Whistle poised - Westley Breeze

The prompt was ‘travel’ and I wanted to create a snapshot of a scene on a train. The idea was to leave the reader wondering what had happened to the girl, and why she was running away… and also, where she was going…
I am tempted to develop this into a story… jumping back into the past to explain the series of events leading to her running away, whilst the story moves forward into the future.

Breathless, I reached down to grab the tattered handles of my suitcase, hauling it onto the awaiting train. Last on the platform, the guard watched me, his whistle poised. As soon as I pulled the door closed, the strident shrill echoed throughout the carriage and the train lurched forward.

The sound left me numb, the irony not lost on me.
This was no game, and I wasn’t sprinting to the finish line, or to victory… I was running for my life, and I had no idea where I was going or if I could ever be safe… from him.

I dumped my suitcase in the luggage rack and worked my way down the aisle. The train was packed, a hum of noise and activity and the sudden heat stifling after the bitter cold outside. I glanced out of the nearby window, the inner city buildings and graffiti tags blurring together like a flip book animation as we picked up speed.

I took a breath and counted down the seats, stopping beside a man in a pin-striped suit. He flinched slightly when I touched his shoulder, his eyes scanning me quickly with a look of disquiet.
What secrets did he see? Were the dark rings under my eyes so prominent? Could he tell that I was broken beyond repair?

‘My seat’ the words were barely a whisper from my lips as I pointed at the vacant seat beside him.
He stood up to let me sit, and my traitorous hands trembled on my lap before I hid them in the central pocket of my hoody.

I turned my attention back to the window. Outside the world was still, the eerie quiet of winter after a cold spell, everything now encrusted in ice, frozen and immobile.

I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I had no plan, except to get as far away as possible from my past, from here. So I watched as the world passed us by, mile after mile. The gentle clatter and rumble along the tracks rocking me to sleep… finally.