There is a train that takes you to your soulmate. I know it sounds like something straight out of a dreamcore cliché, but believe me, it exists.
It doesn’t appear at ungodly hours on abandoned platforms as most people might think, however. Instead, it silently hides itself in plain sight, blending in with its surroundings so perfectly that most people won’t even realise something is amiss when they step inside its carriages. It’ll sometimes even act like a normal commuter train on a nondescript route, picking up and dropping off unsuspecting passengers like any other train. I recommend catching the train during these times—if only because you are allowed the time to reconsider and alight before the train reaches the last stop, should you choose to give up. At the end of the line, the conductor will make a round through the train, checking everyone’s tickets and making sure that there are no uninvited travellers hitching a ride. If you have a valid ticket, you will be allowed to stay on board after the last station, thenceforth past the point of no return.
On the subject of the train tickets, I can’t really tell you where or who you can buy them from, because it is unique for each and every passenger. However, when you have decided that you want a ticket and are prepared to pay whatever price for it, the necessary information for you to get one will immediately be revealed to you. The ticket itself is made of a rich cream-coloured paper, with ornate gold lettering that glimmers in even the faintest light and delicate silver filigree woven along its edges. One side of the ticket displays your name and the departure details, including the date and time of the train’s arrival. On the other side will be your destination, written in a flowing, calligraphic script that only the conductor can understand. Do plan to arrive at least an hour early (the conductor absolutely will not entertain latecomers), and be sure to have your ticket with you at all times on the train.
By the way, all tickets for the train are one-way tickets. Although it is possible that the train returns to your place of origin, I’d strongly advise against putting your hopes in that. Time works very strangely on the train, and what may seem like a blink of an eye can mean a completely different passage of time back on Earth. With that being said, if everything goes well, you won’t even feel homesick—almost everyone who chooses to remain on the train arrives at their desired destinations and live happier lives than those they had left behind, or so I’ve heard.
I’d always been curious about the train since the day I discovered its existence on an obscure Japanese blog that’s no longer active (in their last post, the creator said they had bought a ticket and would be going to Nihonbashi-eki to wait for the train). And as if by fate, my opportunity came sooner than I’d expected—my parents passed away within a few months of each other due to old age, leaving behind an inheritance that I figured was enough to pay for a ticket. One quiet and solemn night, I wrote down a list of things that I wanted to do in my current life—a checklist of sorts for any regrets I might have.
It was then that I realised I’d lived a comfortable life thanks to my parents; whatever things that I wanted to do, I’d more or less experienced them at least once before. And I was never an ambitious person since young, so I didn’t really have any noteworthy dreams or plans for my future. There was just one thing that I “regretted”—being single at the age of twenty-five. It wasn’t as though I never tried dating, but I recognise that my lack of ambition and direction in life isn’t particularly attractive, and there are way better options out there compared to me.
Therefore, with the conclusion that I am totally fine with leaving my completely unremarkable life behind, I decided to buy the ticket. It was surprisingly easy—an unknown number texted me an address down my street as soon as I made up my mind, and when I got there, there was an envelope stuck on the street light which contained my ticket. Weirdly enough, the text didn’t mention anything about a payment. I pocketed the slip of paper and stuck the envelope back on the street light, with a hundred bucks tucked inside.
That wasn’t the only strange thing about my ticket. On one side was my name, printed in shimmering gold ink, together with the departure details as expected.
But when I flipped it over, I was greeted with…nothing. An empty space, framed only by a thin border of black.
“Could it be a mistake?” I mused, bewildered by the blank destination. “No, that’s just absurd…anyway, it’s not like I can exchange this for another ticket…”
Left without a choice, I kept my ticket and went to the station at the arranged date and time with just the bare essentials packed: my phone, wallet and some sweets. It was late into the night, and there were only two or three overnight trains left on the departure board—all of which wouldn’t depart until another hour or so. Only one of the four windows in the ticket office was nominally open, occupied by an extremely bored-looking booking clerk who didn’t spare me a glance as I made my way onto the platform.
Though I was expecting it, I was still a little taken aback when the train pulled into the platform just as the clock struck nine. From its appearance alone, it looked just like any other intercity train caked in London’s grime and the countryside dirt. The orange “Door Unlocked” lights came on, and I hesitantly opened the door and stepped into the vestibule. There was a tall and lean man occupying the space too, his crisp, black uniform and gold-trimmed cap immediately catching my eye.
“Ticketsssss, pleasssse,” he asked in an almost-mechanical accent, drawing out his words in a way that seemed to twist and permeate the air.
I gulped and passed the conductor my ticket. His piercing eyes showed no emotion as he glanced at the blank destination; without a word, he took out an ordinary biro and squiggled ‘D-42’ next to my name before handing back the ticket.
“Is this my seat number?” I hastily asked, but the conductor simply ignored me as he made his way down the right aisle and disappeared behind the next vestibule. “That’s all he’s gonna do…?”
Since I was left to my own devices, I looked up at the sign indicating the carriage number: Coach F. Coach D would be to my left, so I pocketed my ticket and made my way to the adjacent Coach E. It was entirely vacant, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was being watched as I stumbled along the narrow aisle.
Coach D was occupied by two other passengers, both sitting one row away from my designated seat in a diagonal fashion. The sigh of relief that I breathed out upon knowing that I wasn’t alone on this journey was quickly sucked back in when I took a closer look at their vaguely humanoid shapes. One of them looked like a mermaid, and I suppose I’m using “mermaid” in the loosest sense of the term, because the guy looked more like a fucked-up scientific experiment to graft a grotesque slimy fish tail onto a man’s upper body gone wrong. The pair of uncanny half-human, half-fish eyes on his arrow-shaped head flickered to my face before returning his gaze to the ceiling. The other passenger looked slightly more human, though I couldn’t see their face thanks to the creepy plague doctor-like mask that they wore.
It took me less than a second to nope out of the carriage and run into Coach C. This carriage was more crowded; I didn’t take a good look at the passengers, but hearing the animalistic growls and slurps and other unnatural sounds that they were making was enough to make me try the next carriage immediately.
“…who are you?”
It was the first proper voice I had heard since entering this bizarre train, so I paused and tentatively looked in the direction where I thought the voice came from.
A girl with soft, curly golden hair stared back at me. I would have heaved a long-awaited breath of relief and sank down in the empty seat across from her with a grateful smile—but the smell of something metallic made me freeze in my spot instead.
“Are you…no, I don’t sense that you are one of them…not yet. I presuppose you can stay here for the time being.” The girl narrowed her ruby-red eyes as she uttered those words, then pushed her bloodied scalpel and tray on the table aside in an apparent attempt to make space.
With a tentative nod of my head, I slowly lowered myself into the seat across from her. “Uh, about that thing you were cutting up just now…”
She gave me a bemused look before glancing down at the bloody pulsing object lying on the tray. “It’s a heart.”
“Yeah, it sure does look interesting…” I directed a nervous, questioning look at her, and she seemingly understood.
“People call me the Heartwright,” the girl said in a tone that suggested that she had introduced herself the same way countless times. “I buy, sell and mend all kinds of human hearts. Just name your price, stranger.”
I hesitated and lowered my voice, “excuse me, Miss Heartwright, but this is the train to find one’s soulmate, correct?”
“Absolutely,” she replied without a hitch.
“I-I see.” I paused to look at the connecting door which I had come from. “Then, why are the passengers on this train…”
“They didn’t find what they were looking for, and because they don’t have a destination on their ticket, they can’t leave the train,” she said, an enigmatic smile flashing across her rosy face. “Rather than to live with eternal pain, they chose to give up their broken hearts to me.”
My eyes widened. And at the same time, the train lurched forward and began to pick up speed.
“It’s been a while since we have a new human passenger…so I think I’d like to get to know you before you end up like them, stranger,” she murmured, gazing out at the pitch-black darkness beyond the window.
I started. “Huh-I-erm…”
“Oh, take your time to introduce yourself.” She met my eye with a smirk. “We have all time on board this train.”