The station had always been there, as far as Ellis could tell. Built of polished oak and sand-colored stone, it stood alone in the endless desert, surrounded by dunes that whispered secrets in the wind. Ellis had come to the station as a boy, following his father’s footsteps, and stayed long after his father had vanished into the sands.
He had one job: keep the station ready. The tracks gleamed in the sunlight, cleaned daily by Ellis’s careful hands. The signal lights worked perfectly, though no train had passed in the twenty years Ellis had lived there. The schedule board was blank, a canvas of faded wood, waiting for arrivals and departures that never came.
Yet, Ellis stayed. He swept the platform, repaired the benches, and oiled the massive clock above the ticket counter. It was a life of quiet order, unchanging as the desert itself.
Until the night the train came.
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Ellis was oiling the gears of the signal lever when he heard it: the faint, distant wail of a whistle. He froze, the wrench slipping from his fingers and clattering to the floor.
The sound came again, louder now, and with it came the unmistakable rumble of wheels on tracks. Ellis stumbled out onto the platform, his heart pounding. The horizon glowed with golden light, growing brighter with each second.
The train emerged from the light, a gleaming engine of brass and black steel, its carriages shimmering like polished obsidian. Steam hissed as it slowed to a stop, and the doors of the nearest carriage slid open with a soft hiss.
A single figure stepped out: a woman in a deep green coat, her dark hair pinned beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She carried a small leather suitcase and wore a smile that seemed to know more than it let on.
“Ellis, I presume?” she said. Her voice was smooth, like the hum of the train itself.
He blinked at her. “How do you know my name?”
She tilted her head, amused. “This station is yours, isn’t it? It only makes sense you’d be the one to greet me.”
He frowned. “Greet you for what? No trains have come through here in years.”
“No trains needed to, until now.” She stepped closer, her boots clicking softly against the platform. “This is the train to Aurelia. And you’re coming with me.”
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Ellis stared at her. “I don’t even know what Aurelia is.”
“It’s wherever you need it to be,” she said cryptically.
“That’s not an answer.”
Mara laughed softly. “You’ve spent your whole life waiting, Ellis. Don’t you want to see what’s beyond this station?”
Her words struck a nerve he didn’t know he had. He hesitated, glancing back at the station, its familiar walls bathed in the train’s golden glow.
“What happens if I stay?” he asked.
“The train leaves without you. And it won’t return.”
The thought unsettled him. Against his better judgment, he nodded. “Fine. I’ll go.”
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The interior of the train was a marvel. Brass railings and velvet seats, stained glass windows casting shifting patterns of color on the polished floors. Mara led him to a compartment where two steaming cups of tea awaited them.
“Where exactly are we going?” Ellis asked, sitting stiffly across from her.
“That depends,” Mara said. “The train has a way of… adapting. Each stop will take us somewhere tied to your choices.”
“My choices?”
She nodded. “This journey is about you, Ellis. About where you’ve been—and where you’ll go.”
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The first stop came suddenly, the train jerking to a halt. Outside the window, Ellis saw a familiar sight: his childhood home, a small cottage on the edge of the desert.
“I don’t understand,” he said as Mara stood.
“You will,” she said, opening the door.
Ellis followed her out, the dry wind stinging his face. The cottage looked just as it had when he was a boy: the sagging roof, the cracked window panes, the crooked wooden fence.
Inside, they found a younger version of Ellis sitting at the kitchen table, his face buried in his hands. His father stood over him, shouting about responsibility and duty.
Ellis flinched at the memory. “This was the day he told me I had to take over the station,” he murmured.
“And you agreed,” Mara said. “Why?”
“I didn’t have a choice. It was what he wanted.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “And what did you want?”
Ellis didn’t answer.
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The train moved on, each stop revealing another fragment of Ellis’s life: the friends he had drifted away from, the dreams he had abandoned, the moments he had let fear or obligation dictate his path.
At each stop, Mara asked the same question: What did you want? And each time, Ellis struggled to answer.
Finally, they reached the last stop.
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The train doors opened to a place Ellis had never seen before. Rolling hills of emerald green, a sky painted in shades of gold and lavender, and in the distance, a shining city of spires and domes.
“Aurelia,” Mara said.
“It’s beautiful,” Ellis whispered.
She smiled. “This is your chance, Ellis. To start over. To build something new.”
He hesitated. “What if I’m not ready?”
Mara touched his shoulder. “You’ve been ready for a long time. You just didn’t know it.”
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Ellis stepped off the train, the weight of the station finally lifting from his shoulders. As the train disappeared into the horizon, he turned toward the city, the possibilities stretching out before him like the endless desert he had left behind.
For the first time in his life, Ellis felt free.