With a Bang || Open
The trip from London to Swynlake had been…well boring. To be honest Arthur had slept through most of it, not lasting ten minutes before his head lulled against the back seat window as the scenery of the country scrolled past him. It was only a couple of hours, and his driver, Martin, called to him in order to wake him up half an hour outside of town. He had been up day and night packing, working, researching, so he thought the short nap was earned. Even before he had been picked up Arthur had been sitting in his office filling out paper work until the last minute. He hadn’t even had time to change out of his work clothes.
The majority of his things had already been moved into the flat that had been arranged for his stay, only a few bags left in the trunk of the car of clothing and things he had needed in order to finish the remainder of his work before being able to come out there.
The car pulled into the town at an agonizingly slow pace, and that had Arthur sitting up to look out the window. His eyes tracked the people walking down the streets or focusing on the buildings. It was…quaint. Small. Much smaller than London. Smaller than anywhere he had stayed. They turned a corner and rolled slowly for a little while, Arthur looking upwards at the street sign.
Suddenly the car came to an abrupt halt with Martin letting out a cut off yelp.
“What was that?” he asked, taking off his seat belt and leaning forwards.
“I think..,” Martin blinked and turned to look at Arthur. “I think I hit somebody.”
Christ, he thought, shoved opened the door, and stepped out, rounding the nose of the car to find that, yes, there was indeed a person lying there in the street. Christ.
“Are you alright?” he asked, leaning down to look over them.
Marlin didn’t even know where to begin.
It was common sense not to cross the street except at crosswalks, even if it didn’t look like cars are coming! Even if you were on a bike! And it was common sense that you stopped for people crossing! Even if it was illegal crossing! Marlin usually tried not to involve himself in other people’s affairs, but he couldn’t stand by and watch this happen.
“What the hell did you think you were doing! Someone needs to call 999. There might not be much time left--” he looked at the person on the ground who was already stirring-- seemed disoriented, scraped, probably bruised, but very much alive. That was a relief. But you never knew sometimes, right? He needed to do something. Panic was starting to set in. “This is bad. This is very bad. If no one is going to call 999 I’ll do it.”
