Haunted Conscience

Late Minute

Every day at precisely 7:53 in the morning, Horatio Vega stepped into the Zion train station from the southwest entrance, blue checkered shirt and leather briefcase at hand, walked in a perfectly straight line all the way to the ticket validator, then proceeded to the platform where he stood exactly two footsteps away from the warning line. He always entered the third wagon and sat on the second row to the left at the seat by the window with the number 4B. You could say that Mr. Vega was a creature of habit.

Horatio had followed that route for years, but on the 7th of May, in the year 2103, something was amiss. The 8:00 am train was late by a minute although the departure board, the black electronic clock on the wall, and the digital Swatch on his wrist said otherwise. Horatio didn't know how he knew, but he knew he had waited just a tiny bit longer for the train to arrive and it gave him a tingling sensation in the head. He boarded on, as usual, but on that particular day he was unusually jittery throughout the eleven-stop trip to his job. Horatio was incapable of explaining how he felt (or why for that matter), but he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that clung on him like a leech.

Upon arriving at the massive forty-five floor building, everything seemed normal, just like always, but Horatio couldn't shake the sensation that something was terribly off. He clocked on at exactly 8:30 -or 8:31 according to his internal clock- and made the fifty-three step way to the elevator. He stood on the right side in the far back corner for the duration of the two and a half minute ascension, the sappy tune tickling his eardrums, and then counted the remaining sixty-two steps into his office. He sat on the mahogany desk and turned on his laptop.

Horatio tried to concentrate, an endeavor as easy as breathing, but to his great annoyance he discovered that he could not. He felt -no; he was certain- that something ominous was about to happen and he had no idea what to do.

He finished his shift, to the best of his abilities, and clocked off at exactly 17:30 in the afternoon -at least according to the card. He arrived at the station and caught the 17:45 train. Although the time interval between the moment he entered the station and the moment the train arrived lasted for as long as it should have, there was no doubt in Horatio's mind that the entire day had shifted by a minute. He sat on 4B and straightened his back, his uneasiness increasing by the second. As soon as the train began its course, he started counting trees, an exercise he performed daily to pass the time, when his eyes fluttered closed and in that millisecond Horatio Vega saw his demise. He started from his seat, eyes wide open and breath cut short, and scanned the wagon in a panicky state.

"Are you alright there, young man?"

Horatio turned to face the elderly woman sitting next to him; brown striped blazer matched with an ankle-length skirt, rectangular bronze glasses on an unusually round face, and a golden cross around her neck--

Her neck...

Her delicate, fragile neck...

--his gaze lingering a little too long on the hollow of her throat.

He opened his mouth to reply, but his voice tripped on his tongue, dusty and rough like sandpaper. In fact, his entire cavity had dried up like a shrunk cactus and Horatio felt waves of dread overcoming him. Amid the panic, he lost count of the trees and that only intensified his increasing terror that now had him darting glances in every direction for signs of disorder. Ignoring the baffled gaze of his seatmate, he shoved her aside as he launched himself to the aisle and strode towards the door, his feet on fire. He pushed the handle upwards, then pushed it again when it stubbornly remained still. Again and again, he pushed and pulled, like a malfunctioning software stuck on loop, but to no avail. Absorbed as he was in his futile attempt, he failed to notice the ticket inspector standing behind him, eyebrow cocked.