The door slammed shut, and instantly, Evelyn felt her ears rupture with noise. The air was alive with screaming. Not one voice, not a dozen—but thousands, all at once, echoing from every direction.
The carriage was pitch black except for faint cracks of red light seeping through the walls. Each scream carried a different tone—fear, agony, ecstasy, madness—and they drilled into her skull until she thought her mind would split open.
The floor was slick. She looked down—and almost vomited. They weren't standing on wood or stone. The floor was made of tongues. Human tongues, twitching and writhing, slick with blood, squirming beneath their feet. Every step crushed them, releasing more guttural wails.
Sophie clutched her ears, tears streaming down her face. "Make it stop! Please, make it stop!"
Alex shouted, but his voice was swallowed in the cacophony. His words twisted, echoed back at him in a hundred distorted versions until it sounded like he was mocking himself. He dropped to his knees, clawing at his head.
Leo staggered to the side, only to scream as the wall split open—rows of mouths tearing themselves wide, each one filled with broken teeth. They bit into his arm, tearing flesh, chewing, sucking the blood like starved animals.
Evelyn raised the lantern, but the light only flickered weakly, as if the screams themselves were smothering it. The mouths along the walls spat hot blood, spraying them, coating their faces, choking their throats.
The whispers from earlier returned, but now they were screams too, raw and guttural:"Join us. Scream with us. Become the chorus."
The tongues on the floor wrapped around Evelyn's ankles, warm and wet, pulling her down. Her knees slammed into the twitching mass. Dozens of tongues slithered up her legs, into her clothes, across her skin, probing, choking, suffocating.
"No!" she screamed, thrashing, kicking. The lantern flared—but every time she burned one tongue away, more sprouted, thicker and stronger.
Sophie was being dragged toward the wall of mouths, her shrieks drowned in the roar of teeth snapping shut. Alex's eyes were wide with madness, his nails tearing bloody lines across his own skin to silence the voices in his head.
Evelyn's chest convulsed. She almost gave in—until she realized what the carriage wanted: not just their bodies… but their voices.
It wanted them to scream forever.
Her grip tightened around the lantern. She drew in a ragged breath and forced herself to do the opposite of what the train demanded. She went silent.
Her throat burned with the urge to scream, but she bit down so hard blood filled her mouth. The lantern responded—its light flaring hotter, whiter, purer. The tongues recoiled, shriveling back into the floor. The mouths shrieked as if in pain, the chorus breaking apart into chaos.
"Don't scream!" Evelyn choked out, spitting blood. "Stay silent! That's how we fight it!"
Sophie clamped her mouth shut, tears streaming down her face as the mouths dragged at her. Alex bit his own hand to silence himself. Leo gagged on blood, but forced himself to hold it back.
The lantern exploded in a blaze of light.
The mouths shriveled, collapsing into ash. The tongues beneath their feet curled and blackened. The screams faded into nothing but silence.
The survivors collapsed in a heap, trembling, bleeding, covered in sweat and gore. Evelyn's ears rang with phantom echoes, her throat raw. She knew they hadn't won—only bought themselves another few minutes.
A whisper slithered through the silence, low and mocking:"You can't silence eternity."
The next door creaked open. And beyond it… something breathed.