The train had no windows.
Only a strip of red LEDs running along the ceiling that spelled out destinations in languages that hurt to read.
Right now they said:
**NEXT STOP: ████-00 "THE CITY THAT ATE ITS OWN NAME"**
**ESTIMATED TIME TO ARRIVAL: WHEN YOU STOP BELIEVING IT EVER EXISTED**
The car rocked gently, as though it were moving. No one felt speed.
Elias stood at the front, holding the overhead rail with one hand like a commuter on his way to a job he already hated.
The six other passengers (now seven with Riley) sat in silence.
The priest was praying in a whisper that came out backwards.
The boy with the delayed shadow kept trying to high-five it and missing by three seconds every time.
The woman with clockwork eyes had taken one lens out and was polishing it on her sleeve; the exposed gears ticked louder than the train.
Elias finally spoke.
"Briefing. Listen once. There is no recording."
He flicked his wrist. A rectangle of blue fire appeared in mid-air (the old containment-door trick), but this time it turned into a photograph that everyone could see.
The photo showed a city skyline at sunset, except every building was upside-down and the sun was rising from the pavement.
"Object class: Apollyon (former Foundation designation).
Current name: Abyss-00.
Common nickname: The Eater of Names.
Symptoms of infection:
1. You forget the name of the street you grew up on.
2. Street signs start forgetting you back.
3. One morning the entire city wakes up and realizes it doesn't have a name anymore.
4. Gravity files for divorce.
Last known location: a metropolitan area of 8.4 million people.
Current population: zero, yet the trains still run on schedule.
The Foundation tried to nuke it from orbit. The bombs forgot where they were supposed to fall and are currently in stable orbit as new moons.
They tried amnestics. The city forgot the Foundation instead.
They tried to erase it from every map. The maps erased the cartographers.
Three sites (19, 77, and 02) went dark trying to draw a circle around it.
That was six months ago."
The photograph dissolved into sparks.
Elias looked at each of them in turn.
"We are going to walk in, find whatever is left of the concept of 'exit,' and drag it out by the throat.
Probability of survival: low.
Probability of staying human: lower.
Questions?"
The priest raised a trembling hand. "Will there be absolution?"
"Only if you absolve the city first."
The boy with the late shadow raised his hand next. "Do we get weapons?"
Elias reached under his coat and pulled out seven plain white envelopes.
Inside each: one Polaroid photo and one stick of chalk.
The photos were all different.
Riley's showed her standing in front of a street sign that read **NOWHERE YOU BELONG** in her own handwriting.
"These are your new personnel files," Elias said. "Guard them with your life. Lose the photo and you forget why you're here. Someone else picks it up and they get to decide who you were."
The train decelerated without slowing down.
The LEDs blinked once and went dark.
The doors opened onto a platform that was already crumbling into dust, even as they stepped onto it.
Beyond the turnstiles: a city at permanent dusk.
Skyscrapers grew downward into a sky of asphalt.
Streetlights bled upward like stalactites of light.
Every billboard displayed the same sentence in a thousand dead languages:
**WELCOME HOME. PLEASE FORGET TO LEAVE.**
Wind made of unsaid names howled between the inverted towers.
Elias stepped off last.
He looked back at the train.
It was already gone. In its place: a single door standing on the tracks, painted the same pale blue as Apartment 404.
The brass numbers now read **000**.
Elias spoke without turning around.
"Rule number five," he said to his new team.
"Never take the last train out. There isn't one."
Riley clutched her envelope and chalk so hard the paper started to tear.
Somewhere in the city that had eaten its name, something ancient and hungry heard seven new heartbeats arrive and began crossing them off a list that no longer had titles.
The hunt was on.
And for the first time in recorded history, the anomaly was not the only thing doing the hunting.