Sincerely, Jennifer x

It began with the sound of bells. Lisa had been waiting for her train, as she always did in the morning. Bells jingled, and they jangled, softly at first, but soon, all around her. 

Snow was tumbling from the sky, and as Lisa looked up from her phone, it suddenly occurred to her that she was alone on the platform. The staff had seemed to scatter, along with all the passengers, and there was nobody around but her. 

The wind whistled and swept past Lisa’s face, sending flurries of snow fluttering through the air as time started to slow and the station slipped into darkness. 

Lisa’s eyes darted across the platform and around the empty station, her heart humming quietly beneath her chest, but beginning to bellow as panic set in. 

Something didn’t feel right. The isolated platform, showered in snow suddenly felt like a prison, and with nothing to do but wait, Lisa watched the departures board, gasping as each line of information suddenly disappeared and the sound of bells suddenly filled the air again. 

The empty station offered no answers as she looked around with a pounding heart and an ever increasing sense of urgency. 

She wasn’t sure why, but as she turned and surveyed the empty station, so inexplicably filled with noise, she couldn’t quite escape the feeling that she was being watched. 

The bells were deafening, ringing out everywhere, inescapable, and Lisa shrieked as she felt something, or someone clamp a cold, clammy hand around her ankle. 

She almost didn’t dare look down, her heart in her throat as the cold morning seemed to choke her. Her eyes travelled down, through the relentless, rocketing snow, down past her skirt, to a man, clinging desperately to her leg. 

Lisa tottered back in shock, steadying herself as he followed, holding on tight and sliding along the platform as she tried to shake him loose. 

He was covered in bruises, crying out in helpless, shrill screams, which only got louder as Lisa kicked at him with her free leg. 

“You have to help me!” He wailed, but Lisa shook her head, finally able to get free of his grip, backing away from the stranger. 

He reached his hands out, desperately clinging to the air where Lisa had once stood, his pleading drowned and destroyed by the sound of those silver bells, and in an instant, Lisa suddenly understood her stranger’s predicament. 

The platform was full again. The commuters shuffled towards the man, with icy, empty eyes. One by one, they stepped closer, until they moved as one, flocking and swarming the helpless man. 

His screams flooded the platform as Lisa watched, clasping her cold hands to her mouth as the people hauled the man from the ground. 

She knew that she should say something. Perhaps she should have even pulled the man to freedom, but something just wouldn’t allow Lisa to step forward and intervene. 

They scratched at him, biting and spitting as he struggled, pleading for help in between cries of agony. 

Lisa’s body was frozen, and her eyes locked onto the screaming man, fighting for his freedom as the crowd surrounded him and shoved him towards the platform edge. Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open as she heard the train approaching from behind her.

The bells rang out, over and over, everywhere and unending. 

The bells. 

The screams. 

The yelp as he fell from the platform. 

The cracking of bones and splattering of blood as the train struck him. 

Lisa fell to her knees, tears cascading to the snow that covered the ground, and at last, there was silence. 

That night, Lisa barely slept. She tossed and turned, her eyes never closed and the long, lingering night wrapped itself around her, poking and prodding until daylight reappeared. 

She couldn’t stop thinking about what she had seen, and what it all meant. 

The police decided that the man had simply slipped on the snow and fallen onto the tracks. By strange coincidence, the cameras had not been working at the station, and nobody but Lisa remembered a thing. 

She couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth. She was afraid of what she’d seen, and what she had done, so she kept her mouth shut and nodded along when people said that he had slipped. 

Still, when she was alone, she could not silence the many questions that ran through her mind. 

Why did they attack the man? How did nobody stop themselves? How did they all carry on afterwards as if nothing had happened? How could she have watched them? Why didn’t she try and stop the madness? 

Everything swirled around and around in her mind as she wished for sleep, trying to ignore the sound of jingling bells in the distance.