"Hurry up, Rose! We're not going to catch the train at this rate! Your mum will be furious!"
Ron Weasley was running towards Platform 9 and 3/4 holding onto his daughter's hand, while he dragged her luggage with the other, hoping against hope they would still have time to board the train.
It had been rather unfortunate, but Rose had got sick this morning and had been very little disposed to go anywhere, much less Apparate to King's Cross. Hermione had agreed to let Ron take care of her while she rushed off with Hugo. But she made him promise they would be there on time.
Of course whenever you promise someone you're not going to be late, the very thing happens.
Ron stopped briefly before the stone wall and lifted the trunks.
"All right, Rosie, follow my lead. We're almost there."
Rose looked at the wall bleakly. Her face was devoid of any colour. She felt very nauseous and feverish, despite the healing potions her dad had given her on the way. She could barely stand as it was.
For one brief moment, she wished she did not have to go to Hogwarts right at that moment. As dearly as she loved the school, it would be better if she could just go back home and lie in bed. Sitting in a compartment with a bunch of lousy Gryffindors was not her idea of feeling better.
But they were already verging on extremely late, she could not turn back now.
After seeing her father disappear through the wall, she closed her eyes and ran straight into it.
She always felt strange when she had to cross worlds, but this time it was a lot more painful. Probably because she was feeling ill.
There was a white light, then a muffled sound, then something dropped, like a pin or a needle and then she felt her chest constricting. The air was not coming out.
When she could breathe again, she realized it had just been a dizzy spell and that she was in one piece after all.
But something was wrong. It was the silence.
She couldn't hear the familiar hum of the train, or the din of chattering students and parents.
She opened her eyes and blinked, trying to adjust her eyes.
Indeed, the platform was empty.
There was no one in sight and there certainly was no train coming.
She looked around in shock. Had everyone vanished? Where was her dad? Where was everyone?
She turned back to the wall and attempted to go through it again, thinking she had done something wrong the first time or she had stepped into some parallel dimension, but when she tried running into it, she only collapsed and fell on the ground with a heavy bruise on her nose.
She lifted herself up slowly and looked in front of her. There was another platform on the other side of the rails and beyond it, only a sea of yellow and brown, a wide expanse of empty fields.
She looked behind her. The station looked completely derelict. There were no signs, no lights, no human life.
It was only a shabby-looking building with a couple of broken windows and a door leading to a dirty-looking waiting room where she could see a couple of chairs and a scorched spot in the middle of the floor.
The only thing that indicated that this was a train station was a tattered and faded timetable placed on one of the outward walls. It showed arrivals and departures.
But the dates and the numbers were all wrong.
August 56 - Arrivals at 15:90
Departures: Not Allowed
August 59 - Arrivals at 90 Degrees and Earlier
Period of Mourning
Maycember - Departures at 00:Half a Square
Today - No Casualties
Nothing out of that gibberish made any sense.
She walked towards the end of the platform hoping to find some clue as to her whereabouts. The platform ended as abruptly as it had begun with two steps and a red line painted on the ground. She walked around the station trying to understand what had happened.
From what she could gather, she was in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere she looked she could only see low hills or flat fields. This was the only building in these parts.
Rose was not one to get scared quickly, but a feeling of panic rose in her chest.
She fished through her pockets and found her wand. She exhaled almost without meaning to. At least there was that.
Thank God she never parted with it.
Her luggage and all her possessions had been with her father.
She was completely alone at a train station in a far-off land. And the only things she had on her were her pair of jeans, her red T-Shirt, her blue jacket, her sneakers, a small necklace, an old candy wrapping in her left pocket, a napkin in her jacket and her wand.
That was it.
She returned to the platform once she had inspected the surroundings.
There weren't many trees or any kind of shrubbery around. Here and there she saw some small withering plants with no fruit and a couple of holes that had been dug into the ground by some creature, presumably.
Everything was so quiet that her breath was like a steam engine.
She sat down on one of the benches against the outward wall.
Rose pressed her cold hands to her forehead. Whatever sickness she had experienced before, it was gone now.
The fear was pulsating through her veins. She was trapped. Where could she go? Could she just walk to the next village or town, supposing there was one in walking range? Could she just Apparate somewhere? No, because she barely mastered Apparition as it was and she had no idea where to Apparate since she didn't know where she was. She could try Hogwarts, except for the fact that no one could Apparate into Hogwarts.
Maybe Hogsmeade then. It would be worth losing a finger along the way or leaving a foot behind, if needed.
As all these thoughts ran through her head, she noticed something rather peculiar in front of her.
The lack of shade.
She had no shadow.
She got up and started moving around, trying to spot her shadow.
"No, it can't be! Where is it?" she yelled, turning and turning, trying to discern at least something that would resemble a shade.
When she finally stopped she felt dizzy again. That is when she realized that nothing around her had a shadow either.
The building, the bench, the platform, the plants, nothing. They were all bereft of any shadow.
Rose knew by logical standards that no matter where she had travelled, shadows couldn't just vanish into thin air. They were a clear consequence of light and if there was light there had to be shade.
Except...
When she looked up at the sky she was met with a stark image. There was no sun.
There was light, though. There was just no source.
It was a creamy, soft, unsettling sort of light that seemed to colour the sky rather than emanate from it. As hard as she looked, she couldn't find the sun. And not because it was cloudy, there was literally no cloud in the sky.
The sun just...wasn't there.
Instead the sky looked like the dough her mother used to make whenever she baked.
It was like a soft blanket that blocked any natural light from coming through, like a fluffy layer of cake pressing down upon the earth, making the air sweet and sour, clogged with dry essences, devoid of water.
There was no water? But then, it would be impossible to breathe, wouldn't it?
And she was still -
The constriction she had felt when she had passed through realms returned with a vengeance.
That is because, in actuality, she couldn't breathe. And she hadn't been able to breathe from the start. She had fuelled herself with the magic she had had left in her body.
But that tends to run out quickly when you're suddenly in a land with no water, no sun and no real air.
Her knees suddenly gave in and she fell to the ground, her palms against the chalk-like soil.
Her body shook in powerful shudders as she forced herself to open her mouth, to breathe, to take in everything, anything. She was like a fish on dry land. Her eyes had become glassy and terror-stricken.
It was the worst kind of death - asphyxiation.
When the last beat of her heart pounded into her ears, she felt all her blood rush to her head and memories of that morning, memories of her dad and mum flashed before her eyes. She had woken up with a sad thought; it was September again, she was sixteen, she was beginning a new year, she was going to waste more time learning about Potions and Herbology, she was going to graduate soon, but it wouldn't matter in the long run because life was just a passing moment and whatever she studied, whatever she achieved, it would all be the same. Nothing would matter.
But now, now if she could go back, everything would matter. Because right then, right before the last moment, there was nothing she could do but she wanted to so very much.
She died wanting.
And when she closed her eyes it was in hope of going back.
Some minutes passed in the same all-consuming silence as her body lay lifeless in the ungodly perennial afternoon light.
There was a fiery breeze coming from somewhere within. The ground had got warmer.
Something was burning in the entrails of the earth.
A white roll of smoke came out of one of the holes in the distance. Only it wasn't smoke per se, it was something that resembled blood.
After some moments, a small, slithering, slimy-looking creature came out of the hole. It had the body of a black snake and the head of a red bird.
It trailed across Rose's limp body and checked to see if she was dead.
When it assessed as much, it started singing and hissing in a ghastly voice, calling out its brothers and sisters.
"Another one?" a voice yelled from another hole.
"Is it - boy or girl - another one?" another voice asked.
"Humans!" a third one yelled excited.
In mere moments another ten such snake-birds crawled out of their holes and marvelled at the sight in front of them.
Rose looked young and beautiful and all together perfectly suited for their needs. A carrier of water, flesh and hair. Not to mention appetizing.
They slowly made teams to drag her into the large hole under the train station where they could prepare her properly. The scorched stain in the middle of the waiting room was already opening wider, revealing thousands of sharp ivory teeth, like a mouth waiting for its children.
They had planned everything. Someone would undress her, another one would cut her hair, another one would rip her nails and then another would cut her eyelids...
The snake-bird that had discovered her first whistled proudly to itself. It bent down and licked her forehead happily. Her skin tasted a bit salty, which was just right.
After Rose had been dragged down the large hole, the timetable on the wall changed.
Today - One Casualty
Period of Mourning