𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖙

Waiting Room

Gian stood in the center of a train station, surrounded by the constant hum of life—people rushing past him in every direction, their voices blending into an indecipherable buzz. It was the kind of crowd that used to make him feel alive, a mix of energy, movement, and noise that he could never quite place. But now, there was something different.

He wasn't part of that energy anymore.

His eyes swept across the platform, taking in the bustling figures hurrying about, their faces a blur of unfamiliarity. No one looked at him. No one even seemed to notice he was there. It was as though he were invisible, a ghost standing in the midst of their frantic pace. But this wasn't the world he had known. It wasn't home. This was something else entirely.

The afterlife.

That word had settled uncomfortably in his chest the moment he realized where he was. The people, the trains coming and going—none of it felt real. And yet, it was all too vivid. The smells of food vendors mixed with the musty scent of the old station walls. The faint rumble of arriving trains vibrated beneath his feet, but none of the trains were for him.

His section of the station was cordoned off, a V.I.P. section in the middle of the chaos. There were no velvet ropes or security guards, just an invisible boundary that separated him from everyone else. He sat on a single, cold metal bench in the middle of this isolated part of the station, watching as the rest of the world moved around him, alive but not seeing him.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring down at the tracks below. The waiting felt endless. He had no idea how long he had been sitting there. Hours? Days? Time felt strange here, like it was bending around him, moving without any real meaning. All he knew was that he was waiting for something.

The train.

Death, as he imagined it. A train that would take him... somewhere. Somewhere final. But it never came. It never even showed signs of arriving. No distant whistle. No screech of wheels against the tracks. Just more waiting.

Gian tapped his fingers against his knee, his restless energy still buzzing beneath the surface, despite everything. He had always been the one who couldn't sit still, the one who hated waiting. Now, it felt like that was all there was left to do.

He glanced at the people moving past the edge of his section. They looked real—solid, alive. But he knew they weren't. They were echoes of life, mere shadows of what had been, caught in the same endless loop of movement. None of them stopped. None of them even acknowledged him.

It was maddening.

His mind drifted back to the moment it all ended—Addison's laugh echoing in the mall, the sharp pain as his own bat slammed against the top of his head, the sickening realization that this was it. This was how it ended. He hadn't expected to end up here, though. He wasn't sure what he had expected, really. Nothingness, maybe. A quiet darkness.

But not this.

Not the waiting.

He sighed, leaning back against the bench, his eyes scanning the faces in the crowd. He recognized none of them, yet there was something familiar about the way they moved, about the station itself. Like he had been here before, in another life.

"Where the FUCK is this train..?" he muttered to himself, his voice cutting through the hum of the station, though no one seemed to hear him.

He had always been the type to joke, to laugh things off, but now, sitting in this limbo, he couldn't find the humor in any of it. This wasn't a situation he could charm his way out of. It wasn't something he could fix with a joke or a well-placed swing of his bat. This was something he couldn't control.

He hated that feeling.

The trains around him continued to come and go. The crowds shifted, ebbed, and flowed like the tide. But the track in front of him — his track — remained empty. It was as though the universe had forgotten him, left him stranded between life and whatever came next.

As time dragged on, Gian's mind wandered. He thought about the people he'd left behind. His family of sorts. What were they doing now? Had they moved on without him? Were they still fighting? Were they even alive?

He could picture them back at the base, their faces grim, their hands clutching their weapons like lifelines. The thought of them fighting without him felt strange. He had always been in the thick of it—laughing in the face of danger, swinging his bat with reckless abandon. Now, he was just... here.

He leaned forward again, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to shake off the growing frustration.

"I'm not done yet," he muttered, though there was no one to hear it. "I'm not supposed to be done."

But the truth hung there, heavy and undeniable. He was done. His body was gone, probably left behind in that damn mall. He wasn't going back. Not to them, not to the fight. He had nothing left to give.

But still... no train.

His fingers drummed restlessly on his knee, the silence in his own section of the station driving him mad. The waiting, the not knowing—it was getting to him. He needed something to happen, needed a sign, a push, anything to make sense of this place.

But the station kept moving. The people kept rushing by. The trains kept arriving and departing.

And Gian kept waiting.

He thought about Addison, or whatever was left of her. Was she out there somewhere, still hunting, still killing? Was she even herself anymore? Gian wasn't sure. In the end, it hadn't mattered. Whether she was still in there or not, she had killed him. That much was clear.

"Dude.." Gian complained, grinding his teeth as he looked up. "Ughh.." He grunted, closing his eyes. He remembered how Lunarist Addison mercilessly murdered him in cold blood.

He wondered what she would think if she could see him now—waiting in this empty, endless limbo. Would she laugh? Would she even care? Or had she become something so far removed from the girl they used to know that it didn't matter?

The minutes—or hours—dragged on, and Gian settled into the waiting, his mind drifting in and out of memories, in and out of the station's strange rhythm. He knew, deep down, that the train would never come. He was stuck here, in this place between places, waiting for something that was never meant for him.

It was the worst kind of punishment — knowing he was dead but not truly gone. Stuck with no closure, no peace. Only endless waiting.

And yet, somehow, in the middle of it all, Gian smiled.

"Guess I'll just keep waiting," he said softly, leaning back and closing his eyes, letting the sounds of the station wash over him.

Because what else could he do?