Man from the Shadow

The small-town railway station wore its old-world charm like an heirloom nobody had the heart to polish. The waiting hall, with its lacquered teakwood table in the center and

a set of hand-woven cane chairs, looked like it belonged to another century. The incandescent bulbs hung low, their yellow light filling the hall with a tired warmth, casting long shadows that shifted with every flicker.

It was close to midnight. Four men, all strangers to each other, sat around the old table. One read a newspaper, his spectacles perched low on his nose. Another gnawed on a roasted peanut, tossing shells absently onto the floor. The third fiddled with a pack of playing cards, shuffling without playing. The fourth leaned back, half-asleep, his head nodding at uneven intervals. They were waiting for the midnight express, the only train that passed through at such an ungodly hour.

The iron clock on the wall ticked loudly, each second dragging. Then, the door creaked.

A man entered.

He was tall, unnaturally so, but disturbingly thin, his cheeks sunken deep into his skull as though his skin had forgotten how to cling to bone. His black overcoat, too large for his frame, hung awkwardly, and in his hand he carried a battered leather suitcase, its seams stretched and frayed. He paused, surveying the room with hollow eyes, then moved toward the table. Without a word, he removed his overcoat and slid into the empty chair.

The four strangers exchanged quick glances. None spoke for a while. The man’s presence was unsettling, but the quiet of the station was oppressive enough that they welcomed his company, if only as distraction.

“Train late again,” muttered the one with the newspaper, breaking the silence.

The man in the black coat gave a dry smile. “Yes. Trains. Always late. Never on time when you need them most.” His voice was hoarse, broken, like a man who had coughed for years.

“Traveling far?” the peanut man asked.

“Not far,” the stranger replied, resting his suitcase by his feet. “But long enough.” His eyes lingered on each of them, slow and deliberate, as if memorizing their faces.

The card shuffler cleared his throat. “You don’t look well, friend. Sick?”

The man leaned back, the yellow bulb overhead highlighting the hollows beneath his eyes. “Sick? Yes. Always sick. But not dead. Not yet.” He chuckled softly, and the sound made the others shiver.

The newspaper reader tried to change the subject. “What do you do?”

The stranger leaned forward. “I tell stories.”

The men looked at each other. Something in his tone compelled them to listen.

The man began.

 

“I’ve often found myself at tables like this one,” he said, brushing the lacquered surface with bony fingers. “With strangers. Always four others. Once, in a roadside inn. Another time, on a river ferry. Another, in a tavern. And once… yes, once on a hilltop, under the open sky. Each time, five of us. Talking. Playing cards. Sharing food. Harmless company.

But then… it came.

The black wasp.”

The peanut man stopped chewing. The card shuffler’s hands stilled. The air in the hall grew heavier.

“Yes,” the stranger continued, his voice low, “a wasp. Jet black. Larger than any insect should be. It enters, circles the table once, humming that terrible note… and leaves. Always leaves.”

He paused, his eyes distant, as though reliving the moment. “And then… one by one, they die. The strangers. Within days, sometimes hours. Each of them. Every single time. Except me.”

“Coincidence,” muttered the newspaper reader, though his voice lacked conviction.

The man’s lips curled. “Is it coincidence when it happens four times? Always the same way? Always four deaths? Always I remain?”

The half-asleep man who had said nothing so far whispered, “Then why are you alive?”

The stranger’s face hardened. “Alive? Do I look alive to you?” He tapped his sunken cheekbones with a skeletal finger. “It does not let me die. It feeds on me differently. Leaves me rotting inside, wasting, but breathing still. Survival, yes. But worse than death.”

The incandescent bulb above them flickered violently, plunging the room into a heartbeat of darkness before returning to its sickly yellow glow. The men shifted uneasily.

The stranger continued. “That is why I look like this. The sickness is my curse. Every encounter, every wasp, I weaken more. Yet I live. To tell the tale. Again and again.”

His words hung in the room like damp mist. Nobody moved. The only sound was the ticking of the clock and the occasional scuttle of a rat in the corner.

Finally, the loudspeaker crackled, announcing the approach of the midnight express. The men stirred with relief, ready to escape the eerie spell of the story.

And then it happened.

A faint buzz.

From the half-open window near the ceiling, it entered.

A wasp.

Not yellow. Not brown. Black. Entirely black, its wings shimmering like thin blades of obsidian. It hovered in the center of the room, the droning sound impossibly loud in the stillness.

The men froze, their eyes wide.

The wasp lowered, circling once around the table, its flight deliberate, enclosing them all within its loop. Around the newspaper reader. Around the peanut eater. Around the card shuffler. Around the sleepy man. Around the stranger himself.

Once. Twice.

And then it darted upward, disappearing into the dark rafters of the waiting hall.

Silence followed. Heavy. Crushing.

The four men stared at one another, their faces pale, their bodies stiff with fear. None dared speak, though the terror in their eyes was louder than words.

Only the stranger broke the silence, his voice rasping with grim certainty.

“It has chosen.”

The train’s whistle screamed outside, long and haunting, as the midnight express pulled into the station. The hall shook with its arrival.

The four men looked at the stranger, at the empty chair he had occupie,

But it was empty.

The black overcoat. The leather suitcase. The sickly figure. Gone. As though he had never been there at all.

The incandescent bulbs flickered once more, and the station clock ticked on.

The four men, now cursed with the memory of the black wasp’s circle, sat frozen in their chairs, afraid to move, afraid to board the train…