The door opened into absolute madness. Evelyn staggered forward, senses screaming. The carriage was infinite, folding in impossible angles. The floor shifted beneath their feet like liquid glass. The walls pulsed, covered with eyes—hundreds, maybe thousands, blinking in different directions.
But it wasn't just the eyes.
Every whisper they had fought before now shouted inside their skulls, overlapping, screaming, twisting their thoughts into impossible nightmares. Evelyn's own voice joined them:
"You're weak. You'll never escape. Give in."
She clutched her head, teeth gritted, trying to push it back. But the walls… the shadows… the voices—they were alive. They could see her fears, her desires, her memories, her guilt, twisting them, turning them into torture.
Suddenly, Alex screamed as his own body began to warp. His limbs elongated unnaturally, skin stretching into grotesque patterns. His face split into multiple mouths, all screaming at once. Evelyn grabbed his shoulders, trying to pull him back. "Alex! Fight it!"
Sophie's shadow detached from her feet, slithering along the ground like a living snake, whispering her deepest shame: "You wanted him to die… you loved the wrong person… you're nothing."
Leo's eyes went wide as the floor beneath him split open. Faces—familiar faces—pushed through, mouths open, shrieking silently, clawing at him. He swung his arms, tearing them off, but more emerged, endless, endless.
Evelyn's own reflection in the mirrored walls grinned at her, stretching impossibly, eyes black pits. It whispered:
"You will break. And when you do… I will live. You will feed me."
The air became suffocating. Each breath burned her lungs. The walls bent, enclosing them, and the eyes blinked faster, focusing on each friend, scanning for weakness.
"Focus on each other!" Evelyn screamed. "We're the only real ones!"
Using the lantern, she lashed out at her warped reflection, burning it partially. It shrieked, recoil shaking the floor. The shadows recoiled at the light, but not fully—they could always return.
Step by step, they navigated the shifting floors, avoiding faces that lunged from the ground, shadows that tried to merge with their minds, whispers that promised unbearable truths. Every second was torture. Every movement was a gamble between sanity and being consumed.
Finally, in the far distance, a sigil glowed—a jagged, pulsating shape unlike anything before. Evelyn lunged for it, dragging her friends, ignoring the pain in her arms and legs as shadows lashed at them, trying to pull them into endless screaming.
When her hands hit the sigil, a blinding light exploded. The carriage convulsed violently, shrieking, twisting, and then—silence.
They collapsed to the floor, shaking, drenched in sweat and blood, limbs trembling, hearts hammering. The mirrors and shadows were gone, but the echo remained in their minds. Every scream, every whisper, every twisted vision… burned into their memories.
Evelyn looked at her friends. "We… survived," she rasped, voice trembling. "But we're… not whole."
And somewhere in the distance, beyond the next door, the train whispered again, promising the horrors to come:
"The end is near… but only for those who survive the next carriage. The Midnight Train will have its final feast."