[color=708090]"The train is coming, after all."[/color]

Tristan shivered despite himself, the efforts he'd taken on the way to reclaim a little steel, immediately hoping the chill beneath the surface would disguise the gesture as something less emotional. Tabitha was there, too, which gave him a nasty shock. [color=82ca9d][i]This thing, when Will died, they said it...[/i][/color] It was part of what had drawn his attention to the Ghost Girl stories. And now here she was, and Tabitha, and...the shock hardened, stretched unpleasantly inside him. At least she didn't look much happier than he was to be here, all tension and stormclouds while she spoke to the spectre, no smile when she took her lonely place. [color=82ca9d][i]Not too many happy faces in general, here.[/i][/color]

He recognized a surprising number. A handful of strangers, yeah, but there was a cop he'd seen around, who he'd caught a break from once, and Stormy from the tattoo parlour, and what looked like...half or better of the staff at Johnny's. That was probably the thing driving him closest to madness. He wished he could clear his head. He was mostly sober now, but his head just kept on swimming.

[color=82ca9d][i]A different world. Tabitha. Johnny's. Masks. Everyone has a mask.[/i][/color]

Tristan leaned back against the grimy pillar he'd chosen, drawing on the cold stone for whatever it could offer him, certain his knees wouldn't be enough on their own. [color=82ca9d][i]No one is screaming, so I guess I shouldn't be the one to start, right?[/i][/color] Which got him thinking about why everyone else had come, these chosen few, what absences or secret wish compelled them. For no reason he could articulate, he shifted to remind himself of the gun in its ragged homemade holster, nestled beneath his sweatshirt at the small of his back.

[color=82ca9d][i]Ten minutes.[/i][/color] Time felt swollen, dilated. Diseased with potential and pulsing inevitability. The silence he carried in his throat was starting to gibber and claw. He had to say something.

[color=82ca9d]"What do you want with us?"[/color] he dared. [color=82ca9d]"Why are we...why did you gather us? What are you using us for?"[/color]

His voice wasn't as strong as he hoped. He shot a glance at Tabitha. An absurd thing to be worried about, hierarchies and posturing, but it grounded him among all the other thoughts crowding his mind. All the darker and stranger stuff. Like how many people had jumped tracks just like these for the spectre calming preparing them for transport...on a train...to...

[color=82ca9d][i]Oh,[/i][/color] he thought. [color=82ca9d][i]Another world. The tracks. They all followed her onto the tracks. She's talking about death. She's going to kill us all.[/i][/color]