A Trick of the Light

Tick, tick, tick. The clock's movements were so slow, so forced. The passing of time was nothing more than an inconvienice to the girl. Each monotonous click reminded her of her obscurity, a girl so lost in a world so large. Her eyes probed the station that was brimming with the brightest of colors and the most sensational of sounds. She slowly rose, a backpack hanging limply over one shoulder, and started ahead. The clock had finally chimed, taking a backseat to the thunder rumbling in the distance.

Young children danced about through the terminals. The girl stepped back as the lights above her flashed, gasping in surprise. Where had the children gone? She blinked furiously and hurried on, past the whistling trains. It was just my imagination going wild, she told herself.

Would the terminal ever end? She wasn't sure. Her train had to be close, only a little bit further now....

An old man stood on the tracks.

"Harry, get out of there! It's dangerous!" A harried wife called, her cloak pulled tightly around scrawny shoulders.

"Just wait, honey. I dropped my wallet." he grumbled, bending down to pick something up in his bony hand.

Lights flickered, and the girl let out a screech as a train barreled past her, the old man gone under its shadow.

"Honey, what's wrong?" The wife ran over to the hysterical teenager. Her husband, the old man, pulled himself up from the tracks and tried to intervene in the girl's hysteria.

"But....But he died. The...the train...." Pools of tears grew in her eyes. The man had just been killed. Yet here he was, literally untouched, not even breathing heavily.

"Honey, get on the train. I'll be right there." the old man reassured his wife. She left quickly, glancing back only once with an eyebrow raised in curiousity. "Now, why don't you tell me what's.....," 

Overhead, lights exploded in a fiery blast. People ducked for cover, and ran in throngs towards the exits, towards the station, where things made more sense. The girl was pushed back and forth among the crowd, and cried out in pain when she was kicked in the back. People were running off of the trains now, but no one noticed the girl that lay crippled by pain.

She was falling, falling into the darkness. She could hear a train whistle in the distance, but pain overwhelmed her body, weighing her down. Then she felt wetness beneath her. The old man lay dead, as she had seen before the lights had been restored.

"But...how...but..," she gasped, eyes wide and frightened.

The closed eyes opened for the briefest of moments. "My dearie, it's just a trick of the light." The train whistle was louder now, louder, louder....

The lights of Grand Central Station returned in a blast of back-up energy with emergency lamps replacing those of the terminals. All strolled about, freely now, minding their own business. The grand clock ticked merrily along, and nothing was beneath a train or its tracks. The people may have been frightened mere minutes before, but after all; it was just a trick of the light.

Author's Note

It might be a little choppy, written out of pure boredom and peanuts. The idea might be used. I'm not sure. Be honest about it.