Seeing that hill before them was like being slammed into by a million loaded cars on a sharp decline.

Thomas didn't know what to do with the information. That was Gordon's Hill, which meant this was Sodor, which meant that Sodor was seemingly devoid of anyone but these few engines who'd been made into... something else...

...which meant this was very, very wrong.

"What happened to us... to Sodor...?" Percy whispered, "...Everyone... they're all gone."

"For quite some time, it appears." Edward mumbled, "...This doesn't make any sense. We were just in Tidmouth Sheds asleep last night, weren't we? How could this have happened?"

"And why would they leave us here?" Diesel complained, "So far it's Steamies four, me zero!"

James grumbled, "It's not really fun for us to be stuck with you either, Diesel!"

"Everyone just stop!" Edward begged, "Please... We can't afford to fight right now. We need to work together."

"I'd rather pull waste cars than have to haul around Diesel's dead weight- oh wait, it's the same thing-"

"How dare you-"

All attention turned away from the argument as the youngest engine whimpered and then collapsed to the ground. "Percy!"

The little green engine's eyes stared upward, blinking slowly.

"Percy, can you hear us?" Thomas worried, bending down beside him. "Say something!"

"Tuh...Thomas..."
After a moment, his teeth clenched and he sat up, putting a hand to his head. "Ah... I-I don't know what happened, I... I was just standing there, and then..."

"Are you okay?"

"Well, apparently not, Thomas..." Percy looked up to his friend with a weak smile, "...I should probably take it easy, that's all."

"But what if it's something bad?" Thomas looked up to the others, "What do we do?"

"I don't know!" James defended, "I-I mean, we can't take him to the Steamworks. They probably can't help him when he's like this-"

"Not to mention there's probably nobody there." Diesel muttered, "We're on our own."

"N-Not completely..."
They looked and saw three more coming up the hill towards them, "We're here too."

"Emily! Gordon! Henry!"

Henry waved, and Gordon marched up to the others. "Aww... Look at all of you little engines..."

Thomas crossed his arms as he rolled his eyes, of course he and Percy were the smallest ones here, they always had been! "Yes, Gordon... We're still little engines...Thank you for noticing..."

Thomas and Percy where the smallest, reaching just above Gordon's waist. James and Emily stood about a head taller than that, Edward and Diesel both reaching Gordon's shoulder, and then Gordon himself was tallest, with Henry just a few inches shorter.

Edward waved off Gordon's hand as he tried to pat the little blue engine's head like a child. "Enough, Gordon..."

"What happened here?" Henry asked, "You sounded a little nervous when we were coming up here."

"Well, we found each other, and then Percy kinda... Fell."

Percy waved from the ground, "Just tired... Low on energy, the symbols say."

"The same symbols that told Henry to stop hitting his head on the tops of tunnels?" Gordon teased.

Henry frowned, rubbing his head as if remembering the pain it brought. "Not on purpose..."

"Never seen an engine jump so high..." Emily mumbled, as if she had been to blame.

"Never seen an engine jump period." Diesel scoffed.

"Oh great. It's you."

Diesel frowned and then threw his hands up in the air. "Fine! You Steamies all have fun, I'm out of here!"

"Diesel, wait a minute!" Edward called, but the diesel engine ignored him and started down the slope and away from them.

"Puh! Who needs him?" Gordon muttered.

"We do." Edward mumbled, "...We need to stick together..."

__________________________________________________

"Ugh... Great." Diesel muttered, "I'm all alone here! It's gonna be all 'Diesel do this, Diesel do that...! While the Steamies just sit back and watch! Not a single other diesel engine is here anymore? Nobody!"

As he reached the bottom of the hill, he found several broken buildings of what must've been a farm. The stone walls of the house and barn still stood, but their wooden supports were crumbling and like everywhere else they'd seen, it was empty of people or signs of them.

"All alone...!" He grumbled, picking his foot in the dirt.

"Feeling outnumbered, huh?"

"Pssh, yeah!" Diesel's head then perked up, "Wait, who said that!?"

The voice hadn't been familiar, though not exactly threatening either. It was deep, and almost rumbling like stone tumbling down the walls of the quarry.

"I'm sorry..."
Another shape, much like them but also somehow different, peered out from behind one of the broken walls of a building. Green in color, with glinting eyes of orange. "...I didn't mean to frighten you."

"What? Frightened? Pssh!" Diesel rolled his eyes, words sputtering from his mouth. "I-I wasn't frightened! I was just... curious!"

"Uh huh... Diesel, was it?"

"Yeah, that's right! And you are...?"

"Boulder."
Boulder stepped out completely, stepping closer to the engine. "I am Boulder."

"Well, what're you doing here?"

The green being gave a little smile, "Looking for you, actually... You and eight others. Have you seen any others?"

Diesel was quiet for a moment, brows furrowing and eyes squinting. "That depends... Why do you wanna know?"

"Fair enough. You have the right to be suspicious of me... I came here to this island to find you because I thought you might need my help."

"And how would you have known we might need help?"

"Because out of nowhere, we picked up nine energy signals here, so-"

"We? Who's we? How many of you are there? Did you come here to spy on us!? Did you do this!? What happened to the others!?"

Boulder blinked, "...Okay, let's just stick with me for now. I'll explain everything later, just tell me if you've seen any others like you around."

"Hmm... Can't tell. Don't know why you wanna know."

Boulder rolled his eyes, and then started to walk up the slope towards Diesel. "Fine then. I'll just keep looking on my own."

"Wait!"

"Yeeeeeessss?"

"Erm..." Diesel grumbled, "...You promise you're not going to hurt any of us?"

Boulder gave him a smile, "I don't hurt, I help... that's kinda my job."

"...then okay. Percy might need some help."

Diesel led the way back up the slope, hearing the others' voices murmuring worriedly. Gordon was the first to notice them approaching- being the tallest- and frowned suspiciously towards the newcomer.

"I-It's okay!" Diesel reported, "He wants to help!"

Gordon still watched the newcomer closely as he approached, bending down beside Percy. "Hello, Percy. I'm Boulder."

"Nice to meet you... I'm fine, really. I just have to-"
Percy started to get up from the ground again, but then his limbs jerked and he grunted as he dropped back down onto the ground. "Oww..."

"Take it easy, it's okay... Tell me, are you seeing any symbols passing by your vision?"

Percy nodded again, "T-They say... E-Energy low? Or... maybe..." Percy waved his hand in front of his face as if to swat something away, "I don't-"

"It's okay, I think I know what the problem is, then... Hold on a second."

The other engines all gasped and jumped back as the stranger's chest then popped open. "Cinders and ashes-"

"Calm down," Boulder remarked with a humored look, "I'm just opening my cab."

"Your... cab...?"

Boulder nodded, reaching into the large compartment that was within. Those that dared look could see two seats where humans might rest, and a series of controls on a console. Boulder's fingers fiddled around the seats until he pulled out a small container full of some strange, glowing liquid.

"What's that?" Thomas asked.

"Energon. It's a kind of fuel."

James' nose wrinkled, "It's not like any fuel I've ever seen."

"Well, have you ever seen Percy looking like this before?"

"...Fair enough."

Boulder placed a hand under Percy and helped him to sit up, "Do you think you can drink this?"

Percy swallowed hard, and then nodded.

The engines stood off to the side as this stranger tipped the container and helped Percy to drink the weird glowing fuel down. He didn't drink all of it, but he was already looking more energized as Boulder closed the container and returned it to his cab, keeping a hand on Percy's shoulder as he sat up a little straighter.

"Thank you, Boulder... I feel a lot better now."

"Good." Boulder put a hand to the little green engine's shoulder, "I would try to pay attention to those symbols from here on out, huh? They tell you if something's wrong."

"Right... I thought it just meant I needed to sleep, but that I could wait for that."

Boulder smirked, and then stood up again to do a head count, "One, two, three... eight. Good. That leaves only one more signal to find..."

"Signal?" Thomas asked.

"Yes. The scanners picked up nine energy signals from here on the island, so I came here to-"

"Scanners?"

"Yes, computers that help pick up-"

"What's a computer?"

Boulder stopped, eyes wide. He stared at them for a moment, and then shook his head. "It's not important right now. The point is, I came here to see if you all were alright. It looks like you're all on your own here."

"Well..."
Edward looked out over the island, "...We're not sure ourselves... From this height, it certainly looks like Sodor, but... the humans and other engines are gone."

"Other engines?"

Emily nodded, "We don't know what we are now, but we were steam engines before-"

"Ahem!" Diesel coughed.

"I-I mean most of us were steam engines! Diesel was a- well, a diesel engine, but-"

"Whoa whoa whoa." Boulder lifted his hands up, "Slow down. Engines? Like locomotives that haul freight?"

"Yes!" Henry stepped forward, "Have you seen others? Are our friends out there?"

Boulder was quiet for a moment, looking down to the ground and also very confused. His gaze shifted back and forth as he thought, and then he looked up again. "Well... No."

"But you at least know what we are- erm, what we were." Edward remarked.

"Yes... But I have another question. What year was it last you knew?"

"Erm... Nineteen-Twenty-Five... I think?" Emily remembered, "...Yeah, that sounds right."

Boulder put a hand to his forehead, "Of course... No wonder you don't know what computers are..."

"You okay?" Percy asked.

Boulder nodded, "Yeah, sorry... Let me introduce myself properly. I am Boulder of Griffin Rock, Maine."

"Maine? Like America?"

"Yes... and your names?"

"Edward, and this is Gordon, Thomas, Percy, Emily, James, Henry, and Diesel."

"So you all lived here on Sodor?"

"So this is Sodor...!" Percy whimpered, though his face suggested that he'd already known. "What happened to everyone?"

"I don't know. I was noticing the strange absence of people myself... Clearly humans lived here at some point, but they don't anymore... Maybe we can look around together, try to solve this mystery."

"Sounds like a plan!" Thomas announced.

"Hold on,"
Edward lifted a hand, "I don't understand... Why did you ask what year it is? Don't you know?"

Boulder's shoulders slumped, "Well... I hate to tell you all this... but right now, we're in the year twenty-twenty-three."

"No...!" Gordon gaped, "We've been neglecting our jobs for a hundred years? Without me to pull the Express, no wonder the humans left."

"Oh. Sure. That's what happened, Gordon." Diesel muttered, "...Wait, you said nine of us. Who's the last one?"

Boulder shrugged, "But their signal is coming from..."
He tapped his arm and a glowing screen appeared from it, hovering in front of his face and showing a squiggly outline of a shape, and a flashing dot on the left side of it. "...The western shoreline."

"That looks like it's where the Docks would be!" Henry announced, "I would have to collect the fish from the harbor there!"

"Then the Docks is where we'll start..."
Boulder tapped the side of his head, "Graham, good plan. I've got eight of them here, just going to get the last before we move on."

"Um... Who are you talking to?" Henry asked.

Boulder shook his head, "I'll explain later, let's find that last engine, shall we...?"