The Last Train to Nowhere

Aman hated traveling by train at night, but this was the only ticket he could get. The small station was almost deserted, except for a few passengers waiting silently under flickering yellow lights.

As the midnight train arrived, a strange chill swept across the platform. The train itself looked… older. Not broken, but outdated, as if from another time.

Aman shrugged off the feeling and boarded. The compartments were empty except for a few passengers, all of whom sat still, staring ahead blankly. No one was talking. No sounds except the distant hum of the engine.

As Aman settled into his seat, he noticed something strange — the train didn’t have a name or a number written on it.

“Excuse me,” he asked an elderly man sitting across from him, “is this the right train to Delhi?”

The man slowly turned his head. His eyes were pale, almost gray, and his voice was hollow when he replied, “There is no Delhi. Only here.”

Aman’s stomach tightened. “What do you mean?”

But the man had turned away, whispering to himself.

As the train moved forward, Aman noticed the darkness outside. No towns. No stations. Just endless black, like the train was cutting through a void.

His phone showed No Signal. Strange — they hadn’t even gone far yet.

Soon, Aman began to hear whispers — low voices coming from the compartments behind him.

Curiosity and fear fought inside him, but finally, he stood up and walked toward the source. As he moved between compartments, he realized that every seat was filled with passengers… but none of them were alive.

Their skin was pale, lips blue, eyes empty. And they were all whispering the same thing over and over:

"Stay with us… stay with us…"

Panic gripped him. Aman ran back to his compartment, heart pounding, but when he reached it, his seat was no longer empty. Sitting there was… himself.

But the version of him sitting there was pale like the others, lips curled into a faint smile, whispering along with the rest:
"Stay with us… stay with us…"

Aman stumbled backward. He rushed to the door, tried to open it — locked.

Frantic, he banged on the windows, screaming. But outside, the darkness swallowed every sound he made. There was nothing beyond this train. Just a black, silent eternity.

And then came the conductor.

A tall, thin man in an old uniform, his eyes pitch black, stood before Aman, holding an ancient-looking ticket puncher.

“Ticket, please,” the conductor said, grinning unnaturally wide.

“I don’t want to be here!” Aman shouted. “Let me off this train!”

The conductor leaned in close and whispered, “You bought this ticket the moment you stepped into the wrong place.”

“The wrong place? I was just catching a train—”

The conductor smiled wider. “No one comes to this station by accident. You don’t take the last train. The last train takes you.”

The last thing Aman saw before everything went dark was the conductor lifting his ticket puncher — and pressing it into Aman’s chest with a metallic click.

—

Weeks later, the train station was empty again.

Except for one more new passenger, waiting for a train they shouldn’t have taken.

And in the dark windows of the midnight train, Aman’s pale face could still be seen — whispering.

"Stay with us… stay with us…"