I’m writing this from a hotel room in Moscow. At least, I think I am.
Late one evening, I boarded a train from Yekaterinburg to Moscow. Nothing unusual — I found my seat, put my bag away, and fell asleep almost immediately.
I woke up just before dawn.
The carriage was empty.
Not quiet. Not “everyone got off at a station.” Empty in a way that felt wrong. No bags. No coats. No lingering warmth from other passengers. Just me — and the steady rhythm of the wheels on the tracks.
I assumed I’d wandered into the wrong car, so I walked toward the dining car.
I walked through every single carriage.
No passengers. No conductors. No staff.
When I returned to my seat, my phone said we’d arrive at the next station in a few minutes. I decided to wait. Surely someone would be there.
The train pulled into a city.
That’s when fear really set in.
No cars. No people. No lights. The station was completely dark. And yet the city felt… familiar. Not in a specific way — more like a deep, unsettling déjà vu, as if I had been there before. Many times.
I stepped off the train.
The city was small. Silent. Frozen in time. After wandering for a couple of hours, I returned to the station. The train was still there. Doors open. Waiting.
The moment I sat down, it started moving.
By then I was painfully hungry. As I searched the train again, I heard a sound coming from a nearby compartment. I opened the door.
A table was set inside.
Food. So much food. The only drink was coffee.
I didn’t question it. I ate like I hadn’t eaten in days. When I turned away — the food was gone. Completely.
I fell asleep.
The next morning, everything was the same.
The same station. The same city.
This time, I tried to escape. I walked straight toward the forest and didn’t turn back. After three or four hours, I saw it again.
The train.
Later, I found something like a bar in the city. I don’t know where it came from. Inside, food appeared the same way it had before — suddenly, silently. And again, only coffee to drink. I ate and fell asleep right there.
When I woke up, I ran to the station, hoping the train would be gone.
It wasn’t.
Days passed. I stopped counting. Until I realized the train had been moving for 30 days.
Day 31.
I went to the front of the train. No engineer. The control levers wouldn’t move — as if they were welded in place. Then one of them began to move on its own.
The train slowed down.
We arrived at a different station.
Rails stretched across a lake. An enormous oasis. A forest of impossibly tall oak trees surrounded everything. The platform seemed to float above the water.
I stepped out — and saw someone boarding the train.
I followed him, but the moment he entered a compartment, he vanished. All that remained was a note.
“Look for the staircase to the sky.”
When I stepped back onto the platform, the train left without me.
A boat rocked gently on the water. I got in, and it began moving by itself. The forest parted, the ground shifted, and it felt like I was floating along a river that shouldn’t exist.
We stopped at a stone pier. There was a door with a cipher on it. I realized it was a Caesar cipher. After cracking it, I went inside.
I walked through darkness until I saw light.
There was nothing there — except a spiral staircase leading upward.
I climbed for fifteen minutes. At the top was a hatch. I opened it and was blinded by light.
I was standing on an unfamiliar station.
Behind me, a completely empty train pulled away.
In my pocket was my ticket: Yekaterinburg — Moscow. Train No. 58.
Then another train arrived.
This one was full of people. Talking. Laughing. Alive.
I got on.
I made it to Moscow.
Now I’m here, writing this. But sometimes I think that if I fall asleep on a train again… I’ll hear that familiar rhythm of the tracks.
And wake up in an empty carriage.