Why does my back suddenly feel so stiff? I can't move anything but my face.
The world around me didn't exactly flood into view like it normally did for me, rather deciding to trickle into my senses like sunlight through a canopy in the forest. Touch being the first thing to come to me, I could feel the heat of an unconditioned, active place. Blasts of warm air occasionally brushing past me from all different directions, invisible sparks in the night.
Actually, that was what the sounds were like too. Hammering and welding seemed to ring in my ears, turning from warbled and unclear into crisp and easy to comprehend. It made it all violently clear that I wasn't at home like I was supposed to be.
But then, where exactly could I be now then?
I grumbled slightly, hearing a voice that didn't fully sound like it normally did - causing me to blink my eyes open as they adjusted to the light. It was strange, since I had never been able to have my vision clear up, but that was really only the start of things.
My mouth didn't move much. Speaking wasn't something I did frequently, even when I wasn't as confused as I was now. Words stayed inside me, trapped behind lips that wouldn't open properly. Someone yelled commands nearby: "Shift that buffer! Quickly!" The voice had a thick Scottish burr. Another responded with Welsh lilt: "Almost done!" Everyone else sounded distinctly British Isles. Yet my own internal monologue remained stubbornly Transatlantic—a flat, Midwestern American drawl echoing inside my skull.
Then, it hit me: I wasn't lying down anymore. My entire perception tilted sideways—no, *I* was tilted. Vertical. Standing on... wheels? Panic surged as my vision finally sharpened. Gleaming metal flanks stretched impossibly far beneath me. Rivets dotted crimson paintwork. Ahead, a massive boiler dominated my view, crowned by a brass dome. Steam hissed softly from valves near my... face? Footplate? Confusion warred with dawning horror. This wasn't a body. This was machinery. I was reborn as a locomotive, and since I had a face, that very likely meant one thing: Thomas The Tank Engine.
A stout man in grease-stained overalls approached, wiping his hands on a rag. "All right then, Sleeping Beauty?" His Yorkshire accent was thick as axle grease. He patted my buffer—my *buffer*—with a metallic clang that vibrated through my entire frame. "Bit stiff, aren't ya? Give those pistons time to loosen up."
The first engine in the shed two engines to the left—a time green saddle tank engine with red lining ad four small wheels—looked familiar, but I couldn't place why. His expression was meek yet hopeful in a childlike way that made my nonexistent skin crawl. "Oh bother," he muttered when his fireman stepped away. "Suppose I'll never get chosen." A high-pitched sigh escaped his funnel, sounding more like a deflating balloon than proper steam.
Suddenly, a deep bellow rattled my boiler. "Pipe down, Number 1." The voice came from a bigger green engine to the right of me, her paint green with black lining and her face set in a permanent look of snootiness. "No one cares about your whining little green." Her accent was sharp, bitter—like coal dust in your eyes. She turned her glare towards me. "And you—stop staring like an oversized red idiot!"
"At least I'm not stuffing my nose where it doesn't belong," I snapped at her, feeling a surge of steam pressure building in my boiler—anger rising quicker than I could control it. My voice sounded deeper than I remembered, rougher, like gravel under wheels. "And what exactly makes *you* think you're so special?" The words came out coated in venom, surprising even me.
The small green engine—Percy, I suddenly remembered from my childhood, even if apparently he didn't have that name yet—flinched at my outburst. His face crumpled like scrap paper. "Oh dear," he whispered, shrinking back slightly. One of his wheels squeaked nervously against the rails. I felt a twinge of guilt, but it vanished under another surge of boiling irritation.
"What if none of us are special?" The nervous blue tank engine just to the right of me asked before I could bark back at the chipped green snob. She was painted like Thomas—different wheel arrangement, different dumb shape—but hee buffers trembled visibly. "What if they pass over all of us?!"
There was a slightly bigger and sad looking black painted engine to the left of the blue one and to the right of Percy. "I don't care," she grumbled, steam puffing out lazily from her funnel. "Fat chance any of us get picked anyway." Her wheels creaked as she shifted slightly, looking away from the rest of us with a bitter expression.
The big red tank engine—me—let out a hiss of steam that sounded suspiciously like a growl. "Oh, stop your whining," I snapped at the nervous blue tank engine. "You're all acting like scrap metal already, and we haven't even been tested yet." My words came out sharper than I intended, but I couldn't help it. Everything felt wrong—my body, my voice, the way my boiler churned with emotions I couldn't name. Percy's meek little face twisted into something even more pitiful, and I rolled my eyes.
The chipped green engine snorted, her smokebox puffing out a dismissive cloud. "Tested? As if. They'll take one look at you and send you straight to the smelters, you overgrown red tin can." Her voice dripped with venom, and I felt my pistons tighten. Before I could retort, Percy let out a tiny cough—steam escaping his safety valves like a nervous hiccup. "Oh dear," he murmured, his eyes darting between us. "Perhaps we could—could try being nicer?"
Just then, the yard foreman's whistle pierced the air. All our heads snapped toward the doorway where he stood, clipboard in hand. Percy's face lit in childlike excitement, his four tiny wheels shuffling eagerly on the rails. The blue engine beside me gasped—a ridiculous puff of steam escaping her funnel. Even the bitter green engine stiffened, her experimental couplings creaking.
"Let's get this over with." I murmured under my breath, my pistons clanking irritably. Steam curled from my funnel in short, angry bursts—like a bull preparing to charge. The other engines shot me nervous glances, but I didn't care. If they wanted optimism, they could talk to Percy and his ridiculous hopeful wheezing.
The foreman's boots crunched on the gravel as he approached the row. My boiler tightened when he paused beside me, his pen hovering over the clipboard. "Number 4," he muttered, and my buffers stiffened. That's all I was—a number. A possible scrap heap candidate. Percy practically vibrated, his face hopeful.
Sigh.
"Let's put you on your trial run first, Number 4," the foreman said, tapping my buffer with his pen. I snorted steam violently enough to make Percy nearly jump off.
"Oh, wonderful," I grumbled, my wheels screeching against the rails as I rolled forward. "A trial run before my inevitable trip to the scrap yard. How thrilling." The bitter green engine smirked—smirked!—as I passed her. "Shut your smokebox," I hissed, steam swirling around me like an angry storm cloud.
Ahead, the yard curved sharply—yet thankfully not too sharply for my untested bearings as I continued to chuff along. Yet despite my pessimistic mood and slight anger issues, I still tried my hardest to get the job done—even if the foreman's pen strokes were likely just counting down my days before the scrap heap. Steam hissed from my valves like a sigh as I rounded the bend, my buffers clanking against the rough shunt of trucks ahead.
The bitter green engine's mocking words still stung worse than boiler scale. "You'll derail before the first signal," she'd sneered as I left. Well, I'd show her. My pistons pumped harder, grinding against the rails with angry determination. If I was going to fail, I'd fail spectacularly—not some half-hearted wheeze like Percy's timid little puffs.
Suddenly, the trucks ahead lurched violently—some idiot had left them improperly braked. My wheels screamed against the rails as I slammed into them, my boiler rattling like a kettle left too long on the hob. "Oh, *perfect*," I snarled, steam billowing around me in furious clouds.
But then—something unexpected. My wheels gripped the rails tighter than expected, my weight holding the runaway trucks steady. The foreman's eyebrows shot up. Even Percy, watching from the shed, let out an impressed little "oh!" The bitter green engine's smirk vanished like steam in the wind. Huh. Maybe being a big, angry red tin can had its uses after all.
Let's see how long this lasts.