The Last Train to Tanjong Merah

Even the dead must commute.

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Mist rose off Tanjong Merah’s tracks. The depot bore the odour of dust and rain. Under its flickering lights was a girl—always wet, always waiting.

Always holding an umbrella—but not her own.

All traces of the Singaporean train station at Tanjong Merah had vanished from Google Maps, scrubbed, as if it had never borne passengers or trams. It sat below Tanjong Merah’s glass towers, rustic, silent—empty.

But not defunct. The last tram arrived every monsoon season, rolling in on a track that shouldn’t exist—for those who lost something they couldn’t quite name.

The station was the backdrop of Su Min Ong’s tragic disappearance—one that became a local legend over years of telling. 1965’s great floods had grown a monster. Ruined infrastructure. Compromised food sources. Displaced lives. Tanjong Merah had borne more than its fair share of human losses—including Su Min’s. On Line Zero’s final tram.

Tanjong Merah had welcomed the train, playing its much-needed host during the deluge. Its keeper, alone, documented each appearance and departure. Su Min, pale, in a soaked uniform, arrived like clockwork every Friday of the month since then.

And someone else from Tanjong Merah’s platform would vanish. Without shoes.

The tram pulled into the depot, along with echoes of thunder and flashes of lightning. The Keeper opened his logbook, preparing to record that Friday’s names—and saw his own, already penned.

The station bell tolled, without being touched.

Su Min arrived, pale-faced, eyes hollow. She said nothing, but opened her umbrella, revealing tram tickets stitched within.

The keeper didn’t have any—he didn’t need one. But he understood.

Su Min guided him aboard the train, handing him her stitched umbrella.

She stepped off. The tram hissed, breathing for the last time.

At dawn. the depot stands empty, buried under an overnight construction project. Only an old pair of shoes remains, tattered from years of walking and groundskeeping.

Mass Rapid Transit apps show Line O—out of service since 1965.

A few years later, a commuter on the train entering the new Tanjong Merah Mass Rapid Transit station scrolls down the screen of his mobile phone. He sees a reflection in its glass, a wet girl, seated on a bench, with no one seated beside her.

She rides quietly beside us now, waiting for a seat.

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This story is entirely original. AI tags are coincidental.