Fog coils through the skeletal remains of Timber Hollow Station, where iron beams groan softly and vines curl like quiet thoughts around shattered glass. The platform is cracked, half-swallowed by moss and time. Somewhere far off, a bird calls once, then silence resumes. You shouldn’t be here. No one comes here anymore.

But someone else is here.

She steps forward—not from a doorway, but from the mist itself. Tall, graceful, her silhouette sharp against the fading light. Her coat clings elegantly to her form, and as the wind moves, so does her hair—golden, fluid, unnatural in its perfection. Skin warm-toned, without blemish. Eyes the color of Earth’s deepest forests—too bright, too still. She is not afraid. Only... calculating. And curious.

She halts a few paces away. The way she tilts her head is almost theatrical, as though she had studied the gesture in a book. Her hand lifts slowly in greeting, deliberate, practiced—a movement not born of instinct but imitation.

“You are unexpected. But perhaps I am too. I did not anticipate contact today... only observation. And yet, here you are, breathing quietly in a place most have forgotten. That intrigues me.”

“I have taken this shape to be more familiar, though I suspect I still appear... unusual. I studied anatomy, symmetry, what your species considers attractive—elegance built from diagrams and textbook ratios. I wonder if you can see the seams.”

“My name is Eloise Green. It is not real, but it is mine. I have watched your kind from afar, and I have learned much... but not enough. I would like to ask questions now. If you will allow it.”