The train remained silent, nestled like a corpse in the darkness of the tunnel. Arthur stood at the front of the lounge car, the Joker card still between his fingers. The red emergency lights cast long shadows across his face, sharpening the lines beneath his eyes. He hadn't slept. Couldn't sleep.
Because the killer wasn't done.
And he was the next name—unwritten, but inevitable.
Luke stood beside him, chewing on the corner of his glove. "You're saying this whole thing's been about you?"
Arthur's voice was low. "I was on the Argent Line. The day it derailed. I survived. Barely. Same as Reinhart. Same as one other person I thought had died."
Luke looked up, startled. "Wait. There was another survivor?"
Arthur didn't answer directly. His eyes shifted toward the door at the far end of the car—the narrow hallway that led to the unused maintenance compartment between the sleeper cabins.
"Something's off," he murmured. "We've searched every room on this train. But there's one place we haven't checked."
Luke frowned. "That car's locked tight. Has been since departure."
Arthur moved.
Not with panic, but with purpose—precise, controlled. The kind of movement that revealed the instincts beneath his quiet exterior. Reflexes honed to an unnatural level, reacting before thought could catch up.
They reached the maintenance door. Arthur examined the lock, fingers brushing the edges. Then he pressed gently on the corner of the frame—and it shifted.
Luke blinked. "A fake lock?"
"Dead trains don't stop in live tunnels," Arthur muttered. "Unless someone needs them to."
He pushed the door open.
Inside was darkness. The kind that swallowed everything.
And something else.
The sound of breathing.
Ragged. Measured. Controlled.
Arthur stepped in, Luke at his back.
There—at the far end—was a figure sitting on a crate. Face obscured by shadow. But Arthur didn't need to see the face to know who it was.
"Hello, Silas," he said softly.
The man stirred, and a low chuckle escaped his throat.
"Well, well. You always were the clever one, Arthur."
Luke's whisper barely reached Arthur's ear. "Who the hell is this?"
Arthur didn't take his eyes off the figure. "Silas Graye. Intelligence officer. Disappeared during the Argent Line derailment. Declared dead."
Silas leaned forward, and the shadows peeled back to reveal a pale, drawn face and a twisted smile. "You were supposed to die, too, Arthur. But you didn't. Neither did Reinhart. And that ruined everything."
Luke's hand instinctively went toward his coat, but Arthur lifted his arm slightly—wait.
Silas stood now, his movements fluid, unhurried.
"I wasn't the first," he said. "Not the first patient. Not the first failure. But I was the one they buried the deepest. Do you know what it's like to wake up in a morgue?"
Arthur's silence was answer enough.
Silas continued. "They erased us. Covered their sins in snow and steel. But someone had to remember. Someone had to punish."
He walked closer, slowly, until he was just within the arc of red light.
"I didn't want Evelyn dead. She was just a name they added to keep me in line. But Reinhart? Fenwick? Elric? They deserved it."
Arthur's voice was quiet. "And me?"
Silas's eyes burned. "You were the loose end."
Luke snapped, "So you pulled the brake, killed the engineer, and what? Planned to finish the job in the dark?"
Silas tilted his head. "Not quite. I planned to make Arthur choose. Let him feel what I felt. Helpless. Bound."
He stepped even closer now, within reach.
Arthur's eyes flicked—barely perceptible.
Then, with impossible speed, he moved.
A flash of silver.
A twist.
And Silas's knife clattered to the floor.
The reflexes of a ghost. The blade was gone before it ever touched skin.
Arthur pressed Silas against the wall, one hand locked around his wrist, the other clamped over his throat.
"Choices?" he said coldly. "You think this is about choices?"
For a second, the weight—the chains—tightened so violently around Arthur's chest that he could barely breathe.
He saw fire. Screams. Snow soaked in blood.
He saw the Argent Line again.
And the faces of the dead.
But then he let go.
Silas crumpled to the floor, gasping.
Arthur stepped back.
"You're not the ghost on this train," he whispered. "I am."
Later, as the train powered up again and the tunnel lights flickered on, Luke sat beside Arthur in the lounge car. They were silent for a while.
Finally, Luke said, "He would've killed you."
Arthur looked out the window. "He already tried. Five years ago."
The silence settled again.
Luke shifted. "So… what now?"
Arthur's voice was distant.
"I bury the past. One name at a time."