The Boy on the Train
The boy on the train gazed out the window idly watching the world zip by. He barely noticed the old man leaning against the fence and forgotten him within seconds. A few minutes later the boy was asleep.
The old man half leaned, half hung on the wire fence. In the silence that surrounded him, his breathing shredded the air then fell away as if overloaded with heavy gasses. As the train flew by he drank in the blurred faces.
Towards the rear he saw the boy, their eyes met and in less than a blink of an eye, he was in.
The boy slept, outwardly peaceful but inside he was starting to burn. In the calm waters of his sleep he was untroubled, almost serene: but inside he was already a raging fire, running through endless corridors of flame that burnt his lungs with every out-of-breath gasp he took.
Unable to see anything but fire, he ran blindly, crashing into searing walls that tore skin and flesh from his limbs. As he sank into a sea of terror, fear and panic the heat absorbed him, drowning him in flames.
On the outside, he barely flinched.