Underground, part 1
Jul. 12th, 2011 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clare_dragonflyTitle: Underground, part 1
Word count: 600
Rating: PG-13 for gastrointestinal yuck
Prompt: 30 days, #1 and #2
Notes: This is for aldersprig and kc_obrien's 30 days of flash fiction meme. Except I don't really do flash fiction, so I'm attempting to do the whole thing as one short story. I combined the first two prompts and wrote this first section just short enough to fulfill the wordcount guidelines, "250 words, +/- 50 words, to each prompt." I have no idea what's going on in the story, but I'm pretty sure Greg does, so we should be okay.
“It’s going down.”
“What?”
“Down.” Greg pointed, for emphasis.
I stared at him. I still didn’t understand. “What do you mean, down? Trains don’t go down.”
“This one does. Come on.” He started walking down the hallway, and I didn’t have much choice but to follow him. Mostly because of the magic, which was starting to irritate me for the first time now.
I dawdled as much as I could, but since that meant I could jog along no more than three yards behind him, he was still within speaking distance. “Why does it go down? How does it go down?”
He refused to reply, which would have really annoyed me except that we had apparently reached the platform. I stopped, feeling sick to my stomach, purely from vertigo. Greg was right; the train was going down. It looked like an ordinary train, but it was pointing straight down into the ground, moving with what I thought was high speed until it abruptly came to a stop.
I hastily looked around for a trash can to empty the contents of my stomach into. Before I could reach one, though, I felt the magic tug me along again. I fell over sideways, then started to be dragged along the concrete platform. That only made me feel worse, but I managed to shout after Greg to stop without actually letting anything else out of my mouth.
He did stop, and came back, which let the dragging stop, at least. But the way he grabbed me by the neck and hauled me to my feet was only marginally more comfortable. “Quit dawdling,” he growled. “We can’t miss this train.” Without waiting for me to protest, he pushed me along in front of him, toward the terrifying, Escher-esque sideways train. There were people leaving the train, emerging sideways from the doors and reorienting themselves before they hit the platform. Most of them looked like normal humans. Not all of them.
But of course, I didn’t get much of a chance to look at the people leaving the train, because Greg was pushing me along. There was a moment of horrible vertigo, far worse than I’d gotten just looking at the train, and then we were standing inside a half-empty train car, looking perfectly normal, except that out the windows I could see the structure of the train station and it was sideways. And then it started moving.
I promptly turned and expelled the entire contents of my stomach, plus probably a bit more. Thankfully, there was a trash container of some sort attached to the wall. Also, Greg had let go of my neck once he realized what I was doing.
He grabbed my arm once the heaving stopped, though. “Would you calm down already?” he hissed. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“I don’t care if I’m embarrassing you,” I said, loudly, because I didn’t. “You drag me onto a sideways train, you refuse to explain what’s going on, I’m just going to do what comes naturally to me.” I spat into the trash receptacle. There were still bits of half-digested food in my mouth.
He sighed with irritation. “Fine. Here.” He pulled a water bottle out of the side pocket of his pants and handed it to me. I was grateful, but he didn’t really deserve thanks. I rinsed my mouth out, then chugged most of the rest of the bottle.
“You done?” he asked impatiently. I nodded. He tied up the top of the trash liner, then grabbed my arm again and dragged me to a seat.
“Okay. Explain.”
Word count: 600
Rating: PG-13 for gastrointestinal yuck
Prompt: 30 days, #1 and #2
Notes: This is for aldersprig and kc_obrien's 30 days of flash fiction meme. Except I don't really do flash fiction, so I'm attempting to do the whole thing as one short story. I combined the first two prompts and wrote this first section just short enough to fulfill the wordcount guidelines, "250 words, +/- 50 words, to each prompt." I have no idea what's going on in the story, but I'm pretty sure Greg does, so we should be okay.
“It’s going down.”
“What?”
“Down.” Greg pointed, for emphasis.
I stared at him. I still didn’t understand. “What do you mean, down? Trains don’t go down.”
“This one does. Come on.” He started walking down the hallway, and I didn’t have much choice but to follow him. Mostly because of the magic, which was starting to irritate me for the first time now.
I dawdled as much as I could, but since that meant I could jog along no more than three yards behind him, he was still within speaking distance. “Why does it go down? How does it go down?”
He refused to reply, which would have really annoyed me except that we had apparently reached the platform. I stopped, feeling sick to my stomach, purely from vertigo. Greg was right; the train was going down. It looked like an ordinary train, but it was pointing straight down into the ground, moving with what I thought was high speed until it abruptly came to a stop.
I hastily looked around for a trash can to empty the contents of my stomach into. Before I could reach one, though, I felt the magic tug me along again. I fell over sideways, then started to be dragged along the concrete platform. That only made me feel worse, but I managed to shout after Greg to stop without actually letting anything else out of my mouth.
He did stop, and came back, which let the dragging stop, at least. But the way he grabbed me by the neck and hauled me to my feet was only marginally more comfortable. “Quit dawdling,” he growled. “We can’t miss this train.” Without waiting for me to protest, he pushed me along in front of him, toward the terrifying, Escher-esque sideways train. There were people leaving the train, emerging sideways from the doors and reorienting themselves before they hit the platform. Most of them looked like normal humans. Not all of them.
But of course, I didn’t get much of a chance to look at the people leaving the train, because Greg was pushing me along. There was a moment of horrible vertigo, far worse than I’d gotten just looking at the train, and then we were standing inside a half-empty train car, looking perfectly normal, except that out the windows I could see the structure of the train station and it was sideways. And then it started moving.
I promptly turned and expelled the entire contents of my stomach, plus probably a bit more. Thankfully, there was a trash container of some sort attached to the wall. Also, Greg had let go of my neck once he realized what I was doing.
He grabbed my arm once the heaving stopped, though. “Would you calm down already?” he hissed. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“I don’t care if I’m embarrassing you,” I said, loudly, because I didn’t. “You drag me onto a sideways train, you refuse to explain what’s going on, I’m just going to do what comes naturally to me.” I spat into the trash receptacle. There were still bits of half-digested food in my mouth.
He sighed with irritation. “Fine. Here.” He pulled a water bottle out of the side pocket of his pants and handed it to me. I was grateful, but he didn’t really deserve thanks. I rinsed my mouth out, then chugged most of the rest of the bottle.
“You done?” he asked impatiently. I nodded. He tied up the top of the trash liner, then grabbed my arm again and dragged me to a seat.
“Okay. Explain.”
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