| \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTriasTheDinoArtist\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
---
The day was fairly typical at the start, though Mr. C felt something was "off". Just a hunch and nothing more than a passing thought, really, but it still pestered him now and then. Gilbert was quite the help with the tickets as there were a fair few families in the cretaceous who wanted to visit other time zones, either to see friends, family, or performances.
After picking up the passengers from one station in the cretaceous and starting the train forward, the entire atmosphere seemed to change, and everyone felt it. Mr. C was standing in the engine with the engineer when it happened. Despite it being mid day, there was a bright flash that lit up everything. Everyone only had a moment to look to the sky to see a ball of fire moving at absurd speeds before it slammed into the earth. It was at that point that Laura, the giganotosaurus in the observation car, started bellowing her warning roar. Looking out a window, Mr. C couldn't see any impact point, but he did see something equally as horrifying; the shockwave. Trees were ripped from the ground, hills and mountains alike were pulverized, and any poor soul caught in it was either tossed like a rag doll, vaporized in a flash of heat, or sometimes both. Cupping his hands around his face, he started yelling down the train.
"Everyone, get your limbs inside the cars and hang on tight!" he yelled as he turned to tell the engineer to speed the train up, when the wind preceding the shockwave hit the train, rocking it slightly and sending an intensely hot burst of air through the windows. Mr. C looked up to find that the engineer was now on the floor, a rock the size of a gourd having smashed his head, he never even knew what hit him. At that moment, Gilbert had entered the engine car, tears in his eyes, wide with panic as he sought his uncle, his best source of comfort, only to find the engineer dead on the floor. Gilbert froze as Mr. C looked at the controls then at Gilbert. If he didn't speed the train up, everyone would die, but his paternal instincts were screaming at him to protect Gilbert. Making the best choice he could, he dashed to the console, leaping over the body of the engineer, and cranked the lever, maximizing the train's speed. The steel wheels sparked and screeched on the tracks as they got closer and closer to the time tunnel. As they did so, he heard a shriek through the howling wind. He turned back to Gilbert, but only saw him laying in a pool of his own blood. Horrified, Mr. C leapt over to him and covered his body with his own. He didn't know what exactly happened, but if the ever increasing cuts and bashes to his own skin were any indication, he could guess. There was a sudden change in the atmosphere again as the train was surrounded by lights and the horrifying howling stopped.
The train had made it to the time tunnel. Next stop, the Jurassic period.
As the lights faded, Mr. C got up and slowed the train down as they approached a station. He knew they could get some medical attention there, as well as determine what exactly happened. There was a crackling of rock as he looked out from the train and saw that the time tunnel had collapsed inside, evidently the disaster on the other side strong enough to have destroyed it, or at least bury it. He looked back at Gilbert and gently knelt next to his unmoving body, tears in his eyes.
"We made it, little guy... we're safe..." he said, not knowing if he could be heard.