WTTQ MIDNIGHT DISPATCH: “Is the Train at the Retreat Arriving or Leaving?”

Filed under starlight by Raine Solara, who watched from the gallery steps, clutching a half-burned postcard and a truth too heavy to mail.

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12:00 A.M. THE WHISTLE BLOWS

Some say they heard it before they saw it. A low, mournful whistle. Not urgent. Not warning.

Just waiting.

At the edge of the Retreat near the cemetery, where the lizards scatter and the chapel door creaks open without wind, the train appears.

Pandora claimed she saw it arriving, carrying “passengers who never left the party they died at.”
Eddie the barefoot DJ whispered, “No... that train doesn’t arrive. It remembers.”
Chloe insists it’s both: “It arrives for you, but it’s leaving from somewhere else inside you.”

Is it arriving?
Yes, if you’re still waiting for closure.
Yes, if someone you lost just danced by in the basement shadows.
Yes, if the jukebox skips on your name now.

You’ll feel it when it’s for you.
The smell of old letters.
The sound of keys you never used.
The taste of words you couldn’t say when it mattered.

You don’t board this train.
It boards you.

IS IT LEAVING?
Also, yes, if you're done haunting the same story.
If you buried someone at the Retreat, but never stopped talking to them in your sleep.
If you’ve danced all the dances and none of them felt like yours anymore.

RAINE WRITES IN HER JOURNAL:
“Maybe the train is neither arriving nor leaving. Maybe it’s a loop. A clock that runs on longing, circling the Retreat forever for those who stayed too long, and for those who left too soon.”

Is it calling someone back? Want to be part of the story? Then contact me.