This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/TwistedUrbanTales on 2026-08-15 20:59:04+00:00.

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I've been going to my parents' most weekends for twelve years now. Every time I take the same line, at the same station. On Saturdays, the last train is the 1:07. I usually go during the day, but sometimes work runs over and I take a later train.

One night on the first year I started making the trips, I ran down the stairs two at a time, went over on my ankle halfway, and got to the platform just in time to watch the doors shut in front of me. The clock above the platform said 1:08. Well, guess I'd see my parents next week.

I sat on the bench to take a breather, then ate the rest of the tuna baguette I'd saved from dinner. The station was completely empty now, and so silent you could hear the vending machine humming two platforms over.

Then I heard a train coming.

I looked up at the clock. It said 1:13. Didn't the last one leave at 1:07? At least, that's what the timetable said. I glanced at the train again as it came closer - it had the right destination on the front, so I decided not to overthink it and got on.

The carriage looked normal with the usual scratched floor and an advert for a solicitor's firm that does injury claims. Seats were arranged in pairs either side of the aisle. There were only four or five other passengers, all on their own and sitting spread out. I sat in an empty seat in the middle and we pulled away.

A few stops later, the door at the end of the carriage slid open and a teenager came through. Looked sixteen or seventeen and was wearing big over-ear headphones, black hoodie with the hood up. He came halfway along the aisle and sat down next to a man in one of the double seats - a man in his thirties, scrolling his phone.

Then the man looked up from his phone at the teenager in absolute horror.

I've only ever seen a face make that expression in horror movies. He made a noise like he'd been winded, and he got up so fast he cracked his shoulder off the pole and half went down into the aisle. When he got to the doors, he stood with both hands flat against the glass, waiting desperately for them to open. When they opened at the next stop he went out so hard he landed on his hands and knees on the platform.

He got some odd looks from the few other passengers in the carriage, but nobody said anything. The teenager hadn't seemed to have noticed. I just assumed he must've been on something and got off four stops later.

That was twelve years ago, and other than telling my parents about it at breakfast, I didn't think about it again.

Last Saturday I was down the road from the station at 1:10, which meant I'd already missed it again, for the first time in 12 years. I nearly turned round and went home. Right then, I remembered the other train. I went down, mostly to prove to myself I'd made it up, and sat on the same bench to wait. 1:11 on the clock. Then 1:13. Then the train. The doors slid open.

This time, there was an announcement as I stepped on. A woman's flat, recorded voice.

"For your safety, passengers are reminded to sit alone. Please do not sit beside another passenger."

I figured it was some leftover post-pandemic rule, but the wording was so absurdly blunt that I actually laughed. It was basically the train announcing what everyone who’s ever taken public transport has always wanted - please, for the love of God, don’t sit next to me.

I looked around. As instructed, everyone was sitting alone, and there were more than enough empty seats. I sat by myself and the train started moving.

Then the doors at the far end of the carriage opened, and a teenager stepped through. For a moment, I only thought he looked familiar. Then I looked closer.

It was him. The same dark hair, narrow face, black hoodie with the hood up, even the same headphones sitting over his ears.

And he was still a teenager.

Not in the way someone can look surprisingly young after twelve years - he looked exactly the same. I felt the hairs rise along my arms.

The teenager walked down the aisle without looking at anyone, moving with the same absent-minded rhythm I remembered from twelve years ago. He stopped in the middle of the carriage and sat down beside a man…

Who was scrolling through his phone.

Then, like something following a script, the man's expression changed. His eyes widened and the colour drained from his face as he stared at the teenager like he'd seen something that shouldn't exist. I watched him scramble to his feet and press himself against the doors in exactly the same way he did the last time I saw him, then he threw himself through them and stumbled onto the platform when they opened.

I couldn't believe what I'd just seen. This exact thing, twelve years later.

As the doors began to close, my curiosity snapped me into action. I jumped to my feet and ran for the doors, making it onto the platform just before they closed.

“Hey!”

The man didn't hear me as I ran after him. He was already running towards the stairs. He reached the bottom of the stairs, stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees, and struggled to catch his breath. Then he pulled out his phone with shaking hands and dialled.

“911, what's your emergency?”

The man's voice came out breathless.

“I need you to listen to me. I just discovered something.”

He glanced back towards the tracks.

“A kid sat next to me on the last carriage of the train. The one that comes after 1:13.”

He started pacing along the platform, moving farther away from me. I could no longer hear the voice on the other end of the call. He swallowed as he listened to the response.

“I don't know how to explain it. I don't know if I'm going crazy, but you need to warn people. I'm serious. Please. You have to tell people they can't sit next to another passenger in that carriage.”

The man stopped and listened again for several seconds.

“Okay. But please investigate it. If you find out it's true, put an announcement on the trains. Anything. Just warn people. Thank you.”

Then he hung up, and started walking towards the exit. I started walking towards him.

“Wait.”

He didn't stop - he just turned and walked around the corner. When I reached the corner and looked around it, there was nobody there. Just an empty corridor stretching towards the station exit, like he had vanished into thin air. I stood there, completely still.

And that's when I understood. The announcement hadn't been on the train twelve years ago. It was only there now, because he had discovered what happened when two people sat together in that carriage - somehow, they trap each other. Forever, it seems.

I sure won't be taking that train again after 1:07. But yesterday, I went back to the station, needing to prove to myself that I hadn't imagined any of it. At exactly 1:13, the train arrived. I watched from the platform through the windows as the doors opened. There were only a few passengers inside.

And there he was. The man scrolling through his phone.