THE NORTHERN KING

“WHAT MAKES A PERSON? Character? Experience? Ambition?, sadly it is a question I will never know the answer because if we cannot even tell what we are, what we become we will never be able to tell another—”

“One more word from that silly book and I will fling myself on the rail track” a blonde-haired girl cried out as she held her ears in an attempt to prevent herself from hearing anymore.

“What do you mean? This is one of the best books ever written” a blacked haired boy argued, his rough slender fingers wrapped around a worn out brown leather back book.

“Wait, fort you mean Seven kingdoms is a good book?” she asked back

“A good book? Eve, it is a great book, in fact, I could arguably say it is one of the greatest pieces of poetry ever written!” fort said in a louder tone.

“Ronny did you hear that?” eve asked as she turned to the brown hair boy by her other side who was busy on his phone, “fort just declared that piece of dog shit the greatest book ever written”.

“Huh?” Ronny replied, lifting his head, he would rather not get involved in their usual daily book option exchange.

“What up with him today? He is usual the loud one” eve asked as she turned to fort who was already back to his reading—loud unnecessary reading.

Evelyn didn't know, but a quote came to her mind, if you are friends with two fools check again because they are actually three of them, and she was starting to think that was true.

The three of them had been friends since she could remember, her parents had a big fight, and they couldn't settle things, and she had to move from Jingling to Manchester with her mother at a young age. Not only was it a change in countries but continents.

She faced racial comments and was a target for bullies because of her slender frame and pale skin, but it all ended when she watched a tall lanky freshman boy tackle three juniors that had been a pain in her neck since she had been in school.

They immediately kicked off as close friends as they had a lot in common, they both stayed in the same neighborhood, but their love for poetry was unmatched, they were both intelligent but parallel opposites, she preferred hardcore and war core but fort preferred romance and contemporary literature—which was weird for someone who was five National gold medals in different martial arts and black belts.

they constantly found themselves in a back and front banter for the best works ever written, she genuinely believed that he had taken up that book to annoy her, but he happened to fall in love with it along the way.

Seven kingdoms eh? Maybe she will give it a read when she gets home she thought to herself as Ronny came into her mind, he was the loud one in the group which was surprising as he was rather quiet this morning, he probably had a new girlfriend and given a couple of days he will be back with his usual heartbreak sermon.

Ronny was different, he was a rich family and a typical skirt chaser, but he was good kid when he wants to be, and he was nice to her—even though he had many failed attentions to get between her legs, that was enough to make her accept him as a friend.

As much as she felt they were different—she genuinely loved her friends and hoped she never had to part ways with them, the sound of the track stooping in front of them pulled her away from her thought as she pulled both boys and ran toward the rush train.

Fort groaned as he closed the final pages of the book and took out his phone to type fractiously, murmuring No! As he scrolled what appeared to be a webpage, eve, and Ronny turned and threw him a worried look.

“What's wrong?” eve asked as she drew closer to him, resting her hand on his arm, “Ivo is dead” fort replied, “the fucker killed himself for his siblings, what a wasted ambition” fort replied—more like complained.

“One more word about that damn book, and I'm burning it—”

“Everybody on the ground” a commanding voice called out as multiple shots were fired in the air, loud screams filled the train as everybody tried to move away from the threat—which were three men with black mask on their faces, only one of the men was armed with a gun while the remaining two had blunt weapons as they waved it at the passengers of the train.

Fort wrapped himself around eve and pulled Ronny closer which was easy as he was the largest in the trio, he didn't run around like the other passengers but stayed in a corner of the train pushing and shoving away anybody who drew too close to his friends.

A loud bang silenced the train as a person dropped to the metal floor, blood flowed from the open wound on his head as the armed man screamed on top of his voice “the next person who moved gets it”.

Muffled cries filled the train as everybody tried to remain calm as their lives now depended on it.

“What do you want?” fort asked in a calm tone.

“Fort”eve screamed as she tugged at his red and white stripped sleeve which he rolled up.

“Oh, a tough one” the man replied as he walked towards them.

“You have had us here for thirty minutes now and one person is already dead, we will reach the next stop in a couple of minutes and if the train doesn't stop, the railing authorities will call in” fort called out, but eve sometimes wished fort was like Ronny—dumb because if you give a smart person the physical strength to back their rubbish they tend to overdo things and that was precisely what fort was doing.

She didn't like the idea, he wanted to draw the gunman closer and disarm him, he was relying on luck that the other two were unarmed and this was just three stupid people who thought they could hold a train hostage.

In as much as she loved being right with her analysis, she prayed to be wrong this time.