Chapter 11: The Missing Piece

Chapter 11: The Missing Piece

Rick staggered out of Rose's dorm, his breath ragged, his hands still trembling. The words scrawled in blood burned in his mind.

SAVE MIKI.

It wasn't just a warning. It was a plea.

He clenched his fists, heart hammering.

Miki is trapped in the loop.

And Rose… she knew it.

The sticky note in the notebook. The frantic journal entries. The message written with her own blood. It all pointed to one thing—

Miki was in danger, and she didn't even know it.

A sharp chill crawled up his spine. He needed to find her. He needed to warn her before it was too late.

Rick sprinted across campus, his pulse pounding. His mind screamed at him to hurry.

He reached Miki's dorm and banged on the door.

No answer.

His stomach twisted. He knocked again. Harder. "Miki, it's me! Open the door!"

Silence.

Then, the door swung open—but it wasn't Miki.

A stranger stood there, a girl Rick had never seen before.

She frowned. "Who are you?"

Rick's breath caught in his throat. "Where's Miki?"

The girl's frown deepened. "Miki?"

Rick's chest tightened. "Miki Hoshino. She lives here. Where is she?"

The girl gave him a blank look. "There's no one named Miki in this dorm."

His vision blurred for a second.

No. No, that was impossible.

"She—she lives here! Room 306! I—"

The girl took a step back, her face uneasy. "I think you have the wrong place."

Then, she shut the door.

Rick stood there, frozen, his pulse roaring in his ears.

He turned and ran.

Miki wasn't answering her phone. Her number was gone from his contacts.

Rick tried asking people—classmates, professors, her closest friends.

No one remembered her.

Even people who should have known her for years just looked at him with puzzled expressions.

"Miki? Who's that?"

His breath came in sharp gasps. Reality was warping.

Then he saw it.

Pinned to the campus bulletin board, among all the usual announcements and flyers—

A missing person poster.

Rick's blood ran cold.

Because there, in bold letters, was a name.

MIKI HOSHINO.

But there was no photo.

The space where her picture should have been was blank.

Rick took a step closer, his pulse hammering. The ink on the poster flickered, like it was unstable, shifting—

And then, right before his eyes—

The poster vanished.

Rick staggered back, his heart slamming against his ribs.

Then his phone buzzed.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: "You're looking in the wrong place."

Rick's breathing was uneven.

His mind spiraled.

Miki didn't just disappear.

She was erased.

And there was only one place that held all the answers.

The train.

His hands clenched into fists. He didn't care if he was walking into something he couldn't understand.

He was done running.

He was going to find her.

Rick arrived at the abandoned train station where the crash was supposed to happen.

The platform was eerily silent, a place lost in time. No trains. No people.

The air was thick, suffocating—like reality was bending around him.

Rick took a deep breath and stepped forward—onto the tracks.

Then—

He lifted his head, his pulse thundering.

A train was coming.

Even though there were no tracks.

The horn howled through the silence, low and unnatural, vibrating through his bones like something alive. The air around him shimmered, distorting like heatwaves.

The ground trembled beneath his feet, but there was nothing to shake—no rails, no station machinery, nothing.

And yet, the train was moving.

Not coasting.

Not slowing.

It was rushing toward him at full speed.

Rick staggered back, his instincts screaming at him to run.

But as he turned, the train shifted.

Its massive steel body bent unnaturally, the front car twisting midair—following him.

Rick's breath hitched. His stomach dropped.

It was chasing him.

And it wasn't going to stop.

Rick threw himself to the side, rolling across the concrete platform. The train roared past him, missing him by inches—

For a moment, he thought he had escaped.

Then—

The train twisted.

Like a snake changing direction mid-strike, its entire form bent unnaturally, its massive steel body curving in midair.

Rick's stomach dropped in terror.

The train was turning around to face him.

He scrambled to his feet, his pulse hammering. Trains don't move like that.

This wasn't just a vehicle.

This was something else.

And it was coming for him.

Rick ran.

He sprinted across the platform, his breath ragged, heart slamming against his ribs.

The train lurched forward, its wheels screeching against concrete, even though there were no tracks guiding it.

Rick dodged behind a metal pillar—

CRASH!

The train slammed into the pillar, twisting its body unnaturally around it, bending and reforming.

Rick stumbled back, horrified.

This thing—it wasn't just chasing him.

It was hunting him

He turned to run again—

But the train was already there.

It had circled around, cutting off his escape.

The air pulsed with deep, vibrating energy, and Rick could feel something staring at him from inside the train's windows.

Dark, shadowy figures pressed against the glass. Their eyes—empty, hollow voids—watched him.

Then, the doors hissed open.

A whisper brushed against his ears, carried by the unnatural wind:

"Get on."

Rick's whole body shook.

No.

No, he couldn't.

Every fiber of his being screamed at him not to step inside.

He turned—one last chance to escape.

And that's when the train lurched forward—

And swallowed him whole.

The moment steel met flesh, Rick expected pain.

Instead—

It felt like drowning.

He was weightless, suspended in the air, as though he had been ripped from time itself.

Darkness engulfed him.

A cacophony of screams and static filled his ears, distant voices calling his name, crying, begging.

For a moment, he thought he saw—

Miki.

She stood somewhere in the void, reaching out to him, but she wasn't looking at him.

She was looking past him.

Then—

Everything shattered.

Rick gasped as he sat up abruptly, air flooding his lungs.

He was lying on a soft bed.

His dorm.

He blinked rapidly, disoriented. Had it all been a dream?

His heart still pounded. His hands trembled. He could still feel the weight of the train hitting him.

He turned toward his desk—

And his stomach dropped.

Because his notebook was already open, filled with notes he didn't remember writing.

Scrawled across the pages, in his own handwriting:

"Miki is missing."

"Find the train."

"The loop is real."

Rick's blood ran cold.

Then, his phone buzzed.

His hands shook as he reached for it, checking the screen.

UNKNOWN NUMBER: "Welcome back."

His breath hitched.

The loop had started again.

And this time, he wasn't sure what had changed.