The night air hit me first. It carried smells I hadn’t realized I’d missed: exhaust and asphalt, trash bins, the faint tang of something sweet from a street vendor somewhere down the block. I stumbled forward, letting the wind slice across my face, letting it remind me that the world above still existed, still belonged to something real.

  City sounds built around me in a comforting mess: the distant wail of a siren, laughter bouncing off brick buildings, the low rumble of a bus pulling away from a curb. A group of drunk college kids stumbled past, one of them clutching a half-eaten slice of pizza. A man sweeping the sidewalk paused only to nod at me before continuing, his broom dragging through a small pile of cigarette butts. All the ordinary things I’d forgotten I missed.

  Everything was imperfect in the way reality should be.

  Storefronts glowed as their owners closed up for the night; metal grates slamming down, keys jingling. A neon sign buzzed lazily overhead. A cat darted across the street, weaving between parked cars. Someone yelled something unintelligible from an apartment window.

  I let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob.

  I pulled out my phone.

  Full bars.

  Notifications popped in.

  Every text sent immediately.

  I sent a text to my roommate:

  “I think I got on the wrong train. I’m on my way home.”

  It went through instantly.

  The dots appeared right away.

  “ok np”

  Tears welled in my eyes.

  I wasn’t trapped. I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t lost in whatever that station was.

  I was out.

  It was over.

  I kept walking, drifting with the slow tide of late-night city life. The crowd wasn’t heavy, just scattered people navigating the hour the way humans always do. A couple waited at a crosswalk holding hands. A cyclist swerved around a pothole. A street vendor was packing away stale pastries into bins.

  Normal.

  God, so normal.

  A 24/7 bodega glowed on the corner, its harsh fluorescent lights somehow comforting after the station’s almost-organic buzzing.

  I pushed the door open, the bell chiming overhead.

  It smelled like coffee grounds and floor cleaner.

  “Hey,” the man behind the counter said without looking up. “Bagels are fresh.”

  My stomach growled. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

  I grabbed a bagel, cream cheese, a drink. Simple. Grounding.

  I sat. Peeled open the cream cheese. Spread it on. Bit into the bagel.

  It tasted right. Soft. Warm.

  Real.

  Everything was fine.

  When I turned to look around, I noticed a few customers sitting at small tables; people grabbing a late bite, scrolling their phones.

  All of them were eating the exact same bagel as me.

  Same flavor. Same cream cheese.

  That was odd, but… maybe it was just the popular thing tonight. Midnight cravings lined up sometimes. I'm being paranoid. I forced myself to breathe.

  I continued to enjoy my bagel, taking in the surroundings I once took so for granted. I glanced at shelves, felt the warmth of the fluorescent lights above, felt the soft buzz of the fridge compressors. People were chatting quietly, placing items on the counter, shuffling around without any rush. A few coins dropped in the background, a little bell chimed as the door swung open and closed, the faint smell of coffee and pastries mixing with the antiseptic scent of cleaning products and a little too-strong perfume radiating off the older woman right next to me. Everything felt… normal.

  And then a poster on the far wall glitched.

  It didn’t even change graphics.

  It just… flickered.

  Like a frame skip in a movie.

  Like the wall had hiccupped.

  I shook my head, forcing myself to breathe. Maybe I’d been staring too long. Maybe it was just coincidence.

  I blinked hard.

  It happened again.

  A stutter in reality.

  The man behind the counter lifted his bagel, the same one as mine, same bite missing as mine, and chewed. At the exact same moment, the woman at the table to my left lifted hers. And the teenager by the drinks cooler. And the man right behind me.

  All of them.

  The same timing.

  The same angle.

  The same expression.

  My breath shortened.

  I stood so fast my chair screeched.

  No one looked up.

  I backed toward the door, pushing out into the street, letting the cold night air hit me like a slap. People moved around me, still. Walking, laughing, stumbling. At first it looked normal, like any moment I'd ever left the subway.

  But their steps…

  God.

  Their steps were too close. Synchronized. Not perfectly, not mechanical, but too similar. Every stumble, every shuffle a half-second lag behind one another, like they were following a rhythm they didn’t know they were following.

  I blinked, and a car passed me with no driver. The headlights swept past, shining cold across the pavement, but the seat was empty, untouched.

  I moved down the sidewalk. A woman wept on a bench, a small sob tearing through her throat, but her tears… they fell upward, trailing toward the night sky like smoke instead of rain.

  I passed a group sitting on the curb, sharing a late-night meal. Each bite came at the exact same second, mouths opening and closing in uncanny unison. A laugh erupted from one of them, it felt so bright and real, but when I looked closer, their chests didn’t rise, their throats didn’t move. The sound came from somewhere else entirely, disembodied, untethered.

  I staggered faster, ignoring the streetlights’ glow reflecting off the now wet pavement despite the absence of rain, ignoring the muted honks from cars rolling past without anyone behind the wheel.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Tears came that I didn't even try to repress. Anger, disbelief, exhaustion. Simmering under my ribs.

  I reached my apartment building, heart pounding with desperate hope.

  Home.

  I just needed to get home. To get inside. To lock the door. To breathe.

  I grabbed the handle and pulled.

  The front doors swung open and Stairwell D, once again, stood right in front of me.

  Cold gray concrete.

  That same too-clean smell.

  The humming lights.

  The platform stretched out below like it had been waiting.

  My scream didn’t make a sound. My breath wouldn’t leave my lungs. The world outside wasn’t the world. It was a copy. A level of the station wearing a mask.

  The silent scream still tore through my chest as my feet hit the platform again.

  The station swallowed the sound, swallowed me, like I’d never left at all. The lights buzzed overhead, steady now, almost gentle, like the station was pretending nothing had happened. It accepted me, welcomely, like a host eagerly greeting their guests.

  I ran.

  I wept.

  I ran some more.

  No direction. No plan. Just movement.

  Corridors blurred together, looping back, twisting into themselves. Every sign pointed somewhere I’d already been.

  Every turn betrayed me.

  I didn’t care anymore.

  My legs burned. My lungs felt shredded. My vision kept doubling at the edges.

  And then I skidded to a stop.

  The ticket machines.

  They glowed softly in a pale blue row, untouched, waiting.

  I approached one, panting, hands shaking.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe I just needed a ticket out. Maybe the station was punishing me for not following the rules. Maybe I…

  “Need assistance?”

  A voice floated out from the customer service window behind the machines.

  The woman behind the counter smiled at me with all her teeth. Too many teeth.

  No… not too many. Just shown too widely. Stretched.

  Her eyes didn’t match the smile.

  “The next train will be arriving shortly,” she said.

  Perfect cadence.

  Warm tone.

  Friendly expression.

  A chill crawled down my spine like fingers tracing bone.

  “I just… I need a ticket,” I said, hearing how pitiful I sounded.

  Her smile stayed still, unmoving, like a printed expression taped to her face.

  “Oh,” she said brightly, “you don’t need a ticket anymore.”

  Something in my stomach curdled.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  A beat.

  Her head tilted. Not humanly curious, not confused.

  Just… repositioned.

  Like she’d been adjusted by someone who wasn’t familiar with joints.

  “Because,” she whispered, “you already bought one.”

  My throat tightened.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Her eyelids fluttered once… too slow. Too… deliberate.

  “You were here earlier,” she said softly. “You don’t remember?”

  My blood turned cold.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “You were crying,” she continued. “Right there.”

  “Face in your hands. Asking a man how to go home.”

  She smiled as wide as her misshapen mouth would let her.

  Then she said something that froze my blood:

  “You’ve been running in circles again.”

  I froze. The words… my words… my voice. Something I had muttered to myself earlier when I was stuck between two hallways that folded in on each other. When I felt lost, panicked, hopeless. When I was alone. How could she know that?

  I hadn’t said it out loud… had I?

  I stepped back.

  My heel hit the base of one of the machines, hard enough to hurt.

  The woman behind the glass kept smiling.

  “The next train will be arriving shortly,” she repeated, as if winding back to the start of a script. “Please make yourself visible.”

  I don’t know when the rationalizations stopped and the mania started.

  But somewhere between the silence swallowing my screams and the walls bending like wet paper, something in me snapped. Broke clean through.

  I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore.

  I wasn’t thinking at all.

  I was done being dragged around like prey.

  Done wandering hallways that folded in on themselves.

  Done being watched, followed, mocked by this place pretending to be a station.

  And beneath all that terror, something ugly and wild bloomed in my chest:

  If I could drive a train out, I could break through whatever boundary this nightmare was using to keep me here.

  Trains are built to connect places.

  Tracks go somewhere real.

  If I could force the system onto a true route, I could go home.

  The thought burned so hot it felt like belief.

  Desperation masquerading as logic.

  Or maybe the closest thing to hope I had left.

  I sprinted back down to the platform, barely feeling my legs.

  Lights strobed violently overhead, buzzing like a swarm of furious insects trapped inside the bulbs. And the presence in the tunnels, the one I’d been pretending not to notice, shifted. You could feel it when it moved. The air pressed in, thick enough to taste. The walls held their breath.

  Something enormous inhaled behind the concrete.

  But I didn’t care.

  I couldn’t care.

  I was past fear, past reason. Burned out down to raw nerve and refusal.

  And then I heard the distant roar of a train.

  Coming fast.

  Coming for me.

  In what seemed like no time at all, the next train rolled in.

  Empty.

  Absolutely empty.

  Perfect.

  I jumped inside, slammed the operator’s booth door shut, and hit every button that looked important.

  The train lurched.

  Screeched.

  Sparks flew past the windows.

  The tunnels warped. Angles twisted. Concrete rippled like water. Footsteps clattered on the roof. I could hear announcements still being frantically announced from the station, getting more and more distorted as the distance between me and the station grew.

  The train kept going.

  Faster.

  Deeper.

  Maybe I was winning.

  Maybe I was escaping.

  Five minutes passed.

  Or an hour.

  Or no time at all.

  I wouldn't put more effort to find out when I am.

  It didn't matter anyways.

  Now all I could hear is the train as it hummed around me in a low, steady vibration. A warm, rhythmic pulse. Almost comforting, if I let it be.

  Somewhere down the car, footsteps shifted. Someone pacing slowly, hesitantly, trying not to draw attention.

  I didn't look back. I didn't feel the need to. I sat still, folded into the front seat like I belonged there.

  Then a man's whisper drifted through the quiet:

  "Hey… somethings wrong with that guy."

  A faint prickle went through me. Not fear, exactly. For a moment I wondered- dimly, distantly- if that should alarm me. But with everything I'd seen, the thought passed quickly.

  More time has passed in the train since then. More and less than I can tell. The man shuffled around for a while after he first spoke. Then he screamed. Now, all I hear is his quiet sobbing coming from the car behind mine.

  The PA clicked.

  Scratched.

  The sort of sound that used to startle me, used to turn my blood to ice.

  But I didn't react.

  I just sat there, hands relaxed in my lap, letting the rhythm of the tracks move through me.

  There was no urgency anymore.

  No desperation.

  Just a quiet understanding settling into my bones, like dust finding its final place.

  He's still back there. Still crying. Still hoping he's asleep. Still hoping he's missed his stop.

  The familiar mechanical inhale of the PA clicked.

  I remember thinking maybe I could warm him.

  That maybe I could save him if I said all the right things.

  Maybe I could tell him to not talk to anyone he recognizes, to find the woman in red, to not search for stairwell D, no matter how tempting. To not even step off the train.

  Maybe I can stop what happened to me from happening to him.

  But the station doesn’t let you change the rules.

  It only lets you repeat them.

  I still sit in the PA booth sometimes, watching the monitors flicker between old footage and things that haven’t happened yet.

  I see myself there, occasionally.

  Crying at the ticket machines.

  Running the wrong way down the platform.

  Believing, for just a moment, that I made it out.

  The PA still buzzed, waiting for someone to take the silence.

  And the words rose from the speakers at the same moment they scraped up my own throat.

  "Next stop… Kettering Exchange. All passengers please prepare to exit."

  I see you there sometimes, too.

  Walking through the station.

  Trying not to stare.

  Trying to leave.

  If you hear me on the train, I’m sorry.

  I really am.

  But the next stop is Kettering Exchange.

  And whether you like it or not…

  you’re getting off.