The train ride back to London felt longer than usual.
Eleanor sat by the window, holding the wooden box close.
Outside, the city blurred into smears of gray and light.
Her fingers brushed over one of the drawings.
The red eye stared back.
Unblinking.
She shut the box.
Tried to breathe.
> "There's something here… Something deeper than madness."
The train car was unusually silent.
Passengers sat like statues.
No one spoke.
No one blinked.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to clear her head.
And when she opened them—
Someone was sitting across from her.
A woman.
Wearing a faded white dress.
Hair black as ink, cascading over her shoulders like waves of darkness.
Eleanor's heart stopped.
The face…
It was her mother.
> "Mom...?"
She whispered it before she realized she had.
The woman didn't speak.
She only stared.
Her eyes were empty.
Glass-like.
Wrong.
And then—
she smiled.
Not a human smile.
But something else.
Too wide. Too knowing.
A smile that didn't belong in this world.
Eleanor froze.
Tried to move.
Couldn't.
The lights in the train flickered.
Then blinked out.
Darkness.
Total.
When they flicked back on—
The seat was empty.
The woman was gone.
But the chill remained.
She touched her forehead.
It was damp with sweat.
Everyone else on the train…
Still motionless.
Still silent.
> "Was it a hallucination… or a warning?"
She didn't know.
But she felt it now—
Something had followed her back.