09/05/2025
Title: The Shadows of Piccadilly Gate
In a time long before locomotives and iron tracks, there stood a foreboding crossing deep within the heart of the darkened shire — a place the townsfolk called Piccadilly Gate. Though no one dared venture there after dusk, ancient maps marked it as a gathering point, where cobbled roads met beneath the watchful gaze of a crumbling stone arch.
Legend spoke of The Signalman, a hooded figure clad in robes darker than the void, who would toll an ancient bell each midnight. With every toll, a mist would rise from the earth, and spectral carriages drawn by eyeless beasts would emerge from the fog, ferrying lost souls to a place known only in whispers as The Hollow Beyond.
The townspeople, gripped by fear, would seal their homes with blood-marked talismans, for those caught outside risked being taken by the Pale Conductor — a ghostly harbinger who dragged the living to ride in carriages of bone and rust.
One fateful night, a curious scribe named Edric of Wynthorpe sought to uncover the truth. Armed with only a flickering lantern and an iron dagger, he crossed into Piccadilly Gate. The bell tolled, the mist rose, and Edric’s screams were the last sound the town heard before dawn.
His journal was found weeks later, pages filled with frantic ink stains and chilling words:
“The trains do not carry passengers. They carry memories… and none shall ever leave.”
Since then, the ruins of Piccadilly Gate remain a cursed crossing — a place where time and shadow still gather.