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Emily’s car almost swerved off the road before she snapped out of her daydream and back to reality. She had only had a glimpse of it for a moment from atop a hill before the interstate dipped back into the next valley, but that was enough for the voice to briefly return. Emily didn’t believe that it was in an attempt to do her harm and make her lose control of the car, it was more likely just a case of unfortunate timing. That, and perhaps the entity calling her was getting impatient. She had dragged her feet. Her first dream involving the voice had happened months ago. Before she could think too deeply about it, the road rose. As Emily approached the crest of the next hill, she slowed down until she parked her rental Honda Accord by the roadside. With the lack of traffic around her destination she could’ve stopped it dead in the fast lane and would’ve been fine, but habits were powerful beasts.
What Emily braced for as Tower City came into view didn’t happen. Her head was silent apart from the thoughts swirling around in it even as she looked directly at the distant buildings that weren’t quite on the horizon anymore but also still too far for her to be able to make out details. After nothing happened for another few minutes Emily continued her journey to the station. She wasn’t going to find answers to her dreams by sitting still until the dawn of the next millennium.
The outer Tower City station was a utilitarian block of bricks. It was a construction rather unceremoniously put in place in 1987, after the government faced enough lawsuits of people determined to get into the quarantine zone that it became too annoying to resist any longer. After The Loss had happened, nothing dangerous had come out of the city, and this additional train station - which had the added benefit of not being connected to any actual railway network - hadn’t changed that, so now, a decade later, it was still in operation. Emily was almost disappointed by how mundane it felt when she pulled up to it. After the warning signs that told visitors to stay away and that there was so much to live for that she’d passed by and ignored completely she had expected something more dramatic. But no. Other than the parking lot which she left the car in, and the building itself, there was only the train waiting by the fenced-in platform on the other side. Emily’s rental was the only vehicle in the entire parking lot.
The inside of the station kept what the outside promised. Tiled floor, flickering neon tubes on the ceiling, and a few vending machines for snacks. The ensemble was rounded off by a plain clock on the wall ticking the minutes away. A faint mixed smell of cleaning agent and dust hung in the air. There was one person other than Emily there, a young man barely beyond his teenage years and with an expression telling anybody who cared to look that he was bored out of his mind manning the ticket desk. At the same time he also didn’t seem particularly interested in starting the inevitable conversation with Emily now that she was here.
She tried positivity. “Hey there, hello!”
“Name?” The flatness of his answer and voice alike were all she needed to hear to know she’d failed.
“Why are you asking?”
He rolled his eyes. “For the obituary.”
“Excuse me?”
“You want to buy a ticket to Tower City.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Emily answered it anyway. “Yes.” She was suddenly aware of how much of an unpleasant echo the barren walls of the barely decorated station building caused.
“Then I need your name. For the ticket.”
Right. “Of course, I’m sorry. Emily. Emily Wright.”
He muttered her name as he typed it into his computer. Then came the part Emily had dreaded. “I am legally obligated to inform you that the Tower City Railway Service is automated and neither it nor its parent company take any responsibility for what happens to its passengers once they embark at the central station.”
“Can we skip this part? I looked it up before, you know.”
The man shook his head, and continued his spiel. “I am legally obligated.” He pointed to the CCTV camera mounted in a corner of the room and pointed square at where he stood. “That means I have to inform you as a future passenger of the TCRS that you will carry any and all consequences of the journey yourself, and your death or untimely disappearance cannot be used to hold me or the company I represent accountable, or for you or your next of kin or anybody who has a personal or professional relationship with you to press charges or demand reparations of any kind.
Your ticket covers maintenance or operating costs of the TCRS, but you or your next of kin or legal representative will be billed for any damage you may cause to the train. Do you understand and agree with these conditions?”
It wasn’t as if Emily hadn’t read through those same legal disclaimers before she’d made her way here, and if she had to be honest she had made that text sound more interesting in her head. She nodded. “Yes.”
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“Excellent. So a one-way ticket to Tower City?”
“No. Return, please.”
A sigh. “Then I am also legally obligated to inform you that nobody who has purchased a ticket and boarded the train to Tower City has ever returned, alive or otherwise. Regardless of the ticket purchased.”
“Aren’t you supposed to upsell me, if anything? I feel like you’re trying to talk yourself out of profit here.”
A shrug. “In a moment,” he just said without the slightest hint of sarcasm. “Right now I need you to confirm that you understand what I said before.” Now he actually started to sound a bit sincere for the first time, as he leaned forward and stared at her with pale eyes. “Nobody omes back. Except for the safety inspector, and those vanished as well until we started cuffing them to their seats while keeping the key here. You’ll get your ticket, I can’t and won’t stop you, but I need you to tell me that you actually understand this. Got it?”
Emily listened to and heard only the last two words of what he said. “What? Yes, of course!”
He stared at her for a moment. Then he shrugged. “So one return trip to and from Tower City?”
She confirmed, and resisted a flinch as he named the price. She just paid the full sum in cash.
“Would you like travel insurance?”
“Is this the part where you try and upsell me?”
“Yeah.”
“Save your breath. When does the train depart?”
“Noon.” He pointed at the clock. It was 11:34 a.m..
She nodded. That wasn’t too much time to kill in the grand scheme of things.
Before she could turn and head to the platform, he called her back. “Two more things. The train remains at the central station for two hours, and then returns automatically. If you aren’t on the train when it comes back here, we won’t file a missing person report. It will be noted that you are in Tower City, and if you do not return within six months your possessions will be split up according to either your will or… what’d they call it… whatever they do if you haven’t made your last will yet.”
Emily fidgeted with the ticket in her hands. “So I’ll be declared dead?”
“Officially? No. Practically, yes.”
She had to process that for a while.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“You should get on the train if you want to head to Tower City today.” It was 11:49 a.m.. Emily decided that she didn’t like the way time passed in this place.
The train was electric. That was unusual, but also unremarkable. Had Emily been interested in trains she may have noticed that it was in fact a unique piece of railway equipment. What Emily noticed right away was that it looked too clean on the inside. The sunlight falling in through the large windows illuminated some specks of dust whirling about, but other than that it was dead silent. The entire train was empty. It was a single compartment with row after row of seats on both sides. They were all empty. Emily was alone. Every step she did was loud as thunder to her, and she even heard her own breath with obnoxious volume. Unfortunately holding her breath also didn’t help because eventually she had to gasp for air again, which was even louder. Anybody who witnessed her walk down the length of the train back to front and back again would have had to think she had lost her mind. But that was the whole point. Emily was alone.
She almost lost her balance when the train started moving. And now, finally, there was more noise. The entire vehicle came to life at once, and now there was the rumbling of wheels on rails, the rush of air from the air conditioning units, and a deep hum from what was presumably some kind of engine. The air smelled like dust. Through all of this noise Emily felt even smaller, more alone. She stood in the middle of the compartment for a moment longer before she gingerly sat down in one of the seats, and placed her backpack next to her.
Emily froze. When had she grabbed her backpack? She couldn’t remember taking it out of the car. Nor did she remember carrying it around… but then again, if she hadn’t had it, where would she have taken her wallet from to pay for the ticket earlier? Her backpack, that’s where she always kept it. She forced herself to take a deep breath. The day was far from over, she couldn’t afford to lose her mind here. It was still too early for that.
Another minute passed, or maybe ten. Time was a bit flexible aboard the train. Nobody was around to keep score either. Then the lights flickered for a moment. There were no lights turned on inside the train, it was the middle of the day. The sun. It was the sun that had briefly flickered as if it was low on batteries. When Emily looked out the window to check, everything was still normal. But now she wasn’t passing empty wilderness. Now she was being carried past abandoned buildings that looked as if they’d never been abandoned. From here she could even convince herself that it was all a big laugh. She was in Tower City, and clearly she hadn’t vanished yet. Chances were there was no mystery to solve. Maybe the city had just turned into an amusement park, and whoever went there went quiet as part of the marketing. With some luck she’d get to see a reenactment of the victory parade when the eponymous tower had-
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Emily looked outside again to drown out the voice. Now that she paid attention it was obvious that this wasn't an amusement park. There were too many empty cars stopped haphazardly in the streets for that. She wasn't sure why it was that detail out of all of the ones that were out of place that broke through her last-minute denial, but much like the Loss itself she wasn't really here to get an answer to that. She just wanted to take a look.
The train stopped at its terminus after rolling into the central station, thanks to the roof of which Emily's surroundings were plunged into relative darkness as the sun was blotted out. Emily was alone, she was in Tower City, and the doors all opened with a soft hiss. In two hours the train would return to safety.