Flashes of Inspiration

The Great Cosmic Rail Line

Lorne watched his assistant, Billy, sleep as the engine gently chuffed down the long incline into the plains. He shifted and looked out the front window. He loved this run, how the foothills and plains looked in the moonlight, the round light of the engine small but valiant in the huge pale darkness. He saw the pitiful patch of lights to the north that was Plattville, and Kellisboro to the south.

Suddenly, there was a light on the tracks, far brighter than any lights of a town. Lorne thought it was another locomotive, and he braced for a collision. But there was no train and no collision. And when he opened his eyes, there were no plains!

His big Steam Titan 962 moved silently through a craggy landscape pulsing with a nauseating violet hue, a starless sky overhead. Lorne saw things moving across the landscape, flat circular beetles that flew inches from the ground, each with a round firefly light on its belly, illuminating the desolation below.

The creatures looked tiny, but it was a trick of scale. One of the circular beasts drifted across the track a hundred feet in the air, dwarfing the train. These aren't animals; these are saucers! Just like—

The disc suddenly stopped, spinning slowly in the coal-black air, a single tiny window facing him. Lorne saw eyes for one instant, enormous and black. Then the light on the disc's belly flashed on, a harsh cone of light. The train hurtled into it silently—

—And was once again comfortably chugging down the Colorado-Southern line, Plattville and Kellisboro far behind. Lorne looked up just in time to see a tiny disc flash skyward and disappear.

Billy roused from his nap, glanced at his engineer, and asked: "Whatcha lookin' at, Lorne? I miss somethin' interesting out there?"

NOTES: ▶︎

Word Count: 300
Submitted for "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" 
Prompt: Use the words sleep, light, and round