The Last Train on Platform Seven
The train was already there when I arrived.
That was the first strange thing.
Platform Seven had been abandoned for as long as anyone could remember. The sign above it was rusted, half its letters missing, the digital clock frozen at a time that no longer mattered. No departures. No arrivals. Just silence and dust and the echo of footsteps that never came.
Except tonight.
The train sat quietly on the tracks, lights glowing dim and yellow, as if it were trying not to draw attention to itself. Its metal body looked old—older than the station itself—but impossibly clean, untouched by graffiti or decay.
I checked my watch.
11:43 p.m.
My last train home had left twenty minutes ago. That was how I’d ended up wandering down the wrong platform in the first place, chasing nothing but habit and exhaustion.
I should have turned around.
Instead, I stepped closer.
There was no conductor. No announcement. The doors stood open, waiting.
On the side of the train, painted in fading gold letters, was a name I didn’t recognize:
LINE 0
A warning stirred somewhere in my chest, quiet but persistent. Trains didn’t wait for passengers anymore. Not like this. Not without schedules or screens or noise.
Still, I boarded.
The inside smelled faintly of old paper and rain. The seats were upholstered in deep blue fabric, worn but carefully maintained. Lamps lined the ceiling, casting a soft glow that made the windows reflect more than they revealed.
I was alone.
The doors closed without a sound.
The train began to move.
At first, nothing seemed unusual. The station slipped away, swallowed by darkness, and the familiar rhythm of steel on tracks filled the car. I relaxed slightly, convincing myself this was just some forgotten line, some historical novelty running on a private schedule.
Then my phone buzzed.
No Service.
Date Unavailable.
I frowned.
The lights flickered once.
Outside the window, the city blurred—not forward, but sideways, as if time itself were being dragged in the wrong direction. Buildings lost floors. Billboards faded into blank walls. Streetlights vanished one by one.
My heart began to race.
The train slowed.
When it stopped, the doors opened onto a station I hadn’t seen in years.
I knew it immediately, the way you recognize a place from a dream before logic catches up.
It was my old neighborhood station.
The paint was fresh. The signs intact. The air smelled like coffee and early mornings instead of rust and neglect. A digital clock above the platform read:
June 14 — 7:10 a.m.
My breath caught.
That was the date of the last morning I’d seen my father alive.
I stood frozen in the doorway.
Passengers began to board—people talking, laughing, unaware. And then I saw him.
He stood near the ticket machine, younger, healthier, scrolling through his phone with the same distracted frown I remembered too well.
My chest tightened.
This wasn’t possible.
I backed away, shaking my head. “No. No, no, no.”
The doors didn’t close.
The train waited.
A voice spoke behind me.
“You can get off,” it said calmly. “But only once.”
I turned.
A woman sat in the seat across the aisle. I hadn’t noticed her before. She wore a dark coat and held an old leather notebook in her lap.
“What is this place?” I whispered.
She met my gaze. Her eyes were tired but kind.
“This train doesn’t move through space,” she said. “It moves through regret.”
My father looked up.
For a second, his eyes passed over me without recognition.
Then he frowned.
I stepped onto the platform.
The doors closed behind me
