My hair whips back as the train enters my range of view. I feel the rush. This machine that massacres the air and shoves it my way. The recoil; utter empowerment. Yet I move towards it. The Servant Girl grabs me and scolds, “No! No! Not too close.” But I’m not close enough.

Everything happens so fast when you’re so near to such turbulence. I’m staring at the mixture of pigments of the passengers faces, merged by speed, blurred with the background. So many colors. The Servant Girl’s grip slowly loosens on my arm, more and more until it is no longer there. I am free. One with the train.

Until I’m not. And then I am one with fear.

My whereabouts revolt in an instance. I mistake it for the passing of the train. That my eyes have now seen the scene hidden all this time on the other side of the tracks. But it’s not that at all.

I see the palm trees, only they’re still moving-I’m still moving. I’m still with the train. In a way that I am not supposed to be.

I remember what I felt just a few seconds ago; the hands had salvaged my arms, my feet had left the ground. I felt my smile contort with pain when my body collided with the train’s crimson exterior. Hard metal clanging my bones like a wind chime. My legs flailing in the wind behind me. And just beyond my feet, the Servant Girl.

Why is she distancing from me? She’s chasing the train, and I’m going with it. Only I’m faster.

I cannot register that look in her eyes. They suddenly glaze over. Her mouth quivers and her skin turns pale as she stops running after me. I like her eyes better than I like her because they never leave mine. Even when I cannot see them anymore, I know they’re still with me.

I begin to scream when I turn my eyes to the source of the despicable discomfort around my neck. It’s an arm, groped around me like a snake. It reels me into the train. I shriek and plunge my fist into whatever surrounds me. Until the pain of beaten flesh submits from punching the bolted train walls. A trace amount of daylight catches me before I am pulled away from a world familiar to me. I am then blanketed by unfamiliar darkness. A hand, cold and larger than the relative circumference of my face, is forced against my lips until I scream no more. The hand is pushed so hard against my mouth that I can taste the surface; it tastes of salt, from sweat-engrossed skin; it reeks of the metal of the train’s exterior. I force my throat to make noise, but this hand will not give way.