bakerstreet | Train to the Afterlife Meme

Train to the Afterlife Meme

The Train to the Afterlife Meme

Congratulations: You are dead.

Maybe you know how, maybe you don't. Perhaps the memory is fuzzy, or perhaps it's crystal clear down to the look in your comrades' eyes. Maybe it was your time; you've done all you wanted to. Or maybe you weren't at all ready to go, maybe you went out kicking and screaming - but none of it matters. You know you're dead, and the train is taking you to an afterlife. Perhaps an afterlife of your choice; you might've earned that heaven. Or perhaps you've earned something else entirely.

It'll be a bit of a journey, though, so you might as well take your time and talk to the other people in your coach. Death knows no place: most of them are strangers, even from faraway worlds. But death knows no time either, so who knows, some of them may be people you know, even if last you knew, they were alive - or long gone.

Oh look, here comes the snack cart.

All the usual:

Post with your character's name and canon in the subject line.
Said character is now dead for whatever reason - canon, AU, what have you. They are on a train with other dead people from many other times, places and worlds.
Characters don't know for a fact where they're headed - just a general awareness that they're going to some kind of afterlife. Whatever they think it is is up to the player.
This meme is built especially for cross-canon interaction, and potentially for threadjacking and group threading - if you're interested, may be a good idea to state as much in your subject line.
Tag around and play nice!
TRIGGER WARNING: Meme obviously deals with death and may deal with other unpleasant themes as a result. Please be cautious.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh, that was why the Woman was so appealing. She wasn't afraid, she wasn't willing to just stay on the train and wait for what happened. A suggestion of leaving and she was ready to go. He feels something coil in his chest, something that feels a bit like a python and he's internally named "The Woman", because he only feels it around her.

He doesn't pull away, stays close, keeps his voice low]

Second car down, there's a larger window. We can climb out, get to the ground that way.

[If there even is a ground. All he can figure is whereever they're going, it's going to be less interesting than out there.]

[The lure of the unknown is irresistible, and besides, they're already dead. She took worse risks back when she still had something to lose. What's left to stop her now?

The anticipation of it practically hums through her.]

Give me a minute, then follow.

[She stands, finally taking her hand from his, and heads for the door at the end of the car. The next is more populated and she's careful to walk slowly, expression distant, as she passes the dead in their various states of shock, denial, grief. Second car, more of the same. She drifts over to the window and stares out, hands resting lightly on the frame.]

[He waits for a minute, his heart racing. Ironic, he thinks, to be dead and have his heart racing. The Woman always brought that out of him. A lesser woman might've had to say something sexual, or draw attention to her assets in order to seduce, but the Woman could just sit there, her hand on his, and talk to him. When she left the room, he felt compelled to follow. It's---it's frustrating, but not in a way that he'd want to stop.

When he does follow, he stands and straightens his coat, and then puts his scarf into his pocket rather than on his person. If he looks like he's preparing to leave the train, someone might get the idea that he is. He steps past the people on the cars to the main window, where the Woman is waiting. He steps behind her and places one hand on hers, ever the picture of a man simply following his lover, rather than preparing to open the window.

He stays behind her, but leans in to whisper to her ear:]

Ready?

[From this side of the glass, the landscape outside is a shifting mass of shapes blurred beyond recognition. It could be anything at all. Anywhere. Her own heartbeat quickens at the prospect of diving out there (and yes, because of the voice in her ear).

Not turning, she murmurs a reply.]

Absolutely.

[Then she's shoving up on the lower half of the window.]

[He goes for the other side of the window, helping her lift it, and then spins around, to fight off anyone who might try to stop them. As the icy cold air shoots into the car, there are a few cries of protest, but no one seems to want to stop them.

He calls back to the Woman, offering her his hand.]

I'll lower you down, then just jump!

I've jumped out loads of windows. I think I can manage.

[Granted, none of them were located on a moving train, but she's not sure what further harm she could possibly do herself.

She does lean out the window first though to make sure she won't be jumping into a tree or a pole or the side of a tunnel. ... Do any of those things even exist here? The gray shapes rushing by are impossible to identify, but at least none of them seem close enough to be a danger.

Situation assessed, she hooks one leg over the sill, turns, and lowers herself. For a few seconds she hangs there against the side of the train, clinging to the window frame as the wind buffets her, and then she kicks off, tucks, rolls.]

[Sherlock retracts his hand, and he gives her a smile that is small, but impressed. After she jumps, he lets himself over the edge and jumps as well, not bothering to look where he's going.

Wherever they go will have to be better than stagnant on a train to wherever.

Whatever he lands on is hard. Sharp pain shoots down his tailbone from the fall, but he has no broken bones, as far as he knows.

And everything here, it seems so---so bleak. Like a countryside, but not. Grays and blacks and whites everywere, but no color. All of the trees are void of leaves.]

[Her shoulder and ribs on the right side take the brunt of the landing, all other bumps and scrapes relatively minor as she rolls to a stop. It takes a few moments to get her breath back and then she uncurls, wincing, and opens her eyes. The ground below her is clear as glass — smooth too, it offered almost no resistance when she was skidding across it before. There is something- many somethings moving underneath.

She presses her palms against it, levering herself up, and nearly falls back again when the nearest of the gray forms resolves into the shape of a man. Squinting into the gloom, she realizes that they all are. Men and women, clawing their way upward. Some have blank, stony expressions and others features contorted with agony. As the one she spotted first grows near enough to touch, another grabs it by the ankle and tugs it down. They crawl over one another, desperate to reach the top, and yet, each time one grows close, another yanks it back.

With a shudder, she gets to her feet and looks around for Sherlock.]

Look at them.

[Sherlock walks the short distance to where the Woman landed, limping just a little as he gets his breath back. He looks down at the writhing mass, all black and white beneath their feet. They stand out like colored lights in a dense fog here. He shudders. Not long ago, he was arguing over the case of being dead at all. Now, he was walking in what was clearly the in-between.]

Let's keep moving.

[He has a nearly photographic memory. Every face in that mass is going to stay with him for---well, forever.]

Yes, let's.

[It's hard to keep her eyes off the ground that serves as a barrier between them and the wraiths, but she does try. There's a thicker cluster of sticklike trees straight ahead and that seems as good a directional marker as any. She sets off toward them, expecting her shoes to click against the glass, but they don't. Her footsteps are silent, swallowed up completely by the void.

When she speaks again, it's mostly to reassure herself she can still produce sound.]

It's so empty. I wonder if we're the first to get off early.

I think there's only one way to find out.

[There's something oddly reassuring about having the Woman here. She's in color, she's standing there and being very real when everything else seems so very bleak. He keeps his eyes up, looking at the horizon for something, anything.

He looks back, where the train tracks seem to go endlessly in the direction opposite where they were going. He starts in that direction, stopping when he's about to pass the Woman. He doesn't want to lose her from his sight, in case she vanishes into this abyss, or joins the chorus of wraiths beneath their feet.

He offers her his arm. He's not one for frequent touching, but it would be better than the possibility of being alone. Sherlock lives alone, it keeps him safe. But now, dead, he doesn't want to be alone.]

[Without hesitating, she links arms. The familiar, slightly scratchy feel of his coat provides a comforting contrast to the alien smoothness of the world around them. An anchor point. It's not that she regrets leaving the train, but, all the same, this place unsettles her.

As they head back the way they came, she tries to judge how long she had been on the train, how far they must have traveled from the origin. Or was there even one? Did the tracks have a beginning as well as an end?]

At least they'll be easy to spot.

They will.

[he spares a look at the ground, then looks back up to the tracks. This could be worse, he decides. The Woman's warmth next to him is grounding, though, and reminds him that at least she's here. At least they're away from that fate that neither of them could control.

He sees a streak of white in the horizon, something against a dark hill ahead. He veers them away from the track to investigate.]

[It's not immediately clear to her why they've changed directions, but soon she picks it out.

The hill is farther away than it appears though, and, after several minutes of walking in silence, they seem to have made very little progress toward it. She glances back at the tracks to make certain they've moved at all, but yes, they are growing distant. It must simply be a long way then.

Her confusion is understandable then when, upon facing forward again, she finds that the hill can be no more than twenty yards away.]

Did you- [She starts, and stops herself, suddenly unsure. It must have been an optical illusion. They didn't leap forward, and the hill can't have moved, can it?]

Yes, I know.

[he looks back down to the ground, then back up to the hillside.]

Maybe they are making their way through the ground, moving it in subtle ways. Come on, let's get away from the train tracks. Can't be that many of them out there.

You think they're drawn to the train?

[Or to them? The dead who, for the moment, retain their freedom of movement.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the ground as they continue, daring the spirits swarming beneath to trick her again.]

I don't know.

[Surprisingly enough, it's not a difficult admission. Out here, considering everything that's happening, not knowing is probably more than expected.

He starts to pick up the pace, holding onto the Woman]

[When he speeds up, she tucks his arm closer against her side. She would hate to be separated from him in this place. To be alone in limbo.

It bothers her not to know the rules.]

You watch ahead, I'll watch down.

[He spares a glance at the wraiths below them, and then a look to the Woman. He doesn't need to say what he's wondering, whether or not they will end up like the things below them, he imagines she's thinking the same thing.

He does nod, and keeps an eye forward, turning his head to look back towards the tracks. No other train passing through, yet.]

Wonder what sort of a schedule it keeps. The train.

[As best she can, she tries to look through the wraiths rather than at them. To keep an eye on their movements without picking up the details. The lines on that one's face, the look in that one's eyes. Desperation. Terror.

Focusing on the conversation helps.]

Hard to say. I suppose it depends on whether there's a set beginning and end. I don't remember waiting on a platform, do you?

No. I don't remember anything but being on the train.

[There's a loud noise behind them, and it sounds like something's splitting. And then there's howling.]

Run!

[She spares a glance behind them and is alarmed to see a jagged crack with something reaching and pulling its way through. One of the wraiths had evidently reached the barrier at last and, by its touch, broken through. Now the fissure is spreading and the gray shrieking things are surging up from beneath.

'Run' almost seems like too mild a suggestion.

It isn't easy to do so on the smooth, glasslike surface either — for every bit that it speeds them along, it hinders with lack of traction and just plain being slippery.]

[Sherlock's faring no better on the smooth surface. When attempting to affect a calm persona, he does a pretty good job of walking smoothly, but now that they're running, now that the ground appears to be breaking open, there's no hiding how difficult it is.

And this ground is as far as he can see. No escape.]

We need to get to higher ground.

We need to get to any ground!

[This, apparently, does not count in her book. There's still that hill ahead of them and she slips and slides headlong toward it, her grip on his arm alternately slackening, so as to give them each more space, and tightening to avoid a fall.]

[Beneath their feet, he feels the ground start to shift, as if the breaking seam were coming their way. Coming every way, Sherlock imagines.

Think, he tells himself. Any ground. Anywhere.]

The one place they wouldn't want a break. [He turns his head and looks back]

You wouldn't build a railroad track through this sort of ground without knowing a way to keep it protected.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Train to the Afterlife Meme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

oh gosh, sorry for late, I went to a con

I shan't forgive you, I'm afraid.

D:

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject