The Haunting of Platform 13
Night had settled over the old rail yard like a damp curtain. I was sent to document the legend of Platform 13, a place the town pretends to forget but cannot quite erase. The gate grated open as if sighing, and the air inside tasted of rain, oil, and something iron-hard. The platform stretched before me, a rumor given form, a pale line between two nights: the last train that mattered and the first to forget its own memory. The sign above the desolate platform flickered with a pale neon glow—13, stubborn and shy, refusing to die.
I stepped onto the boards and felt the world tilt, as if the station itself were adjusting a long-forgotten hinge. A cold breath brushed my neck, not wind but the whisper of something that forgot how to be alive. The station clock shuddered and its hands moved backward for a heartbeat, then resumed their crooked march. A lone ticket stub fluttered, though there was no conductor, no passenger, only the hollow echo of a train that might have existed once, somewhere beyond sight and memory.
“The train is never late, traveler. It arrives for those who forget to leave.”
From the far end, a figure emerged—not quite human, wearing a coat that absorbed light. The conductor's eyes reflected the dim platform lamps, and his mouth did not smile so much as acknowledge your presence. He spoke without words, and the language pressed into my skin: Platform 13 keeps what the others left behind. He offered a pocket watch that did not tick but remembered every name that ever vanished on nights like this.
The timetable on the wall rearranged itself, letters sliding into new slots until it spelled a private invitation: your name beneath 13, a reminder that time here is personal. The benches bore scars of old farewells, carved paths where travelers had waited and never returned. A chill moved through the air in rhythm with invisible wheels scraping the rails, and the air carried whispers of rooms that refused to close, doors that refused to open, and goodbyes that refused to be final.
- Cold breath that feels like frost on the skin, even when the clock reads midnight.
- A clock whose hands glide backward, then snap forward with a sudden, hurried jump.
- A hat without a head, tipping itself in a silent, polite greeting.
- Wheels that appear on the tracks without any car, as if the rails themselves dream of motion.
- Names spoken in a chorus you cannot quite hear, but cannot ignore.
I tried to retreat toward the exit, but the doors seemed to breathe, smooth and patient. The platform held its breath as if listening for a single decision from me. Dawn never came for Platform 13; it only offered more time to those who stayed. When the last light dimmed and the conductor's gaze fixed on my reflection in the glass, I understood the truth: I was not leaving the platform; I was becoming part of it. If you listen closely, you can hear the track sigh, the timetable whispering a forever-you, and the quiet invitation to ride into a night that never ends.