So, my friend and i went through quite the harrowing ordeal yesterday, which resulted in us being stranded for 10 hours very very far from home, we managed to get ourselves a hotel room for the night, I think that’s where our trouble started, neither of us got much sleep and our room was facing a block of nice apartments, there was a serene looking pathed garden area with a fountain and a few bike racks, we at first thought that the garden and apartment block were quite pretty, but later in the night they began to feel eerie, distant and empty.
when we woke this morning it didn’t take us long to get dressed and hightail it out of that hotel, the hotel we were in was completely empty, no staff, no other guests seen and for a moment not even the elevator was working, in the end we managed to make it back to the train station and get on a train home, the train station was also odd, it felt more like a shopping center that a train station, with lots of shops and restaurants, the train was completely packed, so my friend and I decided to get off the train two stops after our departure and wait for another train, this was a very big mistake.
The station we got off at is Stafford, and the entire time we’ve been here we haven’t felt quite right, the station feels very liminal, and reality feels fractured, trains keep arriving and not moving, nobody has spoken to, or even looked at us, despite the fact we’re both dressed in maid outfits with cat ears, Please don’t question the outfits we were at a pride event yesterday, and had nothing else to change into, my point is in every other place we’ve been, these outfits have aroused suspicion, but not in Stafford. In Stafford we don’t exist.
Let me just set the scene.
We’re sitting in a 4 platform train station, one of the platforms, which WAS in use when we arrived, is now completely abandoned, there isn’t a number on it, the departure screen is broken, and it’s covered in ivy, Two trains have arrived since we got here and haven’t left.
some people on the platforms haven’t moved, I don’t see anybody talking, and there aren’t too many people, yet there are sounds of a crowd, chatting and laughing and living, the trains parked in the station are buzzing, not unlike the sound of fluorescent lights.
The staff here seem unreasonably hostile, yelling at people to stay behind the lines and patrolling the platform in a very militant fashion. The station looks full, but it feels so, so empty.
We’ve been here around an hour, and by now there are more “people”, again, unmoving, unspeaking, and still with the bustle of a busy crowd, my friend and I are both just sitting doing not much, there is a child staring at us, I don’t think I need to tell you what her smile looks like for you to understand that we no longer feel very safe on our train platform.. the people aren’t people, the trains don’t leave, we’re trapped here with a monster.
Our train is delayed.. and I don’t have any signal.