Category: Stories

The flat was perfect—at least, that’s what Cassie had thought when she first moved in. Affordable rent, a decent view of the park, and most importantly, no damp. A rare find in London.

But in the hallway, opposite the bathroom, was a door that shouldn’t be there. Cassie was certain it hadn’t been there when she first viewed the place. The estate agent had walked her through every inch of the floor space, pointing out the period features, the “charming” creaky floorboards, and the dodgy boiler that he’d assured her was “practically brand new.” But this door… this door was new.

She stood in front of it, pressing a hand against the wood. The paint was a shade darker than the rest of the flat’s off-white doors, and lumpy in patches, like it had been applied in a hurry. She rattled the handle. It didn’t budge. No keyhole, no markings—just a plain, inexplicable door where there shouldn’t be one.

Cassie frowned. “Weird,” she muttered to herself.

Over the next few days, she tried to ignore it. She told herself it must’ve been there all along, that she’d simply overlooked it in her excitement about the move.

Then, the knocking started.

It came late at night, soft and rhythmic.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Cassie sat bolt upright in bed the first time she heard it. She held her breath, listening. Maybe it was the neighbours. These old flats had thin walls, and sound carried.

But no. It was coming from inside. From that door.

She didn’t sleep much that night.

The next morning, she approached it cautiously, pressing her ear against the wood. Silence. Maybe she’d imagined it. Stress and moving fatigue could do that, right?

By the next night, she knew she hadn’t imagined anything.

Tap. Tap. Tap. At 3:13 a.m.

Cassie started leaving the hallway light on, watching the door from the safety of her bedroom. Nothing changed—just the knocking. Relentlessly precise. Three precise knocks. Always starting at 3:13. Never a second earlier, never a second later.

She called the landlord in the morning. “There’s a door in my hallway,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “It wasn’t there before.”

A pause. Then, “What door?”

Cassie’s grip tightened on the phone. “The one opposite the bathroom. It’s locked, and… I think someone might be—” She hesitated, feeling ridiculous. “Knocking.”

The landlord sighed, like he’d heard it all before. “That flat’s been empty a while. Maybe you’re hearing things. Old buildings creak.”

“But it’s not creaking,” she insisted. “It’s knocking.”

A longer pause. “I’ll send someone round,” the landlord said, but Cassie suspected the comment was just to get her off the phone.

That night, she stayed up again, staring at the door. The clock ticked over to 3:13.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Cassie couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed a hammer from a toolbox she hadn’t finished unpacking yet, and marched over to the door. “Who’s there?” she demanded, raising it in her hand.

No answer.

She swung. The hammer struck the wood… but instead of splintering, it felt… wrong. Like hitting something soft beneath the surface. Something that moved.

She backed away slowly, dropping the hammer. “No!” Cassie grabbed her coat and keys and hurried out of the flat, leaving the door behind.

When she returned the next morning, dreading what she might find, the door was gone. The wall was smooth, freshly painted. No sign it had ever existed.

She stood there for a while, staring at the empty space.

Later, when she called the landlord again, he insisted there had never been a door.

And at 3:13 a.m. that night, from somewhere within the hall wall, Cassie heard it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Jim woke up groggy, and there it was—tattooed in stark black ink across the inside of his wrist: “Expires 26/11/2025”. Today’s date.

He stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over yesterday’s discarded jeans, and rushed to the mirror. He turned his wrist under the bright bathroom light, hoping maybe it was a pen’s ink, or a trick of the eye, but the skin was smooth and unblemished except for those markings—stark, unwavering.

He scrubbed it furiously with soap and water. Nothing.

“Okay,” he said to himself, pacing the small bathroom. “Okay, think.”

People don’t just get expiration dates. That’s not how the world works. This was probably some weird stress-induced hallucination. Work had been rough lately, and he’d barely been sleeping. Maybe it was his brain’s way of telling him to take a break.

But what if it wasn’t?

Jim glanced at the clock—8:12 a.m. He had to do something. He wasn’t going to just sit around and wait to… expire.

He grabbed his phone and dialled his sister.

“Hey,” Lilly answered, her voice still thick with sleep. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a problem,” Jim said, his voice shaking more than he wanted it to. “I woke up this morning and there’s… there’s a date on my wrist.”

A pause. “Like… a tattoo?”

“No. I mean, yes. But not one I put there. It just… appeared.”

Lilly sighed. “Jim, is this another weird dream thing? Because last time you called me about a talking cat.”

“This isn’t like that, Lil,” he snapped. “It’s today’s date. What if it means I’m going to—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “You know.”

Lilly groaned. “You’re not going to die, Jim.”

“How do you know?”

A longer pause this time. “I don’t,” she admitted. “But you’re not exactly the healthiest person in the world. Maybe the clinic is warning you to lay off the late-night kebabs.”

Jim glanced at his wrist again. It hadn’t faded. If anything, the ink seemed darker now, bolder.

“I think I need to see someone,” he said.

“Like a doctor? Or a priest?” Lilly asked dryly.

“I don’t know. Both?”

She sighed again. “Look, just… take it easy today. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jim muttered, hanging up.

He spent the rest of the morning on edge, jumping at every unexpected noise—the creak of the floorboards, the sudden ring of his phone. He stayed indoors, afraid to step outside, afraid that the universe might be waiting for him out there with a well-placed bus or a rogue piano falling from a window.

Hours crawled by, and nothing happened. He watched the clock intensely. 1:00 p.m., 3:30 p.m.

By 6:45 p.m., Jim was sitting on his sofa, breathing deeply. Maybe this had been a coincidence. Some weird, unexplained phenomenon that didn’t actually mean anything.

And then the doorbell rang.

Jim stared at the door. He glanced at his wrist—no change.

The bell rang again. He forced himself to stand up and walk to the door.

When he opened it, a man in a dark suit stood there, holding a clipboard. He was tall, thin, with eyes too sharp and a smile too polite.

“Mr Jim Evans?” the man asked.

“Yeah?”

The man nodded and flipped through the pages on his clipboard. “Just confirming. You are aware today is your expiration date?”

“You mean… it’s real?”

“Oh yes.” The man looked up with an expressionless face. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing painful. Just… a bureaucratic formality, really.”

Jim edged away. “I don’t—I don’t want to expire.”

“Ah, well.” The man stepped inside uninvited, shutting the door behind him. “We don’t always get a say in these things, Mr Evans.”

Jim glanced around, looking for an escape.

The visitor reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, sleek push-button device. With a soft click, the world faded to black.

When Jim woke up, he was lying in bed. His heart was pounding as usual, sweat was dampening his sheets, but something felt… different. He scrambled to check his wrist. The date was gone.

He sat up, gasping. A dream? A hallucination?

His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:

Your expiration date has been renewed. Don’t waste it.

Once, kings and queens trembled at the mere thought of my name. Gold piled high beneath my claws, and knights perished trying to steal a single coin. Bards sang of my fury, my fire, my wings casting shadows over trembling villages. But now?

Now, I sit outside a tavern with a crudely painted sign: “DRAGON FOR HIRE”.

It’s pathetic, I know. But what else can an old firedrake do? The kingdoms have moved on. No one wants their villages burned anymore. They have knights with shining swords who negotiate treaties instead of lopping off heads. And don’t get me started on the wizards—smug little bastards with their flashy spells and their clever ways of making my fire seem… obsolete.

I sigh, curling my tail around me, the tip flicking absently against a barrel. A few townsfolk pass by, giving me wary glances but nothing more. Not fear, not awe. Just mild irritation, as if I’m a nuisance—a dragon-shaped inconvenience blocking the street.

I glance down at the sign, wondering if I should adjust the wording. “Mild Arson for Hire” has a nice ring to it. Maybe “Pest Control: Will Roast Rats”. No. Too desperate.

Just as I’m about to pack up and sulk back to my cave, a small voice pipes up.

“I need a dragon.”

I peer down, and there stands a girl no older than eleven, dressed in patched clothes and carrying a basket full of what smells suspiciously like turnips. She squints up at me, entirely unimpressed.

I snort. “And what, exactly, do you need a dragon for?”

She tilts her head, considering. “Protection.”

I straighten a little, intrigued. “Protection from what? Bandits? Marauding knights? An evil sorcerer?”

She shakes her head. “Billy Tanner.”

“Billy… Tanner?”

She sighs, shifting the basket to her other arm. “He keeps stealing my turnips.”

I stare at her, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come.

“You want to hire a dragon,” I say slowly, “to scare off a turnip thief?”

She nods. “I can pay.”

My tail flicks. “How much?”

She rummages in her pocket and pulls out a single copper coin. It’s dull and worn, and not worth much, but she holds it out with the same gravity as if it were a king’s ransom.

I look at the coin. I look at her. And then, because I have truly reached rock bottom, I sigh and say, “Fine.”

Her face lights up. “Really?”

I shrug, stretching my wings with a theatrical flare that sends nearby chickens scattering. “Work is work.”

She grins and leads me through the village, where people step hurriedly out of my way, some muttering complaints about property damage and the fire hazard I apparently represent.

We reach the field where Billy Tanner, a wiry boy with more dirt than manners, is rooting through the girl’s vegetable patch. He looks up, sees me towering over him, and freezes.

I rumble low in my throat, letting a thin plume of smoke curl from my nostrils. “Is there a problem here, Billy?”

Billy Tanner pales. “N-no, sir!” He drops the turnip like it’s cursed and sprints off, vanishing over the hill.

The girl beams at me. “That was amazing!”

I huff, feeling slightly ridiculous. “Yes, well. Next time, consider installing a fence.”

She hands me the coin, placing it carefully in my claw. “Thanks, Mr Dragon.”

I watch her go, feeling an odd warmth in my chest that has nothing to do with fire.

Maybe the world has changed, but perhaps there’s still a place for an old dragon after all.

I glance at my sign and, with a decisive claw, replace the old wording.

“DRAGON FOR HIRE – Reasonable Rates. Turnip Protection Available.”

Business might just be looking up.

The bell above the door chimed softly as Samuel stepped inside, the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee welcoming him.

He shuffled to his usual spot by the window, the one with the best view of the bustling street outside. And, as always, he ordered two cups of coffee—one black, one with just a dash of milk.

The waitress, a young woman with kind eyes and an understanding smile, never asked why. She simply placed both cups on the table, offered her usual, “Here you go, Sam,” and walked away.

Samuel sat there, hands wrapped around his cup, as the world passed by. He could still see her there, across from him—the way she used to rest her chin on one hand, stirring her coffee absentmindedly with the other.

He smiled faintly, remembering how she’d always teased him about ordering the same thing every day. And he’d laugh, because it was true. He liked routine. He liked knowing she’d always be there, sitting across from him.

But now, the seat in front of him remained empty. It had been two years since she was gone, but Samuel still ordered her coffee. He couldn’t bear the thought of the table with only one cup sitting there.

He reached for the cup meant for her, fingers trembling slightly as he traced the rim. He never drank it, just let it sit there, letting the steam rise and vanish into the air. It was enough to imagine, just for a little while, that she was still with him.

Outside, life carried on. People hurried past the café window, chasing buses, checking their watches, lost in the urgency of their lives. But inside, time moved differently. Slowly. Softly.

Samuel sighed and glanced down at the coffee across from him, still untouched, still waiting.

Maybe one day he’d stop ordering it. Maybe one day he’d sit at a different table, or come at a different time, or maybe even stay home altogether.

But not today. Today, he let the coffee sit, let the memory linger, and let himself believe—just for a moment—that love never truly dies.

He was staring out of the train window, his expression distant, as though his thoughts were somewhere far beyond the station’s railway tracks. He looked older, but not by much. The familiar furrow between his brows remained—the same small crease that appeared when he was thinking too hard, the one she used to smooth away with her fingertips.

Sarah’s fingers twitched against her paper coffee cup, her mind racing through the possibilities. Should she get up? Wave? Call his name?

But she didn’t move. Instead, she watched him the way she used to, quietly, observing him in the way only someone who once loved him could. Her eyes traced the familiar lines of his face, the shape of his jaw, the way his lips parted slightly as though he were about to speak.

And then, as if he could feel her gaze, David turned his head towards her. He blinked, his expression shifting—recognition, surprise, something deeper.

Her train lurched forward. She saw his lips part wider, the distance swallowing the words he might have been about to say. She held his gaze for as long as she could, watching as he disappeared out of sight.

Sarah dropped her head against the glass. In another life, she might have jumped off the train. In another life, she might have smiled and said hello.

But not this life.

She let him become a memory again, left behind on a station in a city she would soon pass through and forget.

In the city of Glaustrum, everything was colour-coded. From the moment you were born, you were assigned a colour—blue for the labourers, red for the managers, gold for the leisured. The colour dictated your home, your income, your friends, and even the food you were allowed to eat. No one questioned it; they simply accepted their place within the spectrum.

Marla had never questioned her role as an auxiliary colour, Green. Greens were the healers, the caretakers. It was an honourable colour, her mother had told her, and Marla had believed it—until the day she saw the impossible.

It happened in the marketplace, amidst the stalls of tightly controlled colours—scarlet apples for the Reds, indigo fish for the Blues, glittering pastries reserved for the Golds. She was weaving through the crowd when she saw it.

A man. Dressed in white.

White was for the Unseen, the ones who had been cast out, stripped of their place in society. Yet here he was, standing in plain view, looking directly at her with eyes too sharp, too knowing.

She looked away briefly, slightly embarrassed by his gaze, but when her eyes quickly gravitated backs, he was gone.

For days, she tried to push the image from her mind. It must have been a trick of the light. But then, the colours around her started to shift. She noticed it in the mornings, the way the sky wasn’t quite blue anymore but tinged with something deeper, richer. The streets seemed less sterile, the shop signs seemed brighter, almost alive.

And then she began seeing other colours.

Colours that didn’t belong. A child’s toy, shimmering in hues she couldn’t name. A flicker of lavender in a Red district. A flash of silver on a Blue’s collar. The world was changing—or maybe it had always been like this, and she had only now begun to see.

Her mother noticed the change in her. “Marla, you’re distracted,” she chided. “Stay focused on your duties. The Council monitors everything.”

The Council. The faceless enforcers of the Colour Code. What would they do to her if they knew she was seeing beyond the approved spectrum? She already knew the answer. She would be disappeared, like her father had been when she was born.

The man dressed in white returned a week later, in the crowded bustle of a train station. This time, he didn’t disappear. He walked straight towards her, his voice low but insistent.

“You’re seeing it now, aren’t you?”

Marla flinched. “Seeing what?”

“The truth,” he said.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a prism. He held it up to the station lights, and suddenly, the entire platform fractured into a riot of colours Marla had never known existed.

The reds were no longer red—they were scarlet, crimson, blood. The blues became sapphire, cerulean, indigo. There were colours she had no words for, and beneath them all, the shimmering pulse of something raw and uncontained.

He pressed the prism into her hand. “You can either look away, or you can start seeing everything.”

She hesitated. It was safer to live within the Colour Code, to let its rules dictate her place. But the thought of those shimmering shades, those unnamed possibilities—she couldn’t let them go.

Marla closed her fingers around the prism and, for the first time in her life, made a choice outside of the code. She realised she would never see the world in the same way again.

When Ester woke up, her skin was aglow with scars. At first, she thought it must be the sunlight breaking through the blinds, casting strange patterns on her arms and neck. But when she stepped closer to the mirror, there they were—faint, shimmering lines, crisscrossing her skin. Some were so faint they barely flickered, but others glowed brighter, red threads pulsing as though alive.

Ester had prided herself on her honesty. While others wore their glowing marks openly—reminders of small deceptions, unspoken truths, or bold-faced lies—her skin had always been clear. She had never been like them. Not a liar.

And yet, here the lines were. Her hands reached for the bathroom sink, gripping its edges for balance. She tried to think of a recent lie, something she’d said that might explain this. A harmless white lie, perhaps? But nothing came to mind.

She leaned closer to the mirror, inspecting her face. A single line stretched from the corner of her jaw to her temple, faint yet unmistakable. It burned softly, like an ember. She traced it with her fingertips and felt the heat.

Her mind flitted through the past days, weeks—years. She tried to pinpoint a moment, an untruth, anything to explain why her once-pristine skin now bore these marks.

She stood back, staring at her reflection, the pale lines burning in the morning light. Slowly, pieces of her life came into focus, like fragments of an old, half-forgotten photograph.

There was the job offer for that dream marine biologist role on the other side of the world she’d never dared to accept. “It’s too risky. Better stick with something safe.” The faintest mark on her collarbone flickered now, a dull reminder of that choice.

There was the friend she had loved in silence, convincing herself it was better not to speak. “It would ruin everything,” she had told herself. But the truth was simpler: she had been afraid. The glowing scar on her wrist faintly pulsed in response to the memory.

There were many moments like these. The job she took out of convenience, despite hating every minute of it. The opportunities she let slip by because she had convinced herself she wasn’t ready. Each mark told its story.

Back in her bedroom, she sank down on the edge of the bed, staring at her arms. The brightest mark ran the length of her forearm. She knew exactly what it meant. It wasn’t just one moment—it was the culmination of all the chances not taken.

The truth burned through her now, the glow of her marks impossible to ignore. They were a map of every compromise, every excuse, every self-deception. She had spent her life pretending she had made the right choices. But the marks didn’t lie.

Ester sat there for a long time, staring at the burns etched into her skin. She didn’t know what came next, whether the marks would ever fade or if she would be forced to carry them forever.

But for the first time in years, she couldn’t look away from herself. She couldn’t pretend anymore.

The forest pulsed with colours she didn’t know existed. Clara leaned against a tree, her fingers sinking into its bark as if it were breathing, alive in a way she could feel. Every leaf shimmered, a cascade of fractals spilling down into eternity. Her body felt both infinite and dissolving. She could hear her heartbeat, not in her chest but in the ground beneath her. It synced with the rhythm of something ancient, a hum that vibrated through the soil and into her bones. Her breath became mist, but it didn’t dissipate; it danced, swirling in intricate patterns before her eyes. A version of herself stared back from the haze, her eyes wide with the same wonder she felt in that moment.

“Who are you?” Clara asked.

“Whoever you need me to be.” The voice was her own, echoing as the mist broke apart, spinning away in ribbons that wrapped around the trees before fading into the vibrant, breathing night.

She stepped forward, her legs unsteady, each movement leaving trails of light in the air. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she felt no fear. The forest wanted her here, every root and branch leaning closer as if welcoming her home. A stream bubbled nearby, the water glowing, swirling with colours like melted jewels. She knelt by it and cupped her hands, letting the liquid drip through her fingers. As it touched her skin, it sang—a symphony so beautiful that tears rolled down her cheeks.

She walked as if it were all one moment, feeling herself blend with all the colours around her. The forest was her, and she was the forest. She could no longer tell where her heartbeat ended and the hum began.

When the first light of dawn painted the sky in pale orange and pink, Clara emerged from the woods. She looked back, expecting to see the vibrant kaleidoscopic beauty of the night, but it was just trees now, still and ordinary. She stared at her hands; they were her hands again, not glowing or dissolving.

Yet in her chest, the hum remained.

The café was small and unassuming, tucked away in a side street neither of them had reason to visit. Yet over the past six months it had become a refuge, a meeting place without an appointment, for two strangers who were anything but.

She always arrived first, choosing the same table by the window, her coat draped neatly over the back of the chair. She brought a book, though she never read more than a page or two before he walked in. He’d spot her at once, smile briefly, and order his coffee. He never asked to join her table, but he always chose the one beside it, angled just so that they could speak with ease if they wished.

They never used their real names. She was “Eleanor” here, and he was “Daniel,” though they’d only exchanged those names after several cautious conversations about neutral subjects—books, the weather, the quality of the café’s croissants.

Eleanor knew who Daniel really was. The set of his shoulders, the faint scar on his cheek, and the way he rubbed the bridge of his nose when thinking—all of it was etched into her memory from a time long before this. And Daniel knew her, too, though he pretended not to. He’d recognised her laugh the very first time he’d heard it there, a laugh he hadn’t heard in years but couldn’t possibly forget.

They spoke often, weaving stories about their imaginary lives. Eleanor claimed to work in publishing; Daniel was a freelance journalist. She invented colleagues and deadlines; he concocted anecdotes about assignments abroad. It became their shared fiction, each seeing how far they could stretch the façade. Neither of them acknowledged the truth, that they had once shared more memories than either cared to admit.

Perhaps they were afraid of what would follow the revelation. In this café, in these brief, stolen conversations, they could be different versions of themselves—polite, curious, untouched by the pain that had once consumed them. They both knew neither of them spoke the truth.

One rainy afternoon, Eleanor looked at Daniel a little too long. He noticed but said nothing. Instead, he sipped his coffee and asked her a question about the book she wasn’t reading.

Ellie checked her phone for the tenth time on the empty platform. 23:57. The last train was supposed to arrive three minutes ago, but the digital board now flashed in bold red: CANCELLED.

She let out a frustrated sigh and sank onto a bench. Rain dripped from the edges of the station’s canopy, slipping through the dim glow of fluorescent yellow light.

“Missed it too?”

The voice startled her. She glanced up to see a man, mid-thirties perhaps, standing a few feet away. He had an umbrella tucked under one arm, water dripping from the ends of his dark hair. His suit jacket looked expensive but thoroughly soaked.

“Looks like it,” Ellie replied, trying to sound polite but distant. He didn’t seem to notice her tone.

“Brilliant, isn’t it? Last train, and it’s just… gone. Like it never existed.”

Ellie gave him a thin smile, hoping it would dissuade further conversation. But instead, he dropped onto the other end of the bench.

“Name’s Blake,” he offered.

“Hi,” she responded, reluctantly.

She knew she should get up and call a taxi. But, for a moment, they sat in silence, listening to the rhythmic patter of rain. Blake leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“So, what’s your excuse for being here this late? Let me guess—workaholic? Or maybe you’re running from a torrid love affair?” His smile was disarming, playful without being intrusive.

“Nothing so dramatic. Just bad luck, mostly.”

“Bad luck? That’s vague.”

She shrugged. “Missed the earlier train because I was stuck helping a customer. Retail life, you know?”

Blake nodded knowingly, though his tailored suit suggested he probably didn’t. “I see. The worthy life of serving the public.”

“What about you?” Ellie asked, turning the question back on him. “What’s your excuse?”

Blake’s grin faltered slightly, and for a moment, he looked as though he were searching for an answer. “Work meeting ran late,” he said finally. “Caught in traffic, then—well, here I am. Story of my life, really.”

“You sound oddly resigned to it.”

He chuckled. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just tired of fighting against fate.”

They fell quiet again, the awkwardness replaced by a curious sense of ease. Ellie glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. There was something strange about Blake, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. His presence felt… familiar, as if she’d met him before in some dream she couldn’t recall.

“You know,” Blake said suddenly, “there’s something almost poetic about this. Two strangers, stranded together in the middle of the night. Feels like the start of one of those rom-coms, doesn’t it?”

Ellie laughed. “If this were a rom-com, the train would magically appear, and we’d both realise it was fate.”

“Exactly,” Blake agreed. “Then there’d be some dramatic twist—like, you’d be moving to Paris tomorrow, and this would be our last chance to confess our undying love.”

“Undying love?” Ellie teased. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“Not if it’s fate,” he said with mock seriousness. “Fate loves a bit of drama.”

Ellie’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen: a notification from her calendar. Mum’s anniversary.

“You okay?” Blake asked, his voice softer now.

She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Just… tomorrow’s a hard day.”

Blake studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Want to talk about it?”

Ellie shook her head. “Not really.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But, for what it’s worth, sometimes the hardest days turn out to be the most important.”

She frowned at him, puzzled by the weight of his words. Before she could respond, the faint rumble of an engine echoed in the distance. A train’s headlights pierced through the rain as it pulled into the station.

Blake stood in response. “Looks like our miracle train’s here.”

Ellie rose too, suddenly reluctant to let the moment end. “Where are you headed?”

Blake smiled faintly. “This is where we part ways, I’m afraid.”

The train doors slid open, but Blake stayed where he was. Ellie paused in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder.

“Hey, Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For the company, I mean.”

He nodded. “Take care, Ellie.”

She stepped inside, the doors closing behind her. As the train pulled away, she turned to look out the window. But the platform was empty. Blake was gone.

It wasn’t until later, as Ellie lay in bed replaying the night in her mind, that she realised something strange: she’d never told him her name.