The smoke was still in my hair. On my skin. Under my nails. Like it had settled into my bones and declared itself a permanent resident. Every breath felt wrong—like inhaling shards of glass wrapped in ash.

I didn’t know where I was going. I just… walked. My legs dragged me here, to the old railway behind the market. Cracked pavement. Rusted tracks. The kind of place that once made me feel small in a peaceful way. Now it just made me feel… lost.

The platform stretched ahead, empty and waiting. The silence pressed down, thick and suffocating. My chest tightened as I stepped to the edge, staring down at the glint of the rails below.

No shop. No future. No hope.

My fingers clenched around the crumpled palace job flyer. Elias had meant well, but being pitied into a position wasn’t exactly the redemption arc I’d had in mind.

The ground began to hum under my boots—a low, buzzing vibration. Soft, at first. Then louder, angrier. A train.

I didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t care.

Lights bloomed in the darkness of the tunnel, growing brighter, harsher. A roar built, shattering the suffocating silence, rattling the air.

And still, I stood there. Stupid. Reckless. Rooted to the spot like some idiot with a death wish.

At the very last second, instinct—or self-preservation, or blind panic, who knows—took over. My legs jolted into action, dragging me backward. My boots scraped against the concrete as the train blasted past, a blur of metal and fury. It missed me by heartbeats. Maybe less.

The sheer force of its passage sent me sprawling onto the platform. I hit the ground hard, hands braced behind me, chest heaving like I’d just auditioned for an amateur parkour competition—and lost. The platform tilted, a roaring echo still rattling in my skull. My lungs burned, everything felt… shaky. Raw. Real in the worst kind of way, and for a moment, I genuinely considered lying there forever.

And then—clap.

Slow. Deliberate. Like I’d just stumbled through the worst performance of my life, and he was the only audience member pitying me with applause.

My head snapped up, eyes narrowing. Across the tracks stood a guy leaning against a rusted pillar, perfectly at ease like he’d been there forever. A cigarette glowed between his fingers, the smoke curling lazily into the stale air. He looked… smug. Like the kind of person who’d laugh at your bad day and then charge you for the privilege.

He clapped again, lips pulling into a crooked smirk. “Well, that was dramatic.”

“What?” The word shot out before I could stop it, because apparently that’s the best my frazzled brain could muster.

He tilted his head like he was studying me from a distance, casually amused. “Should I toss you a bouquet, or are you more of a standing ovation type?”

I blinked at him, still sprawled on the concrete, irritation curling tighter than my fists. “I could’ve died.”

“And yet,” he said, gesturing broadly like a magician revealing his latest trick, “here you are. Upright. Breathing. Very much alive. A genuine miracle.”

The way he said it made it sound less like a compliment and more like he was annoyed I hadn’t managed to get myself flattened.

I scrambled to my feet, brushing dirt off my palms. “You were just watching?”

“Technically, I was smoking,” he said, flicking ash to the ground like punctuation. “You happened to stage a live-action soap opera in my line of sight.”

“You couldn’t have yelled? Or, I don’t know, warned me?” My voice pitched up, my annoyance threatening to spill over.

His shrug was so nonchalant it bordered on infuriating. “You looked committed. I didn’t want to ruin the performance.”

For a moment, I just stared at him, my disbelief battling with my growing irritation. This guy. “Are you serious right now?”

“No,” he replied, deadpan. “I’m the hallucination that shows up when you flirt with trains.” He took another slow drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke out with all the enthusiasm of someone enduring mild inconvenience. “Congrats, by the way. Very main-character energy.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“And yet, somehow, I’m still more believable than your life choices tonight.”

“Not to mention loud,” he scoffed, arching a brow like that was somehow the bigger offense. “Let me guess—moment of reckless defiance, followed by sheer dumb luck, now planning your dramatic exit? A solid eight out of ten for effort. Maybe nine if you storm off correctly.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” The words snapped out before I could stop them, punctuated by a sharp stomp that sent a jolt of pain up my ankle.

His smirk widened, reaching full villain-in-training levels. “Someone with better survival instincts.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” I shot back, waving a hand at the glowing cigarette in his fingers. “Coming from a guy smoking in a flammable tunnel.”

He raised a brow, as if genuinely impressed. “Touché, Cinderella.”

“Don’t call me that,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

“Would you prefer Sleeping Beauty?” he mused, tapping ash onto the tracks. “You almost took a very long nap.”

I glared at him so hard I half-expected him to burst into flames. “You think you’re so clever.”

“Well, one of us is still dry, uninjured, and not currently starring in tonight’s episode of Railway Near-Misses. So… yeah, I’m feeling pretty clever.”

The flyer in my hand crinkled loudly as I squeezed it tighter, and his eyes flicked to it briefly.

With a final, lazy flick, he tossed the cigarette onto the tracks, crushing it under his heel. “Try not to die before your first palace paycheck, yeah? Be a shame to waste all that main-character energy.”

I stood there, fists trembling, hair still whipping around my face, and only one thought playing on repeat like a broken record:

Seriously. Who the hell does he think he is?