There is a silence to trains at night—not the absence of sound, but a hum beneath everything. It lives in the spaces between the track clatter, in the whispers of compartments, in the stillness of strangers pretending to sleep while their secrets stir in the dark.
The Silver Meridian was no ordinary train. It was a relic from a more elegant time, restored with polished mahogany, velvet curtains, and soft lamps that mimicked the golden glow of forgotten eras. It wound its way across the country like a memory—beautiful, secluded, and dangerous.
Dr. Lillian Hart boarded the train to leave her world behind. For seventy-two hours, she would surrender her phone, her patients, and her past. She sought silence—not the silence of sleep or meditation, but the kind that comes when no one expects anything of you. She wanted to forget. To breathe. To disappear into the rhythm of the rails.
But fate, as it often does, had other plans.
Somewhere between departure and destination, a man would die. Another would vanish. Truths would unravel like a loose thread on an expensive coat. And the doctor, who came seeking peace, would be drawn into a web of lies, layered with fear, betrayal, and a murder that should never have happened.
The train would not stop until its journey ended.
By then, not everyone would be alive to disembark.