Rusted Gold AU

He worked on one of the busiest branch lines on the Island of Sodor, where there was always something to do and never quite enough time to stand still and think about it.

Edward liked that.

It kept him useful, and being useful was something he had always been proud of, even in his old age.

That morning, however, Edward did not feel quite like his usual self.

His driver, Michael, arrived as he always did, careful and punctual.

“Morning, Edward,” he said, climbing into the cab. “Busy day ahead. Same as always.”

Edward’s fireman, Tom, followed behind him. “Coal’s been checked again,” he said. “No further trouble is expected beyond... what's already there.”

Edward gave a gentle hiss of steam, but it did not sound as cheerful as it usually did.

Something had been troubling him since yesterday.

Not something he could easily name.

Engines were not supposed to worry about things like that. They simply did their best to be really useful and be used. That was what they were built for.

But Edward had begun to notice things that did not fit neatly into that simple idea.

His eyes, for one thing.

They should have been black. All vehicles’ eyes were black. That was how it had always been.

But when Edward caught his reflection in a station window that morning, he saw something that made him feel oddly still inside.

A faint hazel tint.

Not strong enough for anyone to point at.

Not strong enough to prove anything was wrong.

But impossible to unsee once noticed.

And around them, the whites of his eyes were no longer clean either.

Thin red lines had appeared there since yesterday—like delicate cracks under glass.

Michael noticed it too when he looked at Edward more closely.

“Your eyes look… tired old boy,” he said slowly.

“Couldn't sleep well with Salty growling shanties in his sleep again?,” Tom added, trying for humour, though it did not quite land.

Salty hadn't been able to work for a week.

Edward said nothing at first.

Then, carefully, he replied, “I am fine.”

But even he did not fully believe it anymore.

They set off down the branch line, where everything looked just as it always had. Neat stations. Tidy signals. Wagons waiting patiently. Everything in its proper place.

At the first station, Charlie was already waiting.

Charlie was a purple saddle tank engine with red wheels and polished brass fittings. She usually liked to talk. In fact, Charlie was well known for telling jokes—bad ones, often—but jokes all the same, usually delivered with a confident grin and a quick burst of steam afterwards.

But today, she did not tell any. Not a single one.

That was the first thing Edward noticed.

Her driver, Lillian, stood on the platform with her arms folded. Her fireman, Arthur, looked unusually serious.

Charlie spoke immediately. “Oh, there you are,” she said sharply. “Took your time again, didn’t you?”

Edward blinked. Charlie did not usually speak like that either.

“I am exactly on time,” Edward replied gently. “The timetable says—”

“Oh, nobody cares what the timetable says anymore,” Charlie snapped. “It keeps changing depending on who you ask.”

Arthur muttered quietly, “It doesn’t change.” Charlie ignored him.

Edward looked at her more carefully then.

Her eyes were green, unlike before, and also like his own, they were wrong in a way that was hard to explain. The whites were no longer clean. Fine red streaks had spread through them, as though something beneath the surface had begun to show through.

It was not soot. It was not dirt. And it certainly wasn't strawberry jam.

And engines were not supposed to have anything like it at all.

Especially not blood. They were machines, if they had blood then they had organs.

Edward did not like that train of thought. He pushed it away quickly. “Charlie,” he said carefully, “you are not yourself today.”

Charlie gave a short, irritated hiss of steam. “I am myself,” she said. “You’re the ones who are all slow. Billy said so. As happy as he is for some fucking reason.”

Edward paused. So did Michael. So did Tom.

“Billy was happy?” Michael repeated.

Charlie nodded sharply. “My brother. He... was the only one who understands how things are supposed to run.”

Arthur frowned.

Charlie rolled her eyes slowly. Her voice had no humour in it. And that was perhaps the strangest thing of all.

Charlie always had humour. Even when she was annoyed. Even when she was impatient. Even when she was cross with everyone on the railway. She always joked.

But not today.

Today, she sounded like someone who had forgotten how.

Edward felt something uneasy settle in his boiler. Not quite fear. Something quieter. Recognition of change.

“I think you should be looked at after today old girl,” Lillian said firmly.

Charlie’s wheels twitched slightly.

Engines aren't supposed to twitch.

“I don’t need looking at,” she said. “Nothing is wrong.” But her voice was tighter now. Less certain.

Edward renoticed something else then. A dull, uncomfortable pressure behind his faceplates. It was not strong enough to stop him working.

But it was constant.

And beneath it, a thought he did not want to have kept returning. His teeth hurt. Engines were not supposed to think about teeth. They were not supposed to think about blood either.

And yet, since yesterday, Edward could not stop noticing the strange redness in their eyes. Charlie’s. His own. Others he had passed briefly along the line. All of them wrong in the same quiet way. He did not say it aloud.

Instead, he simply said, “We should continue our work.”

Charlie gave a short, dismissive sound. “I am continuing my work,” she said. “Whether you keep up or not is your problem.”

Then she added, almost casually, “Billy would already be gone down the line and back by now if he was still in his right mind.”

Edward watched her carefully as she steamed off.

There was no joke in her voice. No warmth. Not even irritation in the usual sense. Just certainty. A kind of certainty that did not belong there.

Arthur down at her form her cab. “She hasn’t told a single joke all day,” he said quietly.

Lillian frowned. “That’s not like her.”

Edward would have agreed.

Instead, he set off again along the busiest branch line on the Island of Sodor, where everything was still running on time, still neatly arranged, still behaving exactly as it should on paper.

And yet, every so often, Edward found himself noticing the same small detail again and again.

The way engines looked at each other a little too long. The way their eyes no longer matched what they were supposed to be. Black pupils. That was what they were meant to have. Always black. Simple. Certain.

But certainty, Edward was beginning to realise, was becoming harder to find than it used to be.

And so he just growled at it all.

I didn’t sleep properly last night.

I don’t mean I stayed up late or woke up a few times like I usually did.

I mean I don’t think I actually slept at all, not in any meaningful way I can remember.

There was even more black dust.

When I got up this morning, my body felt wrong.

Not injured. Not sick. Just… off. Like I’d been carrying something heavy for hours without noticing until I finally set it down and realized how much it hurt.

My shoulders fucking ache.

My legs feel stiff even though I didn’t exercise yesterday.

My hands kept trembling slightly when I poured water. I told myself it was stress. That word is starting to feel like a placeholder for everything I don’t understand.

The first thing I checked, like I always do now without meaning to, was the rose.

It’s still on the kitchen counter.

It looks bigger again.

That shouldn’t make sense.

It’s a cut flower.

I brought it home with the intention of pressing it in a book, and I remember that clearly. I remember holding it between my fingers and thinking it was small enough to forget about if I left it alone long enough.

But it isn’t small anymore.

The stem looks thicker than it did yesterday, like it’s trying to support weight it shouldn’t be able to gain. The petals are deeper in color, but not in a healthy way. It’s not blooming. It’s… building itself.

Layering.

Like rust forming structure instead of decay.

What if it's reviving itself?

With that, the metallic flecks are denser now. Less scattered. More deliberate. Almost like they’re arranging themselves along the veins of the petals.

I stood there for a while just looking at it, trying to remember if I’d moved it closer to the edge of the counter facing my room yesterday.

I’m almost certain I didn’t.

And yet it feels closer every time I enter the kitchen.

That thought made me laugh a little, because it sounds ridiculous when written down. A flower moving across a counter. I even checked the floor beneath it like that would explain anything.

Nothing had fallen.

Nothing had shifted.

Still… I keep getting this feeling that it’s aware of where I am in the house.

That’s not a sentence I should be writing at all.

I left the kitchen after that because I didn’t like how long I was standing there staring at it without blinking.

I went back to my room, but even there I couldn’t settle. My body soreness got worse as the morning went on, like it was responding to movement delay instead of activity.

I kept stretching my arms and neck without realizing I was doing it.

Like something inside me was trying to “loosen” parts of me that weren’t meant to tighten in the first place.

I tried to distract myself with my phone as I did with way too many of my problems, even before all of this shit, but everything felt slightly delayed.

Messages took longer to process. Videos felt like they were arriving half a second late. I checked my internet twice. It was fine.

It’s probably just fatigue...

I keep telling myself that, but the words don’t even pretend to land properly anymore.

Around midday, I made a decision I still can’t fully explain.

I went back.

Back to the tracks.

Back to where I found the rose in the first place.

I don’t know why I did it. I told myself it was to “check the area,” like I was proving to myself that nothing else was unusual was there.

That it was just a strange coincidence the rose was there and I could put it to rest by revisiting the place.

But that doesn’t feel like the real reason anymore.

The walk there felt longer than I remembered. The air was heavier, somehow, like humidity without moisture. Every so often I thought I heard a faint metallic rhythm in the distance, but when I stopped to listen, it disappeared.

The railway line still looked wrong in the same way it did before.

Too clean. Too untouched.

Like time didn’t apply properly along it.

No litter. No rust. No weeds.

Just sleepers stretching into silence.

I followed it to the exact spot I remember.

The ground didn’t look like recently empty soil.

It looked disturbed.

Not recently dug. Not carefully excavated either. More like something had been pressed down into it repeatedly until the earth gave up trying to resist.

I stood there for a long time before I knelt.

My hands were shaking again.

I told myself I was just tired.

That I was just curious. That I was only confirming what I already knew.

The soil came apart far easier than it should have.

It wasn’t soft, but it wasn’t stable either. Like it had forgotten how to hold its own shape.

At first I thought I saw wood. Old sleepers maybe, broken or shifted.

Then metal.

Not rails. Something curved.

I dug further.

I don’t remember deciding to. I just remember my hands continuing.

The earth gave way in uneven chunks, revealing something underneath that didn’t belong there at all.

Fabric. Black. Heavy, coated material like an old coat, soaked through with dirt and time.

Then the outline of a shoulder. Then a face turned slightly to the side, partially obscured, as if it had been resting there rather than buried.

There were goggles. Black, thick lenses, cracked slightly at the edges, still strapped across the head. And a body that looked wrong in ways I can’t fully explain without feeling like I’m misremembering what I saw.

Too old to make sense in proportion to the rest. Too warped, like the shape had been folded inward and never corrected.

Like a man who had spent too long being bent around something larger than himself.

A motorcycle helmet was half-visible near him, or maybe it wasn’t a helmet at all. I don’t know why I thought that. It just felt like something that belonged there, even though nothing about it made sense.

He was lying directly beneath where the rose had been.

Centered perfectly.

Like it had grown from him.

Then I noticed the tumor-like growth from his heart, ending in a stump.

Then I noticed the strange symbol etched into his chest:

"̶C̶h̶e̶b̶ ̶e̶h̶ ̶r̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶c̶r̶o̶n̶n̶a̶g̶h̶y̶n̶ ̶n̶e̶u̶-̶e̶n̶n̶o̶i̶l̶ ̶d̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶a̶g̶h̶l̶e̶y̶ ̶c̶u̶m̶m̶e̶y̶;̶ ̶n̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶'̶e̶h̶ ̶f̶u̶l̶a̶i̶n̶g̶t̶ ̶c̶r̶o̶n̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶s̶m̶e̶s̶s̶e̶y̶ ̶n̶a̶'̶n̶ ̶D̶e̶i̶g̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶n̶e̶.̶ T̶a̶ ̶f̶y̶s̶ ̶a̶y̶m̶ ̶n̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶d̶y̶ ̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶h̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶r̶.̶"̶

...

...

...

...

...

I don’t remember stepping back.

But I wasn’t kneeling anymore when I realized what I was looking at.

And the strangest part is—

I can’t tell if I’ve seen him before.

Not in real life.

But somewhere.

Like a dream that doesn’t belong to me, sitting just out of reach, trying to surface and failing every time I think about it too hard.

I left the tracks after that.

I think I ran part of the way.

I don’t remember deciding to come home.

I just remember being here again.

Sitting at my desk.

Writing this right now.

My hands still smell like earth and something metallic that doesn’t come off properly.

The growing and reviving rose is still on my kitchen counter.

I haven’t gone to look at it again.

I don’t want to.

But I keep hearing something very faint when I stop moving for too long.

Like distant wheels.

Or something trying to remember how to move along rails.

I think I need more sleep.

Usually, he was very proud of his strength, but that afternoon (and for a few days, if Henry was being honest with himself) on the Main Line, everything felt entirely wrong. A cold, greasy mist clung to his boiler, turning the coal dust on his running board to almost a thick, dark sludge.

Deep inside his framework, an old, buried ghost was stirring. It was an ache he had not felt something similar to since he was sent to Crewe in pieces, ninety-one years ago this coming winter.

Before 1935, he had been a malformed, coughing misfit who could scarcely make enough steam without expensive Welsh coal. Then, the original Fat Controller had given him the shape of a Black 5, and for nearly a century, Henry had finally been normal.

He had finally been reliable and free of pain.

Even if he knew, that all these years later, he probably wasn't worth the expense over just buying a Black 5.

But now, his boiler felt packed with a dry, suffocating heat. Every revolution of his driving wheels sent a jar of pure agony straight up his chassis, forcing his frame into a low, tight, submissive feeling. He desperately wanted to prove that he could still steam and puff like all the rest, now more than ever, terrified that if he stopped, the inspectors or the board would deem him a dangerous liability and send him to the scrap yards.

He couldn't.

Not now.

Not after everything.

Not after the abolishment of steam on the Mainland.

Not after all the friends on the Mainland, so many of his little brothers and sisters he gained from being a Black 5 hadn't been nearly as lucky as he was.

Because otherwise...

Why wasn't it one of them who was in his wheels right now?

"Come on, old boy," said Martha, his latest driver since 2022, her voice sounding a little tight as she tapped the pressure gauge. "The steam is dropping a bit. Let’s... let’s give him a bit more encouragement, Samuel."

Samuel, his fireman, swung the firehole door open with a loud clank. He shoveled with a steady, rhythmic fury, but he kept glancing uneasily at the dull, sluggish way the fuel was catching.

Henry forced his mouth shut to hold back a violent, tearing cough. The regulator was open, but a wave of intense nausea rolled through his smokebox. He forced his wheels to turn, mimicking the rhythm of a proper engine, though his pistons rattled unhealthily.

"It... it must just be a harvest of bad coal, Henry," Martha called out, though her cheeriness sounded a bit forced, her eyes darting to the dropping pressure needle. She seemed more intent on convincing herself and comforting the engine more than anything else.

"The yardmaster said the whole batch from the docks was definitely awful this week. Don't you worry, old boy, it'll all be sorted out fine come next week when the new shipment arrives. People are already inspecting why the coal and fuel seems so poor for everyone as we speak."

"Aye," agreed Samuel, leaning out of the cab, his face etched with a quiet anxiety as he watched the engine's labored movements. "Don't strain yourself too hard, Henry. Just push through to the station and we'll clear your tender out. It's only a bad patch of slack... if not, we'll just get you looked over at the Works."

Henry kept his face fixed in a rigid, straining grimace, masking the absolute torment of his tender wheels as they struck the fishplates. He was suffocating on his own internal heat, his large, round face growing thoroughly stained with soot and the dark, wet condensation dripping from his funnel.

When they finally arrived at Vicarstown Station, Henry brought the heavy goods train to a halt past the platform. The brakes shrieked a long, mourning wail. The brick station house stood stark against the overcast sky, and Samuel stepped down onto the platform with his shovel and broom to clear away the spilled coal and ballast.

Henry’s face was a mask of pure, bone-deep exhaustion. His heavy eyelids drooped in severe weariness, and his eyes were cast wide, looking completely askance to the side in absolute, trembling misery.

Martha wiped her hands on a rag, trying to maintain a brave face. "Brilliant run, old boy. See? Thought that terrible coal was going to lose the fire, but you pulled through jist like I know you always have."

She swung down from the cab and walked along Henry’s great green flank to check the stationmaster’s notes. As she neared his front, she noticed the metal was radiating a heat so intense it distorted the damp air, smelling faintly of scorched oil and something else—like iron and spoiled copper.

Martha stepped off the platform and onto the tracks, standing directly ahead of his massive red buffer beam to look her engine face to face.

"Henry?" Martha asked softly, her voice wavering. "You've been awfully quiet today. Everything alright behind the smoke box old boy?"

Henry didn't answer.

He couldn't.

His entire metal frame was locked tight in sheer, suppressed terror.

Martha took a step closer, the damp afternoon light casting a harsh glow across the engine's massive grey face. The fragile, desperate illusion of "bad coal" and simple railway mishaps vanished in an instant, utterly shattered by a sudden, paralyzing chill.

Engines were made of steel, iron, and paint. They 'bled' steam, oil, maybe water depending on damage that would cause such a leak. Their eyes were supposed to be clear and bright in a way a human's could never.

But as Henry finally shifted his downcast, sideways gaze to look directly at his driver, Martha saw the truth.

The whites of Henry's eyes were almost completely gone. They were swimming in a sea of deep, angry, terrifying crimson—a violent network of capillaries that threatened to overflow at any moment, almost tracing thin, dark, viscous lines down his green paint like tears of thick, unoxidized blood.

Henry did not blink. He only let out a low, shuddering, rattling sigh from his cylinders, his bloodshot eyes wide with a silent, helpless plea for mercy, leaving his driver frozen on the platform in absolute horror.

"H-Henry? Oh my God Henry..."

I turned eighteen two weeks ago.

Not exactly the exciting start to adulthood I'd imagined.

Mom and Dad flew overseas for the summer the day after my birthday, leaving me with the house and a list of chores that was probably longer than it needed to be. They promised they'd be back before autumn.

Right now, that feels like a lifetime away.

I wasn't planning on keeping a journal.

I just...

Need somewhere to put my thoughts.

Things have been strange lately.

Not my life.

The island.

The news has been full of weird stories for the past few days.

Engines refusing to leave their sheds.

Engines becoming unusually aggressive.

Others apparently too weak to pull trains they'd handled for years.

Everyone seems to have a different explanation.

Faulty coal for the steam engines and faulty petrol for the dieses.

A sickness.

Bad maintenance.

Someone even joked online that the engines had caught the flu.

It's probably nothing.

At least...

That's what I have kept telling myself.

Four days ago, I decided to go walking.

I ended up farther east than I'd ever been before, following an old railine that looked oddly untouched.

No litter.

No rust.

No weeds growing between the sleepers.

Just silence.

Eventually, I noticed a single rose growing beside the tracks.

It looked completely ordinary.

Deep red petals.

Green stem.

Nothing unusual...

Until I looked closer.

Scattered across the petals were tiny metallic-looking grains.

Not yellow pollen.

Not glitter.

Little reddish-gold flecks.

Like someone had ground up rust...

Except it shimmered.

That shouldn't be possible.

Rust isn't supposed to sparkle.

I remember crouching beside it.

It smelled incredible.

Sweet.

Fresh.

Almost... nostalgic, in a way.

Without really thinking, I leaned in and took a deep breath.

The tiny metallic grains lifted from the petals as I inhaled.

Some disappeared into the air.

Some...

Went into my lungs.

I coughed for a few seconds.

Laughed at myself.

Picked the flower anyway.

I figured I'd press it between the pages of a book when I got home.

The next morning the rumors about the engines got worse.

Several services were delayed because some of them apparently refused to move.

Others were making noises nobody had heard before.

One newspaper even described them as looking "unwell."

I remember thinking how ridiculous that sounded.

How does an engine get sick?

Now...

I'm not laughing anymore.

The rose is changing.

The reddish-gold particles have spread farther through the petals.

They're eating away at them without actually destroying them.

The flower isn't wilting.

It's...

Rusting.

I know how insane that sounds.

Flowers don't rust.

Neither does gold.

Yet somehow whatever's covering those petals looks exactly like rust, and every day there's a little more of it.

I've thought about throwing the rose away.

I even picked it up yesterday.

Then I couldn't.

I don't know why.

It just...

Didn't feel right.

Maybe I'm just getting attached to the weirdest souvenir imaginable.

Or maybe it's something else.

I've started noticing little things.

Nothing obvious.

Nothing anyone else would notice.

Sometimes I hear distant whistles before anyone else reacts.

The sound of steel wheels on rails has become... comforting.

Almost familiar beyond simple life experience.

Yesterday I caught myself staring out the window whenever I heard an engine passing by.

Not because I was curious.

Because something inside me wanted to follow them.

That's ridiculous.

I know it is.

It was like I was a little kid.

Still...

I keep finding black dust on my pillow every morning.

Not much.

Just enough to notice.

I'm probably imagining connections where there aren't any.

The engines getting sick.

Then the strange flower.

The rising gold dust.

Me.

They're probably unrelated.

...

I pray to God that they are.