Universe

Endline

This idea would be totally cool to expand on in a full story. I came up with it while riding the underground in London, but it's kind of hard for me to unravel a whole story in 1000 words. 

If you'd have told me that catching my boyfriend, tongue deep in a Grindr hook-up, wouldn't be the worst thing that happened to me, I'd... well I'd say you're shitstorm crazy. And as though that wasn't bad enough, watching his hand slip into the grubby man's pants, groaning into the grubby man's ear the way he always did to me, it started to rain.

Though, I didn't notice until I was running away, deafened by the sound of the voices in my mind, screaming omfg and I can't believe that asshole, so much so that I couldn't hear him screaming my name through the bleak winter rain.

Audela Train Station was the first thing to come up on my right. The rain mystified anything more than a few meters away, but the glowing Broadway-like signs of the station shone through glamorously. In fact, almost every tall concrete tree in the metropolitan jungle around me was dressed ravishingly in colourful neon signs.

Don't get me wrong, I love neon lighting. The whole aesthetic, I love – I even have a Tumblr dedicated to it. I'm kind of famous, to be honest. But right now, the neon lights were too happy, too inviting. They made me feel anxious, dull in comparison, as though the whole world was happy, except me.

And quite rightly – just because I had caught my lying deadass boyfriend seconds before banging an obvious downgrade, didn't mean the world had to stop. It was very much alive, and buzzing. Though at this very moment, most of the world as I knew it was asleep. Where I wished I could have been tonight. Maybe not seeing what I saw tonight would have been better.

But what truly is better? Not knowing? Or knowing, and having to deal with the problem? If you're thinking 'Knowing', you're obviously ten times the adult that I am. Because this changed everything. I would lose the man that I had been in love with for seven years of my life.

I ducked under the glowing marquee of the train station quickly as I could. The reprieve from the rain wasn't nice, though. It just allowed me to focus on my soggy, clingy clothes. The pools that were forming in my worn down converse. I trudged a little further into the station.

It was quiet, though not without the electronic buzzing from the ticket machines. I had to be somewhere else tonight. The city is the loneliest place for even the busiest of hearts. That's what the deadass boyfriend's mom once told me. I wonder if she knew he was hooking up on the side. That he was fucking me over. She liked me, she wouldn't be impressed.

I pushed through the turnstile with ease – they were left open at this time of night, so it was easy to catch a free ride to anywhere. And that's where I needed to be – anywhere but here. There was a large LCD screen, clinging to a tile-clad wall, in a small corridor-like room that diverted off in two different directions.

The next train was to Ende Station, leaving in two minutes, platform two. The white writing on the screen was just as insulting as the exterior neon fixtures, piercing through the calm orange glow from the overhead fluorescent tubes. A small plastic sign hanging over the right diversion bore 'Platform 2'. So without any thought, I pressed on in that direction.

This wasn't the first time I had taken a train to absolutely anywhere. It was just something I did when things got tough. A coping mechanism, I guess. The deadass boyfriend's coping mechanism was joking about tough incidents – mine was running away from them. This time, to Ende Station, wherever that was.

When I had descended a few stone steps, rushing into the humming of a waiting train, the platform was emptying. A few trickles of people, here and there, were embarking on what would probably be their ride home. But I was just happy to be getting out of this place.

I slipped on the train just before the doors closed. It was just as dusky as the rest of the station, but before I'd even reached a seat – of which there were plenty – the train had jolted into motion, and slid into a dark tunnel. I dropped my soggy body down onto a fabric seat, and slouched my body against a glass partition between myself and the train doors. There was a woman sitting to my left, bobbing happily to her music. Her outfit suggested late night diner worker in the city. Even that was better than the sinking feeling I felt throughout my whole body.

The next station on route was Dormir station.

It wasn't until my eyes cracked open that I even realised I had been sleeping. How long for? Had I reached Ende station? My eyes fluttered around to the nearest scrolling screen – but it bore nothing. The train was still moving though, through a dark and shuddering tunnel. I looked to my left instinctively. The woman was gone.

The eerie orange lights flickered as the metal wheels screeched. I got to my feet, and steadied myself on the metal overhead pole. The scrolling sign still bore nothing. My heart had already begun to tremble inside my chest. It was that cold feeling of dread crawling through my veins.

Without warning, the train shuddered, clunked, and s c r e e c h e d to a stop. My knees buckled, and I fell against an itchy fabric seat. I had only just noticed that my clothes had begun to dry. I knew saturated denim took at least a few hours to dry, so I must have been asleep for a while.

There was no voice when the doors opened. No 'This station is blah blah; the next stop is blah blah blah'. Nothing, at all. Just a light metal scratching as the doors released the sweaty warmth of the train. I stepped out with it, into a hovering coldness inside the station.

A station which I had never seen before. I tried to recede back into the train, but the doors had closed. Without a sound, they had slammed shut. But, the train remained stationary. Even the engines whirred to a stop, and a deadly silence befell the station. Nothing but the sound of my own breathing. Panting, moreso.

"Hello?" I called. The slight Germanic twang in my accent reverberated off the wall, and flicked me. It was only then, I caught sight of something pouring down the stairs at the further end of the station. It would be graceful, if it wasn't so eerie and misplaced. A thin veil of fog rolled over each step like a nightmarish waterfall. And collected, on the floor, like a nightmarish puddle.

And then something followed it. A large, black figure. I squinted, but dared to move closer to it. It was a silhouette, moving towards the station, step by step. He clutched a long, weapon in his right hand. It couldn't be metal though; it was as devoid of texture as the rest of his body. In his left hand, he clutched something roundish.

My body had already moved back a few steps, as the figure advanced step by step. As his both feet hit the platform floor, my body stopped cold and dead. He didn't move, and I didn't breathe. The figure loomed, as more fog spilled in behind him. It was waist height, and almost completely engulfed him. So he stepped forward. But the only thing that caught any light was the roundish something in his left hand.

I gagged, watching something drip from the base of the object. But my entire throat choked when the object took the form of a severed head. Shaggy brown hair. Strong prominent features. Piercing blue eyes, stuck open. And suddenly, every inch of my body locked. Unable to move, but simultaneously shivering without sense.

It was the head of my deadass boyfriend.