The Lantern’s Last Light

The night shift at the old Mariner’s Station was never meant to be dramatic. The building sat on the edge of town, where the shore met a stretch of forgotten rail tracks, and most nights passed in the soft hum of solitude. That was exactly why Laurent took the job. After a long year of losing more than he had learned how to speak about, silence felt like the only companion that didn’t demand anything from him.

Most nights followed a routine. Check the grounds. Record the weather. Walk the perimeter with a flashlight that flickered more often than it glowed. But on the night the storm rolled in—a restless, low-rumbling thing—Laurent found something wedged behind an old wooden cabinet in the storage room.

A lantern.
Not the modern kind, but a metal one, dented and cold, with glass panels fogged like old breath. It shouldn’t have been there. No one remembered using lanterns at the station in decades.

When he lifted it, a small warmth pressed into his palm, like a fading heartbeat.

He paused. The room around him hummed, and the storm outside cracked open the sky. Something about the lantern urged him to step into the hallway and dim the station lights. When the last fluorescent bulb on the ceiling went out, he raised the lantern and gently turned its wick.

Light bloomed.

Not bright. Not sharp.
It came alive like memory itself—soft, trembling, gold at the edges.

And as the glow filled the hallway, Laurent saw a figure appear beside the vending machine across from him.

A woman. Laughing. But not at him—at someone beside her, a man holding a paper cup of coffee as if it were the most important conversation of his life. The pair weren’t transparent, but they were slightly faded, like an old film. And though their mouths moved, Laurent couldn’t hear a sound.

He took a step back, breath caught in his chest.
The lantern flickered.
And then, as quickly as they appeared, the couple dissolved into the dim air.

Laurent stood alone again.

He turned off the lantern.
Darkness swallowed the hallway.

For a long moment he didn’t move. Then, slowly—curiosity outweighing fear—he lit it again.

Another glow. Another memory.

This time a young boy in rain boots ran down the hall, dragging a fishing rod behind him. He was soaked, smiling, alive with the kind of joy that adults forget how to hold. Behind him came his father, laughing, shaking his head. The boy ran straight past Laurent, even through him, before vanishing at the far door. The father followed, fading into light.

Laurent pressed a hand to his chest. His heart felt like it was stumbling through time.

The lantern didn’t show ghosts.
It showed moments—echoes of strangers who had once passed through this station. People who had waited here during storms, who had shared small jokes, who carried secrets they never knew the walls remembered.

Over the next hour, he moved through the station slowly, lantern in hand.

By the old bench near the window, he saw an elderly man pressing a letter to his lips before mailing it.
By the supply closet, a nurse sat with her head in her hands, exhausted yet fighting sleep.
Near the entrance, a teenage girl practiced a confession she would probably never say out loud.

They appeared.
They flickered.
They vanished.

Each memory was small, almost ordinary, but the lantern made them feel sacred. Like proof that even quiet places held stories that mattered.

Eventually he reached the end of the hallway, where a window overlooked the dark, churning ocean. Thunder rolled far in the distance. He held the lantern up, expecting more strangers.

Instead, he saw himself.

A younger Laurent, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled to his chest, head lowered, a grief-heavy shadow settling around him.