νσι¢є σƒ єηgιηєєяιηg

@voiceofengineering

The jackbooks were pushing everyone down towards the front end of the train, chaos erupting apparently towards the tail end. Audrey felt her stomach flip, as she stood in the quiet confinement of the night car… where was Allie? Was she safely on board yet? Her belongings were waiting in the engineer quarters and later they would all move into their new home in first.

What had Melanie’s parents been thinking? Audrey felt herself seethe with anger towards them, glad in this moment that they hadn’t chosen to come, because she would have flung them out of the train herself. Melanie had it under control – right? Everything was ok. The nerves were just a reminder that life as they knew it was no longer viable, that all those outside of this vessel would perish.

‘Don’t think about it.’ She forcefully scolded herself, trying desperately to concentrate on taking stock of the bottles that were due to go up to first once they had departed. It had taken months of arguing, convincing, anticipatory grief, and still, she knew she hadn’t come to terms with it; but she was better than where she had first started, fighting tooth and nail with Melanie.

Melanie was in the engine room now, preparing for departure along with Wilford. ‘Stop thinking – sixty-two bottles.’  

‘We have chosen to stay here, and we think Alexander will be better off with us.’ The voices echoed in her head. Audrey had looked at Melanie incredulously who also looked as if she was too stunned to speak; she never wanted to see her wife look like that again; and so the last-minute, yet well, thought out plan was to retrieve their daughter from Illinois.

“I can go and get her Mel, I will feel better knowing that I’ve got her.” No, Melanie decided on the plan and Audrey trusted it, but she wasn’t here yet. ‘We have time.’ She whispered to herself, taking a deep breath, while trying to get her breathing under control.

As Audrey placed the bottles on the trolley, the familiar voice pinged an announcement and she briefly felt a comfort in it before the words settled upon her. “All aboard, all ticketed passengers please board. Snowpiercer will depart in precisely 0 hours.” What? Brows furrowed and the anxiety that had been stewing, now began overflowing. “No.” She said, It wasn’t time. “Melanie! It’s not time.” Shouting, she glimpsed at her watch, their daughter wasn’t here. Panic, and as Audrey braced herself as to not faint from the sheer terror, the train jolted, it’s breaks loosening. “Melanie, Melanie. No! No! Allie – Where is Allie?!” Another jolt and the un-secure champagne bottles fell to the ground, smashing as gold liquid poured onto the floor.

Down train, chaos ensued in the tail, while the ticked passengers sat almost silently, an acknowledgement of what was about to come, some of those in first, celebrating. Pushing her wrist to the doors for them to give way, she made her way to the front of the train. Allie was here, she had to be here, she was just in the engine, right? Safe with Melanie. Of course, she had no idea why she was worrying so much.

When she finally made it towards first, she was stopped on going any further towards the engine room. Brows knit together - her access had been revoked? What was going on?

If there was something Melanie wasn't good with, it was reacting out of impulsiveness. She was a woman who pondered, analyzed every situation, every pros and cons, from A to Z. It had always been her thing, Audrey's thing, to know how to act when unexpected happened, when Melanie couldn't control the situations they were stuck quickly.

Even though she had been under a lot of pressure, she had regretted her decision almost instantly. Who on Earth could sacrifice so much ? After the train started, motors raged, leaving behind the man who shouldn't live or run any survival train. But Wilford wasn't the only person they had left behind their railways. 99% of the remaining population, and that included Melanie's family. Which wasn't vey big, she'd admit that but also dear to her.

The head engineer wished she would have more time to process the incident. Because even when he mind was with her daughter and parents, she needed to control everything that was happening in parallel. She had semi-answers to everything, seeing how she had thought about it for nights, with Ben mostly, and Jinju. Just hints of a 'what if Wilford didn't board ?'. No real answers had come out of their talks, but Melanie had packed a few tools, a few books, recordings just in case. Nothing too far in the idea. But now that she did it, she needed to think more, she would cry about her own pain later.

It's been an hour now. Nothing was settled, but she was overly exhausted. Bennett had convinced her to remove all accesses before further notice. Before they knew how to handle the current situation. No one could enter the engine by now, and figure out Joseph was nowhere to be seen. No one, not even Javi.

But the truth was... she was pushing back the moment she would have to confront her wife, and explain to her she had taken the worst decision of her life. Tears kept flowing down her face without she could even notice them anymore. She had never experienced that kind of pain in her life. Her heart was broken, literally.

All of a sudden, a button flashed red on the monitors. Someone was trying to get into the engine. Melanie switched to the cameras from the laptop : Audrey. "No... No... I can't do this..." She took her head i her hands, and suffocated a sob. Bennett patted her shoulders, "I can't tell her it's not the right moment if you want," he suggested but Melanie shook her head. She pushed herself upon the desk and frowned, "Thanks".

Deception – it felt delicious to deceive those who were overtly pretentious amongst the swish spring debutantes; though their gossip was usually titillating, Audrey couldn’t help but feel rather bored. It wasn’t too hard to recall last season, the women were of very similar looks and complexions, still obnoxious as ever, and so  she therefore had difficulty finding any who stood out (though of course many were beautiful to anybody’s standards) There was one woman however that had caught her hazel coloured eyes as she had cradled her amber liquid. Magnificently mysterious behind the gold masque, she hadn’t seen her before today and with each breath the woman took, the dress looked to becoming tighter and tighter around her until her breasts seemed fit to bust.

The woman (dressed as Sir Henry Ellis of Essex) a young cousin who travelled from overseas had followed the woman’s movements, she found it amusing, watching the men politely introduce themselves, no doubt for all intents purpose to stare at the cream coloured chest spilling from beneath the bone corset. Henry placed a thumb against his chin, stroking the false stubble before lifting a plump lip. Behind the black mask, hazel eyes never left the woman who had now been dancing with a comrade of Sir Ellis, and he was quite certain the woman could do better. Henry had almost been banking on the woman to fall into him and, as he grabbed her delicate wrists he looked at her with a smile, fingers soothing a line down her forearms to rest at the top of her gloves.

"Henry..." Melanie frowned, tilted her head, "Gentlemen do not seem to grasp the idea of a mascarade ball apparently..." People weren't supposed to divulge their identity that night, even if some of them of acquaintances had recognised each other. Finally, almost reluctantly she dropped his hands, readjusted the mask upon her nose. "I dare to say my eyes will be the only things you will know about me tonight Sir Henry." Did she sound rude ? Perhaps, even if it weren't her intentions in the first place, but he was already trying to lead her outside, his hands on hers... nothing had frightened her, but... he was right, they had never met and Melanie was sure she had encountered a bunch of gentlemen from the society already - at least the ones who were fairly interested in her.

Finally she took his hand out of a sudden, "Nice to meet you Henry." She didn't let go, stepped one foot closer, and plunged her emerald eyes in his hazel ones. His look was... different. Gentle. Soft. Warm, again. "So, tell me, you do not like a good party ? Or you just do not have talent for dancing ?" She added with a sly smile, took her hand back and stood by his side - he wasn't very tall compared to her. Almost the same height, but she was wearing heels. She was cheating. He wasn't towering her, their eyes met once at the same time.

But apparently she had something belonging to the engineer. Melanie’s brows quirked with sudden interest, wondering what she could have forgotten at Audrey’s considering little she was wearing last time.

And then she closed the distance with both a sensual move and voice to capture her lips, curling a hand behind her neck with a soft sort of dominance. Melanie didn’t want to step back but even if she wanted she wouldn’t. She only felt the tip of her tongue on her lips, leaving her needy for more. When they parted Melanie found herself panting. Her nails dragged down her suit with suggestive eyes and intentions. Jaw dropping Melanie had needed a bit more time to regain consciousness. “Yeah, sure..." She frowned shaking her head, trying her best not to sound rude or anything but glad she was here, but Melanie always had a hard time not looking too awkward. Moreover she was at home, in a private place, with her intimacy surrounding them. She felt even more vulnerable now.

@voiceofengineering​

𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋 (𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆)

A hum of contentment buzzed past her lips as Melanie said her goodbye, though it left a tingle that didn’t dissipate and likely wouldn’t dissipate until the next time she saw her. Audrey liked to believe that she was brave; that there weren’t many things that she couldn’t do but…knocking on this woman’s door was seemingly not one of them.

‘I want to see you again.’ She reminded herself of what Melanie had said several nights ago, but the contemplation that had frozen her at the door of it being to soon kept creeping into her mind. What if she was just being nice? She was sure though that she had given the woman enough ammunition to end any kind of relationship should she have wished, especially with her past. The intention wasn’t to scare her off, in fact, there wasn’t much of an intention in the first place, telling her about her life; but there was a conscious realisation that this woman’s life had been plastered up for all to see, the relationship was already unbalanced and so eventually her intention was to try and move onto equal footing – at least in the way of information about oneself went. Today would be a good indicator – if she could just cross the threshold and knock on the door, if there was a chance that there was something there between them…no pressure.

Biting on her lower lip she swayed on either foot, eyes looking either side of the corridor – ‘come on Audrey! Just knock!’ Truthfully, she felt embarrassed about herself, that she was very much a part of the problem that had caused the woman to suffer as a child; she wasn’t sure how she could get past that and so, was she being selfish by being here? Putting it upon herself to drag up a relationship she wasn’t sure the other actually wanted? ‘you think far too much, and I dislike you.’ She said to herself, brows fixing into a frown.

Allen opened the door, a quick hint of confusion spread on his face when he met the stranger, although he seemed to recognise the woman behind her, then finally smiled. He gestured between himself and Audrey, one of his few way to communicate. With carefulness he and a courteous nod, he took Audrey's forearm and obliged her gently to stride in the entrance, then waved back at the neighboor to close the modern front door behind. Still with a tiny smile on his lips, he picked a notebook and wrote 'Name' to the stranger, waiting for her to display her identity.

Step foots could be heard coming from another room of the immense flat, and Melanie showed up, nearly stopping in her track when she realised who she was facing. She slowed down her pace, then placed a hand on the Avox's shoulder then murmured something in his ear. They shared a friendly look before he nodded towards Audrey and disappeared. Anyone who visited Melanie's place could see she shared a special relationship with her servants. She may be their master, she considered them like real human beings.

Melanie wasn't wearing anything fancy today, but a dark and greasy worker suit that reminded a lot of the third district suits. An old heritage from past time. Probably. But it was indeed clothes she wore when she was working home on new equipments. She felt out of place when she looked at Audrey up and down, how well dressed she was. How feminine. "Audrey, hi," she said not closing the remaining distance between them yet. She crossed her arms over her chest, "You came," she added, she loved facts. She leaned herself against the wall, her lips twitched upwards, "I didn't expect you now, I didn't receive a missive, but by all means you're more than welcome."

𝙷𝚄𝙽𝙶𝙴𝚁 𝙶𝙰𝙼𝙴𝚂 𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴 𝙰𝚄.    

Mela.nie C.avill.    νι¢тσя. мєηтσя. ιηνєηтσя.

Bio & such below for this verse. ready to plot & write.