<div style="text-align: justify;">When Marcus woke up the first few seconds, as usual, were the best. Those blissful few moments before the weight of the world closed in on his consciousness again and reminded him who and where he was. The walls of his south London studio faded in from black and the sound of rain pouring into the alley behind his apartment flooded unceremoniously into his ears. He sighed and rolled over in bed and let loose an exasperated grunt as the clock read six thirty. He had overslept by a whole thirty minutes. Work didn't even start until nine but the trains were always late and the streets were impossible to navigate with the swathe of bodies that infested the city constantly clogging his path. The blinking digital facade rolled over to six-thirty-four and with another grunt, or perhaps more of a moan, Marcus began his day.<br/><br/>Sound and light filled the banal studio apartment with something like life as Marcus began the laboured process of first hoisting himself to his feet and making his way across the room to turn the lights on. He walked past his kitchen where his cat Sebastian slept lazily on top of the bread box and made his way to the bathroom. In twenty minutes flat he was done with every morning ritual which needed the bathroom to be performed and his hair was still a little damp when he found himself batting the cat awake and making some toast. At seven-seventeen he finally left his apartment bundled in a raincoat and his work suit and made his way down the claustrophobic stairwell onto the gray London streets.<br/><br/>Marcus was what most people would simply call a 'button pusher'. He woke up every day to commute across the city to an office where he sat at a computer inputting data for a company who would then use that data to cold call people all across the United Kingdom and offer to sell them products. He learned so much about people he would never meet at his job. Just yesterday he discovered a man named Stanley Hill was into some very strange pornography and was assigned to a mailing list for furry chains and red leather morph suits. Very peculiar indeed. The highlight of a normal day in Marcus' life was the hours he would spend perusing the internet between inputting every 'client'. Some days he would read philosophy and others he would educate himself about world news. Mostly though he would spend hours silently laughing at funny pictures of cats.<br/><br/>As he walked he dug his hand into the folds of his coat looking for his headphones, which of course he had forgotten. This left him only one recourse as he navigated the bobbing and writhing mass of people on the streets. He would have to enjoy the scenery. London, as always, was an awful looking place. The gray skies loomed closer than usual overhead and surrounded Marcus with something not unlike dread. He tore his eyes away from the sky and rain and looked to his left where he saw police arguing with what looked like a group of homeless people. They seemed to be shouting something about black helicopters and shadows taking their friends in the night. Marcus shook those thoughts right out of his head, gritted his teeth and rounded the corner to the street which housed the descent into his station.<br/><br/>The station was cramped, hot and smelly. Even with a pre-paid ten trip ticket he didn't seem to get through the huddle any faster than anybody else but before long he was standing on the platform catching the second train to the stop up town where his office was. He would probably be late by ten or fifteen minutes and his boss would dock a whole hour of his pay. He sighed audibly. For a moment he thought about what would happen if he just stepped forward a few times, only a metre or two, and plunged onto the railway tracks. He would lie there for a fraction of a second if he timed it right and then he would be hit by a train. He would die instantly he thought. It was unlikely that someone would survive such an impact, wasn't it? Any thought of suicide was rudely interrupted by the screeching of a halting train car pulling onto the platform. He, along with several hundred others, ambled and shoved onto the train where they would spent the next moments of their lives uncomfortably pressed against one another. There were women holding the hands of children tightly and clutching their handbags even tighter still. There were homeless men who occupied entire stretches of sitting space while they slept and occupied even more space around them with their stench. A few people were like Marcus, just bundled up button pushers making their way to work. The last group Marcus could see were the perverts who slid their way like inky snakes to stand by women or children and press their bodies against them, rubbing themselves on the clean and unsuspecting with their eyes closed and perverse grins on their faces.<br/><br/>He hated the train.<br/><br/>The speeding train car rocked back and forth jarring everybody around within its bowels. Occasionally it would breach the end of a tunnel and more natural light would break into the surroundings but more often than not it was dark with only the hum and bleak glow of halogen bulbs which lined the top of the car. Though even then only a few worked and even fewer didn't constantly flicker. The train sped off from another station and into the darkness of the tunnel. Through most of this, Marcus had his eyes closed and was trying his best not to pay attention to the heat or the smell but he could tell when the car lit up with each stop and he counted the minutes between each one. It was the same as yesterday and the day before that and countless days before them still. It was the same as it would be tomorrow. Four minutes of blackness, then a stop. Six minutes, stop. Fourteen minutes, stop. The next one was four minutes away again. Four...<br/><br/>Five...<br/><br/>Six...<br/><br/>Seven...<br/><br/>Blackness passed and passed without light. Marcus opened his eyes and looked around to see the windows of the train car still awash with the same black that permeated through whenever the train was between stations. Puzzled, he pushed his way to the window and squinted his eyes to see if he could see the subtle red lights that dotted infrequently on the walls of the inside of the tunnel. Minutes more passed and no red glow. Not even a flicker. It was around this time that Marcus noticed the train car wasn't rattling and bumping like normal but rather gently swaying back and forth rhythmically. He pressed his face closer to the glass and used his hands either side of his eyes to peer out and tried his best to focus. Perhaps the train had stopped something was being serviced. It was strange that they wouldn't announce that on the intercom though.<br/><br/>A few more minutes passed before Marcus saw much of anything. The first movement was a distant blinking white light which swung back and forth out in the expanse of nothing. It drifted closer and closer with each fade in and out and was almost mesmerising. Marcus blinked and it was closer again. He watched it carefully for a minute before pulling away and looking around the car. It seemed that no one else seemed fazed by the prolonged darkness and gentle rocking of the train. No one was even looking out the window except for one man. A homeless man had risen from his slumber and was peering outwards into the same deep blackness that Marcus was, and he was watching the swaying white light.<br/><br/>Then, as if from nowhere, the train car was illuminated from the right side by the swaying light. Marcus and the homeless man were the only two passengers who reacted to this at all and the light violently jerked upwards to reveal something Marcus had never seen before. Right in front of his eyes was a gaping maw of teeth and tongues and eyes. He stumbled back and fell to the floor, disturbing passengers all around him. The maw in the window opened wide and Marcus closed his eyes.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">_______________________________________</div><br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0080FF">"</span></span>Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail.<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0080FF">"</span></span><br/><br/>The television flickered in the shop window and the teenage boy standing in front of it cocked his head quizzically to the left while he waited for his mother to finish fiddling with her change to put money in the parking meter. He wasn't really much for news but this was interesting enough and besides, everyone had been talking about it at school.<br/><br/>After the woman at the news desk talked some more, the scene changed to reveal a heavy set police officer in a very nice uniform standing at a podium on top of some stairs. He grumbled from beneath his moustache and spoke into the forest of microphones which prodded out at him from the stand.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0080FF">"</span></span>These people have made it clear that they will stop at nothing to undermine the efforts of the municipal planning authority to expand the Underground Rail and now they have resorted to kidnapping citizens as they travel to work. The Metropolitan Police Service will stop at nothing to bring these criminals to justice and return the missing loved ones to their families...<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #0080FF">"</span></span><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">_______________________________________</div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i.imgur.com/GbGQ4ZG.png">[ img ]</a><br/><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">CHAPTER I</span>.</span></div></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 85%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-style: italic">[author's note - there will be two rounds of posting before my next post. introduce your characters, set the scene for them. the plot hook should be obvious enough for you to figure out more or less where you're going and why for the moment but if it's not, PM me and i'll give you some hints.<br/><br/>be ready.<br/><br/>be smart.<br/><br/>never, ever go out alone after dark.]</span></span></div>