Where the Iron Snakes Sleep

"This isn't my stop."

The words came out quiet, swallowed by the groan of the tram's brakes. Ramon lifted his head from the cool glass of the window, a smudge of condensation marking where his forehead had rested. The street outside was wrong. Not the familiar grimy brick of his apartment block, but towering, soot-stained warehouses with shattered windows like vacant eyes. The end of the line. Or a part of the line he'd never seen.

He was the only one left on board. The other late-night stragglers had disembarked ages ago. He pushed himself up, grabbing a pole as the tram swayed. His bag, heavy with textbooks on architectural theory, slumped against his leg. He looked towards the front, at the silhouetted driver in his booth.

"Hey! I think you missed my stop. King Street?"

The driver didn't move. The tram picked up speed again, its wheels screeching on a sharp turn. Ramon stumbled, catching his balance. This was wrong. This track wasn't used anymore; it led down to the old industrial port, abandoned since the shipping lanes moved north.

He strode towards the driver's cabin, his unease curdling into anger. "Hey! Did you hear me?"

He reached the little booth and rapped on the glass. The driver remained perfectly still, hands on the controls, eyes fixed forward. He wore the old city transit uniform, the dark green one they'd phased out years ago. His face was obscured by the deep shadow of his cap. Ramon knocked again, harder this time. Nothing.

It was then he noticed the tracks. Through the wide front window of the tram, he saw them gleaming. Not with reflected light. They were emitting their own soft, blue luminescence, a pulsing energy that seemed to flow along the steel rails like water. He stared, mesmerised. He’d lived in this city his whole life, ridden these trams thousands of times. He'd never seen anything like it.

The tram was moving much too fast now, rattling violently. The warehouses outside were a blur. The blue light from the tracks grew brighter, casting shifting patterns on the driver's rigid back.

"Stop the tram!" Ramon shouted, his voice tight with panic. He tried the door to the booth. Locked. He slammed his fist against the glass, a pointless act of desperation. The driver didn't even flinch.

Ahead, the track converged into the gaping mouth of the old tram depot, a cavernous brick building left to decay. But deep inside, a corresponding blue light pulsed, a beacon in the darkness. They were heading straight for it. He turned, looking for an emergency brake, a window to smash, anything. The tram was a sealed metal box, and it was carrying him into the heart of that strange blue light.

Confluence of Power

He scrambled back through the empty carriage, his bag thumping against the seats. The windows were reinforced, designed to withstand vandals and riots. His shoulder barely made them shudder. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels was gone, replaced by a high-pitched hum that resonated in his bones. The air inside the tram grew thick, charged with static. The hairs on his arms stood on end.

He could see into the depot now. The tracks didn't stop. They spiralled downwards into the ground, a glowing vortex of energy. At the centre of it, other lines of light converged from all directions, a subterranean nexus. It wasn't a depot. It was a station of some kind. A hub.

Ramon realised with a sickening lurch that the city's tram network wasn't just a transport system. It was a circuit. And he was trapped on a live wire.

He saw the junction just ahead. A manual switch, rusted and overgrown with weeds, that could divert the tram onto a siding. A dead end. It was his only chance. He found the emergency door release, a lever hidden under a panel. He wrenched it open. The hydraulic doors hissed, fighting to stay closed against the speed and the strange energy, but they ground open a few feet.

The wind roared in. The hum was deafening out here. He didn't think. He just jumped.

He hit the ground hard, tumbling through gravel and weeds, his shoulder screaming in protest. He rolled to a stop, gasping for air, his face scraped and bleeding. He looked up just in time to see the tram, his tram, fly past the junction. It was too late to throw the switch.

The tram hit the entrance to the depot and the spiralling track. For a moment, it seemed to connect with the energy, to become part of the circuit. The entire vehicle glowed with that impossible blue light. Then, with a sound like tearing reality, it derailed.

The connection broke. The tram, a vessel now filled with stolen power, slammed into the central pillar of the depot. The explosion wasn't fire and shrapnel. It was light and silence. A wave of pure white energy erupted outwards, silent and absolute.

Ramon threw an arm over his eyes, but the light passed right through it. It wasn't just light; it was information, sensation, a raw blast of something ancient and incomprehensible. He felt the entire city's grid—the electrical lines, the water mains, the fibre optic cables—as if they were his own nervous system. He felt them all flicker and die.

The wave passed. Darkness slammed back in, total and profound. Every light in the city, as far as he could see, was out. The hum was gone. The glowing tracks were dull, inert steel once more. The silence was heavier than the noise had been.

He pushed himself up, his body aching. The depot was a ruin of twisted metal and shattered brick. Smoke, or maybe dust, coiled into the night sky. He had to get out of here. He had to tell someone. But who would believe him? What had he even seen?

He stumbled away from the wreck, back towards the main road, his mind reeling. He hadn't just witnessed an accident. He had seen what was underneath the city, the secret that made it all run. And he had been there when it broke. He couldn't believe it. He'd caused a city-wide blackout. That, or he'd woken something up.

His footsteps crunched on the gravel. He froze. It wasn't just his footsteps. Something else was moving in the wreckage. A slow, heavy scraping of metal on concrete. He peered into the darkness, his eyes slowly adjusting. A shape was pulling itself free from the mangled tram. It was long and metallic, segmented like an insect, and it moved with an unnatural fluidity. It wasn't wreckage. It was a piece of the track. And it was alive.