"Your name's Melissa, right?"
One of the things even more sad, though, was coming back home every night as a year-plus employee. I could vaguely remember how floored I was the first time I stepped into the faculty car's rec room, at how wide and homely it felt compared to the shoeboxes I'd seen back at home, but as the years went by of waiting on the train's vast, almost boundless landscapes, the walls slowly seemed to shrink into something that felt startling small to step into. The room was split perfectly down the middle between a stretch of thick red carpeting pitted against the other half's hardwood floor, with the left section from the door reserved into a modest living space. A TV near the wall sat on a stand that was guarded by two red armchairs and a considerably wide sofa, while the corner was taken by two pinball tables and a bookshelf that'd been long abandoned for a fine layer of dust. An open corridor stood on the wall right along the boundary into walls of sleeping pods dully built in an even grid of glass windows, and right on the opening's side was a kitchen bar, sitting right along the wall with a line of booths built under the windows.
A lone white figure sat at one of the booths, and she was a startling sight to see as well, due to a great amount of space between her and the table that wasn't eaten by a belly. For somebody who looked rich enough to afford the pristine makeup she was wearing and the brilliant curls styled into her mane, she was downright skinny, not even veering onto any level of "chubby."
I came to her table with a kind smile, but the young unicorn didn't turn from the window, not even letting a finger twitch as I made myself known. She just glared at the scenery going by with a look of absolute hate, like she despised the very existence of the world outside.
"Miss Carmine told you I was coming, right?" I continued. "My name's Nathan Beane."
She then proved she could move, giving the tiniest shrug.
"So, uh..." I scratched the back of my head. "...ready to see the train?"
"Ready to get this shit over with, yeah." She grumbled, stepping her way out of the seat. As she stood up, I could see that the buttons on her conductor's overcoat were misaligned, the both of the back pockets were misaligned, and her bowtie was tied up in some sloppy mess of a knot, along with a whole list of tiny little drags in her uniform.
I only coughed, flipping out and reading my pocket watch. "Well. We'll have a few things to brush up before we go down, but before we hit the night, we'd begin our patrol around..."