A Screech in the Night
Ch.8 Shatter
Warning:This Chapter contains an Eldritch Horrror doing Eldritch Horror Things. The Events are not cruicial to latter chapters, so you can skip it if need be.
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The following days saw Screech settle into a routine. Early in the morning, Geyn would steam her, Freda joining him shortly thereafter. Her dawns were spent racing along with the Morning Pike. After the morning run, she brought the previous day's fish vans back to Uman. Then she would make the quarry pickups along the line. After Gwyn and Freda ate lunch, her days varied based on what was needed that particular day.
Nearly a week after her arrival, she was sent up a branchline near Coedwig to collect a mixed goods for the harbour. The Branchline was named the Blaidd line after the engine that ran it. A small 2-4-0 metro tank of Cambrian design, she was nearly as old as the railway itself.
When Screech arrived, Blaidd was attaching the last vans to the train. The little engine ran back alongside the eldritch giant.
"Mind yourself with this lot lass. They're proper devils today," the tank engine spat. The trucks and vans giggled.
"It can't be as bad as October," Gywn called as he walked to the switch to let Screech through.
"Worse," the 2-4-0 groused, "they've heard of the big lass from the other yards, and are determined to show her up." She glanced up. "They'll fight you all the way to Dyfnder if you let them. You need to put them in place now or there will be uffern to pay on the hills.
Before Screech could respond, an empty truck from the sidings called out. "Oi boys, look what crawled out of the scrap heap!" The trucks and vans in her train cackled.
"Show him his place," hissed the whisper.
"Oh look, a talking matchbox." Screech drawled, "did they run out of toothpicks when building you? Or did they know you weren't worth the wood?"
Her train roared with laughter.
The truck seethed, "A sight better than you monster. Not even fit for scrap metal." He smirked, "unlike your sisters. I heard they made soup cans out of them."
Screech went very still. All sound seemed to vanish, the wagons in her train daring not to breathe. Even the whisper fell silent within her mind.
"Blaidd?" Screech asked quietly, the sound echoing back in the silence from a thousand angles. "Are you in any way attached to this beast?"
Blaidd shook her head nervously.
"Good."
The sky darkened as Screech stretched her tendrils towards the truck. The temperature dropped drastically, the water dripping from the shed roof freezing in place mid-air.
Despite the unnatural silence, a ringing seemed to fill everyone's ears. In the dark, Screech's eyes glowed, and the trucks looked away as quickly as they could, instinctively knowing that to look within them would shred their minds like paper in a gale. The air around Screech distorted and refracted her image, but the lone truck somehow knew the terrible glimpses he saw through the shards were closer to the true Eldritch form of the 47xx.
Even before the tendrils touched him, the truck rose into the air, vibrating from some unseen energy. He cried out as the sound of splintering wood and straining metal was heard. Everyone in the yard shied back as the shriek of metal overwhelmed his cries. The tendrils surrounded the truck like serpents made of shadow. It had only been seconds, but it had felt like hours when his eyes finally met Screech's.
As he felt his mind tear from the strain of glimpsing her true self, a tendril finally, almost tenderly poked a corner of his chassis.
The silence was ended by the shattering of wood and metal into thousands of infinitesimal pieces. One second the truck was there, the next, nearly imperceptible pieces of metal and wood rained down on the forest and yard.
Screech closed her eyes and took a deep steadying breath. When they opened again, they were a burning ice blue.
"I expect," she said shortly, "that we will have no problems on our journey?"
Everyone in the yard, freight car and human, nodded frantically.
"Wonderful." Her tone remained clipped, hinting at her still simmering anger.
"Uh… Screech..."
The ice blue eyes swung to Blaidd, only to find the small tank engine off the rails. The track next to Screech had warped from mere proximity to her rage. Blaidd had been left tilting on the edge of the ballast.
"Apologies"
Screech slapped the rails with a tendril, and the rails snapped back into place. She then reached out with several tendrils and gripped the tank engine's frames, lifting gently.
She brought Blaidd in front of her to inspect her for damage, and finding none, gently set her back on her own rails.
"Thank you." Blaidd watched the tendrils curiously as they retracted.
"Normally anything they touch turns to rust, how do you control that?"
"Who says I do?"
"The fact you picked me up without turning me to scrap."
Screech barked a dry, but genuine laugh. "Through pain. I'm not meant to be in this world, so it damages anything that touches me. If I desire, I can protect the object..."
"By taking the damage yourself."
"Indeed."
Blaidd was quiet for a long moment, "You didn't have to help you know. We have a breakdown train that could have picked me up."
Screech flicked a tendril carelessly as if shrugging. "It was my fury that put you there when you had done nothing deserving my rage. Putting you back was only correct."
Blaise frowned, "but it hurt you."
Screech snorted dryly, "hardly any more than existing."
Blaise looked at her sharply, "You're in pain just from being here?"
"Such is the price of my existence."
Blaidd looked searching then sighed, "there's nothing we can do to help, is there?"
"Unless you can reverse death? No. I would not ask even if you were capable of such a feat. This is what I am now. To change that would change me."
The tank engine nodded slowly, "I think I understand. I wouldn't ask to become a diesel even if it kept me up to date."
"Exactly."
The Tank engine glanced over at the trembling trucks in Screech's train and smirked, "Any chance I can convince you to come down every once and awhile to keep this lot in line?"
"It would be my pleasure." 4702 purred while the whisper cackled.
The trucks gulped audibly.