blameless (private)

The serenity of winter vacations don’t include the furthest and most secluded mountain towns of Mistere. A couple hours and a train ride away from Mystopolis, a former doctor and public figure is en route to a desolate, ravaged town. Humanitarians from across the country and across its borders construct makeshift tents, handing out hot food, blankets, kindness. Despite their fluffy exteriors, greed and public image often drive search-and-rescues. As a former doctor, he’s too aware of that.

It wasn’t his choice to come. Contracted and more trapped than ever, all it took was the pen stroke of his manager to send him away during his winter break. He’s supposed to give a pre-made speech: freshly manufactured and handed to him on the cleanest of office-paper and printed in the cheapest of ink.

A way to show Hisakawa’s concern.

The droning rattle of a sleet-covered railway eases, slowing and eventually stopping. A male voice, hoarse yet somehow clear, speaks through the speaker system, hesitance weeping from his carefully-picked articulations: there’s a momentary delay due to an obstruction on the tracks. Attendants soon make rounds with complimentary hot chocolate, fresh from the packet. Seth declines.

Lights stutter and flicker off completely in the moments that follow. Warm air ceases flowing from the vent Seth positioned himself over. He blinks twice, erasing sleep and confusion from his eyes as they adjust to the new lighting. Despite being early in the evening, the sun already threatens any residual warmth with its hasty descent. Nothing but static silence comes from the speakers. Concerned gasps and slurred voices fill the cab.



How he found himself outside avoids the deeper reaches of his memory. He credits luck as his only means of escape into the snowy pine forest. How the train was so easily hijacked and robbed within the lesser part of an hour is ingenious, actually, he thinks. Similar grim thoughts cross his mind: he’s in awe of how quickly he found himself escaping.

Those closest to hell are often the smartest,
but those who go to hell and survive are wiser.

He avoids thinking of what happened to those still on the train, helpless from drugged hot drink. About the quiet unlatching of a window. About his closest possessions, left behind.
He always falls on familiar habits. Beneath the cover of an evil looking conifer tree, he finds cover. Hugging his knees, he chokes a sob.

He could help.

He’s only a ten minute sprint from the stopped train. His footprints are cleverly concealed by psychic suggestion, covering his trail but making it hard to backtrack
But he looks up and his glossy optics reflect the outline of a full moon, who hasn’t changed its position since nightfall. A small hope ignites him. He can easily overpower those people, especially with the might of a full moon enveloping him.

He clenches his fist. The snow around him sublimates, casting steam into the air around him.



Ten minutes pass. Every excruciating second is marked by two or three heartbeats. His thought race: He didn’t see anyone else make it out, much less with a stable source of heat. The next train wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow… Maybe the day after. His is the only one on the desolate route, combining both passenger and supply-filled storage cars.

He takes a few deep breaths, and somehow musters enough willpower to stand up.
His form illuminated in the moonlight and his footsteps deep and reflective. No effort spent on covering them.
He’s already spent enough effort running.



Guided by fear of the passengers’ safety, he tries to think strategically. He’s not adept in warfare. He doubts anyone like him is. Crouching, repressing his misty breath with a deft hand, he peers at the locomotive, then the following cars. Wrinkled cloth covers the windows of the pilots’ car. Only rough silhouettes grant him brief knowledge of the scene inside. Grunts stand idly around the entrance he can immediately see.

He turns his focus to the later cars.

His large stature and shiny magic detracts from any possible stealth he could muster. Clenching his fists, he proceeds with his plan, only concealed by a blanket of pine needles and the night sky.

Far down the train, a lonely passenger car is guarded by a pair of thugs. Standing just out of earshot of anyone else, they chat, quietly. One takes deep, drawling breaths from a cigarette.

A quick gesture, a noiseless snap of his fingers, and their feet are frozen to the ground. A simple sweep of his arm and they fall backwards. An unassuming pivot of his wrist and their heads bash against psychic ice. Enough force to knock both of them out.

Stepping out of concealment and onto red snow, he slowly moves his gaze to their motionless bodies. He frowns, covering his mouth to mute a cry, and binds their limbs to the ground with glassy ice. He feels weak; valor only fills him when he imagines the captives, definitely held in a similar—if not worse—state.

He pushes against a steel door, whose handle is face-up in the snow, broken off. Growing sick with nausea and sore from overexertion, his face twists in frustration.

Persistence.

He begins looking for another way inside, stepping over and around the prone bodies at his feet. His hands graze over a window, slightly agar and weaker than its peers. Not a minute later, it sits on the inside of the cabbie, adjacent to a crude wedge of ice.



The next few cars are in unique forms of disarray. In one, papers and spilled hot chocolate cover the ground. In another, blood crusts a blade-torn carpet. In the third, someone—a corpse—lays in eternal rest. Seth covers his nose and mouth and looks away before any more details come to him.

He makes eye contact with a grunt as he’s crossing the shaky pathway between cabs. She yells something and two more perk up, flashlights scouring through the frosty window as he ducks below its beams. His breath wavers and he retreats to the previous car.

They follow him, loudly throwing open the doors. He continues backwards, almost tripping over the body he was carefully avoiding earlier. They aim their flashlights at him. They yell some obscenities then flash a pitch-black pistol and a pair of dangerous-looking tazers. He breathes but air doesn’t reach his lungs.

“You’ve bin lucky. We miss’d ya,” the one brandishing a gun says, her voice carrying an accent Seth doesn’t recognize. “Stand down an’ we’ll drug you up like th’rest of ‘em.”

Someone behind her pulls a syringe off their belt.
“You get the concentrated stuff.”

Seth looks down, knowing that it’ll cauterize as they attempt to inject. If he submits to them, they’ll likely kill him instead.

He clears his throat, and tries clearing his mind. Fear grips him, its thin antennae grazing his skin. He doubts his voice’s stability, instead opting to tilt his head in a condescending fashion. Wings, hidden until now, appear. His horn begins shining.

It works. Between his tall stature and angelic-looking appearance, something intimidates the hardened criminals in front of him. The one holding a gun points it at his head. “What’ver you ar’,” she nearly stutters her words, “I’ll shoot.”

He shakes his head, closing his eyes with anxiety but opening them with anger. ”I’m done.” His audience falters. His assailant flicks the gun’s safety off. ”I’m done running. I’m done leaving. I’m done looking for peace when there is clearly none on this fucking continent.”

He hand closes its grip around an invisible leash, ”Stand down.”

She reaches for the trigger.

He grinds his teeth and squints, ”Stand down.”

His gait closes and his arms turn, ending perpendicular to the ground, his left hand above his head, close to grazing the ceiling. With the full moon echoing through his form, the assailants’ limbs—the liquid inside—beck to his call. They stand at petrifying stillness, guns and weapons clattering lamely against the carpeted ground. One of her backups tries to speak against the artificial tightness of his throat.

He lowers his left arm and they fall to the ground, muscles spasming against their foreign controller.

With his other hand, whatever liquid in the room—blood—freezes them in place. He opens his mouth, letting out a quiet sigh before speaking, ”I’m so, so stupid. You wouldn’t know. But… I’m sure you don’t mind listening,” his face is jarring, some ugly mix of regret and anger, ”I was always told: ’Never incite violence until it comes to you.’ I listened. I’ve always listened. But… I don’t think that’s how it works,” he looks astray, ”Maybe on a secluded, peaceful island… But the world is large and evil… Malicious. Filled with greed and criminals. And I wait until it happens in blind faith that humans will somehow shed their most familiar emotions. I question why I don’t go back. Is it the fame? Am I scared to see the scowling faces of those I left behind? Will they even be there, waiting for me, as I like to imagine? Will they wait, just like I’ve been doing? They’ve made no effort to find me. Maybe they’re convinced I’m living a better life.”

He scoffs, feeling a hot tear run down his cheek, ”I’m not finding a better life. I’m waiting for it to come to me.”

He smiles grimly, then wipes his face. A shining lance appears in his left hand.