In The Valley Of Darkness

[superkamiguy1]

[superkamiguy1]

The train rattled through the bleak countryside, its iron wheels grinding against the rails in a steady, hollow rhythm. Sam Quartermain sat by the window, staring out at the mist-covered fields, her face barely reflected in the glass. She’d long stopped listening to the clatter and chatter of the other passengers behind her. Their voices felt distant, muffled, like sounds carried through water. Her mind was somewhere else.

Sam wasn’t her real name. Hadn’t been for years now. She couldn’t even remember the last time someone called her by her birth name, not since she’d taken her old friend’s place, slipped into the identity of Sam Quartermain after the real Sam never came back from the hills outside of Graemor. They found his body in the snow, frozen stiff and hollow-eyed. He’d been ready to enlist, eager even, but he never made it.

But she had. She’d taken his papers, sewn herself into his uniform, and stepped into his life. The war didn’t care much for details. She’d become him because being herself didn’t feel right anymore. Maybe it never had. It was easier, somehow, to wear the face of the dead. At least Sam had a reason for being there. She hadn’t.

Outside, the twilight deepened. The world was a smear of shadowed hills and skeletal trees, twisting like the limbs of some dying thing. Sam could feel the weight of the revolver under her coat. Her hand brushed it out of habit, her fingers tracing the cold metal. It never left her side. The war had ended, but the habit hadn’t.

Neither had the nightmares.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to drown the memory. But it was always there, just beneath the surface. That night. The one that stuck like a splinter in her mind, the one that refused to heal. She’d seen the horrors of battle, watched men torn apart by artillery, seen blood run thicker than rain, but none of that clung to her like the thing she couldn’t explain. The thing that had followed her out of the war like a shadow, haunting her steps even now.

A presence, unseen but always felt.

She didn’t tell anyone, of course. Not back then, not now. No one would believe her. Maybe she didn’t even believe it herself. But there had been something out there, in the woods that night, when the sky was black as pitch and the snow was falling like ash. Something ancient, something wrong. And it had looked right at her, through her, with eyes that glowed like embers in the dark.

Sam shuddered, pushing the memory away, focusing on the glass instead. Her reflection stared back, gaunt and tired, the face of a soldier who had lived too many lives. Her hair, cropped short under the worn cap, was still slick with sweat from the train’s stale heat, but her skin was cold. Her fingers felt numb, the same way they had in the trenches. Even here, surrounded by strangers in a packed compartment, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being hunted.

The town she was headed to—a name that barely mattered—was supposed to be a new beginning. A place to disappear, to shed the skin of the soldier and slip into something quieter, something simpler. But deep down, she knew she wasn’t running toward a new life.

She was running away.

The whistle blew, and the train began to slow, steam hissing from its iron lungs. A low murmur rose from the passengers as they shifted in their seats, preparing for the upcoming stop. Sam stayed still, eyes fixed on the horizon. The sun had dipped below the hills, leaving only a faint, sickly glow at the edge of the world. Shadows stretched long across the fields, swallowing the light.

She couldn’t shake the sensation that something was watching her. Always just out of sight, lurking in the folds of twilight. Every mile the train covered brought her closer to the town, but it also felt like it brought something else closer too. Something old. Something patient.

Her hand tightened on the revolver. She hadn’t fired it since the war ended, hadn’t needed to. But she kept it loaded. Always. A single bullet could mean the difference between life and… something else. Sam glanced around the compartment, scanning the faces of the other travelers. None of them seemed to notice her, none of them seemed to notice anything. They were caught up in their own little worlds, oblivious to the creeping dread that clung to the air, thick and suffocating.

The train came to a slow halt with a screech of brakes, the windows rattling in their frames. Outside, the station loomed out of the mist, dimly lit gas lamps casting faint pools of light on the wet cobblestones. The town beyond was dark, save for a few flickering lanterns. It seemed like a place forgotten by time, or maybe abandoned by it.

Sam didn’t move. She watched as the other passengers gathered their things, shuffling out of the compartment in a slow procession. She’d get off soon enough. But for now, she waited, her eyes drifting back to the window, to the night that seemed to press in from all sides.

In the distance, a faint howl echoed through the hills. Not a wolf. Something else. Something that sounded almost… human.

[superkamiguy1]

[Valhalla Erikson]

It took everything within Sam’s power to not want to shudder, sink within the leather seat she is stationed. She keeps telling herself that once she’s in town she’ll put the nightmare behind her for good. And a nice long bath. That would be heaven to her.

She looks around, surprised to find none of the passengers aware of the howl that took occurred. Could she have been hallucinating it?

[superkamiguy1]

Sept 28, 2024 3:52:59 GMT Valhalla Erikson said:

It took everything within Sam’s power to not want to shudder, sink within the leather seat she is stationed. She keeps telling herself that once she’s in town she’ll put the nightmare behind her for good. And a nice long bath. That would be heaven to her.

She looks around, surprised to find none of the passengers aware of the howl that took occurred. Could she have been hallucinating it?

That serenade was for you alone Sammy! Be afraid!