itch.io

Just one lock away. 

Temperance stalked around the threshold of her foster parent's door, peering at a closed cabinet sharp enough to poke holes in the flimsy wood. She considered herself pretty smart for a young girl, and understood the point of this prisoner's experiment, even if she hated that it had to come at the cost of her toys' freedom specifically.

What does it even mean to play "too aggressively" with toys in the first place? They didn't understand the context!!

And it seems they didn't care to learn, as their reaction of choice was simply taking the 'problem' away from her. Both of her relatively new guardians were very busy people, with very busy jobs, but there probably wasn't enough time in the world to figure out how to both break and replace a padlock without them noticing. So the next best thing came to mind: simply learn to pick it. How hard could it really be? Spies and rogues in stories she heard or games her classmates played could break open a lock in moments...

...Obviously brute forcing it didn't do anything. So the next obvious step: find a different way to learn. It took a full afternoon at the public library to find something about how lockpicking works. It isn't her fault that she actually uses the library card her guardians gave her. With a chunk taken out of her meager allowance to buy a practice lock and a few days of hyper-focus, she managed to finally snap the cheap lock off to regain what was rightfully her's. 

And she definitely didn't almost get caught putting it back right when said foster parents got back home that night. Definitely not. 

~

Despite venturing into a career path very juxtaposed from previous "criminal intent" (if you can even call it that), there was something about that moment that felt...gripping. If a kid could figure out how to crack a lock in a few afternoons, how easy would it be for people to actually break through most physical security? So she did some testing...which turned into a bit of a fascination. It was less about her trying to figure out how best to pick "the most secure" locks, but moreso a curiosity about how one even built something unbreakable in the first place. There was something so satisfying about seeing every intricate piece of the puzzle come together as the key tilts the chamber into place, to pick something apart and view it from the inside-out. She didn't consider herself much of an engineer...more just a problem-solver. The only person she could trust to keep herself safe was...well, herself. So if she didn't know how these things worked, how could she really be sure of their potency? 

Besides, everyone forgets their keys at least once in their life, right?

~

Security is an action, not a state of being. To be safe is to be taking constant steps towards regulation, to stay in motion. 

Whatever kind of locks found on these train cars could probably just be kicked in, and if there is truly a monster out there waiting to appear as some deeper and darker remnant of her mind, she needed to take every action she could to keeping things reliable. The compass cabin could regularly expect some kind of unreliable but appreciated barricade in front of the main window to the outside.

And if the locks can't truly keep those monsters out, then if there is ever an obstacle in her way...who says these puny things can keep her out?

Watercolor. Hand-painted stokes that bled into itself, pride in its imperfection; a renewed 'trust in the process' once staring at the finished piece.

She was in a field of black velvet gowns, obelisks rising one by one towards the center to be sanctified before returning, fulfilled. She thought that she would feel suffocated in the noise, but despite the barest distinction in the presentation of her peers, she could read their stories on their paint-washed faces. Relief, excitement, contemplation...there were thousands of different ways that people saw this moment.

And to her relief, she knew perfectly well what this meant to her.

Swept up by the wave of practiced motion, her row all lining up to follow tradition, her eyes travelled far past the few faces she recognized between graduates and instead to the outer horizon of people crowded to watch the turn of the new. Families, friends, people of sentiment and meaning. She knew exactly where her foster parents were going to sit.

And there they were.

It all felt so permanent. A radioactive core surging with overwhelming energy. Proof. Proof that this is where she was meant to be. Proof that it was possible, that she was good enough, that it mattered.

Semantic satiation. A word said so many times that it loses its meaning. The colors look the same now. The sounds haven't changed. There is still the burden of hope in that key moment. A battery being leeched from.

But something can be incomprehensible without being infinite. The fire was not out, but it was choking on its own fumes. This has an aftertaste now, not of going bad but of losing your sweet tooth. Of feeling the jarring realization that the world hasn't changed since then, but your perception of it has.

She can't tell what style she sees the world through now. Just that the watercolor strokes feel like they bleed through the paper. Sickness in its idiotic innocence, or overwhelming yearning to be real again.

NAME: Temperance Dupuis

PRONOUNS: She/Her

CAREER: Homicide Detective

A SOLITARY SECRET: The very thing she is trying to hunt is inescapably tied to her. It is affecting her confidence, and may grow to affect her reputation.

WHY THEY'RE RIDING: After multiple disappearances and strange occurrences happening around her, she decided to follow a lead that pulled her towards The Train to Nowhere alone. Worst case scenario, if anyone else goes missing, a train is a pretty difficult place to escape from if caught in the act. Besides, she desperately needs any kind of escape, even if it is foolhardy.

Another has boarded Cabin 5 - Compass Car