The Red Triangle

A loud whistle screamed, I faintly heard it, and felt the ground beneath me shake. Slowly, I began to flicker open my eyes and regain my consciousness; when my heart dropped. I sat on a red velvet bench, I was in a room with random people, a bar, and the room appeared to be moving. This is not my house, this is not where I remember being, I am on a train. But, how did I end up on this train? I gazed out the window to see where I was, I did not recognize this place. There was snow falling, white covered mountains and trees. I had never seen snow before, but I watched it with wonder and enjoyment; it brought a sort of comfort and warm feeling. Sort of like the memories I had with my closest friends, during Christmas we always pretended to be in a winter wonderland. We’d cut out paper snowflakes, and dress in hats and mittens until we would sweat so much we were forced to return to our reality of a green, warm Christmas. Anyways, I’m getting too distracted, I need to figure out what is going on. I want to explore this train, I’d rather do this on my own, I’m not much of a people person. These people didn’t seem to notice or care about me anyways, so I managed to slip out and head toward the cabins. I missed my friends, we haven’t spoken since last night, or whenever it was before I woke up here. My friends Jane and Charlotte were fighting about something, and I know my name was mentioned, I just can’t remember why. We are all the same age of 20, but have difffering personalities; Jane is so beautiful, she is almost like a real life princess: kind, considerate, intelligent, perfect. Charlotte is a bit more dark, she can be honest and blunt, and she can be seen as scary and mean to some, but she always protects me. Both of them always put me first and tend to but heads with the other, but I’m so grateful for them both. Walking around the hallways with the cabins was eerily quiet, also I had been so cold this entire time. A woman rudely passed by without acknowledging me, she passed by a cabin that had the door open, and she let out the most horrifying scream. “Help! Help!” The other passengers, along with the conductor, cape sprinting down the hall to see the commotion. “She’s dead! There is a dead woman in my room!” Everyone began freaking out, and I became a little frightened as well, I easily slipped past everyone to avoid the madness. Oh my god, first I wake up on a random train that hasn’t seemed to stop, no one says hello to me, and now a dead woman. I overheard the conversations of the conductor and the passengers and peered from around the corner; “Does anyone recognize this woman?” Everyone shook their heads. “Who is she? What is she doing in my room?” Cried the woman, “Do not worry, we will get to the bottom of this murder, in the meantime please everyone go back to the lounge area and stay there while we examine.” As everyone went on their way, my curiosity led me to look into the room and see the woman. She had short carmel hair, ivory skin, cold open brown eyes of a doe, she wore medium wash jeans, and a white tank top that was now soaked in red. There was a slit at her throat and a bloody knife lay just by her head. What kind of a person kills someone and puts them in another room. The longer I looked, I realized I recognized the woman, wait, no, oh my god. It’s Jane. I felt as if I could throw up, my heart had dropped to my feet. I began stumbling about the cabin, hyperventilating, crying. I decided to hide out in a storage closet I found while the examination and questioning was taking place. Why is this happening, how did Jane even get here? They didn’t recognize her? Did she sneak on here? The closet was dark so I did not see the bag I stepped on, I opened the door slightly to shed some light on it, and I saw it was my bag. What? What is my bag doing here? And why is it in a storage closet, why not in the luggage cabin? I left the closet, thinking the conductors may think it suspicious if they see me hiding after a murder. But no one had come yet, so I decided to walk around the train a bit. Clear my thoughts, the conductors were now with a policeman who had been in the first class cabins; they were taking fingerprints of the knife, I quickly walked away as I wasn’t quite ready to know who committed this horrifying act on my best friend. Until, I heard a whisper, “Briar, Briar it’s me.” It was Charlotte. “Charlotte I hear you, what is going on? Where are we? What happened to Jane?” Charlotte took a deep breath and said, “Briar listen, I am here for you, I’m going to protect you—.” “Enough!” I screamed, “what happened to Jane?!” “She thought she could protect you better than I could, I wasn’t thinking clearly, I’m sorry. I was angry and jealous.” Exclaimed Charlotte. “Did you kill her?” I asked. A tear fell, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking clearly on who I was hurting.” Before I could say another word I heard the conductor call all the passengers, I quickly ran to see the commotion. The conductor began, “ladies and gentlemen, we have tested the fingerprints on the woman and on the knife. This woman was not a passenger, she somehow snuck onto the train last night, we have however found identification, and we have come to a conclusion on the culprit.” I gulped, frozen in my stance, the suspense of hearing a name, whether Charlotte snuck on here too, or she was a passenger, her fingerprints were on the knife, I couldn’t bare the thought of her going to prison. She may have killed Jane, but they were both a part of me, and I still love them, despite everything. The conductor continued, “We have found that this was a suicide, the fingerprints on the knife match the fingerprints on the woman.” The policeman then announced, “The woman here is Briar Rose Austen. If anyone has any knowledge of the family please let us know so we can contact them immediately.” Jane had snuck on this train last night, she had run away and wanted to have full protection and control of me, over Charlotte. Charlotte killed Jane. As a result I had killed myself. I was a phantom walking my place of death, but now the mystery was solved. The train was at a normal speed and eventually began making its regular stops for the passengers. I heard one last whisper from Charlotte, “It’s time go Briar, you can move on.” I saw a bright light, I began to walk into it. Jane and Charlotte were gone, now here I was; walking into this light, alone. It was just me, Briar Rose.