The dawn mist rolled across the rails like smoke, thick with the metallic tang of sea salt and rain. By the time the crew reached the platform, the air had gone cold and damp enough to cling to their skin.
The sign above them was half-gone, the paint eaten by years of storms. Station de Sangatte. The name barely clung to the metal like a memory that didn't want to stay.
The ticket hall was a ruin of shattered glass and twisted benches, but most of the structures were still standing — the old café, the freight office, even a line of rusted carriages on a side track.
It looked abandoned.
Peaceful, even.
But peace wasn't real anymore. Peace was a pause before the next noise.
Kazuma stood in the cab of the crane locomotive, scanning the rail yard through the mist. He brushed moss from a plaque with his glove.
"Two sleepers," he murmured, "and a maintenance car. One of those might still have running water."
He stared down the fog-wrapped line. It's too quiet. Even his own breathing sounded wrong. The silence had a weight to it now — a pressure, like the air was holding its breath.
Places like this don't stay untouched. Not unless something decided they should.
He swallowed. We need water. We need fuel. We can't keep drifting south on hope and fumes.
"Get in," he said finally. "Grab what you can. Then we're out. The second that crane starts, we've got five minutes before everything nearby comes crawling."
Mike let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Guess we better make 'quiet' our religion."
Kazuma gave a small nod. "Faith's not what's gonna save us. Timing will."
They split up without more talk. The fog swallowed them like it always did — softly, without a sound.
Inside the first sleeper car, the air felt dead — too still to belong to the living. Dust hung like ash in the flashlight beam.
Mike moved slow, careful, eyes darting to every creak. "Cleaner than I expected," he muttered.
Leina followed behind him, her patched cheer uniform a faded ghost of the world that used to be. I used to hate this uniform, she thought. Now I wear it until it falls apart. Funny, what survival makes sacred.
"Someone's been here," she whispered.
On a small table sat a cold kettle, half a loaf of dry bread, and a child's drawing — stick figures holding hands under a bright yellow sun. Across the paper, someone had gouged black crayon lines over the faces.
Mike exhaled through his teeth. "This wasn't long ago. Days, maybe."
Leina stared. The scratches weren't random. They were angry. Personal. Someone snapped here. Maybe they couldn't take the silence anymore.
Her chest tightened. A family lived here. Tried to make a home out of rot and echoes. Pretended everything was okay until something came knocking.
"Where are they now?" she asked, knowing she shouldn't.
Mike didn't answer. His jaw clenched once. Then he looked at the bread again and said quietly, "Not far enough."
Outside, the fog was thick enough to taste. Dan and Luna worked through the storage sheds in near-darkness.
Luna crouched beside a fuel drum, tapping the lid. "Kazuma might be able to filter this. It's old, but not spoiled."
"Grab what you can," Dan said. His voice was steady, but inside, his nerves were stretched thin. Every sound here echoes too long. Feels like the place is listening.
Luna slid the siphon tube in — and froze.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Dan's stomach dropped. Not footsteps. Not human.
He motioned for silence. The hose dripped once. A single plink that sounded like gunfire in the quiet.
He leaned around the drum — nothing but fog.
"Probably the wind," Luna whispered.
Dan shook his head slowly. "There's no wind."
He hated the way his heartbeat filled his ears. It was too loud. If I can hear it, so can whatever's out there.
The fog shifted. Something moved in it — tall, deliberate.
Kazuma's voice crackled faintly through the radio: "Report. Anyone find usable compartments?"
Dan's thumb hovered over the button. Don't answer. Please don't answer.
The shape emerged — pale gray skin, thin, its eyes sealed over with a milky film. Its ears bulged outward like a bat's. The shreds of a mechanic's uniform hung from its bones.
Luna's hand clamped on his sleeve. "It can't see," she mouthed.
Dan's throat tightened. No. But it can hear. And right now it's listening for us.
A droplet of diesel hit the floor — plink.
The creature's head snapped toward the sound.
Please don't breathe. Please don't move. Please.
It crept closer, sniffing the air, fingers grazing metal. The air seemed to pulse with the sound of their fear.
Then, faint through the fog — the crane engine's hum.
Kazuma's voice again, too loud, too alive: "Dan, status. Respond."
The thing went rigid. Then its mouth opened — not a scream, but a slow, wet clicking, deep and rhythmic, echoing off the drums.
Luna's eyes widened. It's mapping us. Sound for sight. It's using the world like radar.
Dan's lungs ached. If it hears us breathe, it's over.
The creature twisted, recalibrated, then started moving toward the station.
Luna's whisper trembled. "We need to warn them—"
Dan barely shook his head. "Not yet. If it hears us, it'll double back."
Minutes dragged. The fog thinned just enough to see it vanish into the gray.
Dan exhaled slowly. We saved ourselves. But it heard Kazuma. It's heading for them now.
When they regrouped, the mist had lifted a little, but the quiet pressed heavier than before.
Kazuma caught the look on Dan's face and felt something cold settle in his gut. "What happened?"
Dan's voice was flat, mechanical. "We're not alone. And whatever's out there… it hears everything."
Mike frowned. "Zombies?"
Dan shook his head. "No. Worse. Smarter."
Kazuma's mind clicked into motion. That explains the supplies. No bodies, no chaos. People made noise, and then they were gone. Like they were erased instead of killed.
Luna's voice trembled. "It didn't see us. It… listened. Like sonar."
Leina looked down at her boots. We're prey now. Quiet prey. "Then we move silent," she said. "No engines. No talking. Not even whispers unless we have to."
Kazuma nodded. "We'll run the crane once. Daylight only. Then we head south."
Mike tried to joke, his voice thin. "Super-hearing zombies. Great. Just when I was missing conversation."
No one laughed.
That night, the mist thickened again, hanging low like gauze over the station. The air felt alive, as if listening.
Kazuma sat apart from the others, the small fuel light beside him flickering in the gray.
Dan's words echoed in his head: It hears everything.
He looked at his hands — scarred, shaking slightly. They keep evolving. Faster, smarter, quieter. Always changing to hunt.
And us? We're just changing to survive. We move softer, breathe shallower, think smaller. Every new day, we lose a little more of what made us human.
He stared into the fog. Maybe that's evolution too. Maybe the next step isn't to live — it's to hide better.
He whispered to no one, "If this is evolution, then we're already ghosts."
From somewhere out in the mist, that same faint clicking began again — slow, patient, methodical.
The sound of something searching.
No one spoke for the rest of the night.