The Self‑Driving Train

A cold hush settles over the forest as you stumble through the undergrowth, your thoughts heavier than your footsteps. Life has been wearing you down one quiet disappointment at a time, and tonight you wandered into the woods simply because you didn’t know where else to go. That’s when you hear it— a low, steady rumble, too rhythmic to be thunder and too mechanical to be natural. You push aside a curtain of branches and freeze. An old passenger train, weather‑beaten and streaked with rust, glides silently along a forgotten stretch of track. No conductor. No lights in the cabin. No sign of life at all. Yet the engine hums with purpose, as if guided by an unseen hand. The train slows the moment it notices you— if a train can notice anything— and comes to a smooth, deliberate stop. The doors slide open with a soft exhale, releasing a breath of cold air that smells faintly of rain and old paper. Inside, the lights flicker on one by one, illuminating empty seats and dust dancing in the stale air. The aisle stretches into shadow, impossibly long, as though the train contains more space than it should. It waits for you. Patient. Silent. As if it has been waiting for a very long time. And in your chest, beneath all the exhaustion and doubt, something stirs— a quiet pull, a whisper of curiosity, or maybe destiny.