Chapter 14: She Arrives Too Soon

From Hurried Ascensions
by Esi Noire

The lantern dimmed.

Rene stood at the final edge of the broken track. The pulse ahead had grown into a steady glow, warm, golden, alive. But something in the air changed. Not warning. Not danger.

**Timing.**

A whisper circled her ankles like fog.

*“You are early.”*

She didn’t speak. Her breath had slowed, her feet grounded in silence. She waited.

The voice returned, not from outside, but from deep within:

*“If you enter now, he will forget you.”*

Rene staggered.

“He’s still between,” the voice continued. “One foot on the line. One foot in the waking world. If you reach for him too soon, he will vanish.”

Tears welled, not from fear, but from truth. All this way. All this memory. And now, she had to wait.

“Then what do I do?” she asked.

The ground beneath her shimmered.

**Give him a way back.**

A sound hummed behind her. low and ancient. The train was moving again, this time without rails. It floated across void and memory, engine glowing with names, shadows waving from every window.

It wasn’t returning.

It was completing the circuit.

Rene knelt and placed her ticket on the ground.

It burned into the soil like a seal.

And as the light consumed her, she whispered into the tunnel:

**“Come home when you’re ready. I will remember until you do.”**