The train arrived at midnight

The train arrived exactly on time—midnight, as scheduled. It always did.

Mara stood alone on the platform, clutching her ticket. The station clock ticked loudly overhead, each second dragging like it didn’t want to move forward. No announcements. No other passengers. Just the low hum of electricity and the distant echo of something metallic shifting far down the tracks.

She checked her phone. No signal.

The train doors slid open with a soft, mechanical sigh.

Inside, the lights flickered. Rows of empty seats stretched into the distance, too many for a train this size. Mara hesitated, then stepped in. The doors closed behind her immediately.

“Hello?” she called.

No answer.

The train lurched forward.

At first, everything seemed normal. The rhythmic clatter of wheels. The dim overhead lights. But as Mara walked down the aisle, she noticed something strange—every window showed darkness. Not the blurred lights of passing towns. Not even the faint glow of the moon. Just pitch black, like the train wasn’t moving through the world at all.

She sat down, unease creeping up her spine.

A voice crackled over the intercom.

“Next stop… Mara.”

Her breath caught. That wasn’t a station.

“I think there’s a mistake,” she said aloud, half-laughing.

The intercom clicked again.

“No mistake.”

The lights went out.

For a moment, there was nothing. No sound. No movement. Just suffocating darkness.

Then the lights flickered back on.

Every seat was occupied.

Mara froze.

The passengers sat unnaturally still, their heads tilted slightly toward her. Their eyes—every single one—were open too wide, unblinking, fixed on her.

“Please…” she whispered, backing away.

One of them smiled.

It wasn’t a human smile. It stretched too far, splitting the face like paper tearing.

The intercom crackled again.

“Final stop.”

The train screeched violently, metal screaming against metal. The doors slid open.

Beyond them was not a station.

It was her bedroom.

Exactly as she’d left it—dim lamp glowing, bed unmade, window slightly open.

Relief flooded her.

She stumbled out of the train and into the room, gasping.

Behind her, the doors began to close.

Then she heard it.

Footsteps.

Not one set.

Dozens.

Slow. Dragging. Entering the room behind her.

Mara turned.

The train was gone.

But the passengers were not.