The train shouldn't have been running.
Its schedule wasn't posted anywhere. The station they'd found it in was half-swallowed by roots and rust. The vending machines dispensed dead moths instead of snacks. The platform map didn't list a destination—just a single blinking pixel labeled: DO NOT REMEMBER.
"Great," Dani muttered, hopping aboard with her briefcase slung over her shoulder like a weapon. "Nothing screams stability like a train that gaslights you on arrival."
Kenton followed more cautiously, his scanner whining in uncertain pitches. "It's not listed in any of the sealed transport logs. But it's moving through stabilized faultlines. That's... promising."
"You say that like it's a good thing," Lance murmured, trailing behind them with Dario pressed to his side like armor.
"It is," Kenton said. "In a way. The last time I tracked a faultline vehicle, it passed through six towns that no longer exist but left everyone on board mostly intact."
"Mostly?" Lance asked.
"One guy got replaced with his high school bully. But everyone agreed it was an improvement."
Dani barked a short laugh. "Poor bastard. Imagine getting overwritten by Todd from fourth period."
The inside of the train car looked weirdly normal. Upholstery worn but clean. Ad posters fluttered slightly despite the still air—one promoted a breakfast cereal called Pardon Flakes, tagline: "We're sorry for everything." Another just said "HE DOES NOT DRINK FROM THE MILK" in looping cursive.
Lance sat down slowly. The seat gave a little sigh.
Kenton pulled out a collapsible screen from his coat and began typing one-handed. "This route should get us to Hollow Reach in two hours. If the train doesn't fold."
"Hollow Reach?" Dani asked, plopping into the seat opposite him. "Why do all these places sound like rejected horror podcasts?"
"Because they are," Kenton said. "Most people don't remember them. Not anymore. But Reach has roots. It might have enough reality density to slow down the infection."
Lance leaned back and closed his eyes. But the train kept flickering. One second the interior was dull green and humming. The next, the windows showed not landscape, but a flickering image of his old apartment hallway—except the walls were too long. And there was no ceiling.
Then it would snap back to normal. More or less.
Inside him, something was building.
Not organs or bones—though those twitched sometimes.
The symbiote worked like a sculptor with broken blueprints. It poked through his memories—half-remembered birthdays, the sound of a microwave he once owned, the cold click of a disconnected landline. It stole fragments without asking. Pieced together an echo of him, but wrong.
A memory of his mother making pancakes now smelled like concrete dust.
His father's laugh now looped mid-chuckle, starting again before it could end.
It was building him, again. But off-script.
Lance opened his eyes. Dario licked his hand.
"You okay?" Dani asked without looking up. She was reloading a slingshot with small, spinning sigils that buzzed faintly like bees.
"I don't know what it's doing," Lance said, voice low. "It's like... it keeps poking around in my head. Like it's looking for something."
Kenton looked up sharply. "What kind of something?"
"I don't know," Lance said. "Memories, maybe. Feelings. But they come back wrong. Familiar, but off. Like it's... trying to rebuild me, and getting the shape wrong."
Kenton's brow furrowed. "That's not how it usually happens."
"How does it usually happen?" Lance asked.
Kenton hesitated, then said quietly, "They don't usually bother with details. They take over. Consume. Move on."
Lance looked away. His hands had started to tremble again.
The train screeched around a curve that might not have existed.
They passed a field of mannequins standing ankle-deep in a lake. None of them wore clothes, but all of them held car keys.
A moment later, the windows were just black.
Lance rubbed his arms. They weren't cold. But they didn't feel attached, either.
Dani reached into her coat and pulled out something that looked like a protein bar wrapped in surgical gauze. She unwrapped it and handed it to him.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Food," she said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Real food?"
"Define real."
He ate it anyway. His stomach didn't complain. Yet.
Kenton sat across from him, eyes never leaving his scanner.
"Your memory's looping," Kenton said.
Lance blinked. "What?"
Kenton held up the scanner. "You've asked the same question six times since we got on. About the cow."
"I did?"
"You didn't finish it every time. Just said, 'What was that—' and stopped."
Lance looked at Dario. The dog stared calmly out the window at the mannequins.
"I don't know what it's doing," Lance said finally, voice low. "Sometimes it feels like... it's trying to remember me, but not how I remember me. Like it's guessing."
He paused, staring down at Dario's calm, steady eyes.
"Or maybe it's just... filling in blanks I didn't even know were there."
The train light flickered, and the seat next to him was briefly filled with someone else.
A figure, blurred like a corrupted file. Holding a birthday cake. Singing with a mouth full of teeth.
Then gone.
He didn't say anything.
The train screeched again—this time slowing.
Outside the window was a crumbling platform with faded signage. Someone had written LEAVE SLOWLY in smeared paint across the doors.
"This is it," Kenton said, rising and gripping the edge of his seat with shaking fingers.
Dani holstered her slingshot and reached for the parasite jar. "Back to ground. Let's see if this place holds."
Lance stood last. His legs felt wrong. Heavy and delayed, like they weren't quite his.
Dario barked once—loud and sharp.
Everyone froze.
The mannequins in the lake turned.
Only now, there were more of them.
And some had started walking.