Compartment C

[Mr. Handy]

Bewildered, Elena climbs out of bed and goes over to the window, cracking it open a little so she can better hear what the voice is saying.

[Laraqua]

The world outside seems to rush by in a blur of shapes and darkness as the night time gloom combined with the forested surrounds combine to create a strange visual spectacle. She can hear more clearly now the voice, her voice, saying: "...shouldn't have accepted the invitation ... shouldn't have accepted the invitation ... the ankh is the path to mine own end ... should've been more cautious ... so very much more cautious...." And then it repeats itself, over and over, like a death bed mantra.

[Mr. Handy]

What invitation? wonders Elena. She closes the window, turns on a light, and flips through the journal to see if there's any references to an ankh.

[Laraqua]

It takes awhile of flicking through the journal to get an image of an ankh, a looped cross, with the description: The ankh also known as key of life, the key of the Nile or crux ansata (Latin meaning "cross with a handle"), was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "life". It seems innocent enough.

[Mr. Handy]

Elena shrugs, puts the journal away, turns off the light, and gets back into bed. I'll sleep on it, she thinks as she drifts off. Perhaps it will make more sense in the morning.

[Laraqua]

Strassburg, 03:36

This Single Cabin has a Pullman-style bed that folds into a comfortable sofa during the day and can be unfolded to reveal a single bed that isn't terribly wide but which has expensive cotton sheets freshly pressed and a roll-like pillow. The bed currently sits as a couch with wavy green-blue upholstery. A sink in a lovely, closing vanity is fitted into the corner and it provides both hot and cold water, as well as containing a little cupboard underneath that provides a glimpse at the porcelain pipes as well as access to additional storage space. There is, naturally, a button that will summon the Cabin Steward as well as an emergency brake pull with a warning beneath that threatens an expensive fine if you are to pull it without good reason. There isn't much room in this compartment, especially with any hand luggage brought onboard, but it is beautiful.

There is a luggage rack above the bed-sofa and there is an inlaid, fold-out table crouches beneath the window and shortly above this table is a little shelf containing a lamp with a red lamp shade, a weighted vase containing a single red flower and a glass ash tray. Spring-loaded roller blinds can be drawn up to view the outside world or to gain more privacy. Half of the window glass can be slid down to allow wind in, odours out or merely to stick one’s head out the window to get a good view of the surrounding countryside rushing past. Between each compartment stands the mosaic-floored cabinet de toilette where passengers may make use of a sink and mirror to wash their faces and apply make-up. This is shared between the two compartments and when one door is opened, the other door locks.

This is Elena Orloff's Sleeping Compartment.

A valise in the luggage rack contains,changes of clothing.

Elena feels tired, so very tired, even inside her dreams. The world itself is cold and grey as ash belches forth from iron factories. The ash brushes against her face but she feels too numb to care as she chips the frozen bodies from the ice and throws them onto the wagon which is wheeled by four men over the tundra toward the factory's gaping mouth. So many instigators.... So many rebels.... So many that need to burn before the ice melts and carries disease with it down the river to the towns below. The rebels bleed and they blister. That is what happens. None who rebel against the truth of the glorious leader can ever hope to....

She can't quite remember who this glorious leader would be but the symbols on her uniform don't make sense to her. She doesn't recognise them and they seem to shift and wriggle before her very eyes. 0/1d2 SAN loss.

[Mr. Handy]

Bozhemoi! thinks Elena as she recoils in alarm, but it doesn't take her long to recover. This doesn't make sense. The glorious leader must be Comrade Stalin; I could not be serving another. But this is not a Soviet uniform.

[Laraqua]

There are five others in her unit who are busy chipping free the dead. They all dress as she does though they do not appear to be confused.

[Mr. Handy]

Perhaps I am undercover, thinks Elena. Yes, that must be it! I've been sent to infiltrate and learn what intelligence I can. In which case, I'd best maintain my cover. She helps the others chip the bodies free of the ice so that they can burn them.

[Laraqua]

As she chips the ice clear of the frozen flesh, she can feel vibrations running up her shovel and hear the explosive sound of large weights falling on ice a distance away. It takes a minute of listening to realise three things: the others are pretending strongly not to hear it, the large weights have a rhythm to them like footfalls, and they are getting closer.

[Mr. Handy]

Long aware of the value of blending in for someone in her profession, Elena also makes a point of ignoring the loud approaching noises, continuing her efforts to chip free the bodies.

[Laraqua]

Everyone keeps their heads down, chiselling as many bodies as they can from the sheets of ice, as though their task might save them from whatever is coming. One of the men beside her falls to his knees, making terrified grunting sounds, before clawing at his eyes and throat. No one else stops. Everyone keeps doing as they were doing, with nary a glance his way, as though it is absolutely fine and normal that a man might bloody his own fingers digging into his skin.

[Mr. Handy]

Elena too continues with her work, ignoring the stranger. It's not as if she cares about him, and as long as she's not looking at him, she doesn't have to think about what he's doing.

[Laraqua]

They pack up tools and slouch their way in lines to the back of the truck, leaving their co-worker to die in the snow. One man gets into the driver's seat and they head toward the city, a city with a barricade of corrugated iron and chunks of cement, some of which seem to have been pulled free of the earth by various construction machines and painted with various symbols, mostly one, though, mostly one. Repeated over and over and over until her head hurts. Some of the chunks of material look like old footpaths or even hunks of asphalt-laden road. They arrive at a gate of barbed wire, through which are coiled various chunks of the dead. Another set of people head out on sleds as a third lot of people come up behind them with a sled of their own ... a sled full of frozen bodies. The truck pulls over to one side as people with pick axes slam hooked axes into the frozen fresh, attach chains, and then haul them up onto the barricade. Now that she looks, now that she sees, she can sees the partially consumed bodies that hang here and there, their bodies in tattered disrepair.

[Mr. Handy]

Elena avoids looking directly at the symbol, but she remains focused on her surroundings, gathering intelligence as she has been trained to do. So this is war.. she thinks. She follows the lead of the others in her unit, seeking to blend in and not to stand out in any way.

[Laraqua]

There is an acrid tang to the air. It makes her head buzz and her eyes ache as she smells it, but then she is taken through the barricaded gates into the city beyond. None of her colleagues smile at her. Their eyes are glazed, their movements slack, they fall into a queue where a man with a shaven head slops food into bowls. There are others on the city streets, but none this close to the wall, and they all eye them nervously as though afraid of contagion.

[Mr. Handy]

Elena gets in line to wait for her food with the others, keeping alert as to what's going on around her.

[Laraqua]

The man in front of her accepts his bowl of slush and goes to sit down, rocking, on a door step. The house above it has been demolished and turned into a weapons platform for a very big anti-aircraft gun. He eats with his gloved fingers, despite having chiseled out a corpse only several minutes earlier. She's given her slush too. It smells like gravied meat, and not particularly fresh meat.

[Mr. Handy]

Elena finds a similar stoop on the opposite side of the street from the man, and she sits on it, facing him. The food, if one could call it that, doesn't look very appetizing, but she does need to eat something, and this is all she has. She slowly and methodically eats it while surreptitiously studying the anti-aircraft gun and the man seated in front of it.

[Laraqua]

The anti-aircraft gun is carved with all kinds of graffiti, most of it nonsense syllables that doesn't appear to have any kind of meaning at all.