The Lost

22- Escaping

Lucius

The station was crowded. It ended up being fortunate. I never would have made it to the train without the crowd of people for cover.

I walked the city's streets for twenty minutes before I was able to find some indication of a train station. The whole time I was glancing over my shoulder, worrying about a pursuer. But it was actually pretty simple after I found the first sign; I trudged un-chased along grey paths, past grey buildings, always damp and shadowy, on and on and following signs until the steady stream of people became a surging crowd. The station was definitely a place that was always crowded. People going to and from work, I supposed.
There were policemen outside which really made me nervous. My stomach tingled with unpleasant swirling feeling when I saw the luminous green jackets. They were just people on the lookout for trouble, like security in a shop; they weren't after me specifically, but still. Would the Lady have sent people looking for me? Would she have called my parents, the police? I could think of nothing worse than being caught and brought to a police station with four tiny people in my pocket. Didn't they make you empty your pockets? Yeah, police people handcuffed you- so I wouldn't even be able to hold Lyn and the others- and they made you empty your pockets.
It made me feel sick to imagine what would happen to the tiny people if they were discovered.

I walked past the police with my hood up and head down. No shouting voices told me to stop. No feet stomped in chase of me. I breathed a long sigh of relief as I melted into the crowds.
We were all okay. For now.

My hand was in my jumper's front pocket, held half open, half closed. It got tiring quickly to hold your hand totally flat. The four people were safe inside. If they were shaking, I didn't feel it... so hopefully their fear was dissipating a bit. Lyn was as fine as she could be in a small space. And Rosin... it had taken almost five minutes for her to even let me pick her up again. She was sat rigidly in my hand, smacking my fingers when she deemed them too close to her. Her slaps actually hurt too.
I adjusted my grip. Azure and Aspen were cuddled into the crevice between my thumb and fingers. I hoped they were comfortable enough... they deserved rest more than anyone.

But still, my hand was only a temporary safety. I had to get them home and safe. There was a protectiveness steadily swelling in my chest for these people. So I spent half an hour feverishly studying a big, tangling train map, trying to find the word forest or something. The only thing I could find was a jumble of weird names. Places. It brought me no closer to figuring out which of the thousands of passing trains would bring us to the forest. Did a train even stop near the forest?
I stormed from the map in frustration and despair. Come on Lucius, think! There had to be a way to figure out what to do! I slunk around the station for what felt like ages, glaring at the floor. There had to be a solution. These guys were counting on me, I was the only person that could get them home. How would they ever survive in the city?
I looked up. Has to be something. That was when 'something' that was faded green caught my eye.

I looked to the left. There really wasn't many things that were green in the city. There were plenty of trees around, plenty of stupid, sagging hedges to separate the roads, but they weren't really green. More like a crayon-coloured grey. Like some mouldy lime colour. But this, although it was faded maybe from sun-exposure, was a proper splodge of colour.

There was a big cork-board that all train-stations have. We had one in a few of the classrooms back at the school. People usually pinned reminders for homework on it, or more often some swearword or doodle. Doing that would get you detention if you got caught.
The train-station board was more organised. Lots of flyers, lots of advertisements... one of which was green.