Endless Rails

The train never stops. The rails never end. And I didn't know that once I stepped aboard, I'd never step back off.

I thought I was leaving my old life behind - the numbness, the quiet depression, the feeling that nothing I did mattered. Maybe I did leave it. But I didn't expect to trade it for something worse. Something alive. Something that watches.

Fear wasn't supposed to follow me here.
Purpose wasn't supposed to find me here.
But both did.

I didn't expect to feel anything on this train.
Not hope.
Not connection.
Definitely not love.

And yet... her.

Kasumi.
The hostess who moves like she's made of silence.
The girl who never speaks unless she has to.
The one who looks at passengers like she already knows how they'll die.
The one who feels more trapped than any of us.

I shouldn't have wanted to know her.
But I did.
Something about her pulled me in - the way she spoke only when she absolutely had to, the way she tried to never show a real emotion, the way she whispered warnings she wasn't supposed to say.

And yet... it noticed.

The woman who is partly a serpent, and entirely deranged.
The creature who controls every inch of this train in ways no one understands.
She needs things done a certain way.
Her way.
Always.

When she gets what she wants, she feeds.
When she doesn't, she devours.

Now the lights flicker when I walk by.
Doors breathe.
Mirrors show things I shouldn't see.
And every night at 8 PM, I lie still and pretend to sleep while something with a long neck slides through the ceiling, checking each bed, making sure we're asleep when we're supposed to be - searching for the one person I can't stop thinking about.

I boarded this train to escape my life.
I didn't know I was stepping into hers.
I didn't know she was already claimed.
I didn't know the rails were endless.

But I know now.

And I know one more thing:

I'm not letting that thing take her from me.