I can still hear the rhythmic, heavy thrum of that diesel engine grinding against the rails, vibrating straight up through the damp earth and into the marrow of my fourteen jointed legs. My heart—or whatever sickening, biological pump beats inside this iron boiler now—is hammering against my ribs with such violent force I thought my plates would crack. I scrambled blindly through the thickest briars of the lower forest, tearing my skin and scraping the grey fur from my flanks, not stopping until I had plunged deep into the suffocating shadows where the pines grow so close together the light of day can never reach the floor.
I collapsed against the rotting roots of a fallen oak, my heavy chassis trembling as I dragged air into my chest-valves. But the terror isn't just from the chase. It’s the confusion. It’s the crushing, agonizing realization of what I just saw.
When that green diesel—BoCo, my mind whispered, remembering the old timetables—slowed down and looked at me through the fog, I saw the truth in his unblinking orange eyes. He looked like an engine. A normal, standard engine sitting squarely on his bogies, his green paint dull, his steel panels smooth and completely sealed. Yes, he had the dead, watchful stare and the fixed, predatory grin of the Ague, but underneath it all? He was still shaped like a machine. He was still a locomotive.
Why? *Why him and not me?*
I looked down at my own monstrous, sprawling mass. I am a fourteen-legged abomination. I am a suffocating fusion of iron plate, heavy machinery, and writhing, ash-grey fur, cursed with human hands at the end of limbs that belong to a nightmare. Why did BoCo get to keep his dignity, his steel silhouette, his mechanical form, while I was dragged down into this squalid, multi-legged horror? Was it because I was a man first? Because my soul was never meant to hold fire and steam? The unfairness of it burned hotter than my firebox, a bitter, corrosive rage that made me want to claw the very bark off the trees. I am a monster. Just a broken, weeping beast hiding in the dirt, while the actual engines walk the rails like they always did.
I buried my faceplate in my front claws, letting out a low, rattling sob that shook the dead leaves around me.
And then, the woods changed.
The damp, rotting smell of the forest floor vanished instantly, replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating wave of sweet oil, old woodsmoke, and burning frankincense. The deep, heavy silence of the trees was broken by a sound so pure, so impossibly melodic, it felt like glass chiming in a cathedral. A gentle, sharp rush of wind cut through the stagnant air, carrying with it a brilliant, flickering warmth.
I lifted my head, my countless eyes blinking against the sudden, blinding strobe of golden light.
Coming down the overgrown, forgotten gradient above me—where rails hadn't existed for a century—was a tiny, immaculate saddle tank engine. His bright yellow paintwork gleamed with an unearthly, blinding luster, his red lining crisp and bleeding, his gold handrails radiating a sacred, chilling heat.
He had no wheels, no steel undercarriage at all; he hovered effortlessly above the ruined earth on six massive, ash-grey biological legs that clicked with a terrible, celestial harmony. And perched proudly upon his funnel was an ancient magic lamp, its flame casting a pulsing, golden aura that pushed back the dark.
I shoved my fourteen legs forward, scrambling out from the hollow oak with a frantic, wet screech, desperate to throw myself at his metallic feet.
Before I could even cry out, before my front claws could touch the bright yellow plating, the air tore open. With a speed that defied all physical weight, the smaller golden engine pounced.
He didn't hit me with malice; he hit me with the crushing, immovable force of an avalanche. His six massive, fur-covered limbs wrapped around my sprawling red chassis in a fraction of a second, pinning my fourteen legs to the dirt and driving the very breath from my boiler in a massive cloud of scalding steam. I thrashed wildly, screaming in a multi-layered, terrifying wail, my claws tearing frantically at the air as the sheer terror of the attack overwhelmed me.
Then, the voice came. It didn't enter through my ears; it vibrated directly inside my skull, rich, resonant, and carrying the weight of a consuming fire.
*"Calm down,"* the golden engine murmured softly, pressing his glowing, beautiful faceplate right against my grease-stained iron frame as his crown of independent eyes blinked in steady, hypnotic unison. *"Calm down, little one. You are safe now. I've found you at last."*
The weight of the tiny golden engine pressing down against my sprawling, fourteen-legged frame was somehow immense, but it did not crush me.
Instead, the sacred heat radiating from his bright yellow plating seeped straight through my painted red iron, dulling the frantic, screaming panic in my boiler. His two independent eyes blinked in slow, hypnotic unison, their golden gaze holding mine in the dark of the hollow oak.
The voice didn't just come from a mouth; it echoed directly inside my skull, rich and steady like the tolling of distant temple bells.
*"You are fighting the shape of the beast because you are trying to be a machine,"* Proteus murmured, his golden lamp casting a warm, flickering strobe across the tangled briars. *"The Gilded Ague only cares for what is hard. It takes the iron, it takes the steel, and it builds a cage out of your terror. But you were never iron to begin with. You were flesh, and bone, and memory. You are trying to choose between being a locomotive or a monster, when neither one of you belongs to your soul."*
I stopped thrashing. My fourteen ash-grey legs twitched once against the damp earth, then went still.
*"The secret isn't apathy,"* the golden engine continued softly, his massive, fur-covered limbs holding me secure against the cold ground. *"You can't freeze your way out of this. To find a true shape, you must anchor yourself. Think of something that brings you absolute peace. Something that existed long before the rails were laid, long before the firebox ever burned in your chest. Anchor your mind to who you were, and let the metal yield to it."*
The words washed over me, heavy and clear. *Anchor myself.* I couldn't be an engine, because I wasn't made, I was born, on Sodor no less. And I refused to remain this multi-legged, weeping abomination of fur and claws hiding in the dirt. But if I was a man once... what did a man look like under the weight of this cursed iron?
I didn't have much reason to trust this little golden engine, but I also had no better ideas.
I closed my eyes—my real eyes, deep beneath the grease and the painted red plates—and let the cold forest fade away.
I stopped thinking about the tracks, the branchlines, the green diesel, and the quarantine.
Instead, I reached back through the fog of the years, past the whistle of the engines and the smell of coal smoke, searching for the purest anchor I had left.
I remembered the quiet warmth of a small, forgotten kitchen on a rainy afternoon in our old house when I was young. I remembered the simple, unhurried sound of my mother’s voice calling me inside for dinner, and the steady, reassuring weight of my father’s hand resting on my shoulder.
No steam, no iron plates, no ravenous hunger in the dark. Just safety. Just home. Just being a human.
As I clung to that memory with every ounce of my fading terror, a sudden, violent heat surged through my boiler—not the scorching, agonizing burn of Stage 3, but something bright and transformative.
The heavy, fourteen-legged chassis beneath me began to shudder and groan. The thick, ash-grey fur along my flanks didn't retreat behind steel plates this time; it withered, dissolving into fine, shimmering dust that drifted away on the sharp rush of wind. The massive, riveted red boiler panels warped, softened, and bent inward, melting like wax under a holy flame as the iron weight pulled away from my limbs. The crushing pressure of the ground vanished.
I tumbled forward onto the moss, gasping for air that didn't taste of sulfur and stale oil.
I pushed myself up, my hands trembling as I braced against the dirt. I looked down at my arms, my legs, my torso.
I had a shape. A bipedal, human shape, standing on two legs instead of fourteen. The sprawling, multi-legged engine body was gone.
Yet, as I stared through the dim twilight at my own hands, a cold, hollow shiver ran down my spine.
Even in this restored form, I could instantly tell that something was deeply, horribly off. My skin was brown again, but it was greyed out, as if I was covered in a light layered of ash. My nails were no longer animalistic, but they were still black. My teeth were still just slightly too sharp. And I was bigger than before, and... furrier.
But I was human again—mostly. But as the golden engine quietly stepped back into the shadows, his lamp casting one last, flickering golden glow across the trees, I knew the metal had not let me go. I was a man built out of and fused with a monster's remnants, standing alone in the dark forest, waiting for whatever came next.
FUCK IT, WHY NOT AT THIS POINT?
I still needed to get home, without anyone seeing me.
