Mysterious New Subway in Bloodmist
BLOODMIST- Several Bloodmist residents have reported seeing subway entrances popping up all over town. These brightly lit stairwells into the underground have been showing up on several street corners over the past few days. But the Secret Police have denied knowledge of any subway system. According to our research into the issue, there are no records of the Bloodmist Transit Authority ever creating a subway system. Or getting one approved. Or even having discussed building one.
Nor has there ever existed a Bloodmist Transit Authority.
The only hints can be found in the brochures littering the entrances, describing the ease with which we will now commute, the hungers we will sate, the time we will travel, the times we will travel, the happy memories we will never be able to shake loose – even when we wake up screaming.
There is no logo on the brochures, just smiling faces, with teeth – unusual in their shapes, colors, and spacing, but otherwise quite normal-looking teeth – and the phrase, “Oh, the place you will go!” written in heavy sans serif font across the eyes of smiling train riders, clutching tightly to bags and metal rails and each other.
The pages of the brochures are scaly, brown, and translucent, like wings of a majestic insect.
Finally, there’s a crudely-drawn map of the new transit system, all routes resembling spasming tentacles and all passing at least once through a common point deep beneath the center of Bloodmist.
Cars are impersonal machines that close us off from humanity, and with the rising cost of gas and the large iridescent tongues that have been growing from Route 800, many think the subway will be a positive addition to our community.
The Bloodmist City Council has officially denied any involvement in the fantastic new subway system. We have this direct from a fair-haired and hollow-eyed child they’ve sent with the denial tattooed on his inner lip. “NEVER APPROVED,” it reads.
Just a quick aside. We’ll get back to the subway news in a moment, but…would anyone like a child? Because I’m never quite sure what to do with the messenger children the City Council sends us? I’m not even sure if the child is completely…sentient. This one just stares blankly ahead, and…oh! Nope! No, he’s wandered off. Never mind!
Also, we’re getting reports that a press conference was just held in front of the ashen shell of the Public Library – which of course was burned down last night, and it’s only a matter of days until we’ll need to burn it down again. Several masked figures, having called the press conference, claimed responsibility for the subway system.
Their masks have the countenance of very concerned deer.
One of the figures spoke to reporters.
“We took the matters into our own hand, even without approval. We don’t need approval of the City Council or the Mayor,” the spokesperson explained. “We do and say what we please. That shirt looks awful on you, by the way.”
Apparently here they pointed to Shire Global News writer Lauren James, who usually wears very nice shirts…it’s really her bangs that don’t work, uh, I think. I mean, I like bangs, but they just frame her face too dramatically, especially with those thick-rimmed glasses.
Press conference attendees said they could see something moving behind the spokesperson’s deer mask. I am told that the black-charred grounds of the library are covered in roaches as well.
...
I am now being told by a different dead-eyed child in my office, via complex facial expressions, that if you are anywhere near the site of last night’s victorious fire at the library, please do not step on the roaches. We recognize that there are tens of thousands of these vermin, but we’ve been informed by inside sources – and this really unsettling zombie child – that these are proprietary roaches. If you look closely at one of the many cockroaches crawling up your arm, you’ll notice that they have slogans scrawled across them. Um, “Ride the trains,” “Everything is fine,” “Tenderize yourself as needed.”
...
I have just been handed a press release by another small child. He has…such deep, blue eyes and so many freckles, he is…smiling, and there is something dark moving behind his teeth.
The press release is covered in roaches.
According to the release, the City Council says we owe today’s increased productivity to our glorious new mass transit system that just appeared this week.
We still do not know who the deer-masked transit people are, or whether they are people at all. Perhaps they are thousands of roaches packed inside a business suit, hiding behind a mask. Or perhaps the mask was not hiding them at all, but hiding us – sheltering them from our immature minds.
But now, there is a subway. Now we can go anywhere, and perhaps we can know anything if we ride for long enough.
...
Readers, there’s another child in the office. This one is faceless, covered in denim and dust, with a long swoop of unruly brown hair covering what would be the right eyebrow. The child is holding a handwritten note. It reads:
“Because of construction, all subway service is suspended until further notice. For your convenience, free shuttle buses will be provided. At the moment of greatest despair and hopelessness, when you least expect it, a shuttle bus will come to you. Thank you for your patience.”
The future of urban planning is here. And, like our own imminent futures, it is buried in the earth.
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[[(I'm not this good of a writer. This is a modified transcript from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, ep. 29)]]
