Written by Cameron Aviles –

“When are we going home?”

There was a long moment of silence in a barely lit train car. The lights from the lamps along the route every four seconds were the only source of light getting in. The light reflected off of Sarah’s gun, a Glock 23 with an extended magazine, black with dried-up dirt sprinkled on the surface of the barrel.

“Sarah, are we home yet?” her little sister said to her. Shaking because her heart felt full of fear and her skin felt the invading brush of cool air that crept through the cracks of the wooden train car.

“I’m cold,” she said, her voice low and solemn. Avalancious tears roared down the topography of her premature face.

“Sarah…”

“What!” Sarah yelled, her lungs full of fuel that drove her intense and explosive voice. Her little sister, frightened and overwhelmed by her aggression, turned the silent crisis into thunderous cries that created an even more hurtful storm. Sarah could hear every one of her sister’s tears hit the bottom of the car, the most audible drum. The sound of them pouring every second was the most painful arrow to Sarah’s heart. She felt sorry that she yelled.

“I’m sorry,” said Sarah.

“I want Mommy!” her little sister said still excited and balling.

“Mommy is gone,” Sarah said coldly.

Her little sister’s tears now fell every half second and her cries were louder than a bomb. Every second they got more unbearable to hear but every minute the sobs were less frequent until she cried herself to sleep. Sarah stayed awake as long as she could with her pistol drawn, holding on to it tight with both hands.

She ran down a hallway, it was dark, all she could see were the outlines of the walls closing in on her. Obstacle after obstacle blocked her path the entire way through the endless hallway. The walls were becoming tighter and more difficult to navigate and something jumped out at her from the walls.

A gunshot was fired. It was much louder than Sarah’s little sister’s cries and created a hole in the floor of the train car. The gunshot came from Sarah’s 23 she fell asleep holding onto like Stephan. The noise frightened her little sister out of her sleep and she began to scream so loud it could pierce rock and never dull. Sarah calmed her down. Once her little sister was calm and ceased her squirming in the corner of the train car, Sarah stopped moving and turned her attention to the voices yelling from afar.

“Sarah, who is that?” her little sister said inquisitively and with great worry.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said with just as much thought and with even greater worry. She had forgotten that this train line belonged to the gangs of this area.

They heard voices moving closer to the train car.

“I heard the gunshot come from over there in 11,” shouted a man.

Footsteps scrambled to the car that Sarah and her little sister occupied and created a song free of rhythm. Sarah held her gun firmly in her hand. Her little sister tried to hold in shrieks in the palms of her hands like domes trapping in the sound of thousands of screams. The cracks would let out the slightest wavelength of sound. Sarah gripped her gun so tight it could implode under the force; holding it so tightly that when she lets go, like adhesive, the color will peel off along the surface of her frightened fingertips. They heard the sound of the latch on the side of the train car opening. Sarah aimed her gun at the car door, directly at the area where the latch had blocked the sunlight that now broke through. The car door opened. Sarah’s little sister got up in an instant and screamed at the top of her lungs. Sarah saw the silhouette of a man. She went to pull the trigger of the gun. The man’s silhouette faded away. Her vision went black and she heard a gunshot. She woke up and there was a hole in the bottom of the train car. Her sister began to scream. Sarah calmed her down. While she held her little sister she couldn’t help but realize how nostalgic and how much like deja vu this situation felt.

She heard voices.

“Sarah, who is that,” her little sister said with fear.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said with just as much thought and with even more worry. They heard voices moving closer to the train car.

“I heard the gunshot come from over there in 11,” shouted a man.

The latch to the train car opened. Sarah, with her hands wrapped around her gun, fired five shots. All the bodies outside of the train car dropped. Sarah’s sister’s cries were hysterical; they were the only thing audible after the echo from the gunshots had passed. Sarah placed her gun on the floor next to her sister and held her tight.

“It’s okay,” were the comforting words she uttered to her sister.

“It’s okay, they’re gone now.” The sobs slowed.

“How did you… how did you do that?” her sister inquired with much less concern than Sarah had already shown herself as she was comforting her little sister.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said very slowly staring into the distance with great focus on a bird flying in the distance.

“I’ve seen that bird fly across that same place in the sky five times. Each time I’ve seen you die. Each time the bird gets startled from the gun fire. This time you are alive and the bird still flies straight and they’re no longer following us. I don’t know what it is but we will be okay.”

They spent weeks on the road. Scavenging any food they could find, sleeping wherever there was enough safety to fall asleep for a few hours at a time. They found a convenience store off the line that they spent a night in. When they awoke in the morning the sunlight was breaking through the window onto a puddle of water that had collected on the floor. The leak formed in the ceiling due to the heavy rain lately. Sarah woke her little sister up.

“Crystal…” She waited for a response for a couple of seconds.

“Crystal,” she said, this time a little louder. This reminded her of every time she had to wake her up for school. She became tired of going through the hassle of shaking her sister’s body and yelling to shock her into waking up so she hid packs of matches. Every morning, until Crystal learned to wake up, she’d light a whole pack on fire and blow out the book under the smoke detector. It was ultra-sensitive and the smoke generated from the matches would cause the thing to blare throughout the room and wake her right out of her sleep. Crystal would be alarmed and Sarah would get satisfaction out of seeing her face.

“Crystal!” she screamed.

It woke her right up. Frightened, she began to throw her fist and hurl her legs in the air as far as she could.

“Crystal calm down! Crystal it will be okay. Crystal, stop. It will be okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Out of breathe and in tears Crystal calmed down. She relaxed her arms and legs. In between sobs she said in a low voice, “I’m so…sorry.”

“It’s okay, Crystal.”

They liked this place. It was very secure so they spent the day fortifying it and making it so that they were invisible. Night time came and they were in the back cooking food over the barrel. They were telling jokes and laughing. They heard a sound that was akin to a vacuum sucking air from the space two rooms down. They heard a footstep splash in a puddle. There must have been another leak in that room they hadn’t come across yet. Sarah grabbed her 23 and loaded the chamber. When that sound was heard throughout the store a voice immediately spoke to Sarah.

“Hey! My name is Raymond. I’m from the future.”

Sarah glanced at Crystal as if she didn’t know what to think. Crystal put her hands up in the air as if to say that she wasn’t sure whether to think that the man was crazy, playing games, or being sincere. So Sarah held her gun true.

“Come out and let me see your face!” she yelled at the dark in the hallway. “And don’t try anything because I will shoot you!”

Immediately a very tall man with hair and eyes like the sun and a body as big as a pillar cleared the doorway with his hands up. They were long, his hands, and his feet were as well. His fingers were thin and had no intention in a quick moment to grab anything. He was practically bare, with nothing on him but thin, minimal clothes. The light that radiated from the barrel illuminated his face and it was light brown. He looked human but much bigger to scale. He stared right into her eyes.

“My name is Raymond. I’m from the future where me and my friends are being hunted. Someone is hunting you too because of who you are. I’m guessing you don’t know why they are hunting you. I’m also guessing you don’t fully understand who you are and that’s why I’m here.”

Sarah looked at him with narrowed eyes. Crystal stood up. Raymond lowered his hands. A round left Sarah’s Glock 23 sending reverberations throughout her hands.

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Cameron Aviles, a resident of Asheville, NC, was born in the ‘Big Apple’ and raised in the ‘Bull City’. Previously published works include poems in an anthology titled Silent Noise: 36 Amplified Minds and a self-published collection of poems titled Thought from Bull City Streets. He uses writing as “a tool for inspiration, a catalyst of self-discovery, and an opportunity to spread positivity” – @bycameronaviles.