Creative Writing Competition 2012 India | |
CODE | 166 |
SETTING | Railway platform OR Inside Train |
OBJECT | Cell Phone |
THEME | Overcoming Fear |
Unusual Short Story – Killer Machine
A railway platform is situated near a village where no one likes to board train from or get down at that station. The platform is quite old with rare or no maintenance at all. It is a hilly area & train mostly passes through caves dug out in the hills.
The station wears a abandoned & deserted look. One day some foreign passengers board a train from a nearby city to venture out & collect information about nearby areas. Their train stopped at this platform. No one except two of them who were close friends got down with their cellphones in their hand. One of them went to the toilet & other was waiting outside. He took so much of time that the engine of the train hauled & the train moved on leaving them behind on that platform.
They were quite tensed & Paul blamed Johnson for his carelessness. They went to the ticket window & they were informed that no train is available until next morning. This is the only train which passes through this village in a day & next day it will come at the same time. They have no option but to wait on the platform. They asked about nearby hotel or some room where they can stay for a night but the station master informed them that it was quite backward village & no hotels or guest houses are located in this area where they can spend the whole night.
Paul thinks of spending time through clicking photos & making videos of their stay until night through his cellphone. They have food which they have brought with them & lie down on the nearby benches talking to each other. Time passes by with night approaching & various sounds of animals & various insects have started echoing. The station has changed it’s appearance from deserted to haunted with sound of cats, wolves & dogs crying at night. Paul & J0hnson cover their faces & were about to sleep.
When suddenly they hear the noise of a train coming. Paul listens to it first & then wakes up Johnson. They think of boarding it. The train stops in front of them as if calling them to board it. They take their bags & enter into the compartment of the train with Paul recording everything in his cellphone. The train starts moving with jerk & the people inside are too weird with cut marks on their face, not saying anything & their faces are white in color. All things seem peculiar to them & they want to get off the train. They start feeling afraid. Johnson asks one of the passengers about the final destination of the train. He replies angrily & answers to the hell. Johnson doesn’t understand what is happening around him so he tries to pull the chains to stop the train. But the train doesn’t stop which haunts them even more & they are quite afraid & concerned about their lives.
Paul calls the station master whose number he had taken while talking to him & after that call Paul stands shocked. He is not able to move from his place. Johnson shakes him & asks him what did the station master say. He replies that the train we are traveling doesn’t exist in this world. Johnson thinks he has gone mad. Until he peeps outside the train window. He sees everything upside down as if he has entered some mirror & consoles Paul nothing will happen to them.
The station master tells Paul the train in which they are traveling had met an accident 10 years ago. After that whosoever enters the train has never found to come back alive. It fell in the river next to the village. All people traveling are souls of dead people. Johnson thinks of jumping from the train.
He takes Paul with him & says to him that whether we are alive or dead, we will remain friends forever & pushes him out of the train following him closing his eyes. They doesn’t know where in the world are they now.
When they open their eyes they find themselves at the same platform lying at their benches as before. They remember everything which they under went through last night & Paul tries to play everything he had recorded in his cellphone. Everything was properly recorded but the train they entered wasn’t there & they can see themselves standing on the platform after that the tape was too dark to see anything, everything was blank.
As their tape ended they hear the whistle of the train which has just arrived on the platform & this time they doesn’t want to be left out at any cost & they hurriedly move towards it taking their luggage with them never ever to come back again to this place. After this incident Paul & Johnson have become deeper friends sharing everything, every moment of their life together.
__END__