aesmael

She waits alone at the end of the platform, her arms resting on the fence that marks its edge. No breeze stirs her hair. There are no stars, no clouds, no sky above her. Only blackness. The night air is not cold, and yet she shivers.

Her gaze is fixed back the way she came, a wasteland of jagged grey stones and rusted iron. All paths delineated by bars. There is light to one side, harsh and orange and masked by trees. It does not illuminate.

A wind rises now, blowing in from the wasteland. The shadows of trees dance in front of her like the ebb and flow of sunlight over the sea floor. She trembles, her expression momentarily ecstatic.

Two lights approach from the distance and she finds she cannot look away. A train, dulled steel making its next stop. She knows how easy it would be to step off the edge. In a moment, in one trivial action she could place herself in its path. She has no desire to do so and yet, because it is in her power, she is tempted.

Her hands grip the fence tightly, in case, and she sobs. Just once.

Doors open, time to go.