By now, the survivors were more hollow than human. Every step was agony, every breath a whisper from the train itself. Their minds screamed, yet they moved, drawn forward by some magnetic pulse deep in the steel heart of the cursed railcars.
The shadows had grown bolder. They didn't just chase or torment—they merged with the passengers, feeding on thoughts, desires, and guilt. Alex stumbled and felt his own legs move against his will. When he looked down, he realized the shadow had become part of him—coiling, twisting, and whispering every secret he'd buried, every shame he'd hidden.
Sophie screamed as hands—her own hands, yet not hers—clawed at her chest from within. Each heartbeat sent excruciating waves of pleasure and pain, the train exploiting every nerve, every impulse. Evelyn tried to fight it, swinging her lantern—but the light was no longer enough. The darkness had learned. It anticipated her strikes, dodging, laughing in a thousand voices.
The train's corridors now pulsed like a living heart. Doors opened into rooms that shouldn't exist: rooms with impossible ceilings dripping blood, floors that whispered, walls that showed visions of their deaths before they happened. Leo fell to his knees in one room, trapped in a loop of his worst failures, endlessly reliving mistakes he couldn't escape.
A voice—low, wet, and inside their skulls—called out:"We hunger. Feed us… or be fed upon."
They realized the train wasn't just a machine. It was a predator. And it didn't care if their bodies survived. It wanted their souls, their selves, their very identities—distilled into fear, desire, and despair.
Step by agonizing step, they moved forward, knowing some of them wouldn't leave the next carriage in the same form as when they entered. The train had already begun feasting—and it was insatiable.