Solitude

Thirty minutes before Theodore died, he stood in the packed King’s Cross station, with faces tired and lined surrounding him. He tried his best to not push people out of the way as he attempted to follow his teacher through the train station, but the sheer number of people made keeping up with his teacher a near impossible task, and soon, Theodore was forced to push his way though the crowd, ignoring the dirty looks shot his way.

When he was finally able to reach a small gap in the crowd, Theodore saw his classmates surrounding his teacher as the crowd seemed to part around her. She didn’t seem to notice that Theodore had been left behind as she was more focused on watching James, who kept darting in between the other boys, trying to get a reaction out of them that wasn’t coming.

Theodore tried to use the gap in the crowd as an opportunity to get closer to his teacher, but the crowd snapped closed almost as quickly as it had opened up, and Theodore was left stranded again in the crowd of people. What distracted him from his quest to catch up to his teacher, was when a middle aged woman holding the hand of a young girl and carrying a suitcase bumped into him, apologizing immediately as she bent down and picked up the papers that she had dropped. Theodore bent down and helped her collect her papers, noticing that she was going to be taking the same train as him. The young woman thanked him once he handed her papers to her, before she headed off into the crowd again, and he quickly lost sight of her.

Theodore was about to continue towards his teacher and classmates, when he heard his name echoing out over the crowd. It was clear his teacher wasn’t happy, and Theodore started pushing his way through the crowd in an attempt to reach his teacher before she got too mad. As he got closer to the train, he noticed that the crowd seemed to have thinned out and Theodore used the opportunity to catch up to his classmates, ignoring the annoyed look his teacher had on her face.

Right as he was about to step on the train, he took one last look at the train station and noticed a large clock on the wall proclaiming that his train was about to depart, and with one last deep breath, he boarded the train.

Theodore’s teacher led the way up the aisle towards the front of the train, as she looked for enough seats for the six of them. Eventually she found them a couple of cars from the front of the train, and assigned Theodore, James and David to sit next to each other, while she sat with Kaine and Aldric, a choice Theodore knows she made because of Kaine’s and Aldric’s habit of 'accidentally' getting into trouble.

As Theodore glanced around the cabin, trying to ignore the nerves in his stomach, he noticed the mother and child were sitting a couple of seats away from Theodore, across from an older man. A second later, the mother glanced up, made eye contact with Theodore and nodded at him, before going back to talking quietly to her daughter.

Theodore quickly got settled in his seat, but as time stretched on and the train didn’t set off, doors still wide open, he started to get worried. He glanced at his pocket watch and saw that the train was already a couple of minutes late in setting off. But before he could worry about it too much, his teacher got up and stood in the middle of the aisle, and started lecturing the boys about all of the rules that she had already gone through on the way there, saying things like how field trips were a privilege, and that if they acted up, the film class wouldn’t be able to go on field trips for a long time.

Theodore didn’t bother paying attention to his teacher’s lecture and instead kept his attention on the train. The doors closed about a minute into the lecture, but the train didn’t move. Eventually, his teacher ran out of words and she sat down again, glancing at her watch as she started to mutter about the train being late, and Theodore noticed that a couple of passengers in the cabin had also realized that the train was late in starting off as they began talk quietly amongst themselves.

A couple seconds later, though, the train started off with a jolt, and everyone in the cabin seemed to relax. James, who was sitting across from David and Theodore, kept his voice low as he pulled out a deck of cards and challenged them to a game of bridge. David agreed to the game immediately, while Theodore declined. Instead, he stared out the window of the train and watched as the scenery flew by. His peaceful view was interrupted when James started complaining that David was cheating, and as the argument slowly grew beside him, Theodore tried his best to ignore them, instead watching as the scenery disappeared as they went through a tunnel. The lights that illuminated the tunnel flashed into his eyes and disorientated him, causing him to close his eyes until he felt the sun on his face again.

Once through the tunnel, James asked Theodore whether he wanted to join their game. Although Theodore really didn’t want to play a round of bridge and get between James’ and David’s argument, he felt David’s pleading eyes next to him, and eventually agreed to just play one round, and James dealt him in.

Just then, the door to the carriage slid open and a ticket collector walked in. He started going from seat to seat, checking everyone’s tickets before handing them back. When he got to the group of boys, their teacher had to fumble her way through her purse to find the tickets, and Theodore noticed that the ticket collector seemed to be sweating profusely. Eventually, his teacher found the tickets in her pocket, but as she went to hand it to the ticket collector, she dropped them instead. The ticket collector, shaking slightly, picked the tickets up, causing Theodore’s teacher to start blushing. The ticket collector handed the tickets back, and both Theodore and his teacher watched as the ticket collector hesitated at the door to the next carriage. He shoved his slightly shaking hands into his pockets, before turning back around to face Theodore’s teacher, who blushed even more violently at the eye contact.

“I hope you enjoy your journey,” he said before he continued to the next carriage.

“I won!” James proclaimed, loud enough for their teacher to hear, and her attention immediately latched onto the three boys as she started lecturing them about the reading they’re supposed to be doing for class. Theodore, David and James all pull out their books, though David and James crack them open with twin groans. Theodore, on the other hand, found the book more interesting and was glad for the excuse to not have to play another card game with James.

Theodore lost his place on the page when he heard loud yelling coming from the other side of the carriage. He glanced down the aisle to find a well dressed woman yelling at a young man about his age, whose face and clothes suggested at his destitute status. The young man slowly shrunk back at her words, while the woman only grew louder as she demanded to know if he was a stowaway. The young man seemed too frightened to say anything, which only seemed to spur the woman on as she started threatening to call the ticket collector back and have him throw the young man off of the train. The young man kept his eyes glued to the ground, and for a couple of seconds, Theodore wondered whether it was his responsibility to step it.

But before he could, the older man sitting across from the woman and child stood up from his seat and walked over to the woman and young man.

“Is everything okay over here?” he asked.

The woman grabbed at the young man’s shirt and shoved him towards the older man, “This hoodlum is a stowaway on the train. He should be escorted off this train immediately and turned over to the local coppers.”

“I understand you’re upset, but if it’s really a big issue, I’ll pay for this young man’s ticket,” the older man replied.

The woman with child spoke up, “Why don’t you come sit here,” she said to the young man, “We can sort everything out at the next station.”

The well-dressed woman opened her mouth to complain, but the old man shot her a look that took the wind out of her sails, and she sat down with a huff. The young man glanced at the well-dressed woman, fear evident in his eyes, before he meekly followed the old man to his seat. The woman with child reached into her bag and pulled out an assortment of homemade snacks, which she offered to the young man. He refused the snacks at first, shrinking back into his seat as if hoping it would swallow him, but when the woman kept insisting, he eventually gave in and devoured the snacks.

With the yelling gone, Theodore went back to his book and kept reading, but before he could get through the page, the lights on the train started flickering. He glanced up, wondering if something else was going wrong with the train, when an thunderous boom echoed through the cabin and Theodore was thrown forward, his head smashing into something as everything went black.