Snippet #1372432

Nettie heard someone calling. Thank the good Lord! There were others alive.

"This way! The way out is this way!”

She turned around, but everything was lopsided, smoky, and dusty. "Rose? Are you here? We've got to get off the train!" She tried to pull the limb back and see if Rose was pinned, but she couldn't do it one-handed. She just didn't seem to have strength anymore. Hana screamed even louder, pulling at Nettie's dress. Nettie squeezed her close. "Hush, darling." Reluctantly, she turned and began making her careful way towards the voice she had heard.

There was the man who had sat beside her. He'd walked off earlier, seemingly to flirt with a lady three rows up. He lay broken in her way, and Nettie gasped. His neck seemed broken, with his head at an odd angle and a large chunk of scalp missing. Nettie blinked at him for a moment, then turned and vomited. She rubbed her eyes wearily, and it slowly began to hit her that most of the passengers were dead.

"This way!"

"Rose?" She knew she would need help to move the tree clear. She couldn't check the back rows at all. Nettie vaguely remembered watching out the window, enjoying a rather clear view from the tracks. There had been no trees that she recalled. None close enough to have skidded into. Where on earth had it come from? She was incredibly lucky that she'd thrown herself to the floor.

Swallowing uncomfortably, she stepped over her seatmate and headed for the voice. She could see light beaming down the aisle (wall?) and pushed towards it, ignoring the heaps of bodies until she was forced to move one to make it through. When she reached the door, she was finally crying. A man was silhouetted in the door. She gratefully accepted his hand, though she refused to pass Hana off to anyone else. Once outside, she blinked in the sudden brightness. "I can't find Rose...and, um, the gentleman from Chicago is dead. So are others, but I don't know who."

She glanced around, realizing that it didn't at all look like what she'd expected. She had indeed swung sideways into a tree, whose branches were now sticking straight out of the window where she and Rose had been sitting. "How did this happen?" Nettie's voice was shrill, and she realized she was losing control but was unable to stop yelling. "Where is the constable? How far is the nearest town? We need some help here! We need...we need axes, and water and medicaments, and somebody needs to help me find ROSE!" She stumbled to a nearby rock to sit, her legs feeling too wobbly to support her. She looked at the wreckage of the train. It was a twisted mess that had gauged a deep hole in the local terrain. Nettie's head swung as she looked ahead and back again. Her mind cleared ever so slightly. "My word! Where are the tracks?"