I felt panic swell in my chest like a scream trapped under my ribs. Every step hurt. My lungs burned. My legs were bricks. But I didn't stop. I didn't even look back at the station or the officers.
I couldn't. Whatever was happening back there, I didn't want to see it. I just ran.
The street swallowed me whole.
It was dead quiet, like a stage after the play's over. Empty vending machines blinked at me with dying light. Shop shutters were pulled halfway down like they'd been left in a hurry. Neon signs flickered overhead, humming low like an insect in your ear. I passed a broken bike on the side of the road, no rider.
Where the hell is everyone?
This wasn't morning. It wasn't even real. It was like the world had pressed pause and left me in the static. I bolted through a narrow alley, concrete walls pressing close, graffiti smeared across them like forgotten screams.
I barely remembered walking as a kid, leading toward the edge of the old neighborhood.
I pushed forward, tripping over uneven gravel and exposed roots.
Branches scratched my arms, my shoes soaked through from mud and dew. The path twisted in ways it never had before or maybe my head just wasn't right.
My breath came in sharp, broken gasps. Sweat poured down my back like I'd stepped out of a shower. My mouth tasted like metal. The trees kept closing in, tall, thin, swaying like they were whispering to each other. It felt like I was being watched.
Fuck this. Fuck this place.
I stopped, only for a second just long enough to catch my breath, lean on a mossy guardrail and check my phone. Black screen.
Dead.
I wanted to scream. Punch something. I was so tired. So done. My parents were gone. My girlfriend's dead. My phone's dead. What the fuck else does the world want from me?!
My throat clenched. I felt like crying but even that wouldn't come. Just this shaking, this buzzing inside me like I was going to explode.
I kept going. Through the undergrowth. Past rusted signs in kanji warning about bears and landslides, half-covered in ivy. The air smelled like dirt and moss and something else faint, coppery. Not right.
That's when I saw it.
The old train station.
The train station looked like it had died a long time ago.
Cracked tiles lined the empty platform, vines choking the rusted railings. Cold fog rolled in from the woods behind, thick enough to blur the trees into vague, crooked shapes.
The sky hung low and grey.
I stopped just outside the entrance, my lungs burning. My legs trembled. I'd been running with no sense of direction. Everything ached. Not even the sound of crows.
Then I saw someone.
A woman.
She was sitting on the edge of the platform, one foot dangling over the tracks, cigarette between her fingers. Her clothes were worn-out: a dark, oversized jacket patched at the elbows, mud-stained cargo pants, and beaten-up sneakers.
She looked like she hadn't slept in days. Her hair was tied in a messy half-knot, black strands falling over sharp, pale features. I saw her eyes light gray, almost white, cold and narrow like she didn't care who she was looking at. Like she'd seen worse and decided nothing mattered anymore.
I froze.
What the hell was someone like her doing out here?