HER headphones vibrated as Rahel bounced her foot to the rhythm. With her ankle resting on her knee, her hands hugged her satchel close to her chest not only to keep it safe from any opportunity-seeking loiterers but to conserve some of the warmth which radiated through her body. It was not the most pleasant of evenings and the chill almost shot through to her bone.
From what she could make out, she was alone on the platform and she was not surprised.
The clock had just struck past one-thirty in the morning and any reasonable person would have been at home, safe in the comforts of their bed by now. She too could have been at curled up underneath a warm pile of blankets with a belly full of fire and veins fuelled with gin had she not had to pick up extra hours to make that month’s payments.
She gazed up and down the empty station, her head bopping to the song which had just started to play. The heavy rifts of the guitar, the deep throbs of the base, were seductive. But, no matter how much she was caught by the hypnosis of the beats, she could not help but feel on edge. The hairs on the back prickled and the skin on her arms became riddled with small bumps.
Crimes and muggings had been on the decline, the news had reported. However, they were still occurring frequently enough for people to be conscious of their surroundings. She did not know if it was paranoia drummed up by over-glorified reporters taking her into its grips, but something felt discerningly out of place.
Her eyes paused on a fluorescent tube over the top of motionless escalators. The globe flickered temperamentally, casting the space into spontaneous moments of gloom. She found herself linger on the light as her mind drifted a million miles away.
And that was when her heart leapt into her throat and started to race.
She had seen something move in the corner of her eye.
Rahel whipped her head towards the movement, her breathing quick and heavy. Her heart thundered, like a runaway freight train which threatened to derail from its tracks. She glimpsed around frantically as she tried to find the source of the movement, but she had come to realise that the platform was still empty.
She remained alone, exhausted, and the lack of sleep was an open licence for her mind to play games.
Her gaze fell to an empty wrapper which buffeted along the cracked tiling. It fluttered until it fell from view onto the cold, hard tracks.
Rahel paused for a moment, a thought dawning over her.
There is no breeze, the voice inside her head said quietly. That’s curious. But don’t be stupid. It’s been a long day.
She closed her eyes as she mouthed along to the lyrics which she knew word-for-word. They brought to her a sense of familiarity; a bit of joy to what had otherwise been a long day of horrors and relentless demands. They also calmed the nerves which seemed to run rampant deep within.
Something – a twitch – nagged at her mind and her eyes flew open.
Rahel found herself staring at someone masked in shadowy depths on the other side of the tracks. Though she could not see their face, she could make out an outline of a body, resting against the corner of a wall and facing directly at her.
With her heart racing, she tore the earbuds away from her head and stood up from the metal bench.
“Hello?” she called.
The figure remained unmoving and unphased, propped against the hard cement. Suddenly, it shifted a foot and re-established its position against the wall.
“Who are you?” Rahel tried again.
Silence.
Before she could think of anything else to say, the ground started to tremor and she heard a rumble brew in the distance. The rumble grew louder and then she heard the unmistakable, ear-splitting squeal of metal on metal. A faint light filled the tunnel until it morphed into a blinding blaze.
The train surged into view and managed to come to a grinding halt in front of her.
No!
A passenger car obscured her vision and her sight to the figure was replaced with her reflection staring back at her from the vandalised glass of the windows.
Rahel seized her satchel and surged into the metal carriage as soon as she heard the doors hiss open. Desperately, she rushed to the other side and inched her face to the window to look out of the glass on the other side. The tip of her nose was pushed onto the glass and condensation clouded the cold surface.
It was too late.
An empty, soulless platform stared back at her.
There were no signs, no tell-tale truths left behind, which mentioned that the figure had ever been present.
Resigned, Rahel sunk into one of the seats and pushed the nape of her neck against the thread-bare fabric of the neck-rest. She stared absentmindedly at the phallic male body part someone had crudely scratched into the plastic cover of the station map and mashed the headphones back into her ears.
She closed her eyes and let the rhythm of the rail take her home.
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