I can hear the trains come in at daybreak. It’s time to get up.

Groping across the bedside table for glasses, coms, light switch; I hear the hooting of the first arrivals. thirsty. Get water.

Five tracks stretch and bend away from the DaysWard, in shapes resembling craggy cliff faces.

In the initial rebuilding, the DaysWard was simply the Ward. An improvised, shadrack city whose only purpose was triage and treatment.

Smoke in my eyes. Has that been burning all night? dribble water on it. ashtray soggy. finish the cup.

During the rebuilding, the five tracks were all active. Trains came from one empty mega city, two broken municipalities, and two isolated ethnostates.

None were at war, yet. Most were too busy dying.

Now only three trains arrive, and only in the early morning. Anyone over the age of twelve is not permitted on the trains.

I look around the room for my shoes. eye drops?

It won’t last forever. The electronics instructor consistently talks of the day when only two trains will arrive.

“That’ll be the end of it.” his slow Irish baritone mumbles through crooked and broken teeth, “and we’ll know who’s killing us by which one is missing.”