all she could hear was the inevitable inching towards her ever-impending death.
it sounded like deceit.
perfidious (adjective)
/pəˈfɪdɪəs/
deceitful and untrustworthy
~~~~~
and with a start, she awoke. her nose was blocked with a thick tar-like substance that tickled at her nostrils, and her eyesight was failing her. everything was black, but her eyes were open. she felt a cloth over her eyes, and felt the urge to lift it up from where it was sliding down her nose like her glasses once did.
but her hands were tied behind her. she was lying down. her back was on a rigid, jarring floor, and the weight of her body crushed her hands which were wrapped behind her back. her legs were stuck, most probably tied too. but not to each other. they were tied to something else, holding her legs down.
she pulled her arms and legs, trying to loosen the stinging rope, but only managing to tighten them even more to the point where they were cutting through her skin, like melting it at the seams. she wanted to scream at the rope for refusing to comply, but her throat was dry and sore with tar clogging it, and it only resulted in her choking heavily. she wanted to sit up to choke the tar out properly, but every time she'd let out a cough, her head would be pulled back down to the ground with a sharp pain, and her movements were entirely restricted. tears pooled on her eyelids and her ribs ached with each movement.
she heard a clang in the distance; the sound of metal and mechanics. was there someone there? she considered screaming again, only this time for someone's attention, but having just got over her last coughing fit, she didn't want to risk getting another one.
the sound of metal got increasingly noisier, and the thick substance in her nose blocked her nostrils with a smoky scent, so all she could smell was the scent of rubber burning in the distance, and pollution killing everything that called this planet home.
she felt the ground beneath her start shaking, so rapid that she thought it would crumble under her weight and send her straight into the pits of hell.
the noise of metal on metal grew louder until it was resounding in her head, forming a migraine of clatters and clangs.
but she heard what sounded like a foghorn follow the shrill screech. and she felt burning, hot smoke scald her skin and block her ears slightly.
the numbness of her senses was inexplicable, and the white noise deafening her ear drum echoed in her mind, hammering at the confines of her thoughts until it was a repetitive, torturous cycle.
but she could feel the rumbling ground she lay on start shaking even more rapidly.
and suddenly, all at once, she was bombarded with the sound of metal again. and of a horn.
a steam train?
yes, a steam train. that's what the echo driving her to insanity was. that's what the fiery gas suffocating her was. that's what the rumbling was.
and that's what was slowly but surely getting nearer to her.
her death.
she knew where she was now; the tracks of the old, supposedly abandoned steam train.
but it was a little too late for revelation now.
the crashing of wheels against the tracks, and whistle of steam being released; it was all so overwhelming. and it had been going on for what seemed like an eternity.
but it was slowly coming closer to her.
it started to get louder
and louder
AND LOUDER
AND LOUDER
AND-
...nothing.
nothing happened.
it disappeared sooner than it arrived.
and she lay there,
pondering how the steam train managed to get so close without ending her.
and questioning how the attack on her mind disappeared so instantaneously.
and wondering why it painfully disappeared only when she had finally come to terms with the prospect of her-
dying.
