The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 16 - Just One Big Happy Reunion!

Sheira was the last to crawl through and once she was clear we all glanced at her. She wiped the dirt from her clothes as best she could before turning to face us. "Okay, so first port of call is to find that train and with the size of this place its probably going to be beneficial to split up."

Oh good, horror movie rule number one: Never, ever split up. Welp, that's gone out the window.

"I think it would be best if me and you went together Nick and Shadow went off on his own. Does that sound good to everyone?"

We nodded.

"Alright. Nick and I start on this side and Shadow can go to the other end of the train yard, we'll use these to communicate."

I held up the small object that Sheira had dropped into my palm. It was a stone, no bigger than one of those pressed pennies that you always find in gift shops that you have to actually pay a quid to get your hands on. It had a flat texture and I might have actually considered that she'd accidently given me a bog-standard rock that your average five-year-old would have considered as treasure, until I flipped it over that is. On the other side a sigil, shaped like a diamond attached to a chain on either side, was carved into the stone. It pulsed gently, a pale white glow emanated from the carving and a strange feeling washed over my head, a feeling of connectivity. Hmm...

"They're called communication stones," Sheira explained. She must have noticed my slightly baffled expression/figured that I wouldn't have a scooby doo about what the heck I was looking at, so she decided to take pity on the idiot that didn't know anything. I swear to god that sometimes she looked at me like I was a disabled duck, which might have been deserved sometimes...okay, a lot. "I picked them up in Greencoast because I know for a fact that at some point, for better or worse we're going to need these things. They're all connected, and they should provide instantaneous link between all three of us. But they're only for emergencies, and god forbid that we should need them hold the sigil flat against your palm and think help! Got that?"

I nodded and slipped the communication stone into my coat pocket. At least now we had a way to talk to each other when we were inevitably stranded, surrounded and praying to whatever deity you believe in.

"Lets just get this over with," Shadow muttered. Then he stepped back into and vanished into nothingness. I felt myself shudder involuntarily. It was quite obvious that Shadow was still a little bit mad at us, and let's be honest here a blind ant could probably tell that he was royally pissed off. What for, we would probably never know because the entity known as Shadow was a locked book that was written in a language no one could read. You'd have more look cracking the Zodiac killer's codes that trying to work out what was going through Shadow's head.

I turned to look at Sheira, who had gone slightly pale and simply gestured for me to follow her. And while my thoughts of Shadow were racing round my head, being left alone in a dark, creepy and altogether terrifying 'empty' (Because I really doubt we were the only ones in here) train yard was not on my priority list. So, I dashed after her.

By now the whole world had turned dark. Stars dotted the black sky and the pale moon rose steadily towards midnight. The air was silent, only punctuated with the sound of chirping insects and the occasional flutter of wings and the blurred shaped of a bat that accompanied it. The withered carriages cast pitch black shadows and the rusted engines loomed upwards like monsters in the dark. It was like London at night. You couldn't see, any noise made you jump a mile and the unending feeling of terror was your new best friend. Oh, the wonders of living in a city.

Sheira's torchlight flicked across the ground and in my hand my own golden light made our shadows dance eerily against the warped wood and rusted metal of the ancient train carriages. The whole thing was incredibly unnerving and to make things even worse I swear to god that I was seeing things, figures in the dark that might just be a trick of the light, or maybe...