This is an incident experienced by a certain exchange student.
He was simply on his way home—until he noticed something wrong in the train window’s reflection.
—You wish to hear it, do you?
Very well… keep your light close.
Thomas had taken a seat on the long bench,
a little right of center.
The far-left seat was empty—
clean, untouched.
On the far right, a salaryman in a dark suit scrolled through his phone, his face washed in its cold glow.
Between the sway of the carriage, Thomas’s gaze drifted to the glass door ahead.
In the faint reflection, he saw himself in the center, and the man in the suit at the far right.
That should have been all.
Yet at the far left of the reflection—
where in reality there was only an empty seat—
a woman was sitting.
Her long black hair fell over her shoulders, her face turned slightly downward. The fluorescent light rimmed her hair with a pale, unreal white. In the real carriage, the leftmost seat was vacant. But in the reflection, the three of them sat in a neat row.
The woman on the left.
Thomas in the center.
The salaryman on the right.
(…Was there someone sitting there before?)
A small, passing unease.
But the air that night felt heavy,
and the unease began to grow.
Then the chime of the station announcement sounded.
A flat, mechanical voice in Japanese filled the carriage—
the usual kind that never changes, no matter how late it is.
After Japanese came English, then Chinese… as it always did.
Thomas half-listened, not really paying attention.
But just after the English announcement began—
another voice slipped in.
It was low, damp, and without emotion.
“Do not look at the reflection.”
Thomas froze.
The human mind is a strange thing—
tell someone not to look, and they can’t help themselves.
Especially when the warning comes from nowhere.
He was no exception.
First, he glanced to his right.
The salaryman was still looking at his phone.
(…Didn’t he hear it?)
Then Thomas looked to his left—no one.
And before he realized it, his eyes had returned to the forbidden direction—
the glass in front of him.
In that instant—
the woman was there again, sitting at the far left of the reflection.
No one in the real world,
but in the glass, she stared straight at him
Unmoving.
Even with the train’s sway, not a single strand of her hair shifted.
A chill ran up Thomas’s spine.
The announcement sounded again.
Japanese first, calm and ordinary.
But what followed in English… could not have been real.
“Next station… Kasumizawa.
Mr. Thomas, please get off at this station.”
His name.
That name.
No such announcement could exist—
and he had never heard of any place called Kasumizawa.
The moment the voice faded,
the woman began to move—
slowly, as though pushing through water—
drifting toward him from within the reflection.
Sweat ran down his back.
He could not move. Could not look away.
It was as if something held him still,
forcing him to keep watching the glass.
The train slowed.
An unfamiliar melody played.
With a hiss, the doors slid open.
Thomas forced his body to move, s
tood up with all the strength he had left,
and leapt out onto the platform.
The train departed in silence.
He turned to look—
and deep within the carriage,
the woman in the reflection was still watching him.
Her face, he said later, was burned into his memory.
On the station sign, the name read “Kasumizawa.”
He tried to find a station worker,
someone to tell him how to get home.
But there was no one.
No staff. No lights at the gate.
The ticket machines were dark.
He stepped outside to find someone—anyone—
and the moment he did, his vision blurred.
The ground tilted.
When he came to,
the station was gone.
He was standing on the tracks.
Alone.
In the middle of the night.
His hands trembled as he called for help.
Rescuers found him later and brought him back to the station where he was supposed to have arrived.
Of course, no one believed his story.
They accused him of being drunk, or high, or sick.
He was held until morning.
There has long been a rumor in Japan.
They say that among the trains we ride,
there are some meant to carry the dead—
to the world beyond.
Sometimes, a living passenger finds their way onto one.
Some return.
Some do not.
No one knows why.
Thomas, it seems, was one of the lucky ones.
Though after that night,
he would say this—
When he rides a train,
the person reflected in the glass
never seems quite like himself.
When he rides a train,
the person reflected in the glass
never seems quite like himself.
Like the woman’s eyes that night.
Since then, Thomas has not been able to ride trains at all.
And where he is now…
no one knows.
Leave the light on, if you can.
Shadows linger after stories like this.
We will meet again… when you are ready to hear another.
Heh… heh…