Chronicles of Araxx - Forever Broken

They’d been on the road for maybe half an hour.

Lee found it strange being in a moving vehicle. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done this and the motion of the car was making her feel a little ill.

Bear was driving, and Blossom was sitting in the front with him.

Lee was sitting just behind them, enjoying watching the countryside fly past her. Staring at the road ahead was helping with the motion sickness, but every time she looked to the side, she felt sick again.

“Let’s put the radio on,” Bear suggested.

The radio came to life, and the end of a pop song Lee had never heard before was playing. It was loud and cheerful and instantly made her want to dance and sing along. She wished she knew the words to sing along.

When the song ended, the news started. “Breaking news,” the announcer stated in a serious voice. “Six men have been found murdered. All men have gunshot wounds. It is believed to be a gang attack. The incident happened just outside Tarbet...”

Lee could not hear the rest of the news bulletin any more as Blossom was talking over it, “Oh that’s just horrible. I can’t believe there are people out there like that, and so close to us too.”

“How close is that?” Lee asked.

“I forgot you don’t know where we are,” Blossom said. “Tarbet was the village we left just this morning.”

It hit Lee like a tonne of bricks. The shooting they were talking about on the news was the incident at the castle she escaped from just the day before.

Blossom interrupted Lee’s thoughts, “I’d like to get as far away from this place as we can. It’s just horrible.”

Lee couldn’t help but be annoyed by Blossom’s reaction to the news, but she didn’t show it. If she did, she and Bear might suspect something was not right with Lee. The men who died were the bad guys. In Lee’s eyes, no-one could be worse. Although she had no idea if the men who killed her captors were bad too, she didn’t want to find out. All she knew was that people who hurt her, who kept her prisoner, were dead. And they deserved it.

To stay on Blossom’s good side, Lee simply agreed with her about how awful everything was, and that no one deserved to die. While Lee’s point of view was different, she could also see it from Blossom’s point of view. Blossom did not know the men at all, so in her eyes, it was nothing more than unprovoked murder.

The three unlikely companions travelled for a good couple of hours before stopping at a petrol station to fill the camper van’s tank.

While Bear filled up the tank and paid at the till, Blossom talked about the rally they were taking part in, in London.

Lee was only half interested in what she was saying because all the nature talk was beginning to grate on her nerves. She enjoyed nature as much as the next person, more so, in fact, seeing she’d been in confinement for most of her life, but Blossom and Bear took it to the extreme.

They called themselves ‘nature warriors’, an activity campaigning for nature and the environment. They only used materials which were environmentally friendly and ate a vegetarian diet, believing it was cruel to eat anything that came from an animal.

The radio report came on several more times. In one report it mentioned they did not know who was behind the attack, while in another they stated the police believed it to be the work of a gang.

Bear thought this was ridiculous. “There aren’t any gangs in Scotland.” He laughed. “Probably stupid kids with their mindless video games. The sooner we get back to Ireland the better.”

“Video games?” Lee asked. She had grown up in a world without them, and never heard anything about them. Not enough to know what Bear was talking about, at any rate.

“Have you not played a video game?” Bear asked. “I thought everyone had.”

“Sorry, no. I’ve not really done anything anyone else has.” Lee smiled sheepishly.

“The video games that children play now, are all about violence. They play games with controllers and a TV. Most of them are shooting games, where the goal is to kill people. That is what I blame all this violence on nowadays. Young people think it’s normal because that’s what they’ve grown up with.” Bear added, “And it got worse since VR got cheaper and more popular.”

“What’s VR?” Lee was interested in the subject.

“Virtual reality. It looks real, and from what people have said about the more advanced stuff, you know, the really expensive programmes, it feels real too.”

“Honey?” Blossom said.

“Yes, sugar plumb?” He replied.

The lovey-dovey way they spoke to each other made Lee a little queasy.

“Could you stop ranting and raving and concentrate on the road?” Blossom said, a smile as sweet as pie on her round face.

“Yes, dear.” Bear was clearly a little taken aback by Blossom’s outburst. He didn’t like his authority questioned, but there was no way he was going to answer back to his wife. It was abundantly clear who wore the trousers in their relationship.

Lee, however, was interested in the idea of video games, but could not see how they would instil violence. She made a mental note to research the subject when she could. She’d heard the guards talking about computers, and Google, and that you could find anything there. It was quite clear from the look of the camper van that Blossom and Bear did not have a computer at all.

Another radio broadcast went out a few hours later when they were nearing the capital. “More news on the gun attack in Scotland now,” the news reporter said. “Forensic analysts have looked at the bullets found at the scene and they cannot match then to any gun found in the UK. They also found that the bullets were silver. Anyone with any information about this attack please contact the following number...”

Bear turned the radio off.

“We’re coming to London now,” he said. “Do you want to join us at the rally tonight, Lee?”

“What do I have to do?” She asked. She’d never been to a rally before and had no idea what it would entail.

“Nothing much, it’s the numbers that make the difference really,” Blossom said. “It’s your choice, but it might be a nice experience for you.” She smiled.

“Okay.” Lee smiled back. After all, she had nowhere specific to go, and another night with these two strange hippies wouldn’t be so bad.

“Head for the car park, Bear, then we’ll get the train into the centre,” Blossom ordered.

Bear parked the car in a small car park.

London wasn’t exactly what Lee remembered. “Where are all the tall buildings and things?” She asked, remembering what she saw when she was here with her parents.

“We’re on the outskirts of the city at the moment,” Blossom explained. “You’ll see all those things when we get off the tube.” She paused for a minute, thinking. “Oh, wait, you don’t have an Oyster card do you?”

“A what?”

“I didn’t think so. Don’t worry, we’ll get you one.” Blossom smiled.

“Won’t that cost you money?” Lee asked. She knew she already owed these people for everything they’d done for her so far and didn’t want to take them for granted.

“Not much money. Don’t worry about it,” Bear said, as he smiled at her.

“I promise I’ll pay you back someday,” Lee vowed. “I owe you guys.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Bear grinned. He was becoming excited about the rally.

Lee entered the tube station with Blossom and Bear. She could have been their child, and no one would suspect anything.

Blossom bought Lee an Oyster card with twenty pounds on it.

“That’ll get you around down here for a good few days,” she explained. “When you go through a ticket gate, just swipe the card. It will open the gate, and charge you for the journey,” Blossom said as she did it herself, demonstrating for Lee.

She followed suit and went through the gate.

They travelled down an escalator and Bear explained about standing on the right and letting people pass on the left. It was a strange experience, travelling down in these tunnels. They were dark but lit by artificial white lights.

The train itself was the strangest experience. Lee could hear it coming through the tunnel before she saw it. It made a strange combination of sounds with the metallic screaming of wheels on tracks and the buzzing of electricity.

Lee glanced down into the track-bed. Mice. There was something she was used to seeing.

The train came into view very quickly and came to a dead stop in front if them. There was no driver, which Lee found bizarre. She remembered the tube from when she was in London with her parents, and they had drivers then, but this was over ten years ago, so things must have changed considerably.

Lee, Blossom and Bear got on the train and joined the others who were travelling to the city as well.

Lee couldn’t remember how many trains she went on that day, but one thing she did know was that finding her way around down there was going to be hard. She had time to pick up a tube map on her way from one underground station to another, and the sight of it made her eyes swim. There were so many lines, so many stops, and so many colours.

“Which line are we on now?” She asked Blossom.

“The green one.” She pointed her finger at the map. “That’s where we need to get off.”

The closer they got to the centre of the city, the fuller the trains became. The one they were on currently was packed, and they had to stand rather than sitting.

A few other people on their way to the rally were on this tube too. Lee listened to their conversations and apparently they were going to stand on the grass outside the Houses of Parliament and protest there.

Lee vaguely remembered the Houses of Parliament or Big Ben at least, but her memories of London were very sketchy.