DN - Train Car

From fifty feet up, the smoke stings my eyes and nose. I’m trying to get a sense of where the greatest need is, but it’s so hard to see what’s going on. Everything is chaos. There—a clump of rail workers huddling against an overturned boxcar. A pool of flaming liquid is seeping across the ground toward them, and they’re penned against the wreckage. I drop from the sky and they look at me like I’m an angel.

“Get clear of the car!” I shout as I slip my fingers into a gap between the crumpled side of the train car and the ground. It’s heavy, damn heavy. My fingers strain and my legs shake, but I get it up to waist height. With one convulsive heave, I hoist it up past my belt line and reset my hands to get it over my head. Metal screams and bends, and the car starts to slip out of my grasp, sliding away from me and back down to the ground. I take a desperate step forward to get under it, and then another, my hands walking inches-deep divots in the side of the car until I’ve got it mostly balanced over my head on shaking arms.

“Go! Get out of here!” I shout. I count heads as the rail workers slip past me, making sure all five are clear before I let it come smashing down.

- Dreadnought, Chapter 31