It all started at 12:12 a.m.
No one knew about the train and everyone told her the train didn't exist.
Was it a dream? Was it her imagination? Until now she couldn't tell...
But every night at exactly 12:12 a.m., she heard it. A soft rumble beneath her floorboards, a whisper of wheels on old tracks and the sigh of something ancient waiting for her to take a ride.
It all started the night she lost her job. She couldn't sleep, couldn't cry and couldn't think past the numbness that came after weeks of pretending she wasn't falling apart. The city outside her window buzzed with its usual oblivious hum, but underneath it, there was always... that sound.
And then! One night, just three blocks from her apartment, she saw it for the first time.
A station platform that hadn't been there before.
Flickering lights.
Dust in the air like forgotten memories.
And the... Train. Like an actual train.
It looked like something out of a dream: antique brass edges, violet-tinted glass, and a silver sign etched above the door:
"VIOLET STREET LINE – ONE WAY ONLY"
She should've run, But she didn't.
Instead, she stepped closer.
The doors opened with a soft hiss, inviting but not forceful, like an old friend saying, "Well, are you coming or not?"
Inside, it smelled like cinnamon, paperbacks, and a little bit of rain.
There was no conductor in sight.
Just empty velvet seats, art-deco sconces, and a gentle sway, !as if the train were already moving, though it hadn't left the platform.
She sat.
She doesn't remember deciding to, only that her body moved before her brain could catch up.
And just like that, the doors slid shut. The world outside slipped away like watercolor in the rain.
She didn't know it yet, but this was not a train you took to get somewhere.
It was a train you took to find something you'd forgotten.
The first time, the car was empty.
No passengers.
No signs.
No announcements.
Just the click-clack rhythm underfoot and a cityscape blurring past the windows that looked nothing like her own.
Skyscrapers shaped like violins.
Billboards advertising things like "Time Repair Services" and "Emotions, Reclaimed".
A woman on a rooftop releasing paper lanterns that glowed bright blue.
She tried to check her phone, but here was no signal.
She opened her mouth to ask a question, there was no one to answer.
Then came the voice which sounded like it came from inside her.
"What have you lost?"
She jerked upright, looking around.
"Who said that?"
No response.
Just the hum of motion and her reflection in the violet window, wide-eyed and small.
The second night, she went back. Voluntarily.
Same time. Same place. Same train.
This time, she wasn't alone.
There was a man in a tweed coat with ink-stained fingers, reading a book called "All the Letters I Never Sent."
A girl in ballet shoes tracing constellations in the air with her fingers.
And a woman clutching a faded photograph to her chest, eyes red like she'd been crying for years.
No one looked at each other. But everyone seemed to understand.
They weren't commuters.
They were passengers of something else.
Perhaps something personal.
She never asked where the train went, because the more she rode it, the more she understood. It didn't go forward or backward, It went inward.
Each carriage was a memory she'd forgotten she still carried.
One night, she opened a door and walked straight into her childhood kitchen, the blue tiles, the scratch on the fridge, her mother humming a song she thought she'd lost forever.
Another night, she stepped into a library filled with nothing but journals she never wrote but should've. Pages rustling with her could-have-beens.
One carriage showed her a version of herself who had said yes to that job in Spain.
Another, the version who had stayed when he asked her to.
It was never about regret.
The train wasn't cruel.
It simply showed her what had been shelved, what she needed to see to return to herself.
On the seventh night, she met the boy with the silver backpack.
He sat across from her, legs swinging, probably no older than ten.
"Hi," he said. "What did you lose?"
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
He smiled, gap-toothed. "That's why people come here. We've all lost something. Memory, Love, Hope, Yourself or all of the above."
She stared at him. "What did you lose?"
He shrugged. "My name. But it's okay. Names come back if they're meant to."
Then he handed her a candy wrapped in gold foil. "It helps the sad feel softer."
By night ten, she started looking forward to the train more than reality.
In the real world: rejection emails, empty fridge, loneliness curled up on her couch like an unwelcome roommate.
On the train: wonder, healing and honest silence.
One night she saw her father, he was young again, before the cancer. He didn't speak. Just looked at her with that familiar half-smile, like he was proud.
She cried and the train materialised and gave her tissues scented with vanilla and lavender.
It was ridiculous. She knew It wasn't real but it was perfect.
She began to leave notes behind, she folded pieces of herself and left them on empty seats:
"I forgive you."
"I miss who I was when I laughed without checking if anyone was watching."
"Please come back. I promise I'll try this time."
And every night, the train gave something back.
A memory, a person or a truth.
Until one night, the train pulled to a stop at a platform she'd never seen before.
It was glowing, gilded in sunrise gold.
And above the doors, in script that shimmered like morning light was written:
"VIOLET STREET – THIS IS YOUR STOP."
She froze.
And for the first time, felt fear. Her beautiful dream was coming to an end. She didn't want this...
Because leaving the train meant choosing to carry what she'd reclaimed.
No more running, no more in-between.
Just... real life. A second chance. Hers, if she dared.
She had no choice but to alight. She smiled and looked back one last time.
At the velvet seats, the soft lights, the silent wisdom of the ride.
Then she stepped out.
The door hissed closed behind her.
And the train?
Gone. With only memories left behind.
Like it had never been there at all.
Final thoughts:
We all carry invisible baggage, memories we bury, truths we avoid, parts of ourselves we abandon in the name of survival.
But healing isn't loud.
Sometimes, it's just a quiet train that shows up when the world sleeps.
Sometimes, it whispers: "Let's try again. Or Do you dare to ride in?"
Know this: whatever you've lost, whether it's your voice, your joy, your wonder or your name?
It's not gone.
It might just be waiting for you on the next ride inward.
You just have to be brave enough to board.