Chapter 2: When the Blade Spoke

From Hurried Ascensions
by Esi Noire

The train didn’t come to Rene in a dream.

It came in a memory that wasn’t hers.

She was standing on the porch of her childhood home, except it wasn’t the right color. The boards were newer. The wind smelled like smoldered copper, and above the cornfields, a faint track shimmered across the sky like a crack in glass.

Below it stood a figure.
Black coat. No face. A long, thin blade held downward like a bell waiting to be rung.

When the blade hit the earth, it didn’t clang.
It whispered.

Not in English. Not in any spoken language. But in a pulse – low and rhythmic, like a sound her blood remembered. A vibration that reached into her jaw and behind her eyes.
It said: *Platform 1885.*

She blinked, and the world went dark.

When she woke, her hand was clenched. The glowing train ticket was folded so tightly it cut her palm. Her grandfather was gone – his hospital bed empty, clean, and silent.

No discharge papers. No time of death. Just a single word on the monitor screen before it shut down:

**“Boarded.”**

Rene stood in that empty room, her breath caught between two realities. The blade had spoken. And it had marked her.