A Wilting Flower

by Terran34

5. A Long Journey

I turn the corner with Rainbow following close behind me. We seem to have passed into a hallway with more sophisticated labs. The air smells strange in this area, suggesting to me that some of these labs must have been working with chemicals. Even though Rainbow and I took some time to look through them, I couldn’t glean anything about what purpose they might have served from what we found inside.

Rainbow and I toss suggestions around, but in the end, it’s mostly guesswork, so we eventually move on from there. Finally, we reach a U-shaped staircase that leads downwards into the darkness. There’s no other way forward, so I angle my phone forward to shed some light, and the two of us start to descend.

The stairs are metal, so the sound of my footfalls clanking on their surface fills the air. I am prepared to fly in case the staircase proves to be unstable, but thankfully they appear to be sturdy enough to support my weight. Rainbow just hovers down behind me, the air displaced from her flapping wings disturbing my hair and brushing my neck.

Rainbow eventually gets impatient and flies directly down the center of the staircase. “Would you slow down? There’s no hurry,” I call after her, but it’s pointless to try and stop her. I hear a metallic “clop” as her hooves settle at the bottom of the staircase.

“Whoa…” I hear Rainbow gasp while she walks forward. “Seth, you gotta see this. It’s...I don’t even know what this is.”

I sigh and quicken my pace, my hand clamping on the handrail as I descend to the bottom. I quickly catch up to her, running beneath an open doorway larger than the others. Even though my eyes are adjusted to the darkness, I can’t really see anything. Not for the first time, I wonder how the hell Rainbow can see better than I can in the dark.

“Wait for me, would you? We have no idea what’s down...here…” I trail off, my voice echoing in the massive room before us. My light reveals very little, but what I do see causes me to cut off in awe.

Before us is a large device that takes up the entire center of the room, and reaches all the way to the ceiling. It’s conical in shape, with the broad end bolted to the floor by metallic plates, and reinforced by similarly metallic beams. At the base, large metal pipes stretch out from each of the four main points, feeding into rectangular protrusions in the walls. Hundreds of wires spider out in all directions from the base, feeding into these protrusions or into the floor. I can’t even begin to guess at their purpose.

The main cone itself seems to be made from glass because of the transparency of the material, but the way the light reflects off of it suggests a more crystalline nature. I step closer to the edge of the walkway that surrounds the majority of the room and clench the railing. Bringing the light closer to the cone reveals that there’s nothing inside of the transparent portion, but there are several metal prongs projecting into the chamber, serving an unknown purpose.

“Seth, you have any clue what this is? I can’t make heads nor tails of it...but it looks awesome,” Rainbow questions, flying up to the device and tapping the transparent material (I’ll just call it glass for lack of a better term) with her hoof. It makes a clear ringing noise with each tap.

“Don’t touch it! We don’t know what the hell this thing does,” I warn her. I can’t get closer to the thing because of the railing, so all I can do is gesture emphatically for her to get back here. Thankfully she complies. “To be honest, I have no earthly idea. I’ve never seen nor heard of anything like this back in my time.”

“You think this is the reactor?” Rainbow suggests.

“Maybe. It seems too small to be a reactor, but then again, I have no idea what a reactor even looks like,” I admit, cursing my own ignorance. I’ve played games with reactors in them, but no doubt they were exaggerated in design, so that’s not a viable source of reference. Once again, I wish I’d majored in something more useful than computer science.

I walk around the device and shined the light around the room. At the back of the chamber, the walkway turns into a staircase that ascends up to what looks like a control room of sorts. I say that because I can see blank computer monitors and the like through a set of windows. The control room is set high enough up the wall to be looking out into the very center of the transparent chamber of the device. Looking on the other side of the room reveals that there’s a similar staircase on the other side of the room that leads to the same place.

“Seth, this is totally the reactor. Come on, we’ve seen nothing but doors and boring labs ever since we got in here. If this isn’t reactor material, nothing is,” Rainbow reasons, puffing up her chest. I give her a deadpan stare, but honestly, she’s probably right.

“Sure, I guess. There’s a control room back here. Let’s see if you and I can make some sense of it,” I respond.

Together, Rainbow and I climb the stairs to the control room. Here’s hoping there’s still a way to power this thing on, if it really is the reactor.

---

Approximately 3000 Years Ago

When Amaryllis had first started looking for a job, she passed her resume to multiple recruiting agencies in the hope of capturing the interest of a company. Somehow the bio-mathematics firm had come across a copy, and it had interested them so much that even after Amaryllis had been hired by the bank in Grenville, they had never stopped trying to reach her. No doubt they expected her to immediately take their offer because of the higher pay grade. Unfortunately, it hadn't been quite that simple.

However, now that Seth was gone for good and Amaryllis had some manner of closure, there was nothing stopping her from moving on and taking their offer. As she expected, the firm had been more than happy to hear from her. Over the course of the phone call, Amaryllis learned that they were willing to pay her a great deal more than her current job ever would; a fact that they brought up first in an attempt to capture her interest.

It hadn't been a long conversation. Amaryllis already knew she wanted the job, so it wasn't long before she and the recruiter were hashing out times for prospective interviews. Due to her own chaotic schedule, as well as the openings of the company, they weren't able to find time for an interview until several months later.

---

Amaryllis finally reached the head of the line, where she and several others were gathered to purchase tickets for the train heading north. Thanks to her employers to be, she had received her first class ticket online. However, as she was now finding out, it didn’t matter either way. To buy or redeem tickets, she still had to wait in the long line with the other travelers.

She was currently in Savannah, which was quite aways from Grenville. That same morning, Amaryllis had woken extremely early in order to make the time listed on her ticket. Together with Seth’s brother, Adam, she had driven several hours all the way down to the coast, where she would be taking the cross country railway all the way up to New York for her interview.

Amaryllis glanced back towards the entrance of the rather small station. Adam was waiting out there with her truck, in which her luggage was loaded. She had asked him to come along so she didn’t have to leave her truck here for several days. He had been very willing to help her out, thankfully.

When it was finally Amaryllis’ turn at the kiosk, she quickly had her ticket redeemed. She spoke to the woman behind the counter in a curt tone, eager to hasten her transaction and start loading on the train well before it was time to depart.

“Hey. The wait wasn’t too long, was it?” Adam greets Amaryllis upon her return to the truck. She groaned and rolled her eyes, opening the back of her truck to retrieve her luggage. Adam chuckled. “That bad, huh?”

“You’d think you could just print the damn thing off...but I guess that’s not too secure,” Amaryllis muttered half to herself and half to Adam. She fished through the backseat. She knew she’d be cooped up in a train for a full twenty four hour period, so she only brought a single suitcase and a backpack to carry her various entertainment devices.

Amaryllis looked in the truck one last time to make sure she had all her necessary chargers and bags; there was nothing worse than being several hours out and remembering that she left her phone charger. Finally, when she was sure, she sighed and gazed up at Adam.

“I’m going now. Keep my truck at your place and don’t you lose it, or I swear to god I’ll kill you,” Amaryllis warned Adam.

“Hold up, I’ll help you with your luggage,” Adam responds, hopping out of the driver’s seat and moving to join her.

Amaryllis looked down at the single suitcase and purse that she had, and then she returned her gaze to Adam, skepticism clear on her face. “Really? Do I look that helpless to you?” She remarked to him. However, she knew full well that Adam likely had another reason to come with her.

“Heh, I guess not,” Adam answers sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck. He soon caved beneath Amaryllis’ intense stare. “Yeah, alright. I just want to see you off. You’re going all the way to New York, right?”

“Yeah, and I’ll only be gone for maybe a week at the most,” Amaryllis pointed out to him. However, despite her jaded tone, she did appreciate the gesture he was attempting to make. Adam started to look a little anxious, causing her to sigh. “Alright, don’t give me the puppy dog face. Come on.”

“That was not a ‘puppy dog face!’” Adam protests indignantly. He shuts and locks the door to her truck and stashes the keys in his pocket as he rushes to catch up with her. “I don’t do puppy dog faces...I’m a ferocious lion!”

Amaryllis let out an amused snort at that. “Okay mister ferocious lion…” she commented. “Seriously though, all you Rogers people have a puppy dog face. Seth would kill me if he knew I told you this, but his was just adorable.”

“Seth had a puppy dog face?” Adam asks with a slight grin, his previous indignance fading in the face of his newfound curiosity.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. He was always talking about how he hated everyone and did just fine on his own, but whenever I’d walk away from him, he’d put on this face like a puppy left out in the rain. It cracked me up,” Amaryllis revealed to him with a smirk. Adam burst out laughing at that description.

“Hah! That does sound like Seth,” Adam commented. After that, the two of them walked through the station and out the doors on the other end, where the train itself was situated. “Wow, that’s much bigger than the intrastate train.”

It was indeed larger than any train Amaryllis had seen. The train itself was thick and rectangular with rounded edges, and the sides were made of polished steel and aluminum. The three american colors were emblazed upon the sides, running the length of the whole train.

The doors in each passenger car were all open, each one manned by a member of the train staff. Other people were steadily filtering onto the train, handing their tickets to the aforementioned staff members on the way.

“Which car are you in?” Adam asks curiously. A quick glance at her ticket is enough to give her that information.

“Second car, it looks like. Though I’ll likely be moving around to visit the dining and sleeper cars. However that works,” Amaryllis responds with an uncaring shrug. She felt a little childish admitting it to herself, but she was rather excited to ride the train. She’d only ever ridden on an intrastate railway, and those were not designed for comfort. “So what, are you gonna follow me right up to the door?”

Adam came to a stop and faced her fully. He looked somewhat serious, which caused Amaryllis to mentally prepare herself for something unnecessarily heartfelt. “Hey, so I’ve actually been meaning to say something to you,” he began.

“You’re not gonna hug me, are you? I don’t do hugs,” Amaryllis retorted before he could continue. Adam raises a brow.

“You ‘did hugs’ with Seth. Don’t even try to say you didn’t, I saw you!” Adam accuses, childishly pointing a finger at her. Amaryllis had to restrain herself from smacking it with the purse. "In fact, you did more than just hugs..."

“Shut your damn mouth! That’s because it was Seth! He’s different,” she shot back as if that should have been obvious, blushing despite herself at Adam's reference to her farewell kiss with Seth.

Adam looked as though he was going to argue further, but then he just heaves a sigh. “No, what I wanted to say is that I’m glad you’re acting like yourself again,” he says with a calm smile.

“Uh...okay.” Amaryllis didn’t really know how to respond to something like that.

“No, really! I’m glad you’ve stuck by us for all this time, but...I gotta admit, it was unsettling to see you going through the motions like you were,” Adam attempts to explain. Amaryllis finally figured out what he was trying to say, and she had to agree that what he was saying was an accurate description of the past eight years. “I appreciate that you came to my wedding and to see Maka when she was born, but...you always seemed like you were somewhere else.”

“Because I believed my best slash only true friend was dead,” Amaryllis deadpanned.

Adam gave a frustrated huff. “You know what I mean. You’re basically a part of the family whether you admit it or not, and we notice when our family is hurting,” he pointed out. Amaryllis did her best not to roll her eyes. She knew what he meant of course, but he was being overly emotional about it. She wondered if all of the men in the Rogers family were like this. “So it’s nice to see you being yourself.”

“Right. Thanks, I guess.” Again, Amaryllis never knew what to say when confronted with something like this. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have had the patience to listen to a spiel like this. Only the Rogers family ever got passes in that regard. “Anyway, I gotta get loaded up. Take care of my truck, got it?”

“Yeah! And one more thing,” Adam continued, causing her to sigh. This time, Adam’s face became grim. “Be careful. I know that it’s unlikely we’ll ever see any danger, but keep your eyes and ears open. If you hear anything about the Oppressed…”

“Shh, we’re in public, you moron!” Amaryllis hissed at him in a harsh whisper. She highly doubted that anyone would know what the Oppressed were, but it was better to be safe. “I doubt I’ll see anything. They’re still in Russia as far as I know. I’ve been watching the news.”

“Me too. Nothing at all. Still, if you hear anything, call my dad or me. Preferably both,” he finished.

“I will. Now, are you done? Can I go now, or do you have something else in your heart you want to spill to me?” Amaryllis responded, her tone quickly turning sarcastic.

Adam lets out a laugh, leaving the serious talk behind. “Yeah, get going. Good luck at the interview. I know you’ll knock ‘em dead!” He encouraged her with a bright grin. With a wave, he turned the other way and jogged back into the building, heading for Amaryllis’ truck.

The train’s horn blew behind her, letting Amaryllis know that it was getting ready to leave. She grasped her ticket and approached her assigned car, putting all thoughts of the eventual undead invasion out of her mind.

After flashing her ticket to the attendant, Amaryllis was allowed to enter the train with the other passengers. The moment she stepped inside, she felt the cool blast of air conditioning pass over her. The temperature inside was a comfortable level, if a little chilly. Amaryllis was glad she’d brought a jacket.

She glanced around at the interior. The first class seating was arranged in rows, though they weren’t symmetrical. On the left side of the train the seats were set up in rows of two, while on the right, there were only single seats. As she could choose to sit wherever she liked, Amaryllis chose to sit on the right so she could have a row to herself.

After sitting down, Amaryllis noticed a flat table built into the back of the seat in front of her. She found that to be very convenient for her; she’d likely make use of that when she felt like using her laptop.

Amaryllis settled back in her seat comfortably, her luggage tucked beneath her. All she had was a suitcase, so she didn’t need to use the rack up top. She was glad the seat was at least comfortable; she’d no doubt be sitting in it for over twenty four hours.

Once all the other passengers had loaded, the train whistle blared again. The attendants stepped inside and the doors hissed shut, letting Amaryllis know that the train was about to leave. Sure enough, she felt the floor beneath her feet vibrate softly, and the train began to pull away from the station. She figured that the train must be fully electric, given how she could barely feel the train moving. She wasn’t surprised; most trains were electric at this point.

Thus began Amaryllis’ long journey north. It wouldn’t be long before she was out of state, given how fast this train was going. She estimated a few hours at the most.

While Amaryllis waited, she took out a copy of the newspaper that she’d grabbed from the station while she’d been waiting in line. She didn’t really care to hear the news apart from the few things she picked up during her day to day, but it was at least something for her to do while a movie downloaded on her laptop. She praised the train company for installing wifi for use on cross country trips.

Amaryllis perused the paper, skipping over the articles she didn’t care about and lingering on the ones that seemed interesting. Among the latter was an article on the airborne sickness that had been frightening the northern states for a while, a year or so back. She only ever heard about it from her co-workers at the bank; but she doubted it was really as serious as they let on.

As she expected, she had nothing to worry about. She did have to admit that it had been somewhat alarming how fast the sickness had spread. She remembered hearing that it had gotten so bad that a good chunk of the work force was completely knocked out of commission for weeks. Fortunately, she’d never heard of any deaths.

The article that Amaryllis was reading now was that the vaccine that a brilliant Russian scientist had devised recently was now being shipped all over the country to correct and prevent any future cases. The scientist’s name was apparently one “Dr. Pallor.” He had apparently shown up around when the papers were calling it an epidemic and had quickly created a cure, which he had been lauded for. The paper even gave an image of the scientist; a thin, pale-skinned man wearing a set of round glasses.

Amaryllis gave a slight frown. She might have to look into getting that vaccine if she was going to be living up north. The last thing she needed was to get knocked out for weeks.

---

Hours passed slowly, such that Amaryllis had to find alternate ways to pass the time. She had her laptop open and plugged into the outlet beneath her seat, and with it she would download and watch movies through Netflix or similar sites. She wasn’t into anime like Seth and Adam were, so she usually found herself watching horror or action comedy.

When she got hungry, Amaryllis would relocate to the dining car and get something filling to eat, so she could get back to her seat as soon as possible. As it got closer to midnight, Amaryllis started watching horror movies, keeping her well entertained and awake for quite some time as the tense atmosphere from the movies kept her on edge.

Eventually she became tired, so she moved to one of the sleeper cars to get some sleep, taking her luggage with her for security’s sake. She stayed there for several hours until the sun started to rise.

Amaryllis sighed to herself as she returned to her seat. No doubt there were still several hours until the trip was over. While she still had plenty of shows or movies that she could watch, she was getting tired of sitting on her butt and doing nothing. The urge to work out came to her, but it wasn’t like there was a gym car on the train. She’d have gladly paid extra for the privilege had such a thing been possible.

Soon, an announcement sounded over the intercom, letting all of the passengers know that they were passing through the state of New Jersey. Amaryllis was happy to hear that; New York City was very close to the border of New Jersey, so they couldn’t be more than an hour or so out.

With that in mind, she packed up her electronics back into her bags, figuring that it would be better to do so now rather than wait until the very last moment. At the very least it would save her last minute clutter. To kill the remaining time, Amaryllis retrieved a thick novel from her backpack and cracked it open. She could easily spend the remainder of the trip on this.

After half an hour of reading, Amaryllis became aware of a man in his thirties sitting across the aisle from her. He was dressed in a sharp well fitted business suit colored as gray as the seat he was sitting in, complete with a white undershirt and crimson tie. He possessed a clean shaven, youthful face that was framed by short wavy black hair cut close to his scalp. His jaw was chiseled and his cheekbones were pronounced, giving him a rather stern appearance, but this was completely offset by his innocent blue eyes.

Amaryllis wouldn’t have paid any attention to the man at all if he hadn’t kept sneaking glances at her every so often. She quickly grew annoyed, as it was difficult for her to focus with him looking at her like that. She thought of snapping at him, but held her tongue. It didn’t seem as though he was checking her out or anything. Amaryllis was used to seeing looks like that, so she knew what they looked like; this was not one of them. Instead, the man appeared curious, as if he was trying to remember something.

Despite these observations, Amaryllis was getting frustrated. She quickly lost her patience, looked up from her book, and met the man’s gaze before he could look away again. “Excuse me, can I help you? You’re not nearly as inconspicuous as you think you are,” she confronted him with an edge in her voice. As rude as that sounded, Amaryllis was intentionally trying not to be rude.

The man flinched at being addressed, and he averted his eyes. “Oh, sorry. You just look like someone I know,” he explains, nervously adjusting his tie. Amaryllis raised an eyebrow. That was about the lamest excuse she’d ever heard from a guy sneaking peeks at her.

“That’s real nice, but I don’t care. It’s really damn hard to focus with some weirdo staring at me like a schoolboy with a crush,” Amaryllis snapped, a curse word slipping into her rebuttal despite her best efforts to remain mostly polite.

Amaryllis expected the man to be offended, but his reaction was the exact opposite. He broke out into a smile, looked like someone who just had his point proven. “I knew it. No one else is as blunt as you are. Amaryllis, is that you?” The man asked, his face lighting up.

Amaryllis blinked and put her book away, figuring this was worthy of her full attention. She stared at the man for several seconds, wondering where she’d met this man before. He didn’t look familiar to her at all, yet he somehow knew her name and her mannerisms.

“Yeah, and you are?” Amaryllis decided to respond sensibly, figuring it would be easier for her to let him explain himself rather than try to figure it out on her own.

“My name is William; I worked with you and Seth way back at Rainier State, remember?” He explains, moving a seat closer to her so he didn’t have to talk across the entire aisle to her. Amaryllis grew uncomfortable at his increased proximity, but she didn’t say anything, because now she remembered him.

William looked nothing like she remembered. Back at her college, William had been a mousey looking guy with scruffy hair and stubble on his chin who wore casual clothes to class, but now he actually looked like a respectable business man. There was almost no comparison between then and now.

Amaryllis only cared to remember this man in particular because he had attempted to help her find Seth eight years ago. Even though if they had found Sombra they’d have both died horribly, Amaryllis still appreciated his attempts to help, though she’d never tell him that.

William’s smile grew when Amaryllis nodded to let him know she remembered. He looked genuinely happy to see her, an expression Amaryllis wasn’t to used to seeing. “Good to see you again. What are the odds, right?” He continued.

“Right, the odds,” Amaryllis muttered with a roll of her eyes. While she didn’t hate seeing William again, the last thing she wanted to do was socialize.

“Did you end up finding your friend again?” William asked, attempting to politely make conversation. Amaryllis froze at that question. That was probably the most complicated subject he could have brought up. There was no way she could tell him the truth, even if he would be more likely to believe than most.

“Seth is gone,” Amaryllis told him flatly. It wasn’t a lie; Seth could never come back from Equestria. However, there was only one way William would interpret that.

William’s smile froze, and then disappeared. He winced and sincere disappointment and sorrow appeared on his face. “I’m sorry...I really am,” he said softly to her.

Amaryllis stared at him with a neutral expression. She didn’t know why he even cared. It wasn’t his business and it wasn’t like they’d ever been friends. Come to think of it, William had appeared to be concerned back then as well, even though they’d only worked together once. It had confused her then, and it confused her now.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry,” William apologized again, looking upset with himself. They sat in an awkward silence for several minutes.

Amaryllis wasn’t angry with him; she just didn’t know what to tell him. She’d come to terms with Seth’s disappearance several months ago, when she’d spoken to Seth in person about it. It wasn’t like she could just tell William that Seth was okay and alive in a world of ponies, probably loving on that Rainbow Dash pony. Amaryllis’ face twisted slightly, having disgusted herself with her own line of thinking.

“Let’s...uh...talk about something else,” William tried again, mistaking her twisted face for annoyance. Amaryllis sighed, but didn’t stop him. “So...why are you headed to New York?”

“Is that really your business?” Amaryllis asked, rubbing her forehead. William winced at her confrontational reply.

“Sorry, just trying to make conversation. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he answered hastily. Amaryllis noted that William hadn’t changed much; he still didn’t have that much of a backbone. Every time she’d say something snappy to him, he’d try to placate her.

“Ugh, don’t do that,” Amaryllis groaned. Not for the first time, she missed when Seth would shoot insults right back at her. “If you really must know, I’ve got a job interview waiting for me.”

“Oh! If it’s in the city, it’s probably a lucrative job,” William commented, looking grateful that she hadn’t taken too much offense.

“Pretty much. Because we’re apparently exchanging stories now, why are you going to the city?” Amaryllis returned, sounding resigned. At this point, her goal was killing time. Even though she wasn’t reading like she had wanted to, she supposed this could kill some time as well.

“I live in New York city now, in Manhattan. I was actually on business in Richmond for a few weeks, so I’m on my way home now,” William proclaims proudly. Amaryllis had to be impressed despite herself. The cost of living in Manhattan could reach up to 4000 dollars a month, so that meant William was doing rather well for himself, probably making over 80,000 a year. “I’m working as a IT project manager.”

Amaryllis nodded. That would explain the high salary. Eventually she’d be making just as much if not more than him, so she wasn’t too worried, especially since she only intended to live by herself. “Good for you, I guess,” Amaryllis responded listlessly. She reclined back in her chair, looking out the window. She realized that William was hoping to hear about her job, considering how he was gazing at her expectantly. “I’m going into Bio-Mathematics, if you must know.”

“Oh, that’s a lucrative field. Good choice,” William complimented her. Amaryllis didn’t respond with much more than a grunt. This conversation had already begun to bore her.

She decided to change the topic to something more interesting. “You live in the north, right? So did you end up getting sick with that epidemic?” Amaryllis figured he’d know what she was talking about.

William winced. “You’re talking about the Hades virus, right?” He asked. When Amaryllis nodded, he sighed. “Thankfully, I was lucky enough to avoid the initial spread.”

The Hades Virus. That was what Amaryllis had read about in the papers several hours ago. Officially, the virus was called the Human Airborne Epidermal Decay Virus, or HAED. However, a medical professional went on record as calling it the “disease from hell,” later leading the populace to make the joke pronouncing it as Hades rather than HAED, and the name eventually stuck. According to the papers, the symptoms started similar to that of the flu, but then patches of rotting skin would start to appear and would quickly get worse unless swiftly treated.

“The first cases started a year back around when I had just finished up with a previous project. I was lucky enough to get an assignment out of state, so I managed to hightail it out of there just as the whole city started getting sick,” William revealed to her, happy to keep talking to her. He then put on a wry grin. “Ironically enough, half my company came down with it not long after I left.”

“Lucky for you,” Amaryllis remarked, crossing her arms. “So should I be getting the vaccine as long as I’m up here?”

“I’d recommend it, personally. I’m planning to get it myself as soon as I get up there,” William advised her. Amaryllis nodded, agreeing with that. She wanted no part of the Hades Virus.

After that, the two of them fell silent, having run out of things to talk about. Eventually, another announcement came over the intercom, letting them all know they would be arriving in an hour’s time. To Amaryllis, the trip couldn’t end quickly enough. Her butt was starting to get sore from sitting down for all this time.

Now that the conversation had fallen flat, Amaryllis opened her book back up and began to read. William noticed her with her book and let her be, knowing full well how she got when someone interrupted her reading.

After half an hour, the train passed down into an underground tunnel that would eventually lead to the first stop in New York, which was in Staten Island. Amaryllis was going to be getting off at Grand Central Station. No doubt William would be as well, considering he lived in Manhattan.

It grew dark as they passed beneath the earth. There was nothing to see out the window except the poorly lit walls of the circular tunnel. Amaryllis briefly wondered if they were underwater as well. They had to cross an inlet from the Atlantic in order to reach Staten Island, so she figured they’d have to eventually.

Amaryllis was abruptly disturbed from her reading when suddenly everything went dark in the train car without any warning. She rubbed her eyes to see if something was wrong with them, but there was absolutely no light in the train car at all. She couldn’t even see any of the other passengers, who were now murmuring anxiously amongst themselves at the sudden lack of light.

“What the hell?” She whispered. She could feel the train slowing down and the engines dying down to complete silence. Even the lights in the tunnel out the windows appeared to have shut down entirely.

“What’s happening?” A woman’s voice sounded out worriedly in the train car. No one had an answer for her. The anxiety in the car only rose by the moment as people turned on their phones and took out flashlights in order to see one another.

The train soon came to a complete stop in the middle of the tunnel. With a quiet whir, the emergency lights flickered on, bathing the interior of the car in a soft red glow.

Amaryllis and William looked at one another, taken by surprise at this sudden turn of events. The train was completely dead in the middle of the tunnel, which should have been impossible unless the third rail that powered them had suddenly lost power.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” William uttered aloud. Amaryllis agreed. No doubt there was just a malfunction somewhere down the line like a power surge, but she couldn’t shake this sinking feeling that was beginning to impede on her mind.

Something was very wrong.

Author's Note:

Goddamn, writer's block hasn't hit me this hard since high school. I realized after a month that I hadn't posted a chapter in forever, so I basically forced myself to sit down and take an entire day just churning this thing out. Thankfully I think it turned out okay.

Did a few things in this chapter that I'm pretty sure you picked up on. Maybe it'll give you a few more hints...because I know a lot of you complained about the human race dying out so "easily." Given the amount of post apocalyptic settings that have popped up, I guess I didn't expect that much resistance to the concept.

Anyway, I'll do my best to keep another wait like that from ever happening again. My Spring Break is coming up, so we'll see if I can't get anything done then.

Thanks to Schadenponi for editing my work, and for the love of ponies, leave me a comment and tell me what you think! I didn't think this story would take so long to gather all of my old readers back.

Comments

[NobleLeader6]

First!

Also, loving this as it gets further and further.

[El Comal]

new york is gonna look like MKX intro soon!

[Cereal-Killer]

Awww shit, the proverbial feces is about to hit the metaphorical fan!

[Srey]

Hmm new, very infectious disease followed by sudden and quickly adopted cure... I figured out how Sombra's planning to soften humanity before striking!

Then we are introduced to an excruciatingly long train ride that spares no efforts letting us know what our heroine did to pass the time... (another tedious aspect, in my opinion at least).

At least it tells us more about the virus and William has been introduced as possibly another romantic option. Hey, the apocalypse is coming after all!

...

A powercut. Ok... I had thought the powers of darkness were still only just preparing their plans. Didn't seem like they were reading to make an appearance yet.