The 7:23 to Paddington was already moving when Ben realised the earbuds weren’t his.
He’d collected them from lost property that morning—black case, wireless earbuds, exactly like the ones he’d left on his seat during yesterday’s journey. The clerk had barely looked up when Ben described them. “Only pair we’ve got,” she’d said, sliding the case across the counter.
Now, settling into his usual seat for the morning commute, Ben opened the case and frowned. They looked identical to his, except for a tiny scratch he didn’t recognise.
His phone buzzed with a work email. Sighing, Ben put the earbuds in anyway. He needed to concentrate, and the train was filling with the usual racket of conversations and rattling doors.
The connection was instant. Too instant. Instead of his morning podcast, he heard something else.
The sound of footsteps on gravel. Quick, uneven breaths. A woman’s voice, low and urgent: “Come on, Chloe, nearly there.”
Ben fumbled for his phone. Had the podcast app glitched? But the screen showed his usual news feed—no audio playing. He fiddled with the earbuds, but the sounds continued, growing clearer.
Traffic noise now, distant but getting closer. The footsteps quickening.
The train gathered speed through the London suburbs, and Ben felt trapped between the commuters pressed around him and the strange audio filling his head. This wasn’t coming through the earbuds exactly, he realised—it was somehow deeper, as if the sounds were being played directly into his mind.
“Just a bit further.” The woman’s voice again, breathless. Chloe, presumably. A car door slammed somewhere behind her.
Ben’s hands shook as he tried to understand what was happening. Around him, passengers read papers and scrolled through phones, oblivious to the fear coursing through him. The woman in the audio was afraid—he could hear it in her breathing, in the way her footsteps kept changing rhythm.
Heavier footsteps now, following hers. Deliberate. Getting closer.
“Chloe…” A man’s voice, calling from further back. Cold. Patient.
Ben pressed his hands against the earbuds, but it made no difference. The sounds weren’t coming through his ears now—they were somehow inside his head, memories that didn’t belong to him. Chloe’s memories.
The footsteps behind her broke into a run.
Ben frantically pulled the earbuds from his ears, but Chloe’s breathing still filled his head, her panic flooding through him. The train swayed around a bend, and he gripped his seat, fighting the urge to run himself. But where could he go? The carriage was packed, the train racing towards London, and Chloe’s memories becoming his own.
A car engine revving. Getting closer.
“Chloe, you can’t run forever.”
The voice was right behind her now, and Ben could feel her panic as if it were his own lungs burning, his own legs trembling with exhaustion. She was running through an underpass—he could hear the echo of her footsteps, the drip of water from overhead pipes.
The screech of tyres.
“Please, no—”
Ben tried to stand, knocking into the businessman beside him. “Sorry,” he gasped, but his voice sounded distant. The businessman frowned and returned to his newspaper.
Impact. The awful sound of metal hitting something soft.
Silence.
Ben doubled over, his vision blurring. The other passengers’ conversations faded to white noise as Chloe’s final moments played out in his head. He could feel her lying on cold concrete, her breathing shallow and laboured, the world growing dark around her.
Footsteps approaching slowly. The squeak of car brakes.
“Should have just paid me back, Chloe.”
Silence. Then nothing.
The train pulled into Paddington, and Ben stumbled off with the crowd, Chloe’s terror still echoing in his skull. He leaned against a pillar, gasping, finally pressing the earbuds back into their case.
In the sudden quiet, he examined the black case in his trembling hands. A tiny sticker on the bottom caught his eye—something he hadn’t noticed before. A name and address label: C. Palmer, Flat 3B, Millfield Road.
Chloe Palmer.
Ben stared at the case, understanding flooding through him. Chloe must have been wearing them when she died. They’d somehow retained her final memories, her last desperate run through that underpass.
His phone buzzed with a news notification: Body of Woman Found in Railway Underpass. Police Appealing for Witnesses.
Ben’s finger hovered over the link. He knew he should read it, call the police, tell them about the earbuds and what he’d heard. But first, he needed to get away from Paddington Station.
As he walked towards the exit, Ben could still hear the echo of the man’s voice: “Should have just paid me back, Chloe.” And somewhere in the distance, the sound of footsteps following him down the platform.
Leave a comment