Before You Know It

She was roused awake by the shaking of the train. The landscape out the windows passed by in a blur. They were moving fast, almost too quick for comfort. But the fog of sleep made it hard to place quite where and why. Rubbing eyes, looking around the cabin, it wasn't helping. The recollection of her last waking moments should have filled in by now, except she remained just as confused.

There was a ticket-taker moving along the rows, and she tried to call out, but they were focused on their task. Do I have a ticket? she wondered, and felt around her pockets. Sure enough, one emerged. Wait, but no, this was just a brochure. And all it said was The Consigned Loop, without much to indicate a time, place, destination, or date. Hardly a proper advertisement. At least by then, the ticket-taker had reached her, and she had the chance to ask a few questions.

"Excuse me, could you tell me more about this train we're on."

"It's going very fast," they winked, while casually continuing to punch and mark the tickets in hand. "And since you don't seem to have come with a ticket of your own, I'll just get this one ready for you in a jiffy..."

"To where, exactly?"

"Only where we need to go."

It lurched and sped up, put an uncanny feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"You're being intentionally obtuse."

"Makes my job easier, but I'll answer anything you ask." They opened their arms wide, with a small bow, as if being especially accommodating.

"Why are we here?"

"You committed a crime."

"So we're going to prison?"

"A crime against time."

"Against... time?" A memory stirred. A desperate escape, an illegal action. But it eluded her again. Suddenly, it seemed urgent to know everything. She grabbed the ticket-taker by the collar. "Stop playing. Tell me what's happening, NOW!"

They smiled calmly, placatingly. "Oh, I won't keep secrets from you. They don't pay me enough to care, one way or another."

The train car rocked back and forth on the tracks, swinging dangerously. Intentionally.

"Why is this train moving so fast?"

"That's exactly where we're going. No building can hold a time-offender, not with walls where they get to spend hours thinking a way of escape or being located by their friends and co-conspirators." They grinned. "That is, if they aren't already here with us." For the first time, she looked around properly at everyone in the train car, some sleeping, some zoned out, some bleeding as if they'd only just come from a fight. Hardly ready for a trip of leisure, if even capable of walking themselves aboard a vehicle like this. There was an oddly mis-matched quality about all the passengers, and a sense that they were almost unnaturally - perhaps supernaturally - docile. "What has been done to them?"

"Does it matter? We've almost reached our destination." They looked down at their pocket watch. "We arrive at 8."

She realized she had a timepiece of her own, and turned her wrist to check. That time was only seconds away.

The train was barreling down the tracks at break-neck speeds. Perhaps, that was exactly what would happen... what was supposed to happen?

"Are they killing us in a train wreck, so we'll all be gone, in one fell swoop? What about you! You'll die too! Who do you work for? What have they promised you?"

"No, no, it's not that bad. We couldn't possibly execute you, how cruel. How ripe for lawsuits. It's just the perfect solution to get you out of the way for a long while... ideally, forever!" They looked her straight in the eye. "This is the nature of your imprisonment: Right before we crash, you'll lose consciousness, pulled painlessly but inextricably into the shackles of slumber... and then!" A dramatic finger snap in her face. "Wake up on a speeding train, so confused about where you are and how you got there." They stifled a giggle with their pristinely gloved hand.

The Consigned Loop. "You've trapped us in a time loop?"

"Precisely." That infuriating grin was back. "Oh, but not me, my superiors. The ones who really decide on such things. I just do my job as I'm told." They made a mock salute.

"How do we stop it?"

"Well, I suppose if you'd spent this brief time getting to know your fellow passengers, instead of worrying about saving your own skin, maybe you'd have had a few minutes to figure it out. But by this point..."

The ticket-taker swung their arms into a wildly curving motion in the air in front of them, that was mirrored, sickeningly, by the train a moment later. "By this point in the track, it's simply too late." They tore her ticket with a final rip, and flicked the pieces pointlessly in her direction.

A loud blaring horn could be heard from outside. The track was merging with another, and the lights of a second speeding train shone blindingly into theirs. Collision seemed inevitable.

"See you on the next shift!" They gave a cheery wave, casually tossing ticket stubs into the air like confetti, as the train careened on the edge of its track with a shearing shriek that sent up bright sparks like popping fireworks... and everything disappeared into a deep soulful sleep.

Yet again.