Thanks to Kaos_Kitten | Overlord_Aqua_2 | lyliaa | Crois | Lemilas
for writing Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V respectively

---

Though my life went on as usual, it never felt right. As if somehow this world was not real.
Something about the world felt off and even out of place. When I look at the skies on my
way to my place of work and see the grey clouds of my mundane town in England, it felt
suffocating, eerie and dangerous. Perhaps they reminded me of the phantom steam from
the dream train. In the coffeeshop where I work as a barista I got a new customer for the
first time since I started working here. It was a woman dressed in all black, pale with
platinum blonde hair, wearing a hoodie with the hood on. She was noticeable cause she has
somehow both a terrifying and yet comforting presence. But her eyes frightened me, a light
blue colour that seemed like they glowed. Her order was coffee black with no sugar, it seems
kind of am obvious choice for someone like her. But she looked at it in disgust as if she hated
to the coffee or perhaps her workday. Before she paid me for her coffee, I saw in her hand a
ticket to the dream train, but hers was slightly different than mine. Her ticket was black instead
of the usual faint yellow tickets that popped in mysteriously like the one at my windowsill. Though
I never seen her before today, she seemed familiar, but can not quite place where I know her from.
Her image was one that I could not shake during this day.

After she left the day went on as usual, as mundane as ever. As I finished up my work once more
and cleaned up the tables and swept up the floors in this old coffee shop that I served in for
what feels like ages I decided to head home by myself as usual. However this day something
compelled me to go to the graveyard and there I saw the headstone as clear as day realizing it was
no mere illusion, but the reality every time I gazed upon the headstone. It felt like my heart beat
heavily in my chest and I heard the beating getting louder and louder. I looked upon the tombstone
again hoping it was a fantasy, a dream, a mirage, a trick of the mind, but no the tombstone stood
there firm with the name that should not be on there.



My name, my birth date and.... my death date!?
This can not be. I can not be dead. I still can feel, touch, smell, see and hear everything. How
could I be dead? It does not make sense why that tombstone has my name and birth date on
it. Running in shock and fear as fast as I could away from this macabre site I arrived near the
train station. Here I got glimpse of the girl in black and once again the dream train arrived
stopped on the station in my town and she got on it, in hopes of answers from her I boarded
this weird cursed train once more, though I boarded without a ticket, which could spell trouble
for me. Nobody has ever boarded this train without a ticket.

As I walked through the wagons the girl in black with the almost glowing blue eyes I served
earlier saw me and waved me over to sit with her.
"It is too bad you don't serve coffee here young miss Westford, " the girl said to me. "But then
again you didn't do that really either back at that quant little coffee shop you believe you
worked at. Not that I need the little sustenance value of it, it's just that I like the taste."
"Who or what are you?" I asked the girl.
"My name is Sharon, I think what you humans would call a grim reaper or at least something
of that nature."
"How did I end up here?" If I am dead what caused my soul to be parted from my mortal body?"
I asked Sharon.
"You were one of the first victims of the novella pneumonia virus in Europe," Sharon said. "You
are really deceased. The tombstone you saw in the graveyard is yours. This place here is an
in-between thing. I believe you humans named it purgatory, if i recall correctly."
"Why are you so candid with me? Is this not supposed to be secret?" I wondered.
"No. Souls find out eventually where they are, the tickets send through the windows landing on
the windowsills or nightstands or a dresser beside the bed just make it easier to get to the next
station, wherever that might be. A fine replacement for the coins over the eyes used so many
years ago. But you don't currently have a ticket so I suggest you get off as soon as we stop."

The train stopped and I rushed out wondering throughout the city only illuminated by the street
lights and wondered as long as I could until I reached the beach, but instead of the oceans, docks.
or even a lighthouse there was nothing but a vacuum there. A great empty void in front of me. As I
gazed over this abyss the words on my tombstone echoed through my head "as a beloved star you
shine from the heavens"