Watch the Footage

Run.
Fight.
Jump.
Breathe.
Frown.
Smile.
Live.

The world spins beneath your feet. How did you even arrive at this place? You try and try to remember but you are drawing a blank. You feel empty, free of gravity. You feel as if you could fly away and forget about the spinning world beneath you.

Yet, you also feel a spark within you. A tug, pulling at your very essence, begging you to wake up. You hear the faint voices of the humans living in the world below. They beckon you. They cry for you, call out for you.

Though you wish you could spend your time floating in the blissful realm, deep within you, you know that there is a link which has yet to be severed. And so, you grit your teeth and clench your fists, for there is still much to do.

Your senses begin awakening, and you can hear the sound of a bell in the distance. A set of stairs gradually manifests in front of you. You focus your eyes into the image forming ahead of you, allowing it to become your reality, clearing up into a fond recollection of joyful moments.

You start walking up the stairs. Your mind snaps out of its trance-like dream, as the sounds become louder and clearer. Doubtful, you look down at your feet, feeling as if they’re moving on their own. The world has stopped spinning, and as you reach the top of the stairs, you find yourself in a familiar place.

People come and go, without paying much attention to their surroundings, carrying heavy bags of luggage around with them. There are a couple of benches nearby, on which you feel you could take a nap. Perhaps, you had already taken a nap on them a long time ago, while you waited for your train to arrive. You see trains arriving and then leaving, crowds quickly board their train, dragged along by their own daily routine.

You sit on a bench and watch the scenery unfold once, twice… thrice. Then, you lose count. You just had to arrive early today, right? You look at one of the screens, showing the trains scheduled for today. It seems the train you will be taking later today is slightly delayed. You sigh and wonder what could have happened, but you don’t fret too much about it.

You guess this actually gives you time to look around, just like the old times. You get up from sitting at the bench.

What will you do?

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Alright, not much explanations to give out this early into the idea. You can suggests prompts to move the story forward... or not, I guess this can also be an exercise in writing for me. Let's see where this goes.

You try to find something to eat.

You approach strangers to start enthusiastic conversation.

Close your eyes. Inhale. Listen. Feel the wind wash over you.

> Close your eyes. Inhale. Listen. Feel the wind wash over you

You try to close your eyes, trying to listen to the sounds surrounding you. The warm, estival light of the sun is more relaxing than you remember it being. You wish you could lie down on the bench for a while. You’re sure that it wouldn’t hurt you to rest for a minute… perhaps five… maybe even fifteen....

Who are you kidding, you’ll probably sleep for the next hour as soon as you lie down. Just thinking about it has got you yawning. You walk away from the bench, you need to keep distance between yourself and the temptation to sleep through the day. You try to distract yourself by looking at the screen showing the arrival times again. It looks like your train has is still behind by about thirty minutes. What could have possibly happened for it to be this late? Oh, the things that you do for your friend on the next town over. You feel like this waiting game has become preposterous.

But perhaps, this new development could give you enough time for a little nap… You look back at the bench on which you were sitting a moment ago, but find it occupied by a man, his wife, a young child and their dog. You wasted your chance. There’s nothing you can do now. You should try doing something else instead.

Your stomach growls. You wistfully look back at the bench before retracing your steps.

> You try to find something to eat

You go down the stairs quickly, sometimes skipping a couple of steps. You and your friends used to have a small competition whenever you saw stairs. Each of you would choose a certain number of steps up from the base of the stairs and then you would try to jump back to the start. The one who managed to jump from the highest step back to the ground would win. You were always a careful kind of person, so you never jumped more than 3 steps at a time, but your friends were way more courageous than you. Maybe even slightly less outstanding in the self-preservation department, you would tell yourself.

Alexa and Heinz would always jump 5 or 6 steps down at a time. You remember the smiles on their faces whenever they would leap off, hands up in the air, as if they wanted to break the force of gravity and be free of the hold the planet. Sometimes they would flinch when they landed, but they never got hurt while you held your childish dares and challenges. They were more daring than you, but you get the feeling they always knew their own limitations. And yet,
the other guy was pretty much the opposite of them.

You still remember, two summers ago. You stood right here on these very stairs, as you saw him leaping through the air, eyes closed, mouth open and shouting. Later, he would be shouting for completely different reasons, which you would rather not talk about. Just thinking about it makes you feel uneasy.

Poor little guy. His moment of bravado costed you that year’s summer adventure. He wouldn’t stop crying even after Heinz went and bought him a double chocolate ice cream cone. In hindsight, if you had just gone through what the little guy had, you probably would have kept crying too. Of course, your friends would never catch you doing something so stupid. That was the last time you held your competition.

You stop midway through the stairs. You suddenly lose your appetite. Perhaps, remembering the times you had with your friends was not that good of an idea after all. You slowly go back to the platform, looking at your feet the whole time. You really would not like falling through the stairs.

> You approach strangers to start enthusiastic conversation

The increasingly loud sound of angry arguing reaches your ears as you go up the stairs again. You look around you to find a crowd surrounding one of the guards outside the management office. You get the feeling you know what these people are complaining about as you quickly peek at the screen. The delay time is still the same. This train business seems awfully fishy to you, but a quick glance at the guard tells you that he’s having a rough time already. If you went over his way he would probably have a small breakdown, so you decide to leave that one alone.

On the opposite end of the platform, you spy another guard. Although it strikes you as odd that he is not being swarmed by a crowd of angry travellers like the one to your right, you still feel curious about the delay. You swiftly walk towards him, just in case somebody else has spotted him too. The last thing you want is to see yourself as part of an angry mob.

“Um… excuse me?” you start saying, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to you. He you see him whispering something to a radio comm in his hand. You consider leaving him alone, but he turns to address you as you’re about to turn away.

“Yes?”, he speaks in a dull, annoyed kind of way.

“I was wondering if you knew something about the delayed train. I mean, the one going to the neighboring city”

“Oh yes, it should be here in no time. We are making preparations as we speak.” You’re not sure what kind of preparations they could need, but you decide to not inquire further. For some reason, this feels like the best course of action and, besides, there’s something about this guy which just gives you a bad hunch.

“Nice! Thank you!” You say as you go back just as quickly as you had arrived. You can hear the man asking you something in the distance, though.

“Hey, aren’t you a bit young to be travelling alone though? What’s your name?”

You’re not sure how to answer him. Perhaps you should ignore him for now. But what if he pulls some stunt on you and decides to ask for your parent’s telephone number? You just know you can’t allow yourself to miss this train.

What will you do?

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Whew, that was way more writing that I expected to do. Anyway, I will try to answer most of the prompts you guys leave as responses. Since this was a weekend I had a lot more time to write, however, since I have to go to work tomorrow, I will probably won't be able to write a full answer until next Saturday (or at least I hope so).

I will try to keep the spirit of the prompts as close to what I perceive their original intent to be, but I might change them a bit to fit them into the story. I might change it around a little bit too, depending on the occasion.

(Edit: Also, feel free to ask questions if you need me to clarify something for you )

say a fake name, then get back to safety

Walk away slowly and lose yourself in memory.

invite the guard to join you, so you're not travelling alone.