Chapter 11: Ghosts that Climb

From Hurried Ascensions
by Esi Noire

The train didn’t wait for her.

It returned behind her like it had always been there, gleaming and quiet, the door open just enough to suggest a choice. Rene stepped back inside.

But it wasn’t the same train anymore.

The car she entered was tilted, almost as if it were climbing a slope that didn’t exist. The lights flickered like breath. And the air… it was thick with a different kind of weight. Hunger.

Then she saw them.

Climbing.

Not passengers. Not memories.

**Ghosts.**

Long-bodied and slow-moving, they scaled the walls, clawed up the windows, hung from the ceiling beams like vines made of bone and smoke. Their eyes glowed, not with light, but with need.

Rene backed against the door.

One of them turned its head toward her. It didn’t speak, but the words pressed directly into her skull.

*“You are rising. We were not allowed.”*

Another joined in.

*“We climbed until our names were scraped away.”*

She closed her eyes, steadying her breath. “What do you want from me?”

A dozen voices, layered and old:

*“To be named before we fall.”*

Rene opened her eyes and lifted her hand to her chest.

“I don’t know your names,” she said. “But I know your climb.”

The ghosts paused. The walls trembled. The train stopped tilting.

And one by one, the climbing figures began to dissolve into light, leaving handprints on the windows behind them.

**Upward.**