A man woke up on a cold bench in an empty train station. He had no idea who he was. His pockets were empty except for one thing: a train ticket. It read "Departure: Now. Destination: Veliska." He had never heard of Veliska. The big board above him was blank. No people, no trains, no sound. Just him and a ticket to a place he didn't know.

He stood up and looked for someone to ask. At the far end, a small ticket window glowed with yellow light. An old clerk sat behind the glass, watching him. The man hurried over and held up the ticket. "Where is Veliska?" he asked.

The clerk frowned. "That ticket is forty years old," he said, tapping the glass. "We stopped running to Veliska after the accident. Nobody's asked for it since." He pulled a dusty file from a drawer. The man's photo was inside.

"If it stopped running, why do I have a ticket?" he asked. The clerk's face went pale. He looked at the photo, then at the man, then back. "Because the last train never actually arrived," he whispered. "And neither did you." Behind the man, a cold wind began to blow through the locked doors.

The cold wind died. The clerk reached through the window and gripped the man's hand, and his fingers were like ice. "There's one way to truly arrive," he said. "Walk to the platform and wait. The last train is forty years late, but it always comes for the ones who stay." The man sat down on the bench to wait, and this time he was not afraid.