Piercing Through the Silence

by James Sandepp

  The lift ride took another ten minutes ascent and I wondered if this was another building or even the main house. When we reached the top, the doors automatically opened, and I realized it was neither because I was standing in front of a train platform and there was a multi-compartment train waiting in front of us but the train doors were still closed. The shocking thing was that the train platform area was full of many pregnant couples each with either a single or pair of white coats standing beside them. Where were they all going and why were there so many?

  An alarm sounded, a yellow light started flashing above on the train platform’s ceiling, the train doors slowly opened, and the crowd started shuffling in. I followed the crowd and found a window seat as the white coat with me sat next to me and the couple sat right in front of us.

  Now I know why I had the sense earlier on why I would not see Susie and Oliver for a while. I was getting on board a train without knowing where it was heading and I wanted to send a message to Susie and Oliver but I knew I could not because it was too dangerous inside the train as the white coat next to me could notice and alert someone and I also realized no one on the train was using any phones, which was a bit odd. Maybe it was some rule inside this train or there may not be any signal down here but either way I decided not to touch my phone.

  Susie and Oliver were going to be so worried, but I knew I had to do this and find out the truth. As the train started moving I gave up on any thoughts of returning to them as there was no way back now, as I noticed how clean and new it was inside of this train.

  Initially the train was inside a tunnel, a few minutes later rays of sunlight and vast landscapes invaded my eyesight showing me we were no longer in Thomson. Then, mountain ranges and fields like those on the west side of Thomson appeared and it was quite a sight as I had never been outside of Thomson. As the train continued to pick up speed, there was a river flowing beside which was as clear and blue as the sky above but there didn’t seem to be any roads of any kind out here. I realized this train was not the usual kind workers from Thomson would take to travel to other towns and neither was it the train people took to travel to Vinder. My classmates had proudly shown pictures of such trains before but this one I was in didn’t match any of those. The fact that there were no tickets needed for this train and no one was checking on us showed this train was specially built for a secret purpose.

  I noticed a monitor on the ceiling of the train compartment and realized the destination of this train was Vinder. My eyes widened briefly, my skin was tingling, my heart skipped a beat and I quickly brought my emotions under control because I could not believe I was heading to Vinder.

  I remembered Felix once told me he would take me to Vinder after I turned sixteen and I didn’t think much of it at the time but what he said then had some truth to it now except for the fact Felix wasn’t with me and I was travelling alone. Thinking of Felix made me tear a bit and I quickly blinked away my tears and stared down at my lap. So much had changed ever since I turned sixteen and if someone told me I would be on a secret train to Vinder to uncover the truth of my sound-making ability after my sixteenth birthday I would have told them to stop bluffing me.

  Before my sixteenth birthday all I looked forward to were the Magistrate’s gift certificates and buying everything off my secret wish list. Now all those things seemed stupid and meaningless as I began to feel the weight of what I was carrying. Susie’s words had finally found a home in my heart and I knew my sound-making ability could change history and allow humankind to start a new chapter.

  Looking out the train window the surrounding landscape had changed to a desert and appeared very dry as the mountain ranges had taken a step back into the background. This landscape was not somewhere you wanted to get lost in and the vastness of the desert landscape reminded me of how much more there is to life than the little Thomson I live in. The monitor showed we would be approaching Vinder in about fifteen minutes and I was still amazed by how fast the train was moving.

  I noticed something going on ahead of me and realized a man was standing, saying something to one of his white coats and from his animated signing the man was quite upset. I couldn’t see exactly what was being said but then a second white coat stood up and it went on for a little while before the upset man eventually sat down. Throughout the whole commotion in front of us the white coat next to me didn’t move a muscle but instead appeared to be taking a nap. I studied the white coat beside me recognizing it was a guy but the coat itself hid much of him. I used the opportunity to pull out my phone but noticed there was no signal and I guessed this explained why no one was using their phones in this train.

  The landscape started changing rapidly and the barrenness of the desert began to be invaded by life. It started first with pockets of small buildings and roads, then homes and gradually buildings which appeared to become taller by the minute. We should be approaching Vinder and then we were in a tunnel again and after a few more minutes the train reached its destination. There was a message on the monitor to exit the train in an orderly manner as the train doors slowly opened.

  FORTY-TWO

  The people started shuffling out in order as the white coats followed their assigned couples while I stuck to my white coat and realized we were heading towards four pillars. I kept following my white coat until I noticed there were four lifts, one at each pillar, and the pillars went straight up, and I couldn’t even see the top of each pillar. Whatever this place was, it was bigger than anything I had ever seen as I heard the train move on from the platform probably on its way back to Thomson.

  The white coat led the couple into one of the lifts and I followed behind. There were two other couples and their white coats inside this lift leaving very little room to turn inside. Slowly, the lift started rising, the train tunnel below became a speck of dust and the four solid walls surrounding the lift changed to a transparent glass surface. I wanted to touch the glass but I controlled myself as the lift stopped at the fifteenth floor, one couple and their white coats stepped out and they started walking down a corridor. As the lift raced upwards there were many similar corridors through the glass and I realized the enclosed building on the farm could not even compare to this building I was in now. At some floors there were white coats walking around the corridors in a hurry with some of them carrying files while others were using their phones. The next couple and their white coats left the lift at the twenty-seventh floor and I noticed my white coat was using his phone and I wanted to take mine out and send a message to Oliver, but I hesitated because I didn’t know at what moment I would need to get out.

  The lift stopped at the thirty-fourth floor, the white coat led our couple out, motioned me to follow them, I nodded and moved behind the couple. We walked along the corridor until we reached a door on the right which the white coat opened, and we entered.

  A male doctor was at his desk using his computer and had been apparently waiting for us. Once we entered the couple went straight to the doctor as if he was an old friend, the white coat stood beside the door and I did the same.

  The doctor took the lady into an adjoining smaller room and, as the man waited behinds with us, he started tapping his fingers on a side table. I pretended to stare at the floor not wanting the man to turn and try to make conversation with me while the white coat was again using his phone.

  After a while the doctor and the lady returned, the doctor said something to the man, which I was unable to see, and then the couple started to leave with the white coat leading them out of the room. I followed, but decided it was time to get away from this white coat and couple and as they walked further down the corridor there was one door ajar. I slipped in, closed the door behind me, waited one minute, then another but no one followed me.

  The room was like a waiting room with a row of chairs on one side and full glass windows on the other end and as I walked over to the glass windows the view took my breath away.

  FORTY-THREE

  I had never set foot in
a building with such incredible windows and views before. There were similar high glass-paned buildings across from the one I was in and, looking up, I couldn’t even find the top of those buildings. It was as if these buildings seemed to go on forever into the clouds and beyond and I knew Thomson didn’t have so many high-rise buildings and even the ones it had were no match for what I was in front of me right now. I didn’t understand how Vinder was able to have such buildings and how they got the money to build them was even crazier.

  Something whizzed by me a few floors above and I took a step back from the windows before realizing it a kind of high-speed train flying high in the air. I noticed there was some kind of structure connecting my building and one of the opposite high-rise buildings and then I realized there was a very thin train track. Somehow this city had managed to create trains travelling seemingly in the air which sounded crazy and incredible at the same time. A train traveling over thirty floors in the air was amazing and I didn’t know what else to expect in this city, but I was sure it would be beyond my wildest imagination.

  Vinder was far beyond Felix’s descriptions of a city with many buildings and everything he said never prepared me for what I was seeing right now and even my classmates never talked about trains high in the sky. The Vinder I heard of in stories was the starting point and obviously this city was doing things Thomson would never be able to do in its lifetime. Like the secret train and the underground network beneath the farm everything here seemed to be done with a majesty and it was no wonder so many workers left Thomson to work here. I wished I could share what I was seeing with Oliver and Susie and, remembering them, I pulled out my phone and found there was a signal finally and my phone appeared to be able to work here, which, itself, was a miracle.

  I used Oliver’s code to send a message to his phone briefly explaining what happened to me in the last hour, but didn’t get any immediate reply. I hoped Oliver got my message and the two of them were safe back in Thomson as it had been nearly two hours since I left them. If they followed my instructions, they should be out of the farm and on their way back to Oliver’s friend’s place. I needed their help to decide what to do next, but I knew I couldn’t stay in this room forever as the owner would eventually return and there was no place to hide here.

  I sensed someone was behind me, tried to turn around but it was too late as I felt a sharp pain in my head and blacked out.

  FORTY-FOUR

  My eyes fluttered open, my vision was blurry, but I could make out a faint greenish color on the ceiling and, although I don’t know where I was, it looked like a room.

  After a while my vision started to clear a bit and I noticed I was in a hospital-like room lying on a bed, but there was no one here and my head hurt. I should have been more careful and looked around before being distracted by the view as someone must have been inside the waiting room when I walked in.

  I tried to move and lift my head, but I could not, and the pain was too much as I realized my hands and legs were strapped tightly with some cord to the bed. I tried again to break the cord, but I was unable to and wanted to make a sound but didn’t have the strength to do it as I felt very drained.

  I heard a door open and an older lady, hair white as snow and wearing a blue gown like those doctors during an operation, approached me. She was smiling at me, but her smile wasn’t the comforting kind and I felt there was something evil as it sent a shiver down my spine.

  I heard something, thought I was imagining it initially because it seemed to be like a sound, but I actually heard the words “Welcome home Marinette!”

  I was confused and wondered if I was going crazy and whether the pain in my head had permanently damaged me somehow. Did I hear a sound not from me and was it my name? If I heard correctly it would be the first time in my life I was hearing my own name, but it could not be and I must have been hallucinating from the pain and there was probably something wrong with me.

  There was a name tag on the woman, which said Dr Liverfield and she was holding a syringe in her hand as she got closer to me. Oh no. I had always hated going to the doctor for anything. Dr Liverfield moved closer to me, my heart started thumping, my fists curled as I tried to break free from the cords again, but it was useless as I could not move at all and was too exhausted.

  She injected the syringe into my left arm and I blacked out again.

  THE END