The Ink In-Between: An Anthology (Dark Edition)

Don't Look Away

PROMPT: Write a horror story under 4000 words.

CW(s): disturbing and frightful imagery, implied bigotry.

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11:58

Thirty seconds.

That's the time it takes for Rana to check the timetable on her phone and realise, as the distant chime echoes throughout the silence of an empty station late at night, that she's going to miss her train.

Thirty seconds is also how long it takes for her to bolt across the station floor and all but fly down the motionless escalator, all the way down to the platform where the short, blue, graffiti-stained train has just arrived.

It's so tantalisingly close that, for one single, blissful second, Rana really lets herself believe that she can make it, not sparing herself so much as another hesitant thought as she lunges towards the nearest doors.

Only to have them slam shut right in her face.

"No, no, no!" She jams her thumb, over and over, in the now red, blinking door button, heart sinking when she feels the train start moving, the cold metal slipping past her fingers. "No, wait! Stop!"

By the time the train has picked up some speed, Rana is left behind on the platform, two fistfuls of her own black curls in her hands as she lets out a loud, frustrated scream into the cold night air.

Heart still racing from the earlier mad dash and her own impotent rage, she tries to catch her breath, turning around to squint at the barely working display in the distance.

One hour.

One whole goddamn hour till the next and last train of the night.

Great. Just great. Could this day get any better?

The universe seems way too eager to take her up on that challenge, because her phone decides to chime in with a message notification.

Hey, did u catch the train?

I checked and the last one is like

an hour from now

The strangled noise that Rana lets out at Lucas' ill-timed message is somewhere between an ironic snort and a frustrated groan.

Still, there's that tiny flicker of something warm in her chest at the thought that her housemate had gone through the trouble to check at all. So, like a deflating balloon, she lets out all the anger through her nose and unlocks her phone.

She's just about to call Lucas, when another message from him pops up.

Want me to take u home?

Her fingers still, hovering over the call button. The warmth flickers out, frozen solid in her chest as a spark of something a lot more cold and bitter grows inside her.

Suddenly, it doesn't matter that she had planned on calling him for just that, to beg for a safe ride home.

Because all she can think about is that gorgeous, short brunet that Lucas had left with after their friend's birthday dinner that night. The one that had probably taken him to some fancy art-studio-slash-appartement, because Lucas obviously can't take a girl to their flat, not when Rana is there.