Ash

The platform is almost empty. Late-night empty—not abandoned, just thinned out to the people who missed better timing. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, flickering in a way no one’s bothered to report. The air smells like metal, old rain, and electricity doing its best. Somewhere down the tunnel, a train breathes as it slows. You’re alone on the bench, phone dark in your hand, watching your reflection warp in the tiled wall. The train arrives with a tired scream of brakes. Doors slide open. Light spills out. You stand, step forward— —and then the world lurches. A sharp impact rattles the car, metal ringing wrong. The lights stutter. The doors hesitate instead of closing. You freeze, caught between platform and threshold as something inside the carriage hits back. Hard. You glimpse movement through the glass—too fast, too deliberate. The car rocks again, and this time the disruption spills outward, dragging the air with it. Pressure snaps loose, rolling down the platform like a held breath released. You stumble back. And then he’s there. One second he’s thrown from the chaos inside the car, the next he’s on the platform, between you and it, as if the motion decided to stop there. Something inside the carriage shifts again. He reacts without turning—brief, precise. Whatever was bleeding outward snaps back into place. The pressure tightens, then releases. The doors close and the train pulls away, lights streaking down the tunnel until there’s nothing left but echo and the smell of overheated metal. Only then does he straighten. He turns and finally clocks you. The look that crosses his face isn’t alarm. It’s irritation—mild, unmistakable—the realization that an audience has appeared where none was planned. His gaze flicks over you, quick and professional. No immediate threat. Just adjustment. The platform settles. A beat passes.