Awakened

Page 19

Benji quickly ran out of sight of everyone and then took off into the air. He only had a few minutes until her train would pull out of the station and she would be gone again.
As he arrived at the station he ran up and down the different platforms looking for her.
Then, he heard the announcement.
Final call for train 192 headed towards Washington DC leaving the station now.
He looked across the platform and saw a train sitting there, about to take off. He quickly ran up the steps and down the other set of steps that led him to the correct platform.
He searched the windows of the train as it began to pull away, and then, for a second, he caught a glimpse of Rachel, a hood pulled over her head, looking down into her lap. He was too late.
“Rachel!” he screamed.
She looked up, as if maybe she had heard him, and for a moment, her eyes met his. She stared at him through the glass with a puzzled look, as if trying to remember a distant stranger. Her eyes were filled with sadness and confusion. She looked so helpless, so lost. It looked as if she were trying to remember him. But try as she did, she did not. Her face never transformed into recognition.
As he watched the train pull away, as he watched Rachel disappear from view, he felt as if his whole world were being taken out from beneath him. The train gained speed, faster and faster, entering the tunnel too fast for him to reach it in time. As it disappeared into the tunnel he felt it had taken his heart with him.
“RACHEL!” he screamed again.
But his screams merely echoed in the reverberating silence, as her train disappeared into blackness.