Riven's tone when he said it.
The girl looked unconvinced, but the sternness in his voice told her that he didn't want to talk about it. She backed away pathetically, her fingers fidgeting with her necklace, and she cowered.
But the speed at which she backed up was so incredibly slow, despite how clearly afraid she was of Riven, her curiosity and interest put up a strong enough fight.
Riven watched her, wary of any signs of suspicion, hoping that she wouldn't ask any more questions. Instead, what he found was her looking like a puppy that had its chew toy taken away.
He groaned, "Fine, it was… a recording. Yeah, on a record player."
The girl's ears perked up, she quickly scurried up to him.
"And? And! Tell me more! What texts are they from? Who's speaking? Oh, Sol Almighty! I've never heard anything like it. Can you play more?" She was practically clinging to him in excitement.
Startled by the attack, Riven wrestled her off of him. "Alright, alright, calm down. I can tell you a little bit about it. It's from a dead religion, just some recordings I found. I obviously don't believe in it," he said, sweating. The violent crashing of metal on wood started ringing from above.
Before she could question it, Riven quickly explained to her, "Ahaha, that must be the bumping of the train moving my record player around."
"Oh, yes! Can you start playing it now? Can you?" Her burst of energy didn't seem to be ending any time soon, and neither did her shyness from before look like it was going to come back.
She bounced with excitement, entirely unaware that the train hadn't jolted in some time. In the middle of one of her excited hops, the train did finally jolt, causing her to hit her head on the overhead railing, the exact same spot where Riven had hit his head earlier.
Riven let out a snort before realising that she looked seriously hurt.
Riven was about to reject her since he couldn't expose Adam's existence, but then he saw her looking at him again with those puppy eyes, this time with tears welling.
"Oh shit, um. Calm down, calm down. I'll start playing the recording." He reached for the brown case. "Um, cover your ears for a second."
She obediently nodded with tears in her eyes and covered her ears.
"Alright, Adam. You keep her distracted, I'll go and find the stewardess and find a way to keep her quiet." He then turned back to the girl. "You stay here and listen to this exciting… yeah, whatever. Just listen to this, don't look inside the briefcase, though. I'll be right back. Just gotta deal with something."
Riven exited the cabin to the sound of Adam, playing the role of a record player with the girl obediently listening.
"For fucks sake, why can't everyone on this train just stay still and stop bothering me?"
Adam paused for a moment and then resumed reciting.
"So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease among them."