The hand which held mine felt soft, delicate. Slowly, I opened my eyes and peered down at the rose which covered the back of it. With my heart racing in my chest, I looked up into the face which smiled back at me and two things struck me all at once. My heart was beating again in my chest, a feeling that I hadn't felt since coming back from the dead and into the world which had been pushed. The second thing, my arms and hands felt different - lighter somehow - and I didn't have to inspect them to know that I no longer had wings or claws.
I looked into her eyes and they were more beautiful than I had remembered them - Melody had become more beautiful. She looked just like she had in that photograph. She was no longer that uncomfortable fourteen-year-old girl in the grey dress, apron, and bonnet. Melody stood before me, her long, blonde hair curled around her shoulders like springs made of silk. Just as she had in the photograph, she wore a sleeveless summer dress which swished just above her knees. The rose tattoos covered her legs, arms, and neck, and they looked so real that I had to fight the urge to lean forward and smell their sweet scent.
I had been too busy staring at Melody to realise that I was standing in a waiting room similar to the one I had just left. There was a tiny ticket booth, and a series of levers attached to the wall. But instead of benches, there were tables and chairs, like a small cafe where travellers could sit, eat, and drink while they waited for their train. As I glanced around this old fashioned-looking waiting room, I could see people seated at the tables. There was a teenage couple, and they sat across a table from each other, gazing into one another's eyes. I could see that they were very much in love. There was a woman seated at a table nearby, and she was real pretty. Her hair was so blond that it looked almost white. She wore a long, brown coat with a fur collar and was busy reading a bunch of letters that were piled on the table before her. She looked familiar, very much like the pathologist I'd seen in the morgue where I had rescued Kiera from. But that would be impossible, right? There were two other people that I could see. One was male, and he looked ill. His skin was waxy-looking and his eyes were jet black. He stared down at his arm, and the skin covering it looked wrinkled and worn. The other one, I couldn't tell if it were male or female, as a hood was pulled so low, that it hid the face.
I looked back at Melody again, she was still holding my hand and my heart was still pounding. Then, I did something that I had longed to do since her mother had taken her away four years ago. Pulling her close to me, I leaned forward and kissed her. Melody wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back. Her lips were as soft and sweet tasting as those roses which covered her body.
Gently easing our lips apart, I brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek and said, "I love you, Melody."
"I love you more," she smiled at me, and I thought my heart was going to burst from my chest.
From beside us, someone said, "Aww, how beautiful you two look together. I must take a photo."
Both of us looked in the direction of the voice at the same time, and there was a flash of white light. I blinked, and when I looked again, I could see that it was the person who had been seated at the table with the hood who had taken our picture. The hooded person lowered the camera, but still their face was hidden from me by the folds of the grey coloured hood.
Without saying another word, the hooded figure turned and strode towards the waiting room door.
"Hey!" I called out, realising whoever hid behind the hood had just taken the picture I had carried around with me for so long. "I need that picture."
The hooded figure turned back and looked at me. "I have other pictures, Isidor Smith," it said, and its voice sounded so cracked and broken, that I still couldn't tell if it were male or female. "And I don't just have pictures; I have letters and all sorts of other stuff for the friends you've left behind."
The door to the waiting room creaked as the person with the camera stepped outside. Letting go of Melody's hand, I decided to follow. I yanked open the door and stepped out onto the platform that had been constructed from wood. It was old, and the boards wailed beneath me. I raised my hand against the bright sunlight that shimmered from above. Snapping my head left, then right, I looked for the person with the camera, but the hooded figure had gone - vanished somehow. In each direction, all I could see was a flat landscape. The ground was the colour of sand, but it was cracked and arid-looking and stretched for miles in all directions.
Melody joined me on the platform. "What's wrong, Isidor?"
"We need to find whoever that was who just took our picture," I told her. "We need that photograph."
"Why?" she asked, taking my hand again.
"Because you leave it for me in that grate," I said. "You wrote push on the back of it. If you hadn't have written that, I would never have pushed that lever and I wouldn't be here with you now."
With a frown, Melody looked at me and said, "Isidor, I never left any picture for you. I never wrote that word on anything."
"But you left me the photo so I would find you here," I told her, and now my heart was beginning to race for a different reason.
"I never left a photo for you, Isidor," she said again, looking as confused as I felt.
"Who did then?" I breathed.
"Whoever wanted you dead, I guess," Melody said.
"Dead?" I whispered.
"You're dead, Isidor," she said. "Whoever left you the photo and wrote push on the back, led you here."
With my heart racing faster and faster, I realised I had been tricked. The photograph had been used as bait to lure me to my own death. But whoever had taken that picture had said that there were other photographs for my friends. Did that mean that they were going to be lured to their own deaths too? I had to warn them.
"I have to go back," I said.
"You can't, Isidor," Melody called after me as I raced back into the waiting room.
I yanked on the levers that were attached to the wall. I pushed them then pulled them, but nothing happened. "Why am I still here?" I cried out.
"Isidor, there is no way back, you're dead. We both are," Melody said softly. "It's hard for everyone to accept at first, as this place seems so real, but..."
"I've got to go back and warn my friends, my sister, not to be fooled by photographs of those they miss the most," I said, yanking at the levers.
"There is no way back," she said, taking my hand again. "You'll get used to it. I was scared at first, but it does get easier."
"You don't understand, Melody," I cried.
"Not at first I didn't," she said. "I couldn't believe that my mother stabbed me in the heart, only to find myself sitting here at this station."
With the sudden realisation I was dead - dead for real this time - with no chance of returning to the world that had been pushed or any other world, I began to tremble. But not out of fear for myself, but that of my friends. Who was the person behind the hood, the person who had tricked me with that picture?
As if sensing my fear, Melody smiled at me, and said, "Come with me, Isidor, we can catch the next train now."
"The next train?" I asked her, feeling lost.
"I've been waiting here for you all this time," she smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
Then, leading me back across the waiting room, we went back out onto the platform. There was a wailing sound from above and I looked up to see a sign swinging in the wind on a set of rusty hinges.
The Great Wasteland Railroad, it read.
Sitting together on the platform, with my crossbow on my lap, we held hands and waited for the next train to take us away.