Midnight Train to Nowhere

The ticket was blank. No station printed, no time, no seat assignment—just a slip of paper that smelled faintly of soot and rain. I found it tucked in the pocket of my coat, though I had no memory of buying it. By midnight, I felt an urge I couldn’t resist and walked to the old rail yard at the edge of town.

The train was waiting. Black iron, rust flaking like dried blood, windows dim as unblinking eyes. A conductor stood at the door, face hidden beneath a cap, gloved hand extended. Without a word, he took my ticket, punched a hole in the empty cardstock, and motioned me aboard.

The doors shut behind me. The whistle screamed. And the train lurched forward, carrying me into a night that had no stars.

Passengers

At first, I thought I was alone. The cars stretched silent, the seats cracked and peeling, the air thick with the scent of coal. But then I noticed the shadows—figures slumped against windows, silhouettes hunched beneath the dim lamps. None spoke. None moved. Their faces, when I looked too closely, seemed smudged, as if someone had blurred them out of existence.

One passenger turned her head toward me. Her mouth opened, and I heard the faint scrape of metal on glass, though no words formed. When I blinked, she was staring straight ahead again, as though nothing had happened.

I walked on. Each car was the same. The same silence. The same not-quite-people staring into nowhere. Yet somehow, I felt their eyes follow me, reflected in the glass, watching from angles that didn’t exist.

The Conductor

Eventually, I found the conductor again, standing in the aisle as though waiting. His uniform was immaculate, his gloves white as bone. I asked where the train was headed. His head tilted, just slightly, and then he said the first words I had heard since boarding:

“Nowhere worth returning from.”

Then he punched my ticket again. Another hole, though the paper was already crumbling at the edges. I looked down, and realized there were dozens of holes—far more than I could remember. Had I been here before?

The Journey

The train never slowed. The world outside the windows was black, no stars, no landscape, no horizon. Sometimes flashes of light appeared—faces pressed against the glass, screaming silently as they rushed past. Sometimes I thought I saw my own reflection among them.

I tried to open a door between the cars, to leap out into the night, but the handle burned my hand. The conductor appeared again, wordless this time, and simply shook his head. I could not leave. Not yet.

Sleep came in fits. When I awoke, the passengers around me had shifted, their clothes different, their positions changed. One man had a wound across his throat, but no blood. Another woman clutched a photograph so tightly the paper fused to her skin. They never acknowledged me, but I began to sense they were not strangers. They were echoes. People I had known. People I had lost.

Nowhere

After what felt like days—or years—the train slowed. The wheels screamed against the tracks. Through the window, I saw a station. Not a building, not a platform, just an endless plain of mirrors standing upright in the dark. Each mirror reflected a place I recognized: my childhood bedroom, the hospital room where my father died, the house I had burned down and sworn never to speak of.

The conductor appeared one final time. He handed back my ticket. It was nearly gone, worn down to ash between my fingers.

“Your stop,” he said.

I understood then. The train never takes you where you want to go. It takes you where you have been avoiding. It carries you to the stations you swore you would never face. And once you step off, there is no boarding again.

I stand now before a mirror, its glass rippling like water, showing me everything I tried to bury. Behind me, the train waits, but I know it will not linger. Soon it will depart, seeking another passenger with a blank ticket in their pocket.

Midnight will come again. And the train will never be empty.

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