Chapter 1 part 2
✦ Part 2: A Train Without Name
The train was old. Not in design, but in atmosphere—like the kind that only appeared for people headed nowhere easily explained. Yuriko didn't recall how she found it. The enclosed directions from the letter simply read: "Line 3, Platform 6. Board the last car. Do not speak to the conductor."
She didn't. There hadn't been one.
The car was almost empty when she stepped aboard: a woman in funeral black clutching an urn, a child with too-wide eyes drawing circles in condensation on the window, a man whose face stayed turned to the glass the entire ride.
No one made a sound.
Yuriko took a seat by the rear door. The upholstery smelled faintly of pine and rust. As the train lurched forward, she felt a pulse of vertigo bloom in her skull—the beginning twinge of a fainting spell. Not yet. Not here.
She gripped the edge of the seat and counted the seconds between sounds:
– click of the wheels
– the slow drag of brakes
– a soft hum from the woman's urn, or maybe from the woman herself
The child across from her looked up.
"You're going where the dead wait," he said. Not a question.
Yuriko blinked. She wasn't sure if he had spoken aloud or not.
By the next stop, the boy was gone. So was the woman.
No one boarded.
No one replaced them.
The windows outside had turned white. Not from fog or sun—just a smooth, featureless white, like a page not yet written on. Time lost shape. Her hands stopped sweating. Her breath became still.
She felt it then: a memory. Not a full one, but a sensation curled in the back of her skull. The brushing of long silk against bare knees. A wooden floor. Her head in someone's lap. A voice murmuring, "You promised."
Her heart lurched.
She pressed her palm to her thigh and felt nothing but fabric.
She could almost hear the click of a camera shutter. Could almost feel it—like a phantom touch at the base of her spine.
A sudden clang of brakes pulled her forward.
Outside, the whiteness gave way to misted forest.
The train stopped beside a platform made of stone, half-covered in moss. No sign. No announcement. Just a silent command: get off.
She obeyed.
As the train pulled away, she turned back.
There was no conductor.
There hadn't been a train.
Only the tracks remained.
And fog.