No one pretends the Mysterious is safe.
That truth, paradoxically, is why tickets vanish within minutes.
The Mysterious runs routes that are officially impractical, unofficially impossible, and occasionally denied outright. When borders close, rails collapse, or permits stall indefinitely, the Mysterious still departs on schedule. For refugees, fugitives, debtors, couriers, and those simply trying to outrun consequences, it is often the only engine moving.
People don’t board it because it’s comfortable.
They board it because it arrives.
Despite its velvet lounges, private cabins, and cutting-edge systems, the Mysterious sells tickets at economic-class rates. The reason is never explained. Rumors suggest the route’s danger classification suppresses pricing, or that insurance algorithms refuse to value the journey properly. Whatever the cause, the result is irresistible: first-class surroundings for third-class coin.
For many passengers, it is the first—and possibly last—time they will ever experience such luxury.
The Mysterious is a place where names soften.
Tickets are checked, not interrogated. Records exist, but they blur in transit. Onboard systems prioritize continuity over scrutiny. For those seeking to disappear without vanishing entirely—to move without being traced—the train offers something no city can: plausible obscurity.
You can be anyone between stations.
Sometimes, that’s enough.
Dealmakers, investigators, fixers, smugglers, and brokers know a simple truth: everyone else is on the Mysterious. Where people of every class, motive, and desperation intersect, opportunity follows. Contracts are signed over dinner. Confessions slip out between drinks. Enemies share corridors without realizing it.
Many board intending only to travel.
Many disembark having changed their lives—intentionally or not.
Among certain circles, a darker belief circulates:
If the Mysterious accepts you, your story is not finished.
Some say the train “selects” its passengers. Others claim those meant to die elsewhere survive only because they boarded. There are stories of people who should have been executed, bankrupt, or erased—only to find themselves stepping off the Mysterious intact, altered, but alive.
No evidence supports this.
Enough anecdotes do.
Because the train doesn’t wait.
Because the route closes without warning.
Because tomorrow may lock doors today leaves open.
And because somewhere deep down, every passenger believes the same quiet thing:
If something must happen to me…
better it happens on a train that keeps moving.