"How long has it been?"

Janet checked her pocket watch. "Nearly 45 minutes, if this time is right."

"That doesn't seem right. It feels like it's been longer." protested Ed.

"Right or not, it's all we've got at the moment," I said. "For the sake of sanity let's not contest the one mostly-functional timepiece we have, alright?"

Ed grumbled to himself and sat back in his chair.

I didn't want to admit it, but he was right. It seemed like it'd been hours.

When I first boarded the 11:00 PM train to Chandley, I had barely noticed my two fellow passengers. Ed, though I didn't yet know him by name, had taken the backmost seat in the car, resolutely staring out at the blurred scenery beyond the glass windows. He looked to be around his seventies, with white, thinning hair and a scowl seemingly etched across his face. He barely glanced at me when I entered the car.

Janet had been on her phone in the seat across from me. I could tell at once she was the sort that liked the look of older fashions. Long, black dress, red beret, a haircut straight out of The Great Gatsby-- I wouldn't have been surprised to see her at a Comic Con.

No one said anything at first. Why would we? Ostensibly, we would only hold each other's company for 20 minutes at the longest. So we sat in silence.

The first stop was made as per usual. Since it was so late, it was hardly a surprise when no one got on. I did note with some curiosity however, that a single man in a long coat and bowler hat was standing on the very edge of the platform, staring into our car. His face was void of expression, motionless.

He continued to stare into our car up until the very moment the train began to move again, at which point he glanced at something on the back of his wrist that most certainly was not a watch. I shrugged and turned my attention to the moderately more interesting advertisements posted near the ceiling.

I only began to notice something was off when we entered the tunnel. The moment the dark, brick walls encompassed our car, I noticed Janet frown for the first time since I'd seen her.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She glanced up at me and gave a rueful half-smile. "Lost signal, is all. Probably the tunnel."

I nodded agreeably and glanced at Ed. He looked less irritated now, and more bored. My eyes drifted to the rushing wall of brick out the window, letting my mind wander.

I don't know how long I sat there, simply staring out at the blur of red. I only realized that it should have given way to more varied blurred tones when I glanced back at Janet. Her expression was now a mixture of confusion and irritation.

"The fuck?" she exclaimed.

"What?"

"Not only do I not have signal, but the clock is messed up now too!" She held both her phone and an open pocket watch in front of me. The numbers on the phone screen read 11:24 PM, while the watch ticked steadily from 11:46.

I immediately checked my own phone, only to find that it too read 11:24PM.

"I just synched them this morning!" She explained.

Only then did Ed break in. "How long is this damn tunnel?"

No one had an answer.

After a few hurried introductions, we set about determining how long we had been in the tunnel based off of Janet's watch and the last recorded time on our phones. It was, after all, all we could do.

"One hour, on the dot." Janet announced.

"Wonderful," Ed grumbled. "Now we know just how much time we've wasted on this thing."

I was about to reply when a shimmering figure appeared in the center of the car. Through the distortion, I could just make out the form of the expressionless man.

"Oh, not again."

Hespin sighed heavily and glanced up at the ceiling of his apartment. Sure enough, there was a massive crimson stain once again spreading out from underneath the new paint.

As a general rule, the cult living in the suite upstairs didn't cause too many problems. Their members were tidy, polite, and even kept their chanting sessions at low volume so as not to disturb the neighbors. The monthly blood sacrifices though, were an entirely different story.

For one, there was the livestock. As far as Hespin could tell, their dread god Magroseth required the blood of a virgin male on the eve of the full moon and to satisfy this requirement, the cult of Fate's Bane had resorted to using a virgin angus bull. Precisely HOW they determined said bull was virgin, he had no idea, but Hespin most certainly was not interested in finding out.

He was just glad to have an affordable apartment. The laundry expenses were somewhat excessive, but on the whole it was the best deal he could find.

Trying hard not to breathe through his nose, Hespin loaded his now-drenched sheets into a plastic-lined hamper and headed downstairs for the trip to the laundromat.

This absolutely sounds like something out of an actual episode. Fantastic job!