A storm rolled in just as the last train pulled out of the station, leaving Mara alone on the platform with something she wasn’t supposed to have.
Alec didn’t get off the train.
The last passengers scattered past her, shoes echoing against the platform, and then the doors slid shut.
Mara stayed where she was.
The clock above the tracks ticked past the time he’d promised. She checked her phone. Nothing. The platform emptied.
She wasn’t supposed to be alone.
Mara checked the time again, fingers tightening around the object in her pocket as a flicker of movement at the far end of the platform made her freeze.
A sharp pain in her hand brought her back to reality, the edge of the object acting as a corrective slap. The flicker hadn’t really happened.
The overhead lights buzzed and dimmed for a split second. The movement at the far end of the platform didn’t disappear this time.
Not a person, but not not a person. Blurred around the edges, the ghost started toward her in their lazy fashion, with all the time in a timeless world.
Mara swallowed. The weight in her pocket pulsed, as if it had been waiting for this exact encounter.
Maybe this would be the one. The last one. Please just explain why she saw the dead when the living wouldn’t show up.
She stepped forward instead of back, jaw tightened then relaxed. She rolled her eyes, chanting:
“Hunger hallow, shallow water, hollow splatter, blood and slaughter”, in a lifeless voice.
Too many teeth smiled behind a lipless mouth and she knew.
She squeezed again, tightly enough to feel the lovely, familiar blood start to flow in her palm.
The ghost tilted its head, impossible grin widening, and rasped,
“You keep feeding it, Mara—so of course it keeps finding you.”
“I could use the company.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let Alec take the easy way out.”
For the first time its voice sounded almost human.
Alec made his choices. Maybe she should have made them for him.
“Maybe,” the ghost murmured, drifting closer, “but you’re still carrying what he left behind. It’s starting to look like you.”
“Get out of my head.”
She squeezed again, harder, blood starting to color her fingers and pool at the tips. The ghost flickered, threatening to fade.
“Do you see?” it whispered, its outline unraveling with each drop that fell,
“you’re the one deciding who gets to stay.”
Mara looked to the platform, to the edge, to the tracks.
“This is all wrong. Let’s start again.”
She stepped forward, taking a flat-tongued lick of her red palm before falling, neck first, making sure she would feel the crack and sickening pain before it all started again.
The moment her body struck the tracks, the world snapped back into place. The storm paused mid-thunder, blood vanished from her hand, and the distant announcement chimed as if nothing had happened.
This loop had never been lived before.
…
A storm rolled in just as the last train pulled out of the station, leaving Mara and Alec on the platform. She took him in her arms.
“Stop kissing me”.
Eyes downcast. An exhale. Mara leapt.
…
A storm rolled in just as the last train pulled out of the station, leaving Mara alone on the platform with her hands in empty pockets.
“You’re looking well today.”
She turned and saw a child, 6 or 7, walking towards her. Not a boy, not a girl. Just a human palette.
“Kids don’t talk like that, idiot.”
A moment of grotesque transformation later, and standing before her was not a person but not not a person.
“Can’t blame me for trying something new, darling.”
Then a smile.
It kept widening. Ears, forehead, chin, neck– all swallowed by too many teeth.
She felt a long, hot tongue slither down her throat as she fell to the tracks once more.