Everybody hates the rushing stampedes of people hopping between trains, but the opposite is even worse, when nobody is there. At the dead of night, there's little company. Don't worry, the flickering lights, the long stretches of pure black, and the metal beast that the rides through them will all keep you from feeling too lonely. Who knows? A fellow rider might join you while making sure to emphasize the "strange" in "stranger."

I used to hate it, at least a lot more than I do now, but you get exposed to the peculiar for so long and it becomes the familiar.

So here I am, waiting for those bright lights that pierce the void to take me back home. I can’t use my phone to pass the time, or else it might die on me. You only have so many hours to goof around when you don’t bring a charger, and I wasted them sitting behind a food stand.

Small bangs ring throughout the nearly hollow station as my feet hit the tiled floor. I’ve relied on this station fo years. As the years went by, the tiles followed. Suddenly, I can feel my body begin to tip. As my foot slides across a loose tile, it puts up no resistance. My feet travel one direction and my torso the other as I slam against the floor.

I turn back to asses the situation when something much stranger snatches my attention. A deep shining yellow, more vibrant than any light of the station, emanates from where the tile once laid. It would seem like simple sand, if not for that illumination. As I stare, it begins to defy gravity, raising up towards the roof before dissipating.

Adrenaline courses through my body. It’s as if it had forgotten that it was midnight, that it forgot any desire to return home. It had forgotten anything besides what I had just witnessed.

The train could arrive any moment, a time far too soon for me. I rush towards the adjacent tiles, ripping them off. Soon, the small speck of dust connects with its brothers. They appear to be forming something. A set of letters, perhaps?

They don’t resemble any alphabet or writing I’ve ever seen, but the alignment of several characters is unmistakable.

I rip off the final tile. The vibrant glow becomes a violent glow, exploding in a nearly blinding flash.

I can read the words. I don’t know the language, yet I still know the meaning as if somebody had told it right to me.

No matter how many times it is defeated, it will return stronger than before.

I can my heart twist, as if the speaker’s had reached into my chest and gripped it.

Still, there will always be a new generation to rise up and meet it, wiser than the last

I can’t tell what’s real anymore. If not for the pain surging through my veins, I would have assumed this was all a dream.

“Somebody in need of a ride?” The soft voice of a man thrusts me out of the paralyzing shock.

I twist my head. Where normally the train would wait, there was a chariot dressed in strange markings, driven by a cloaked figure much stranger. My head flings towards one direction, then the other, and back towards. It’s clear that he can be addressing nobody else. “No… not really”

“Well, that’s a shame, but we’re in need of a passenger for this wild ride.”

“Why?” The young apprentice fell to his knees. Though his body raised in miniature stutters, the weight of defeat would always bring him back down. “You could have been the best. Why give it up?”

The master knelt down to his level.

“I am equally curious. What is it that you seek? Is it really to see yourself rise, or is it to see others fall?”

The student punched the ground with a desperate force, and the ground retaliated with its own. He winced in pain. “What’s the difference? The result is the same in the end.”

“Can you not see? Even the poorest of paradise live better than the kings of ruin. Fire burns no less when surrounded by a flame much bigger. Fear it, and it will burn you. Embrace it, and one day you will shine just as bright”