Chapter Four

                                    

                                          
June 6, 2016
                          
"Mmmnh," moaned Kylie, groggily. In her subconsciousness, she could feel the soft prickling of wet blades against her skin, but the sensation was disregarded in her still-dormant consciousness. Then, little by little, a throbbing sensation introduced itself into her head, stirring her senses. Her eyelids twitched and her lips pursed as she rolled over onto her back; an alarm seemed to go off in her mind that she was not lying in her bed, where anybody would expect themselves to be, but in the grass.
                          
Slowly, she opened her eyes and drew herself up, digging her elbows into the earth. She blinked a few times, not quite ready to comprehend her surroundings, until she was able to notice and take in where she was.
                          
All around her, a rolling field of yellow and green exposed itself all the way up to the horizon, which was fringed by a distant forest. Dandelions spores floated weightlessly up into the sky, which was a vivid cerulean with clouds of stark white against the soft shadows under them.
                          
Where... am I? Kylie wondered, and then all of a sudden, like a train at full speed, it hit her, and she began to remember what had passed before that moment. The train, the railroad, and even the two other girls who had been with her and were still there. But no memories seemed to come on how she had gotten there.
                          
Although she wasn't exactly sure how long it had been, she knew that she was supposed to have been gone for only a while. Panic and guilt began to rise up in her throat as she started to worry about what her parents would think about her sudden disappearance.
                          
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of another sound. Her head whipped to the side and she saw Beatrice, the girl with short, black-and-red dyed hair slowly getting up as well. She was equally as disoriented as Kylie had been, so Kylie waited to give her time before asking, "Excuse me... where are we?"
                          
Beatrice looked at her, puzzled by her sudden question. She rubbed her head for a few moments as she struggled to remember as well. "I don't know. We seem pretty far from home. Jeez... it's been a day, hasn't it? I don't remember coming out of that tunnel," she said finally, assuming that Kylie was able to remember herself just what tunnel that was.
                          
"We couldn't have just ended up here," Kylie replied timorously. Beatrice's idea that an entire day had passed, and that they were far from home, concerned the blonde. "And I... I don't see the tunnel anywhere."
                          
"Sure, it's possible. Like, maybe that train actually stopped after we passed out and the conductor got out, brought us outside to the other side of the tunnel, and took us all the way to a safe place so that he could come to get us again."
                          
"Oh." To Kylie, that made some sense. "Should we wait, for them, then? But I'm not so sure I want to wait for anyone, if I don't know them."
                          
"It'll be fine. That's good," Beatrice nodded, liking how things were going. "We'll go then, as soon as possible. What are we going to do about them?" Beatrice asked, jerking her head towards the others.
                          
"I guess we have to wake them up. Then we could go back and find the train tunnel," Kylie suggested.
                          
Beatrice scowled. In her own mind, she didn't want to go back home just yet. "But this is a complete other side of town that we'd never seen before," she started desperately. And although she didn't really believe that the tunnel was really a "Phantom Railroad," she added, "And what if everything that little girl over there said is true? That it could have disappeared?"
                          
"Mina?" Kylie verified, and then tilted her head in thought. It didn't quite cross her mind yet that the railroad actually might have disappeared, and that made her more worried about her parents and getting home. "I guess we'll have to see what the others think..."