The Terminal – Part One

Julian Mercer awoke with a stiff groan, his cheek pressed against the cold wooden slats of a bench. His neck ached as he sat upright, vertebrae popping, the sour taste of sleep heavy in his mouth. The overhead glow of fluorescent bulbs stabbed at his eyes, a sickly yellow glare that made everything look jaundiced and unreal.

It took him several seconds to realize he wasn’t home. He wasn’t even anywhere he recognized.

The hall stretched endlessly around him, cavernous and silent. It was a train station, that much he could tell, though it bore no resemblance to the bustling terminals he knew. This place was immaculate—too immaculate. Rows of varnished benches gleamed as if freshly polished yet untouched. Massive iron columns rose into a vaulted ceiling where black beams crisscrossed like ribs inside the belly of some gigantic creature. The entire space felt less like a station for travelers and more like a mausoleum built for the living.

In the distance, a low hum resonated through the floor. Not voices. Not footsteps. Not trains. Something else—mechanical, steady, like the thrum of hidden gears. For a moment Julian could swear the station itself was alive, breathing in slow, metallic gulps.

He rubbed his face, trying to scrape together his memories. They came in fragments, jagged and incomplete. A glass of whiskey at his favorite bar. A late-night walk through wet streets. Headlights cutting through rain. The screech of tires. The terrible weightless moment before impact—then nothing.

His chest tightened. He fumbled for his watch, desperate for some anchor of normalcy. But the sight only made his stomach lurch. Both hands were frozen at twelve, unmoving, as if time itself had been paused.

“Where the hell am I…” His voice was hoarse, swallowed instantly by the vast emptiness.

Julian rose to his feet. His footsteps echoed sharply, bouncing off the hollow stone floor. That was when he noticed it—the faint glow at the far end of the hall. A ticket counter, brass trim gleaming under a solitary lamp that flickered too rhythmically, like a metronome keeping time in a room where no time passed.

Behind the counter stood a figure in a navy-blue conductor’s uniform. Cap pulled low, posture perfect, hands resting on the desk as if frozen in anticipation. Even from a distance Julian felt it—the unnatural stillness, the grin that stretched a fraction too wide, a cold prickle racing down his arms.

Every instinct screamed at him to turn back. Sit on the bench. Pretend he hadn’t seen. But the emptiness of the station pressed on him like a weight. If there were answers, they’d be there. So he walked forward, his shoes clicking in lonely rhythm.

The man raised his head as Julian approached. His face was pale, almost translucent, like candle wax left too long in the sun. But his eyes were worse—bottomless pools of ink, unbroken by iris or white.

“Good evening, traveler,” the man said. His voice was too chipper, too rehearsed, like a clerk trapped in a role he’d performed for centuries. “Welcome to Central Terminal. How may I be of service?”

Julian swallowed hard. “I… don’t know how I got here.”

“That’s all right.” The conductor’s smile deepened, splitting his face like a seam. “Most passengers don’t. May I take your name, please?”

The question lodged in Julian’s throat. Something in the way he asked it felt final, binding. Like signing a contract without reading the fine print. Yet refusing seemed worse.

“…Julian. Julian Mercer.”

The conductor’s long fingers clattered over a typewriter embedded in the counter. The machine rattled and clacked though no paper fed through. The sound filled the station, sharp and hollow, until Julian thought he might scream.

Finally, the man looked up. “Very good, Mr. Mercer. You’re booked for the midnight express. Platform Seven. One-way ticket.”

He slid a rectangle across the counter. A ticket, glossy and heavy, warm against Julian’s palm. Its writing shifted like liquid ink, crawling across the surface. Letters reversed themselves, blurred, then dissolved into jagged symbols that refused to settle into words.

Julian’s voice broke. “I didn’t buy this. I didn’t ask for any—”

The conductor tilted his head politely, cutting him off. “Please wait on the benches until boarding is announced. Refreshments are available in the concourse.”

The smile didn’t falter. The eyes didn’t blink.

Julian stood there, the sweat-slick ticket trembling in his grip. Finally, muttering a curse under his breath, he shoved it into his coat pocket and turned away.

That was when he noticed the departure board above the concourse. Lines of train times flickered so quickly his eyes couldn’t keep up. Yet in the column where destinations should have been listed, every row was blank.

Nothing but emptiness.

Julian sank onto a bench, his heart pounding. Something was wrong here—deeply, irreversibly wrong.

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