The Princess and her Mercenary
The firewood crackled as the flame of the campfire danced under the stars, illuminating the clearing in which a young man could be found, leaning against a tree as he rested his tired body. And for the first time since everything went south, he spend the night with company... Sleeping company, but that’s still better than none at all.
And there she lay, snuggled up in the makeshift bed of various clothing articles, blanketed by a couple of long coats and head resting on a blouse filled with other clothing. All made from whatever remains that could be salvaged from the crash. One would probably mistake her for a normal young girl of eighteen years, had it not been for a few... Differences. The biggest being the dark sapphire blue gem shaped as a crescent moon on her forehead, which seems to be an actual part of her body along with the dark cerulean markings on her body. On each shoulder she has a blotch of the cerulean markings with a white crescent moon in the middle, like the current night sky. The young man noticed that some of her dark violet hair was covering her face now and gently brushed it to the side eliciting a smile from the young girl.
He then leant back on the tree and tried to rest some more, but every time he closed his eyes, the nightmares returned. The horrible memories from that fateful day which haunted him the moment he closed his silvery blue eyes. But regardless of nightmares, he needs the sleep now that his body has to sustain two lives.
“Tch... You’re only in that form to spite me by taking up my only bed...”
The young man could have sworn he saw a wicked smile creep up on her lips, which wouldn’t really surprise him anymore. He turned over and rested against the tree, using his own duster coat as a makeshift pillow and drifted off to his inner nightmare world.
The young man snapped out of his daze as the trains steady rumble decided to kick it up a notch or three. Looking out the window, he saw that it was still moving along the underground rails, steadily getting closer to the final station. He still had no idea why he felt the sudden urge to just jump on the nearest train and ride it till the end. But here he was, in the last car with a bunch of strangers. People without faces, that he cared nothing for, people who just takes up space around him, blabbering on about whatever. The same mindless drivel day in and day out.
“Why won't anything interesting ever hap-”
He didn’t get to finish that line before the entire car shook violently, tossing every passenger around like ragdolls as blinding lights flashed around outside. the young man quickly managed to fasten himself under a seat just in time as the windows of the train car exploded inwards, showering him and everyone else in glass shards. There was a final roaring thunderclap and then gravity disappeared for a second before the impact hit and the sound metal tearing and ripping resounded all around him.
He clutched the bolted seat for dear life as the shaking hit its most violent and the sounds were to the point of being deafening. and then, silence. Utterly and complete silence.
As soon as he got over the confusion from the sudden change, he noticed that he was now upside down as he slowly shuffled out from under the seat and lowered himself down on the ceiling. All around him lay people, some hurt more than others. His dislike of others be damned, one would have to be cold-blooded to just stand around and do nothing when others are hurt or suffering in front of you. So he quickly ran to the nearest person still breathing.
“Oi! Mister, you alright?”
The old man raised his head, his left eye closed from the blood streaming down his forehead, “I’m alright sonny, but you should worry more about the kids and women, and not an old fart like me,” he let out a hearty laugh before coughing up blood, “Don’t look at me like that, just go help the others.”
He didn’t question him and quickly ran to the next person that he could see, a young bloke around his own age. There was no reaction when he first called out to him, but the young man quickly discovered that he was merely unconscious, not that that’s a good thing in this bone chilling coldness.
*SLAP!*
“Oi! Don’t sleep here! You’re gonna die in this blasted cold!” he slapped him again and shook him a bit harder.
“Urgh... I’m up... I’m up! Stop shaking me, you tosser!”
“Good,” he unceremoniously dropped him to the ground and got up, “Then I suggest you get up and move around, get that body of yours warmed up. You could try helping those in need.”
“Right, I’m on it... Err...”
“What?”
“Name, you have one?”
“David, now get to work.”
“Mattheus, but everyone calls me Matt.”
And so the two young men got up and helped those in need of it. It didn’t take long to find the remaining survivors. Apparently the train was had somehow managed to end up in some unknown snowy mountains, almost all the cars had been crushed by the impact when it rolled over the edge of a cliff and only seven people were still alive.