"Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail."<br/><br/>Jamie drummed his hands in some manner of haphazard rhythm on the large stretch of reception desk in front of him, tuning in and out of the news broadcast and reclining in his chair. The most interesting part of his job was the fact that it was actually not interesting in the slightest. Hotels in the small Buckinghamshire town largely served little purpose; tourists didn't come to Amersham, and whoever had family here<span style="font-style: italic">lived</span>here. And Jamie didn't mind that at all really. No new check-ins meant that he could watch the small television at the end of the table, which he normally enjoyed quite a bit. But this particular news story made him uneasy, and between all the news channels it had practically been playing all day.<br/><br/>After the woman at the news desk talked some more, the scene changed to reveal a heavy set police officer in a very nice uniform standing at a podium on top of some stairs. He grumbled from beneath his mustache and spoke into the forest of microphones which prodded out at him from the stand.<br/><br/>"These people have made it clear that they will stop at nothing to undermine the efforts of the municipal planning authority to expand the Underground Rail and now they have resorted to kidnapping citizens as they travel to work. The Metropolitan Police Service will stop at nothing to bring these criminals to justice and return the missing loved ones to their families..."<br/><br/>"Weird, right?" The only other receptionist at the desk, and his best friend, Darren. A nice enough man, but he really needed to stop asking that question every time the story replayed.<br/><br/>Jamie merely hummed in response, vaguely listening to the statement from the Metropolitan Police. "I wish you would change the channel. This is nothing we haven't heard a hundred times tonight," he said. He propped an elbow up on the table, cupping his chin in one hand and holding a pen in the other. The button was turned toward the table, and Jamie pushed it down and let it bounce back up only to fall back down to the desk with a small clatter. "I'm pretty sure you know that officer's entire speech by heart by now."<br/><br/>"I'm just saying-," Darren started, and Jamie gave a rather dramatic groan of despair as he let his head fall to the desk, long hair pooling around him. He heard Darren huff in agitation, but unfortunately that didn't exactly deter him from continuing. "I'm just saying that it seems a bit too weird that only one car was affected. One out of- what was it- twelve? Those cars hold a lot of people, Jamie. What would this group even do with them?"<br/><br/>Jamie lifted his head just enough to be heard. "Hold them for ransom? Kill them? Make them sit through another one of your weird theories?" he guessed, tapping a finger on the desk for each reason he listed. Darren disregarded his comment with a resigned<span style="font-style: italic"> tsk</span>and turned back to the television. Jamie rolled his eyes and sat up straight again. "Alright, what does the great Darren Thompson think happened to the passengers, then?"<br/><br/>Darren shot him a look that Jamie was sure was meant to be threatening, but it really wasn't. "He thinks that the not-so-great James McGuire needs to shut the hell up." Jamie laughed at that and spun his chair around to face him, gesturing with a wave of his hand for Darren to go on. After a moment, Darren gave up the silent treatment as Jamie knew he would. The man could never resist talking about his thoughts on something, no matter what it was. "There has to be something that they're not telling us in the news. I mean, they had to have found<span style="font-style: italic">something</span>."<br/><br/>"Except they didn't."<br/><br/>"They had to. It doesn't make sense. Say this group unloaded all the passengers of that car onto the railway. Fine. But then what? Where did they go?" he asked, waving his arms for a bit of extra emphasis. "They could have kept marching on the tracks, but they could only do that for so long before they reached another station. And if they did reach another station, I'd like to think that someone would notice a terrorist group leading a bunch of people on foot through the tracks."<br/><br/>Jamie nodded slowly, much the way you would if you were listening to the nonsensical ramblings of an extremely annoying five-year-old. "So, what are you getting at, then? That they actually vanished? Like, disappeared into thin air?"<br/><br/>"That's the only possible explanation. You can't abduct an entire mass of people without someone noticing something."<br/><br/>Jamie rolled his eyes and gave a slight shake of his head. "You're eccentric," he dismissed, pulling his hair back into a ponytail. "I still have a half-hour until I get off, please don't make me sit through this until then."<br/><br/>Thankfully Darren relented, throwing his hands up in a defensive gesture and turning off the television. Darren disappeared into the file room and with a bit of reluctance, Jamie pushed his chair away from the table and stood, stretching his arms into the air with a groan. He busied himself in organizing the papers that had been strewn across the desk throughout the day. He and Darren were both very competent at what they did.. they just weren't exactly neat about it. More often than not, by the end of the day they wound up with service requests mixed between check-in logs. It could only be described as a miracle that they managed to get it all cleaned up and sorted out each night.<br/><br/>"...a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. "<br/><br/>Jamie jumped at the sudden sound and clutched a few papers to his chest, feeling his heart race and then slow down. Without dignifying it with so much as turning, Jamie rolled his eyes and laid the papers on the desk, trying to force them to lay flat from where he had wrinkled them. "Very funny, Darren, now turn it off. We don't have time for this." The woman's voice was cut off, and Jamie was greeted with silence. Which meant that Darren had taken to ignoring him now, but at least he'd been courteous enough to turn the television off again. "Thank you."<br/><br/>"You say something, Jay?" Jamie turned around on his heel, and saw Darren poke his head out from the file room. "Earth to Jamie. What did you say?"<br/><br/>Jamie stared at him with confusion and then turned his eyes to the television. He shook his head slowly at first, then quick with dismissal. "Nothing. I think I'm just tired," he said, leaning backward against the desk and tapping his nails on the wood. He stood in contemplation a moment before forcing it to the back of his mind. "Hey, hurry up so we can get out of here."<br/><br/>They had managed to ready everything for the next shift on time tonight, a rare occurrence between the two of them. They stood in front of the large glass doors, Darren lighting a cigarette and Jamie drowning in a black coat about two or three sizes too big for him. Once his cigarette was lit, Darren took a long drag and shoved his lighter back into his pocket. "See you tomorrow, man." He gave Jamie a firm clap on the shoulder and walked to his car, leaving Jamie to his thoughts. He listened to the car door slam and the engine roar to life, and just like that he was alone. He watched the car get smaller and smaller, and for a moment he wished for the world that he had asked for a ride home.<br/><br/>Because not even a minute later, he found himself walking down Chiltern Avenue as he normally did, but he was going in the opposite direction of his home - he was going in the direction of the Amersham station.<br/><br/>When he arrived, station was cramped, hot and smelly. Even with a pre-paid ten trip ticket he didn't seem to get through the huddle any faster than anybody else but before long he was standing on the platform catching the first train that had boarded.   Any ridicule or complaint he was contemplating was rudely interrupted by the screeching of a halting train car pulling onto the platform. He, along with several hundred others, ambled and shoved onto the train where they would spent the next moments of their lives uncomfortably pressed against one another. There were women holding the hands of children tightly and clutching their handbags even tighter still. There were homeless men who occupied entire stretches of sitting space while they slept and occupied even more space around them with their stench. A few people were like Jamie, just bundled up button pushers making their way to or from work. The last group Jamie could see were the perverts who slid their way like inky snakes to stand by women or children and press their bodies against them, rubbing themselves on the clean and unsuspecting with their eyes closed and perverse grins on their faces.<br/><br/>He hated the train.<br/><br/>The speeding train car rocked back and forth, jarring everybody around within its bowels. Occasionally it would breach the end of a tunnel and more natural light would break into the surroundings but more often than not it was dark with only the hum and bleak glow of halogen bulbs which lined the top of the car. Though even then only a few worked and even fewer didn't constantly flicker. The train sped off from another station and into the darkness of the tunnel. Through most of this, Jamie had his eyes closed and was trying his best not to pay attention to the heat or the smell but he could tell when the car lit up with each stop and he counted the minutes between each one. It was the same as yesterday and the day before that and countless days before them still. It was the same as it would be tomorrow. Four minutes of blackness, then a stop. Six minutes, stop. Fourteen minutes, stop. The next one was four minutes away again. Four...<br/><br/>Five...<br/><br/>Six...<br/><br/>Seven...<br/><br/>Blackness passed and passed without light. Jamie opened his eyes and looked around to see the windows of the train car still awash with the same black that permeated through whenever the train was between stations. Puzzled, he pushed his way to the window and squinted his eyes to see if he could see the subtle red lights that dotted infrequently on the walls of the inside of the tunnel. Minutes more passed and no red glow. Not even a flicker. It was around this time that Jamie noticed the train car wasn't rattling and bumping like normal but rather gently swaying back and forth rhythmically. He pressed his face closer to the glass and used his hands either side of his eyes to peer out and tried his best to focus. Perhaps the train had stopped and something was being serviced. It was strange that they wouldn't announce that on the intercom though.<br/><br/>A few more minutes passed before Jamie saw much of anything. The first movement was a distant blinking white light which swung back and forth out in the expanse of nothing. It drifted closer and closer with each fade in and out and was almost mesmerizing. Jamie blinked and it was closer again. He watched it carefully for a minute before pulling away and looking around the car. It seemed that no one else seemed fazed by the prolonged darkness and gentle rocking of the train. No one was even looking out the window except for one man. A homeless man had risen from his slumber and was peering outwards into the same deep blackness that Jamie was, and he was watching the swaying white light.<br/><br/>Then, as if from nowhere, the train car was illuminated from the right side by the swaying light. Jamie and the homeless man were the only two passengers who reacted to this at all and the light violently jerked upwards to reveal something Jamie had never seen before. Right in front of his eyes was a gaping maw of teeth and tongues and eyes. He stumbled back and fell to the floor, disturbing passengers all around him. The maw in the window opened wide, and everything went black.