The Train That Traveled Through Dreams

The first time Theo heard the whistle, he thought it was only part of his dream. A faint sound, high and low, echoing through the haze of sleep. But then the ground beneath him trembled, and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer in his room. He was standing on a platform made of clouds.

A train rolled in, massive and gleaming, with carriages shaped like fragments of memory. One car shimmered like glass, another flickered like old film, another pulsed as if alive. Theo’s heart raced. There were no conductors, no tickets, only a single word painted on the engine’s side: Somnia.

The doors opened. He stepped in.

Inside, the train was endless. Hallways stretched further than they should, doors led to impossible compartments. The first room he entered looked like a childhood bedroom—his own, exactly as he remembered it, complete with the stuffed bear he’d lost years ago. He touched it. It was solid. Too solid.

He hurried on.

The next car held strangers. They sat in rows, sleeping with their eyes open. When he looked closer, he realized they were not strangers at all but people he had seen in passing: the woman at the corner store, the old man who walked his dog, the boy from class who never spoke. Each of them dreamed their own dream, projected like faint smoke above their heads.

Theo’s curiosity burned. He leaned into one dream, letting the smoke wrap around him. At once, he was standing on a golden beach, watching the boy from class build a tower of shells. But the dream wavered, unstable, and Theo felt himself pulled back to the train before it collapsed.

The whistle blew again. The train lurched forward.

Car after car revealed more impossible things: a forest grown from forgotten stories, a ballroom where dancers moved without touching the ground, a library filled with books that whispered when opened. Each time, Theo wandered through, wide-eyed, until the whistle summoned him back.

But eventually, he noticed something strange.

Not all the cars were beautiful. Some were cracked, dim, unsettling. One door led to a hallway dripping with black water. Another to a room filled with mirrors that reflected not him, but someone else—tall, faceless, waiting. These cars felt wrong, as if the train carried nightmares alongside dreams.

Theo tried to avoid them. But the train had its own path.

One night, he stumbled into a car darker than the others. Inside sat a man, alone, dressed in a conductor’s coat. His face was pale, his eyes tired. “You shouldn’t be here,” the man muttered.

Theo swallowed. “Where is here?”

The conductor studied him. “This is the train between worlds. It carries dreams to their destinations, and sometimes it collects passengers who wander too far.”

Theo’s stomach twisted. “Am I a passenger?”

“Not yet,” the man said. “But be careful. Stay too long, and you will be.”

Theo wanted to ask more, but the whistle cut through the air, louder than ever. The conductor stood, fading like mist. “Wake up, boy,” he said. “Wake up before it’s too late.”

Theo jerked awake in his bed, drenched in sweat.

For weeks after, he tried to convince himself it was only a dream. Yet every night, the whistle returned. The train waited. He could not stop boarding.

And with each journey, the train grew harder to leave. He lingered longer in the dream-cars, watching strangers live their secret lives. He began searching for the darker compartments, curious about what hid there. Sometimes, he even saw the faceless figure again, standing at the end of the hall, watching.

One night, Theo found a compartment unlike the rest. No doors. No windows. Just a single book lying on a table. He opened it. The pages were blank. Then, slowly, words appeared: You are almost a passenger.

The whistle shrieked. The floor shook. He dropped the book and ran, desperate to wake. But this time, he didn’t. He stumbled back into his own bed only as dawn light pierced the curtains, heart pounding, breath ragged.

For days, he avoided sleep, terrified of hearing that sound. But exhaustion always wins. Eventually, he closed his eyes.

The whistle blew.

The platform waited.

And this time, the conductor was already there, holding out a ticket with Theo’s name written in shadows.

my