Silence.
Not the silence of peace—but the silence of a storm holding its breath. The survivors floated in it, their bodies weightless, their thoughts stretched thin. There was no longer a "carriage," no walls or floor. Only tracks that curved into eternity and the pounding echo of the heart.
Evelyn was the first to move. She clawed at the void, dragging herself to her knees, her face streaked with tears but burning with stubborn fire. "No. I don't care if it's infinite. I don't care if it's eternal. We fight."
Her words shattered the silence. The train roared in laughter, the rails trembling beneath them. Sophie's hollow voice whispered from the walls of nothing:"Fight? Against what? You are made of me. You are mine."
Alex covered his ears, rocking, his voice breaking. "She's right. We can't fight something that's inside us. Every scream, every fear—it's feeding it! The more we struggle, the stronger it gets."
Leo lifted his head slowly. His eyes gleamed faintly in the dark, half-mad, half-enlightened. "Not if we turn it against itself." His voice was cold, deliberate. "The train feeds on fear, desire, despair. What if we starve it? What if we cut the source?"
Evelyn froze. Alex's breath hitched. They knew what he meant. To starve the train was to strip themselves of everything human. No hope. No fear. No love. No self.
The train shuddered violently, the void around them splitting open to reveal flashes of new carriages—horrors waiting, hungering, eager to be born. The message was clear: the journey wasn't over. It never would be.
And in the middle of the chaos, Evelyn raised her chin, gripping the dead lantern as if it still burned. "Then maybe that's how we fight. Not by escaping. Not by feeding it. But by becoming something it can't swallow."
The void trembled. The heart skipped a beat.
For the first time, the train seemed uncertain.