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Well, that was a dream I never want to have again.
This post was lj-cut to spare those who live in a major city, use rail transportation regularly, have been personally affected by terrorism, have issues with fire, or otherwise suspect they might find the contents of the post triggery. Read with caution.
I was on my way to catch a train. It was either a subway train, or a station where the platforms for surface lines are deep underground, as at Manhattan's Grand Central and Penn stations.
Because it was a nightmare sort of dream, I was walking with my cane rather than in my chair, so I was going *slowly* towards the platform where I needed to catch my train, and everybody and their grandma were passing me.
Well. Everybody except this woman in a nun's habit. Something about her seemed off, the wrong sort of energy for a nun, and she kept being delayed along her way so that I caught up to her several times. She had an oversized suitcase that was beyond old-fashioned looking.
I didn't give her too much thought at first, since people often get turned round, confused or outright lost in stations and I figured that was her story. I'd actually gotten ahead and was in the final passageway leading to my own train's platform when she passed me yet again.
This time her manner, and something about the boxy suitcase she was pulling behind her, spiked my uneasiness up into the red. "Case!" I called out as she hurried past me towards the door to the platform, referring to her luggage. Other travelers looked at me as if I were a reactionary hick, but I repeated the warning a couple of times, as I watched the not-nun approach the doorway, checking her watch every few steps and surveying the reactions of other travelers (mild curiosity at her, mild incredulity at me, or apathy, mainly) and finally lifting her suitcase up and stepping through the doorway onto the platform, her arms round the case, grimacing in a smile-like rictus.
The woman and her burden exploded.
It was an incendiary bomb rather than a shrapnel type, flashy but not as deadly as it could have been. Some people on the train side were killed instantly just the same. The doorway protected the few people in the passageway leading to the platform, though I had an angle of view that had allowed me to see the actual blast.
I kept moving towards the doorway, along with two other passengers (the rest disappeared, likely, it seems, to find another train they could take) who found several people who'd been on the platform and survived the blast but were on fire. The three of us worked to put out the flames, which were burning green and blue from accelerants in the bomb and resistant to smothering.
Then we worked to summon help. Nobody could get a cell signal. The call-for-aid intercom phone appeared not to be functional. In desperation when some minutes passed without any sort of emergency or security personnel showing up, I pulled the fire alarm (which had oddly not already gone off). It still took a long time for help to arrive, and there were patches of flames on the survivors which we simply couldn't put out. The fact that the fire extinguisher in the area wasn't working either did not help.
I got to experience some of the fun of eventually being interviewed about what I'd seen by security officers of some sort, too, before I finally woke up.
...Yeah. Thanks, but no thanks, and also WTF, subconscious.
This post was lj-cut to spare those who live in a major city, use rail transportation regularly, have been personally affected by terrorism, have issues with fire, or otherwise suspect they might find the contents of the post triggery. Read with caution.
I was on my way to catch a train. It was either a subway train, or a station where the platforms for surface lines are deep underground, as at Manhattan's Grand Central and Penn stations.
Because it was a nightmare sort of dream, I was walking with my cane rather than in my chair, so I was going *slowly* towards the platform where I needed to catch my train, and everybody and their grandma were passing me.
Well. Everybody except this woman in a nun's habit. Something about her seemed off, the wrong sort of energy for a nun, and she kept being delayed along her way so that I caught up to her several times. She had an oversized suitcase that was beyond old-fashioned looking.
I didn't give her too much thought at first, since people often get turned round, confused or outright lost in stations and I figured that was her story. I'd actually gotten ahead and was in the final passageway leading to my own train's platform when she passed me yet again.
This time her manner, and something about the boxy suitcase she was pulling behind her, spiked my uneasiness up into the red. "Case!" I called out as she hurried past me towards the door to the platform, referring to her luggage. Other travelers looked at me as if I were a reactionary hick, but I repeated the warning a couple of times, as I watched the not-nun approach the doorway, checking her watch every few steps and surveying the reactions of other travelers (mild curiosity at her, mild incredulity at me, or apathy, mainly) and finally lifting her suitcase up and stepping through the doorway onto the platform, her arms round the case, grimacing in a smile-like rictus.
The woman and her burden exploded.
It was an incendiary bomb rather than a shrapnel type, flashy but not as deadly as it could have been. Some people on the train side were killed instantly just the same. The doorway protected the few people in the passageway leading to the platform, though I had an angle of view that had allowed me to see the actual blast.
I kept moving towards the doorway, along with two other passengers (the rest disappeared, likely, it seems, to find another train they could take) who found several people who'd been on the platform and survived the blast but were on fire. The three of us worked to put out the flames, which were burning green and blue from accelerants in the bomb and resistant to smothering.
Then we worked to summon help. Nobody could get a cell signal. The call-for-aid intercom phone appeared not to be functional. In desperation when some minutes passed without any sort of emergency or security personnel showing up, I pulled the fire alarm (which had oddly not already gone off). It still took a long time for help to arrive, and there were patches of flames on the survivors which we simply couldn't put out. The fact that the fire extinguisher in the area wasn't working either did not help.
I got to experience some of the fun of eventually being interviewed about what I'd seen by security officers of some sort, too, before I finally woke up.
...Yeah. Thanks, but no thanks, and also WTF, subconscious.