The Train: Prologue

It was cold outside. The station was hardly visible in the dusk hours paired with the satisfying but obscuring presence of snowflakes blissfully falling from the sky. Corcon was a large city, a capitol in innovation and diplomacy, but from the small station nestled in the forests at the foot of the mountains, it was merely a glitter over the hills. This station wasn’t the grand jewel in Corcon bringing in people from all of eastern Faróin, it had a very different purpose. Unknown to most, the west isn’t unexplored and uncivilized. Erobringen was the great Fortress made in the west during the explorations sent out by the great Athanasios. Erobringen is the home of the largest library in Faróin and one of academic wonders on this continent. The station at the foot of the mountains just west of Corcon is the road to the west, the only road to the west.
A young man sat in the station idly reading a newspaper filled with stories of unrest in society. Threats of a revolution and such. The man seemed uninterested in the stories presented to him but with a lack of a better pastime, the paper would suffice. The whistle of a train’s approach snapped the young man back into reality. He gathered his things and walked across the small station toward an old relic of a train, attached to only one lonely passenger car.
“You do know where this train goes lad?” asked an old man sitting and smoking a pipe at the ticket booth. “It’s not a place most people feel the need visit.”
“I am aware but thank you.” The young man replied with a small smile. “I should hope I have more reason than most to go Erobringen.”
The old man nodded, and the young man walked onto the train. The car was entirely empty, the brown leather seats were old, and the wood panels were visibly used. The young man picked up his baggage and began setting it in the compartment above his seat. As he was shoving his suitcase the car lurched, and the train slowly began to move out of the station. As the man finished with his luggage he sat down in a padded seat. He leaned his head on the cold window and watched as the train began to approach the snow covered mountains, his eyes began to flicker and as the train pushed forward commencing the journey west, the man fell asleep.