last stop.

nameless

The fog wrapped around the train like a second skin, swallowing its shadowed form as it groaned to life along the tracks. The night was still, save for the faint hum that rippled beneath the steel beneath the train, like a heartbeat too faint to hear but impossible to ignore. And at the heart of this eternal machine, the conductor stood, as he always had, eyes shielded by a hat too large for his head and gloves too tight around his fingers.

He couldn't remember his own name anymore. He hadn't spoken it in centuries—or perhaps longer. Time lost meaning on the Bound Line Express. Each night bled into the next, each journey felt like the same loop, dragging faceless souls from one place to another. Names, destinations, desires—those were for the passengers. The conductors were shadows now, mere reflections of what they used to be. 

And he was one of them.

His fellow conductors moved around him, silent as ever, their limbs moving in the mechanical grace of those who had long since forgotten what it was to feel. Their uniforms hung loosely on their skeletal frames, and their hands, wrapped in the same tight gloves as his, collected tickets with a strange precision—no hesitation, no fumbling, just the cold, effortless grip of beings who existed only to serve the train.

They were dead, all of them. Or at least, they might as well have been. Their faces were blank beneath the brim of their hats, eyes hidden behind shades so dark it was impossible to tell if they were even still there. They spoke only when necessary, voices low and monotone, as though drained of life. 

The conductor found himself staring at them more often than he should, wondering when he, too, would lose that last spark of recognition.

He was younger than the rest, though he couldn't recall how he knew that. It was a fact buried deep in his bones, a distant truth that kept flickering at the edges of his mind. But that didn't matter. Not here. Here, age was just another illusion.

Every now and then, he would feel it—a flash of something. A memory, maybe, or a dream that wasn't his. It would come in fragments, jagged edges of a life long lost. 

He'd see flashes: running through the streets, the cold air biting his cheeks, his hands fisted in someone else's jacket, voices shouting after him. The smell of rain-soaked pavement, a wallet tucked hastily into his coat, the distant guilt, too faint to stop him.

Then, the ticket.

That strange, worn piece of paper had appeared in his hands one night—a peculiar ticket, cold as ice, its edges torn as if it had been waiting for him. It had found him, not the other way around. And with it, the Bound Line.

It was a night like this one, cold and hollow. December. He remembered the sharpness of the wind cutting across his face, remembered feeling like he didn't belong anywhere. He'd run for what felt like hours, but the moment he saw the train, everything else stopped. The train had appeared out of nowhere, sleek and black, its doors open, as if expecting him. And without a second thought, he'd boarded. He didn't know why.

That was the last memory that ever made sense.

He knew he had certainly done something against the laws of Bound Line to end up as a conductor.

Now, those moments came back to him in scattered bits. Each vision flickered, too quick to grasp fully, too distant to make sense of.

He wondered if the other conductors had such memories. But when he looked at them, they were empty. Hollow. Machines wearing skin. They had been here for too long, perhaps too long to remember what they had left behind.

The young conductor stared at them now, his fingers brushing over the smooth brim of his hat. Would that be him one day? Another faceless collector, bound to the train forever? He'd seen what happened to those who tried to break the rules, the passengers who thought they could outwit the Bound Line.

The Bound Line was not merciful. It wasn't just a train—it was a prison. A sentence. He had seen it punish those who disobeyed, dragging them into the shadows that lingered between the carriages. He'd heard the screams—some brief, some eternal—and watched as their bodies were swallowed into the darkness, never to return.

Tonight, the Bound Line felt heavier than usual, its windows dark as always, the glow of the lamps flickering like dying stars. The fog thickened outside, crawling up the glass, pressing against the train as if trying to find a way in.

He moved down the narrow aisle, his steps deliberate, almost mechanical, the way he had learned to move on the train. His fellow conductors mirrored him, each one silent and still, their heads bowed as they collected tickets from trembling passengers. These passengers, he knew, wouldn't return. The train rarely brought anyone back.

The final destination is wherever their soulmate resides. Each of them had made a choice, totally their own.

In the quiet of the carriage, the conductor's hand twitched as he reached for the next ticket. It was cold, as always, when the passenger handed it over—cold, like the one he had once held so long ago.

A sudden rush of something unfamiliar washed over him—a memory, or maybe just a feeling. He wasn't sure which. It was brief, a flicker of warmth buried under the years of ice. He paused, just for a moment, and stared at the ticket in his gloved hand.

It looked ordinary. Just like the one that had brought him here.

He glanced up, seeing his reflection in the dark glass of the window. His face—no longer his, just a pale shadow under a brimmed hat. He felt the weight of the train beneath him, pulling him down, grounding him in place.

This was his life now. This had always been his life. The Bound Line would continue its endless journey, and so would he, nameless, forgotten, until the end of time.

But deep down, in the space where his heart had once been, a question lingered. A quiet, nagging thought.

Had he ever had the chance to escape?