The Mysterious Man’s Death

Casey Shiepe, Class of 2026

Hi there, my name is John Roberts and I am a conductor. For a living, I operate my old train that has been working for over 200 years. And even though I had a seemingly normal life as a conductor, that all changed when he came on as a passenger. This man walked on the train like everyone else, though it was very odd seeing him in such a large trench coat and an odd black hat. I didn’t assume too much of it at first because he wasn’t the first person to ever walk on my train with such an appearance. So naturally, I began to start the train as I normally do with 50 passengers on board. We were traveling for 30 minutes when suddenly, the train stopped after a loud thud. When I looked outside to see what it was, it appeared as if the man had fallen out of the train, and his lifeless body ultimately stopped it. Not only was there now a lifeless body outside the train, but the train became stuck in a dark and ominous forest. Suddenly, I heard a loud scream in the distance and I noticed a woman shortly after. However, this woman was completely pale and appeared lifeless once I approached her. Once I turned back however, I noticed another 48 individuals behind me, all dead. Little did I know at the time that he had already gotten them. I approached the corpse of the mysterious man, still in a trench coat, and I noticed an unusual appearance as if he had shedded his skin like a snake. I saw a note sticking out of the trench coat, so I grabbed it smeared in blood with the statement, “Your soul is mine.” Suddenly, I felt a dripping over my head even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Out of the blue, I see a 30ft forest demon over my head just staring at me with an unpleasant grin on his face. Seeing this, I immediately ran back to my train for safety. Once inside however, I noticed more dripping over my head followed by a large firm grasp around my waist as if I was being grasped by sweaty claws with sharp pointed edges. But it was already too late, the demon had me in his grasp and he brought me closer to his mouth. In doing so however, I noticed that the black hat on that mysterious man was also present on this demon. The man and the demon were one and the same. He said in a deep, ominous voice “Don’t worry, you have nothing to fear.” Suddenly, he opened his mouth to which I saw several long, sharp, pointed fangs. I begin to hear loud, terrifying screams in his mouth and I begin to feel my soul leave my body. After that moment, I saw that my body was pale and lifeless, but that was until he had swallowed my soul and everything went dark.