Chapter 4

'Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain' - Anon

Reaching Out

Spencer held his hands out, feeling his way along the outside edge of the carriage.

The inky blackness filled the space around Spence, chilling him, threatening to suffocate him, pushing him back, trying to stop his progress.

He couldn't stop. He had to carry on.

Spencer felt glass crush under his feet as he moved carefully on towards Aaron. One hand outstretched, his left hand feeling along the side of

the carriage, he took small tentative steps.

The way ahead was blocked again. Pressing himself against the side of the tunnel, he tried to edge around the wreckage, but the metal was

embedded into the wall.

He was going to have to climb over it again.

Carefully he felt along the edge of the twisted metal that was blocking the way. The edge facing him was sharp as a blade, waiting to cut

anything that dared to pass over it. Spencer remover his cardigan and laid it over the edge. Carefully he climbed onto it,. This time, he turned

and crawled backwards. Again, sticky wet remains were smeared across it, where some poor soul had been sitting, planning a day, thinking

about work, visiting families, remembering a lover, to be blown away to nothing, and for nothing.

Spencer felt an overwhelming sadness at the fragility of life, and how easy it was to die.

He pulled his cardigan off the cutting edge and eased himself forward, feet first.

He felt the edge and slid off onto a tangle of plastic and glass.

He tried to stay upright, but the debris was not stable, and his foot crashed through, cutting his leg as the sharp shards of glass and metal

clawed at him.

He fell back onto the mess, taking the weight off his leg. He reached down, carefully pulling his leg back, freeing it from the blade like

fragments that were now embedded in his leg.

He moaned and shed tears as blood ran down his leg, as he freed it.

When at last his leg was free, he lay back, waiting for his body to recover.

He thought of Aaron. Was he trying to get to him, or was he trapped? Was he free already?

Aaron, Babe, are you there? I'm going to reach you, Aaron. Hold on , love, just hold on!

He saw Aaron smiling across the carriage, happy dark bright eyes.

He carefully turned onto his hands and knees, spreading his weight on the fragile mess of debris below him. Feeling the blood on his ripped

leg, he knew that if he fell through here, he would be torn to pieces.

Train wreck statistics flooded through his mind unbidden. He tried to push them away, but in the unstable conditions he found himself in, he

was at their mercy.

He made an effort to ignore their funereal predictions, and concentrate on what he needed to do.

He felt along with his left hand and continued his terrible journey.

The only thing that kept him going was the shuddering hope that the man he loved more than anything would be alive when he found him, and

the hope of a future with him, more memories to make.

He wondered if the emergency services were on the scene yet. He hadn't heard them, but he hadn't been listening for them either, and he

didn't think his hearing was back to normal yet.

Their carriage was trapped underground in a tunnel. He had no idea how far in they were, but the woman with the bomb knew how to cause

the most damage.

As he crawled onwards, he thought of reasons why she might have done it.

Accident? Maybe she was transporting the bomb and it went off by mistake?

Spencer recalled the look on her face as she triggered the device.

It was no accident. She had looked into his eyes, and saw his living spirit and did it anyway.

Why this train? Full of early morning shoppers, and families on Saturday morning trips, happy children full of life and expectations, to be

snatched away with lives hardly lived.

The epitome of evil.

He stretched out his left hand, to feel the carriage.

The corner curved away to the left. He had reached the end. He was close now to where Aaron had been standing when he last saw him.

He called out to him, "Aaron, if you can hear me, I'm almost with you. Don't give up, I will find you... "

I will find you, Aaron...

Aaron wanted to sleep, but was afraid to. If he closed his eyes and allowed sleep to take him, it would take him to a place he would not return

from.

He was not ready to die.

Not alone.

He took a breath. An unwelcome sensation of air rushing into torn lungs, his chest rising against the spike that held him.

A small cry escaped his lips, and another piece of his waning strength left him.

He held his free hand in front of his eyes. He could just see the outline against the soft light filtering through from somewhere.

He thought it was daytime, but his sense of time had gone.

He thought he heard Spencer's voice, but it could have been his imagination. Spencer calling out to him was the one thing he wanted to hear

above any other sound. But he didn't trust his mind to be truthful. He wanted to call back.

"Spence...here..."

The sound was as dry leaves rustling in the autumn breeze, and the air felt like sand in his dry throat.

Again he called, but the sound barely travelled past his lips.

He thought he was hallucinating. He had lost a lot of blood, he badly needed water.

He moved his free arm, just to prove to himself that he was alive. He felt vibrations in the wreckage that was pinning him down. His mind

playing wicked tricks again.

He ignored it.

He forced another agonising breath. He held the spike, trying to restrict its movement through his body, but the hurt was too much. He cried

with fear and pain, tears flowed again.

Aaron struggled to keep on holding on to consciousness, but pain and dehydration was too much.

Please...I need to live...

He fought to keep his eyes open, but he knew it would be soon, and all pain and distress would be gone.

As he hovered between life and death, he felt something...

Spencer pushed his way through loose wreckage that was blocking the way into the next carriage. This was where Aaron had been standing

when he saw him last.

He carefully pushed away scorched plastic cladding, his hand touching remains of life blood where another human being had been forcibly

smashed out of this life and into another.

Aaron? Oh no, not Aaron...

Guilt tore at him as the hope that someone else, and not Aaron, had ended their life here.

He called again.

"Aaron, are you here? P-please answer me if you c-can!"

He stood still and concentrated on listening. Anything to indicate where he was.

"P-please, if you are there, c-call out to me!"

The reply was so soft and low, he could have missed it.

"Spence...here..."

Aaron!

Spencer felt tears of joy and fear flow together down his cheeks. He was close now.

He got down onto his hands and knees, and swept the space ahead with his hands, searching, listening...

...touching him.

A voice. A real voice.

Hands touching his face. Soft loving hand, not the greedy snatching hands of death.

"Aaron, I'm here, love. Im here!"