The door was stuck. Completely and utterly. It rattled with the movement of the train, budging just enough to tease. The carriage grew warmer – did it really, or simply an imagining, a symptom of the incarceration? My fine silk shirt stuck to me like cling film. My cell mate aboard the carriage was down at the other end and shook their head, hands falling limply from the door. They’d already missed their stop, of course they’d give up so easily.

I took a few steps back and rammed my shoulder into the door, even though I knew it opened by sliding. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t move. The heat crawled its way up my chest and through my shoulders, into my throat and mouth, choking me, and with it a taste of fury at the ridiculous circumstances of the morning which had resulted in me having to use public transport. My fellow captive in the faulty carriage opened their mouth and, with a single one of my glares, they closed it.

The train seemed to move ever faster, the strange sideways pull amplifying, the feeling of my organs sliding lanced a dread into my bones as we hurtled down the tracks. The light from outside vanished as we entered a tunnel, the windows becoming vacant voids of black. A faint wave of nausea eased up my body. I’d travelled this line many times, back before I could collect cars like trading cards. There were no tunnels on this route. I turned back to my fellow captive aboard this ghost train. Or I would have done, if they were there.

I spun, again and again, dashing between the seats. They were gone. The incessant, burning heat of the carriage, crawling over my skin like ants, ceased as if a bucket of ice water fell over me in cascades of confusion and despair. My flesh stung as my sweat crystallised, freezing along the lengths of my arms, through my scalp, down my back, making me one with my sodden silk shirt.

I spun a final time, the film of ice crackling with my movements and I came face to face with my fellow captive, stood uncomfortably close to me. At last, I recognised their face, and I knew I would never leave that train carriage. Something in the eyes, a glint of emptiness that reflected the abyss within. It was strangely liberating in a way, despite the mile wide terror that wedged itself into my being. It was all over now.

“I thought I had 10 years.” None of my fear was in my voice, just resignation.

“It’s been 10 years,” the demon said.

“Oh.”

The demon looked at me in their human guise, eyes twinkling with amusement and hunger, and I realised that, instead of money, perhaps I should have made a deal for better time keeping.