The Last Train to Halcyon

The next jolt throws you sideways into the berth wall. Somewhere in the corridor, a latch bangs open and then shut again, as if the train itself has taken a breath and changed its mind.

You push yourself upright, palms slick against the bedding, and look for anything that might explain how you got here. The compartment is spare to the point of erasure: narrow berth, ash-colored walls, a basin folded into the paneling, a single sealed hatch, and the dim amber strip above everything making the metal look old and tired. The air tastes faintly of disinfectant and dust.

Your name is on the keycard, or something very like it. You turn it over in your fingers, trying to fit it to the shape of a life you cannot reach. Sleeper Seven. The edges are worn smooth, handled often, carried a long way. That alone should mean something. Instead it only deepens the hollow.

A sound comes from behind the wall near the berth: a soft click, then the faintest hum, as if a panel has unlatched itself by a fraction. You kneel, run your fingers along the seam where the bedframe meets the wall, and find it—an access plate hidden low, almost flush, stubbornly reluctant. It shifts under pressure. Not open. Not sealed, either.

The speaker in the ceiling crackles alive again before you can decide whether to trust the noise.

"Passenger in sleeper seven," it says, smooth as ever, with static woven through the edges. "Proceed to Carriage Three. Schedule adjustment in effect."

A pause follows, longer this time.

Then, quietly, as if the train has leaned close to say it only to you: "You are expected."

The words settle under your skin.

Another impact rolls through the carriage—hard enough to rattle your teeth. Somewhere distant, a woman’s voice snaps over an intercom, clipped and controlled, too brief to catch in full. Not a passenger. Not afraid. In charge, or trying to sound like it.

The red indicator beside the door stays locked.

But the hidden seam under your hand has widened just enough to matter, and beyond the thin metal of the compartment the train continues its long, relentless run toward a city that should not still be broadcasting.

For a moment, all you can hear is the rails, the static, and the beat of your own pulse answering them.