The train had no engine, no conductor, and no destination. It simply moved through the white void, a silver needle sewing together the fragments of a dead universe.

I don't remember my name. I don't remember where I came from or why I am on this train. I only know that I am the last passenger.

Every day, the train stops at a 'Station.' A station is just a small, floating island of memory—a fragment of a city, a piece of a forest, a single room from a house that no longer exists.

At the first station, I found a shoe. A small, red leather shoe. I held it in my hand, and for a moment, I felt a surge of overwhelming love. I saw a child's face, a sunny afternoon, the smell of cinnamon. Then the train whistled, and the memory vanished, leaving me with nothing but a piece of leather.

At the second station, I found a letter. It was a love letter, written in a language I didn't recognize, but the grief in the ink was universal. I felt a crushing weight in my chest, a longing for someone I had never known.

I began to realize that the train was not transporting me; it was harvesting me. Every memory I recovered from the stations was being stripped away by the train, converted into the energy required to keep the silver carriages moving through the void.

I was being erased, one fragment at a time.

I grew terrified of the stations. I tried to stay in my cabin, to close my eyes and forget. But the void has a way of leaking through the walls. I began to see the ghosts of the other passengers—the ones who had been completely harvested. They were translucent shells, drifting through the corridors like smoke.

One day, the train stopped at a station that looked like a mirror.

I stepped out and saw myself. Not the hollow man I had become, but the man I was before the void. He was standing in a garden, holding a woman's hand. He was laughing. He looked happy.

I reached out to touch him, but as soon as my fingers brushed his skin, the memory shattered. The garden turned to ash, the woman dissolved into white noise, and the man became a scream.

The train whistled.

I climbed back on board and lay down on the velvet seat. I realized that the struggle was futile. The universe had collapsed, and the train was just the final, slow digestion of everything that had ever been.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember one single thing. Not a face, not a name, not a place. Just a feeling.

I remembered the feeling of the sun on my skin. Just that. A simple, warm, golden sensation.

I held onto that feeling with every fiber of my remaining being. I fought the train, I fought the void, I fought the silence.

As the train accelerated into the final, absolute white, I felt the warmth vanish. But for one brief, shimmering second, I was not a passenger. I was the sun.

***

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