The Dark Somnium - "Down beneath the sewers of the city, I found something." Scary Stories from The Internet

Episode Date: April 8, 2023

this creepypasta scary story is from the nosleep subreddit, written by Darkly_Gathers, Make sure to check out the original story and support the author! "Down beneath the sewers of the city, I discovered the corpse of 'Tommy, the Tank Engine'. https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/v8n2ix/down_beneath_the_sewers_of_the_city_i_discovered/--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darksomnium/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I clambered down the rusted metal ladder, my shoes echoing around the cavern walls, and with a grunt, I jump down from the lowermost rung to the pile of trash and scrap beneath, my flashlight passing over the streaming, humid heaps in the darkness. Yeah, I'm a madman. I get my kicks exploring my city's sewer networks. It's gotten to the point now that I know the waterway system like the back of my hand. I'm not in any danger, and I'm not going to get suddenly flood. it out and washed away like in the cartoons. That being said, however, I've gone a little deeper than normal this time. I just couldn't help myself.

I mean, come on, a secret door tucked away in the shadows of an underground alcove, way out by the far edge of the city sewers, I just had to go down. The first time I tried, I opened the door, saw the ladder, and chickened out. Same story with attempt number two. But here I am. Third attempt and a week later, down at the bottom of the ladder in question, lower than I thought it was possible to go in this secretive underground cavern. Batman, you down here? I call out into the gloom, and my voice warbles and echoes through the darkness, bouncing off the rock walls and cracked remains of the concrete beams.

A poor attempt at a joke. I swallow, listening as my echo reverberates further and further away. Water leaks and drips from little rivets in the ceiling, which is to say the rocky roof of this enormous cavern. I think I can hear it streaming somewhere nearby as well. I can't see it, though. I see nothing but ruin. Mountains and valleys of flood-streaked scrap metal, of a black, tarry sludge-like substance. I see broken segments of pipes, old tires, all torn up and damaged, and I see other stuff, too.

lashes of color here and there, smashed up segments of old carnival rides, a piece of a carousel, a section of what might have once been roller coaster tracks? The hell, there's all kind of mad junk down here. I snap a few pictures. Whoa, this place, man. I murmured to no one, casting the light of my beam through the darkness. Far away through the cavern is a heap of junk adorned with little lights, flashing, blinking reds and blues.

In the darkness, it looks like some kind of massive, shadowy skeleton, and my curiosity bids me to head on over. I climb across the piles of junk, careful to take the surest and flattest paths possible to minimize risk, crossing over girdles and bridges of rusted metal panels. I pass by a series of tanks, all faded and old and burned by the look of them. Not sure how a fire could break out in a place as dank as this, but they're burned all right. charred and blackened by smoke and flames. I scanned the flashlight beam across the ground and, half submerged in gunk, a pale, faceless corpse

stares back up at me. I shout out an alarm and fright, but I laugh it off as best as I can when I realize that the corpse is nothing more than a dummy, a mannequin, or whatever they're called. Jesus! I mutter in the gloom, raising the flashlight a little. The dummy is one of many. Several lie sinking in the goop at the base of a mountain of debris. Others are buried within it.

I take a few pictures, doing my best to calm the beating of my heart, and I continue on along my way through the dark towards the subtly glittering mountain. Step by cautious step over and between the desolation, I clamber up a little hill of scrap metal, coming to a sudden rapid stop as I realized that the floor doesn't go any further, instead giving way to a steep drop and a black, silent lake below. This lake acts like a kind of moat, preventing me from getting any closer to the mountain with its surviving LEDs.

I clench my jaw and raise the beam of my flashlight across the mountain. The LEDs glow from within a series of dark, interlocking gears and wires, monstrous metal panels, jumbled cogs and pistons, scattered broken pipes arranged almost in the shape of a mass. massive ribcage, giving a section of the mountain that skeleton-like appearance I noticed earlier, and amongst it all, I squint. In the center of the mountain is a massive rectangle of metal in faded blue, rested and scratched and scarred and burnt. The hell is that?

I mutter, stepping right up to the edge of the hill of scrap. There's a word emblazoned across the side of the metal blue box. The letters are scuffed, but I can still just about read them. I think they say, Tommy? I whisper. Then louder. Tommy? What's you got for me, Tommy?

I don't know what I was expecting with this question to tell the truth, but what I was not expecting was an answer. A deep, low-grown rises up from the mountain of metal before me. Cogs and gears begin to whirl, and the LEDs flash from red and blue to yellow. One by one like little fireflies in the darkness. Rumbles a voice from the mountain. Cold fear stabs into me like a blade, slicing its way up my spine. I stagger backwards in abject horror, unable to speak or scream as I crash down onto my elbows.

My phone lost from my hand to the darkness. Something begins to emerge from the mountain. At first I see only its silhouette, rising up, pushing aside the scrap and the wreckage with grinding and clattering shards and pistons, the massive metal blue box. It groans and it twists around. To Tommy? I whisper. My throat dry and cracked. Madison? The voice says. Is that you? The massive blue box is the machine's body. It cracks and spreads out. It raises itself unsteadily up onto enormous, clanking metal legs. Eight spin iron legs like a spider.

It sends out a rumble through the shadows, blinking yellow LEDs shivering into life across its monstrous form. I may have lost my phone for now, but I still have my flashlight. I fumble for it in the dark, grab a hold, and flick it back on in a shaking hand. The beam lands on the monster's face. A protruding circle of gray juts out from the front of the machine. A grin has been carved and painted into what looks like hard, chipped plastic. A nose, too, carved into this metal.

But the eyes, the eyes were gone. There are only two hollow tunnels of darkness, stuffed with wires and blinking lights. Madison, where are you? Murmurs the machine, its grin unmoving. It rocks from side to side, adjusting the position of one of its many legs as the last shards and clumps of ruin and wreck tumble from its side and down the mountain. Some of the pieces clatter all the way to the base and splash into the waters below us. It looks like a train, this monster. Perhaps it was once designed with an appeal to kids in mind, but now, now it's nothing more

than a nightmare come to life. What the hell are you? I croak out, frozen to the spot. The face of the great train wheels around to stare at me with its many empty eye sockets. The train asks, its voice is high-pitched and feminine, like a child's, with a deep, rumbling, metallic undertone. It reverberates through the gloom of the cavern, echoing away down into the darkness in all directions. No, I stutter in reply.

My name is Peter. Peter. Warbles the voice of the great train, both high and low in its tones. Do you want to play on the train, Peter? Madison loves to play on the train. A chill shivers across my skin. I find the nerve to rise unsteadily to my feet. Play, I repeat.

The train, what happened to you? Tommy, is it? What are you? Tommy. The train creaks, lifting its face up towards the ceiling. Yes. That sounds right. I think we'll save.

Tony, we'll save. Tommy, it's okay. I'm just a visitor. I like to explore. I shake violently, but hold my ground, trying not to avoid any sudden movements. What happened to you? It's hard to remember. Peter didn't play.

I was supposed to drive children around the tracks. It's fun. It would be fun. They say. Tomi was going to save them. I don't. I don't remember. The memories are all mixed.

There is a deep, resonant misery in this creature's voice. It tugs at my heart and simultaneously turns my stomach. There was a fire. There was, and I was down here. Here for a long time, Peter, I made the tracks for you. for the children for Madison. I'm not a kid anymore, Tommy. I say gently.

I don't think I'd get the same fun out of the train ride that the kids would. I cast my eyes over the train's terrible legs. One of them twitches. Three of them move and the train inches a little higher up the mountain, clamoring just a little closer. Its body grinds and creaks and worse. Maybe I could go get some kids from it. you. I'll go find them. I'll leave, but I'll be right back. I inch backwards, taking a retreating

step. My foot knocks into an old spring, and it tumbles down the hill behind me, landing in a pool of gunk with a sickly splash. The train twitches and judders forward, and I suck some damp, stale air through my teeth. No? He says simply, then louder. No, that's what he said. Never came back. Who, Tommy? I whisper. Who said that to you? You can't leave! You can't leave me! Ride the tracks! You have to play, Peter! Yellow light flashes in the ruins of the train's eye sockets,

and it hauls itself up to full height, an emotion of surprising and sickening speed. It leans far forward towards me, using six of its legs to anchor itself to the mountainside. There isn't even time for me to scream. Tommy reaches out one of its legs and roughly shoves the metal panels upon which I stand. They are sent tumbling out before me and down into the water, and I am knocked violently backwards, falling, crashing down with a thud and a sharp jab of pain into some kind of rudimentary cart, like a mine cart.

I clamber up to the side and peer over the edge. There's barely even enough space for one person inside. The cart is on some kind of track. The wheels attached are all of different makes. I watch dumbfounded as Tommy uses his leg to clear away the debris on the tree. tracks. Tommy! I shout out. Wait, please! But the train does not. A circle of light flashes in the mechanisms of his cracked and broken body, and the same circle of light appears from the mechanisms of the cart. I try to climb out, but I am too late. Tommy pulls back, retreating to the top of his

mountain of junk, a black silhouette in the darkness as the car is lurched into life, pulled forwards down the side of the hill towards the water below. I scream out, one hand on my flashlight, the gripped with white knuckles to the rim of the cart. The air rushes past my face, and I shield my eyes with the flashlight as the cart hits the water, and it splashes up and out in all directions. The cart does not sink, however. It is carried hastily and chaotically along the river on submerged tracks, heading to a dark, grim tunnel through the wreckage. I spin around to look back behind me, and I catch a final glimpse of a silhouette, a broken, twisted train on eight spindly metal legs, A dark shadow glowing yellow from the eyes, before I am hurled around a corner and Tommy is lost

from sight. I swear and curse an alarm as the cart is violently carried around on these chaotic rails, up and out of the water with a splash of dark spray through the rocks and concrete to caverns unknown, whistling and whirring through the darkness, my hair blown back from my forehead. Jesus! Jesus! I mutter again and again, casting the beam of the flashlight this one. way in that, getting only the briefest of glances at my surroundings as I tear through them. There is nothing I can do now but to hold on tight and hope for the best.

I passed through a room stacked with speakers, all kinds from the 90s, the 2000s, massive great things with wires spilled from the sides, bullhorns and megaphones. I duck as a leaning pole swings by overhead. I cry out and alarm. The speakers and wires in here, they've been twisted and re-eshoe. reshaped, twisted into the shapes of bushes, of trees, flowers, different colored wires for different colored petals. A voice carries out through the darkness.

A voice I do not recognize. The children love the train. He says, his voice like the wind. Madison loves the train. Allow me to help her. Madison. Something ethereal echoes and rumbles through the darkness, and I feel the hairs on my arms all rise in unison.

The cart takes us through. an arch in the rock to a room much wider and larger than the previous. The voice cries out behind me. I can save her. Tommy can save her. But the words are lost as the rails carry us upwards, upwards through the dark and leaving the ruin and wreckage on the ground far below. I reel in fright as colorful lights dance and drift across my field of vision.

The beam of the flashlight reveals they are connected to various intricate mobiles, spinning and whirring and jolting with grinding gears and sparking cogs near the ceiling, and in great symbolic towers striking upwards from below. What is this place? I cry out, screaming and gripping tight to the rim of the car for all I'm worth as it tips over an edge and speeds down, down like a roller coaster, before being carried way back up. My stomach lurches in dismay. Tommy?

I shout out. Is that you? Please, please let me off. No! Roars the voice, its mechanical edge grinding with sudden fury. And you have to play! And so the cart is carried onwards through the dark. Over to my left, a sudden flash of light catches my eye.

I look over, squinting through the blasts of stale, putrid air, and a massive torn projector screen flashes into life. It depicts some security footage. Seems like it's coming from a camera in the corner of a room. A lab, I think. There's equipment. strange machines. There's a man in there, too, talking to a couple who both seem distressed.

The picture quality glitches a little, then refocuses. There's a little girl in the room, too, though she isn't with the others. She's watching a train go by outside, filled with kids her age, all laughing. What can we do? The woman asks, burying her face in her hands, sobbing. Her partner reaches around her shoulder, comforting her. She doesn't have much time. The man across from them scratches his chin.

He has white hair, and he stands tall. There might be something. He says. Something temporary. He is interrupted by the woman, suddenly shouting at her daughter. As the girl is clamoring up onto the window sill for a better view outside, a shout out. Tommy, are you seeing this? It's her.

But Tommy does not reply. I don't know if he can see or even hear me now. The cart is hauled around a steep corner. and my view of the projector screen is lost. We pass low between hills of scrap, and my eyes widen and horror at what I see, disturbing, half-formed, broken children, or at least models of children, life-size, prepared with intricate precision, and yet it's like the creator couldn't quite remember what a child actually looked like.

Comprised of scrap, gears, little lights, pieces of metal, shards of plastic, a sickly, semi-translucent wax-like substance for the skin. They stand still and silent all around. I watch them pass as the cart whizzes between them. They've all been arranged into careful positions to make it look like they're playing, presumably, but many of them don't look like they're playing anymore. I pass by a pair of distorted children. Where I imagine they were once both stood side by side,

one of them has fallen down into the wet gunk below. The expression of the child's side. still standing is not an emotion I can understand. It's difficult, I suppose, to convey expressions and emotions with faces of metal and wax. Did you build these, Tommy? I murmur as the cart speeds along through the dark. I swear I catch a glimpse of one of these accursed children turning to look at me, twitching its head ever so slightly as we go by.

I flinch and fumble with the flashlight, but by the time that the beam is ready, we have rounded a corner and the child is vanished. The children love the train. Whispers the voice of Tommy through the shadows. Madison loved the train. She wanted to ride. She wanted to play with the others. A shadow creaks and scuttles through the gloom overhead.

I cast the beam up into the vast darkness of the cavern, but it lands on nothing but rail and ruin. The cart passes through a tunnel on the side of a mountain of rubble. The air is thicken here, and the little. Little lights flash and flicker in blue. I cannot say for certain if anything is likely to hit my head, but I duck all the same. The visibility, as it is everywhere, is dangerously low. Greater lights flash and flicker into life over to my right, and I turn to them.

And far away appears another projector screen. Occasionally, my view of the screen is blocked by a speeding column of rubble or a pile of debris, but I can, for the most part, see what it depicts. Another scene from the same lab. Wait, no, this one is different. This one is larger. There are beds, tables, cables, and wires. I see the same four people as last time, though.

The man with the white hair, the couple, and the little girl, Madison. Are you doing this, Tommy? I murmur into the speeding shadows. Did you prepare these or not? Am I the first person to ever ride this rail? The rush of wind blows through my hair, bud. There is otherwise no reply. On screen, Madison looks unwell, really, really unwell.

The picture quality is poor, but her face appears sunken. Her movements are sluggish and slow. She just wants to play. The mother sobs. One day. The white-haired man frets pacing up and down. One day I will. I will.

That's what you said before and the time before that. The father shouts. She doesn't have long left. It's really a case of now or never. So what are you going to do? She's your goddaughter for Christ's sake. Enough. The white-haired man cuts through with an outstretched palm.

Enough. Leave her with me. I'll be here all night. I'll think of something, I promise. Both the father and mother try to protest, but the white-haired man shouts them down. Go! He snaps. I need peace.

I need to think. And so, reluctantly, they go, with a promise to not return before some of the sunrise on the next morning. The projector falters. For a second, the image is displayed upside down, and then it vanishes. The screen disappears into darkness. The cart is rocketed from the end of the tunnel and across a rickety bridge comprised primarily of the rail itself.

I make the mistake of peering over the edge. Beneath is a drop unlike anything I've seen before. It goes far deeper than I ever thought possible. I see black water, I think, behind layers of mrs. mist and fumes. My heart leaps quickly up to my mouth and back as the cart goes over a bump. A violent shutter passes through me. I redouble my grip on the flashlight and crouch a little lower, bringing down the center of weight. Something massive creeps through the shadows directly above me. I shoot a look upwards and see the silhouette of Tommy vanish behind an outcrop of stone.

I raise the flashlight but catch only a flicker of faded blue before he is lost to the darkness. Looking ahead reveals that the rail is about to drop right down, a sudden slope imminent. The anticipation is almost worse than the drop itself, and I grit my teeth as the vehicle tips forward, shooting downwards through the dark. The shouts are lost, and we are hauled around a steep, tight corner, and then another and another. We pass close to the water. I can feel its heat. The steam distorts my vision.

I swear I catch sight of something, something massive disturbing the surface. Slythering through the gloom beneath. But before I can turn my head or angle the flashlight, I am sent blasting through a tunnel and into another new room. A room piled high with the corpses of children. Not real corpses, I quickly realize. They are more of those models, the fakes. These are the rejects, presumably, the ones not even good enough by their creator's standards.

They are worse than the ones I saw positioned earlier, even less accurate. Mishaped faces, hollow eyes, jaws that don't connect, limbs with incorrect bends, unnatural proportions, and these corpses, they number in the hundreds, all piled high, rotting away. One of them sparks, a little light flashes behind its eyes, and then it just goes dark like all the rest. The cart is carried upward in shaking clumsy jumps at first, but then we are caught onto a chain of some kind, and at a dangerous angle, the cart is gradually carried upwards, slow and steady, up past piles of broken children.

It's slow enough now that I could jump out if I wanted. I could jump out and land on the remains of these failed models, but what good would that do me? I'd never be able to follow the rail back. It wouldn't be possible, and I have no idea where I am. My best bet now is to hope that the rail is looped, that it will take me back to the beginning. I deliberate mentally if this is definitely the best course of action. But to tell the truth, I feel safer in this ridiculous cart than I'd feel down there,

among the bodies, even if they're not real bodies as such, just lumps of wax and metal. It would be all too easy to get lost amongst them to become just another misshapen wreck. So I stay where I am, as the cart travels up and up. I look a corpse in the face as we steadily pass by as it sinks down below us. It looks back at me with a single painted glass eye. The other socket is empty, waxy, with shadowed gears visible behind. I turn away. The card is carried higher and higher through the cavern, until once again we are way off

from the watery ground below. It picks up speed, shooting through gap after gap in the rock. We pass through stone, through concrete, through a room stuffed with metal and wires, through a room hooked up with unfamiliar equipment, blackened and burned. It's all a blur, really. One thing after the next. And when once again the cart finally slows, I am greeted by the sight of nothing. There's nothing to see now. Even with the flashlight, I cannot see a single thing above me, below me, or around me, just the rail, the cart, and myself, adrift in the void.

We chunter quietly along the tracks. The mismatch wheels rumble and creak, and a flash of activity up ahead draws my gaze. Way off in the distance are two pale circles of yellow, sparking and flickering in the darkness. Small, for now, but growing steadily larger as we approach. Before long, however, they are lost to sight, as the enormous screen of a projector appears before them, blocking them from my view. I hear the voice of the white-haired man before the picture appears on the screen. It glitches out from speakers unseen in the darkness. Do you like it, Madison?

The voice asks, a dry whisper. It's a train. Images appear on the projector screen as the cart quietly rumbles. It shows Tommy, back as he was before, I suppose. No terrible, spindly legs, just wheels. The blue of his paint is shiny and proud. His grin is friendly, not demented, and he has his eyes. They are smiling.

He sits on a section of track. Floodlights clank into life on screen, and more of the track and of Tommy's surroundings are revealed. There are no windows. Tommy is connected to a series of machines with wires. He is still, motionless, not alive, just a train. A train waiting dutifully on the tracks. I built it myself. I call him Tommy.

Madison murmurs weekly, and I am unable to make out what she says. You like the train, Madison. Remember? Madison loves the train, and this one is just like the one outside. He carefully places her down on a table, and he heads to the side of the room, washing his hands. The man is shaking. His face keeps twitching into grins that do not hold. Erratic, manic, almost.

Well... He continues. Not exactly like the one outside. Not quite, but close enough. I haven't finished the track yet, but I will, I will, will have plenty of time. He dries himself, and I watch, squinting as he takes hold of a surgical knife in one hand and a batch of curious wires in the other. He positions himself over Madison, blocking her from the camera's line of sight,

and he sets to work. I grimace in horror. I designed him to be smart. The man mumbles, mostly to himself, I should think, as he begins connecting Madison to all manner of monstrous looking machines. He isn't finished, no, no, none of it's finished, but he can look after you. He can look after you until I'm ready to save you. He'll keep you safe.

He'll take care of you while I fix your body. You can ride the rails while you wait. You've always loved the train. McCart hits a bump, but I scarcely notice. My attention is held with full force by the images flashing and playing on the projector screen. Madison barely moves. She twitches but says nothing. The white-haired man wipes a sheen of sweat from his forehead.

He flips some switches and sits down at a desk, typing some unseen instructions into an ancient, blocky-looking computer. He'll keep you safe, and one day I'll be able to bring you back. I promise. He mutters over and over. I promise. He looks at the girl. My knuckles whiten on the rim of the cart.

He looks at the camera, directly at me, the viewer. I need to disconnect your nervous system now, Madison. He whispers. No! I shout out for reasons not quite known to me. Pure instinct, I suppose. And of course, he cannot hear me. The man presses a button and the lights dim.

Something flashes off screen and the lights cut off entirely. The picture is plunged into darkness and when it returns there is smoke and flittering sparks. A siren sounds. At first it plays only on screen, but it becomes quickly apparent that it plays from everywhere now. I can hear it below me, behind me, blaring, loud, angry. Fire licks at the edges of Tommy's body, at the machinery. It spreads quicker and quicker.

The man tries and fails to put it out. Panels fall from the ceiling. He starts to panic and his hand is wiped through something wet and flammable. He screams as he tries to put out the flameters. flames that leap from his fingers. The man whimpers and turns to Madison. He tries to unhook her from the machines, tearing the wires out of her with reckless abandon. He tries to drag her away, but she's still connected.

And the smoke fills the screen. It burns and ripples with shades of orange, of yellow, and of black. All vision is essentially lost. The man cries out in anguish. I cannot see him, but I can hear him. And urgently, he says, I'm going to leave now. His voice wavers.

I'll leave, but I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I promise. I promise. The flames and the fire grow larger and larger, and the picture cuts out. The projector screen fades to black and becomes, as it was before, translucent. Directly behind it, I can see the silhouette of Tommy the train, waiting. Yellow eye sockets gleaming down at me.

He lied. Tommy whispers, his voice as it always has been. High-pitched, feminine. He did not come back. Tommy, I begin, sweat pouring down my back. Peter. The train replies, cocking its head. I cannot see.

Where is Madison? We regard each other in cold silence. After a long, terrible beat, the cart drops. The rail takes a sharp, sudden, downward spike, and away through the darkness I go, screaming as I am hauled from side to side through sudden jumping, roaring flames all around. I feel their heat against my skin as I plummet down the rail, as I am carried through gap after gap in the stone. As the force builds against my being, I can hear cries and shouts and further screams

played to me through speakers, but I cannot say to whom they belong. The heat intensifies. I scrunch my eyes closed and huddle up in the cart, waiting, praying, until at last when I feel I can bear no more, the flames all vanish as quickly as they appeared. We leave them far behind, the intensity of flames replaced by the bitter mercy of the stale but cold cavern air, flowing like a healing water across my skin. Bacart slows, and this is the final time that it does so. It trundles around corner after corner through an arch in the cavern until I recognize the place where it began, from a different angle, of course, but it's the same cavern as the one

we started in, the one I wandered in after descending the ladder. We pass by the glittering mountain of wreckage, sparkling with LEDs of blue and of red. We pass over the dark moat that borders it, and I return to the central landmass, if you will, the great island of rubble and trash and charred slabs of machinery upon which I first spoke to Tommy. The car is slow now, and since I know where I am, I haul myself over the edge, stumbling and crashing and crashing to my knees in the trash as the cart continues along its way. I follow with my eyes. It looks like it's going to do a wide loop, possibly passing beneath a further arch before returning to the exact place where I fell in. I take a second to catch my breath, slow, deep inhales and exhales of

air. Back to the mountain of wreckage, and right there, directly behind me and towering above me is Tommy, distorted and humorless grin locked in place. The air catches in my throat as Tommy steadily clambers right over the top of me, silently, almost scuttling along after the cart, following the sound of its trundling on the rails. I watch him go, frozen in place, watching the blue abomination beneath the ground. Tommy or... Madison? I whisper, barely audible.

The train does not hear. It simply follows the cart at a reasonable distance. I watch as it scuttles up. up the side of the cavern wall and rounds a corner out of sight. And I take this chance. I don't mess around and try to look from my phone. I just go. As quickly but as quietly as possible, I go. One foot in front of the other, retracing my steps back through the jungle of debris and away from the lights. A warbled, furious cry of anguish sounds out from somewhere in the darkness. Peter, where did you go? You were supposed to ride the train, Peter.

I break into a run, the flashlight beam reflecting chaotically off all manner of junk as I sprint through the shadows and back towards the side of that rusted old ladder. I'm sorry, I mutter. But there's nothing I can do for you. The light catches on the ladder, way off in the distance, and I pick up my speed as I hear the train scuttle madly through its desolation somewhere off behind me. It screams. Please don't leave.

Tears streamed down my face as I reach the ladder, throwing myself towards it. The muscles in my arm aching as I pull myself up, wrung by rung, until I can use my legs. I hear an expulsion of steam somewhere nearby. I hear that mechanical, frenzied whirring, sobbing almost. I hear rage in those gears, and I leave the hell of the cavern below me, scrambling up the ladder rung by rung until I return to that door in the side of the sewers. I hauled it open and run the entire way back, legs burning. I don't stop running until I've left that twisted world far, far behind, but all I can see as I run,

even once I've returned to the neon and rain of the city above, are the faces that were shown to me down there in the dark. I see the face of Madison, the girl who just wanted to ride the train. I see the face of the white-haired man, panicked and mad. I see the face of Tommy, smiling and hopeful as he was when he was created. and I see what became of that face, broken and hollow. My feet splash in the light-soaked puddles, and I hear the voice in my head, playing over and over like a chugging on the rails. Do you want to play on the train, Peter?

Madison loves to play on the train.