The first sign that the CW-7 was a mistake came when the Marks started disappearing.
Nearly everyone on the planet had one. The first clear thoughts a person's soulmate had of them, in their handwriting, somewhere on his or her body.
Not just a few, but millions of people who had yet to meet their soulmate reporting that their Marks were suddenly turning grey or fading altogether. The future was no longer a certainty. Humanity panicked, and he got on that fucking train.
The Marks start out black and are supposed to turn gold when the soulmates' eyes meet and the bond first takes hold. Curtis remembers asking his mother once how he was supposed to know the moment his soulmate thought the words wrapped around his left wrist. Her face was long gone from his memory but he knows she smiled at him. "You'll know," she answered as she tucked him into bed.
Well he still doesn't know, Curtis mused as he lay on his cot, and he was one of the very few people who still had a Mark. Most of them were couples already together when they boarded, one pair met on the train, he was the only one with a solid black Mark.
Gilliam was the only one who knew. Curtis always kept the sleeve of that arm pulled all the way down. His soulmate was still alive, but he's met everyone in the tail section - an easy feat considering they lived on top of one another.
He still didn't know who was supposed to like his eyes so much, and he never would.
Not from the Tail.
It finally happened! She thought, staring down through the binoculars at the literal train-wreck that had come barreling out of the tunnel. It always came around this time of year, like clockwork. It's how everyone who lived in the mountain marked the come of a new year.
It was a shock to her that she and her brother survived the world literally freezing over. He called it luck, she called it Fate.
They'd been visiting her brother's pen pal in Russia when the cold started to set in and people went batshit. Sasha's people were used to cold, they knew how to survive the extremes. A colony's worth of people fled to the mountains, following the animals into a system of caves that led deep underground, far from the worst of the cold. Sasha, her brother, and herself were among them.
They had heard about the Train before the freeze, but as far from home as they were, there was no way they'd make it back in time. Over time, they heard it passing above them - near as anyone can tell - once a year on the same day. In the last few years as the cold began to abate, they were slowly let outside. She and her brother were part of one of the colony's hunting parties, and they got to see the train when it came around now.
The Elders - who were really only in their late 60's at most, but were ancient compared to the other colonists who'd mostly been adolescents when they escaped - never believed the train was eternal like they were told. It's part of why they planned to flee to the mountains in the first place. She heeded their words, knowing the winds and blizzards were constantly altering the terrain surrounding the tracks. She just didn't think it would happen in her lifetime.
Now here she was, with Aldrich and her brother, making the trek down to the crash site.
There was a voice coming from the front car - the engine. "...he's alive! He's-Curtis, you need to wake up!" It was female and young. A child?
Her brother dropped the pack he was carrying and rushed into the opening, Aldrich shouting a curt "Stay here," to her before following.
Keeping an eye out, she saw the polar bear they'd been tracking up on the ridge they just climbed down. "Damn..." the fresh meat would be missed, but it wasn't a priority anymore. The train. There was supposed to be food on it, supplies for the people. People...
Her arm twitched, but she refused to check, to seek out the black lettering that curved around her wrist. The Mark she was born with: So this is what she meant
Her brother had nearly sobbed in relief when, after the first reports came in, her Mark didn't fade. He took it as a guarantee that she would survive this frozen apocalypse. She rebutted that he would too, 'cause she planned on sticking to him like glue. At that point in time, her only concern was for their little family of two. They had lost everything but each other through the years, and her brother had sacrificed so much to give her a comfortable life. She didn't wanna think about making it out the other side without her best friend by her.
Once the colony had settled, and she'd met each survivor that'd made the trip, she let herself think of the black Mark she still had. They evaded the frost and certain death by going underground. The train wasn't the only escape. Others could have found shelter, maybe some made it south of the equator where snow had yet to fall when the cold peaked. But those are uncertainties, the train was a guarantee.
Aldrich appeared from the crude opening in the cart. "Send up a single flare then get your brother's med bag ready."
"A flare!?" Those were only a precious few and for emergencies only. "Why not a smoke sign-"
"No time!" he cut her off. "The guy's bleeding out. You'll need to help with him while I'm calming down two hysterical kids. The others will know to haul ass over here, we need to start looking for more survivors and scavenging for supplies."
Nodding mutely, she pulled preloaded gun off her belt and shot a flare in the direction of the lookouts they kept posted.
She watched the two men pull out a body dressed in black as she unpacked what she knew her brother needed. Once the stranger was laid flat in the snow, Aldrich gave them a nod and went back in for the kids.
"I'm gonna pack the wound with snow," She swallowed, just noticing the man's empty sleeve and the red snow. "I need you to keep him still. Talk him down if he comes to freaking out." Her brother's face was grim. "It's not a clean break and I need to be sure no bone fragments are gonna be an issue."
Nodding at him from across the man's torso, she moved positions. Her hands were braced on his right arm and over his chest, and she straddled his torso to keep him from arching up. He jerked when the first handful of snow was pressed against his bleeding stump, cold air wheezing into his lungs.
His eyes opened looking around wildly and unfocused, distracting her momentarily as he almost bucked her off. Those are the prettiest eyes I've ever seen, She thought, righting herself again.
He stilled beneath her, his eyes focusing when they landed on her. His heart, she could feel it under her palm, skipped.
She felt a tingle in the back of her mind as she looked down at him. There was recognition on his face, and she too felt a sense of familiarity looking him over. She knew though, without a doubt, she had never seen this man before in her life. She'd remember eyes that blue.
"Don't move," she soothed, "We need to stop the bleeding to check it over. If any pieces of bone splinter off from the break you don't want the wound to heal over them."
Maybe it was the wrong thing to say because those beautiful eyes filled with tears. Sobs started shaking his body. She could make out his murmuring between them but didn't understand. "What?"
"They're gone..." he whimpered. "Your... my words...they." He swallowed, looking passed his shredded sleeve down to where her brother was still working over what remained of his arm. "You were thinking...about my eyes..?" he turned his gaze back to her, desperation and hope and agony mixed behind his tears.
Her breath caught. The world went from eye-piercing and white to pitch black. She lost the time between staring down at him in shock and staring down at her wrist. She could feel the sting on her finger where she bit too hard while trying to get her glove off, but she ignored it in favor of watching her Mark.
Like liquid gold, the new color flowed over the letters, brightening her Mark and shimmering against her skin. The cold air stung her chest as she finally took a breath. She looked desperately at her brother, who was quick to reassure her. "It's alright, he's safe for transport. The bleeding's stopped and the bone is...mostly intact." He winced apologetically and offered a grim smile. "The words are gone unless you wanna sort through the wreckage for a severed hand, but he's still got a heartbeat," was all he had to offer. Clearly nursing school didn't do much for his bedside manner.
She slumped over her soulmate, relieved. "You're gonna be okay. You're here. Finally." she was murmuring mostly to herself, but she knew he heard when he draped his good arm over her back. There was a sharp whistle behind them at the same time she heard Aldrich and his charges emerge from the train.
"Sasha and the others are here," her brother said to her what she already knew. "He'll get you two and the kids back while the rest of us sort through this mess."
She sat up, nodding and climbing off her soulmate.
"...others?" He muttered as if just remembering that these people weren't from the train. They were from outside. Granted, realizing he wasn't dead and finding his soulmate at the same time had him a bit distracted.
"Curtis..." one of the young ones, the girl, was staring as a group of people made their way down the mountain. They brought with them hand-made sleds and modified wagons to transport provisions and the ingured. A few had backpacks slung over their shoulders - medical supplies. "There are people."
Her soulmate - Curtis - looked between her and her people. His face looked ragged and tired, but his blue eyes were full of wonder "...how?"
She smiled and leaned down, placing a close-lipped kiss on his mouth, and shushed him. "I'll tell you everything - later. Right now you get to rest." She stroked the side of his face, careful of the wound on his temple. "You three are safe now, we're gonna take care of you."
He nodded slowly, eyes watery as he took another glance at the people now around them and pausing on the little boy still in Aldrich's arms. "Okay..." There was a smile on his face as his eyes closed, "We're okay..."