Sleep would not come.

Kostya lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was invisible in the dark that swallowed the walls of his tiny rented studio, expanding it to a colossal size. This complete darkness erased the boundaries between top and bottom, causing a light, dizzy sensation. He felt like falling into an abyss, his eyes searching for the table or the wardrobe to hold onto, but they were hidden in the darkness.

The ceiling was no longer above, but below him. Not six feet but several million light-years away. He hovered over that black void, his back pressed against the mattress by an unknown force. Then that force started to disappear; he could no longer feel the bedding with his back. He began his million-light-year fall down, down, down…

Kostya turned to the side, jolting himself out of weightlessness. As his body changed position, his vestibular system hastily restored top and bottom to their proper places and the bedroom to its real dimensions.

The digital clock on his bedside table showed 3:15. He’d been rolling in his bed for at least two hours, trying to fall asleep, but failing. Morpheus, the god of sleep, would only shift his feet warily, toying with a poppy flower. Sometimes he would shake some dreams off the flower into his palm and toss them at Kostya. But never, ever would the god dare to approach and throw his arms around Kostya.

Because of them.

His thoughts about tomorrow.

All-consuming. Persistent. Obsessive. They dashed about Kostya’s head like guard dogs, scaring dreams off like a flock of small birds. As they fluttered away, the dogs kept running in circles like a toy train.

Kostya seemed to hear that toy train, buzzing along, the sound gradually turning to a drone.

Was it even a toy?

In the meantime, the treacherous darkness turned his bedroom inside out again. This time it was not the walls dashing far away, leaving him hanging in the air over a void. No. It was his body becoming smaller, his breath taken away as if he were falling from a great height.

He looked around miserably, lost among the long creases of his bedsheet stretching on both sides like mountain ridges.

How small had he become? The size of an ant? A cockroach?

Strangely, he was unsurprised by this change, just vaguely disturbed. Standing on the floor of a deep valley, he watched the dark hills, listening to a familiar sound that would tear the silence at times. It was this sound that made him uneasy. The blaring roar of some large animal. Not an elephant, but something very, very familiar. Was it even an animal?

The next moment he remembered what it was.

…He and Mother were going to a sea resort by train. Running late, as usual. Dragging a heavy suitcase with one hand, Mother pulled Kostya along with another.

A boy of six, he was confused about whom she hated more at that moment: him or the suitcase. They were probably tied for first in her ranking since the former leader, the taxi driver—Oh, stop this garbage music, for God’s sake!—had been eliminated once she’d banged the door of his old car shut, lugging little Kostya and the suitcase towards the platform.

They dashed across the endless building of the railroad station covered with a round dome, the metal echo of a female voice descending upon Kostya. “…car numbers begin from the head of the train…”

Barely keeping pace with Mother, he did not protest. He realized that a single word uttered in a moment like this could…could… He’d rather not see what awaited him beyond that ominous “could.” Let the suitcase take all her rage, like a lightning rod. A momming rod, Kostya thought, glancing at the case with gratitude and whispering the wonderful term “momming rod” that suddenly formed in his mind from two separate halves, like a puzzle.

They ran out onto the platform, to the steel bulk of the train, darting for their car. It was Kostya’s first time on a railroad platform, but he could not take a proper look around; all he could see was the parquet-like pattern of the dirty-lilac paving slabs flashing under his running feet.

Late passengers were storming the cars, panting and using their suitcases and children to elbow their way through the seers-off, sweeping them aside. The seers-off just rolled back, unresisting, pressing against the walls to make way.

The air was electrified, buzzing with rushing and nervousness. From one car to another, the same voice repeated, “This is the final call… if you are not traveling, please…”

Galloping after Mother, Kostya struggled to stay on his feet. He wished they’d already made it to their car, car number two.

Suddenly, a humming sound came from behind. Swelling and vibrating, it rolled over the platform like a wave, drowning out all the other sounds.

Kostya looked back.

A giant monster was pulling up to the next platform.

Low-set, bulging eyes.

Giant forehead, absent nose.

A broad red mustache.

The thing looked like a two-story house stirring into motion to crush Kostya, missing him only by happy accident.

In a moment, the monster spotted him.

And gave a roar.

It was the scariest thing the little boy had ever heard: a paralyzing, low roar lifting him into the air, like a bug, holding him there for an eternity, and then dropping him to the platform. The stunned boy released his grip on his mother’s hand. His feet gave way; he sank down on the broken parquet-like tiles.

Ever since then, he had had a phobia of trains.

As he grew older, the fear dulled, but even as an adult, he had a strong dislike for railroad stations, always so busy and bustling.

Kostya listened to himself.

A flat surface under his bare feet. Too smooth for his wrinkled bedsheet, considering its current size. Or rather, his current size. Tiny as an ant, he should’ve been stumbling over each fiber of its fabric.

He sniffed at the cool night air. It was not the air of his bedroom, even expanded to a colossal size. This place smelled of summer, of road dust, and…and of a railroad. Creosote and piss.

Kostya realized he stood on those same dirty-lilac, parquet-like tiles as thirty years ago.

As he took a tiny step forward, the sole of his foot found a rough edge, his toes hanging over the void.

Yes. He stood on the very edge of a railroad platform. A boy of six. Alone. Alone as ever, regardless of whether the platform was packed with a dense crowd or completely empty as it was now.

A blaring roar came from behind the hills, very close, accompanied by a familiar vibration.

The toy train that had buzzed along the tiny rails of his imagination a minute earlier was now rapidly transforming into a massive locomotive. The steel monster cast an ominous glow over the ridge as it melted the blue darkness away with its headlight.

It scared Kostya just as badly as it had back when he’d been six.

His temples swarmed with icy ants. Overwhelming fear lashed at his racing heart, urging it on; its crazy beat echoed by a choking voice in his mind. Run, run, run!

But his feet would not move.

The monster was coming.

Stunned, Kostya stood like a small lone Bandar-log once hypnotized by his personal Kaa. Had he lived those thirty years at all? Or maybe he’d been here the entire time, standing on the parquet-like tiles of the loathsome railroad platform?

Just as small and good-for-nothing as he’d always been.

The platform had long emptied, the station building around it gone. No more lamps, no metal female voice. Now, this place was dark and silent, but Kipling’s monkey remained in its place, just as lone and ridiculous in its doomed waiting…

At last, the locomotive appeared from behind the ridge. Running over the cliff behind Kostya’s back, the shivering yellow beam stopped on his forehead like the pointing finger of Viy, a demon described by Nikolai Gogol.

“Here he is!” Viy screamed, pointing a metal finger at him.

But his Viy had a metal body, and a finger of light that turned the whole world into dazzling radiance.

Sheer, absolute, merciless light.

…that approached, expanding before Kostya’s eyes like the sun rising from behind the mountains and falling onto the boy, reducing him to ashes.

The humming swell pressed on his eardrums and extinguished all other sounds in this world, which now consisted of the heavy vibration pulsing in his chest and the sun creeping on him, drying his heart in a second.

He felt a strange relief. My wait on this platform is finally over. He opened his eyes wide, embracing the incinerating sound and deafening light. Yes, it felt just like that—incinerating sound and deafening light.

But as the train approached, the headlight shifted up and over. Kostya wasn’t standing on the rails. The bulk of the train, invisible behind the blinding light, caught up with the boy, a puff of air shoving him in the chest.

Regaining his ability to move, Kostya jumped back, shaking his head to devour the monster running past him with wide eyes. His heart pumped hot adrenaline all over his body, breaking the flow of time into a sequence of black-and-white snapshots. Each passing millisecond poured into his memory like melted tin.

Kostya suddenly realized he was seeing the train clearly, making out every detail, although it should have been impossible with how fast it was going.

Sure, it did not have the flat, whale-like nose of that locomotive from his childhood; it was a different sort of a train. The more Kostya looked at it—having more than enough time to make out every small detail—the stranger it seemed.

It was a classic steam locomotive with a very tall chimney that looked like an exclamation mark, and giant wheels with a thin, connected rod rocking to and fro over them like a violin bow.

But that was not the most surprising part. Kostya was genuinely startled at seeing the exclamation-point chimney being followed by a lowercase w! Large and made of steel, riveted along the edges, it was still recognizable as the letter w!

Kostya stared at the next letter mounted on the locomotive.

It was o, lowercase as well.

He’d been expecting anything but that.

The w and o on the locomotive’s long nose were followed by a lowercase r.

…and a crazily rocking violin bow right beneath the letters…

Next came another r.

Reading three more letters—o, m, and another o—Kostya saw the locomotive nose ending with a tall cab shaped like a capital T.

It read, Tomorrow! This word actually looked like a steam locomotive, with the exclamation mark serving as the chimney.

Kostya gaped at the sight. What does that mean? Why are these letters here?

Flashing past him, the cab disappeared, a strong puff of air shoving him away.

This train had no cars.

Kostya stood, gaping at the letter train pulling away, his mind absolutely blank, as blank as his body had been numb a minute before.

Suddenly, over the black, smoking exclamation mark of the departing train, a column of fire blazed up. A deafening clap reached Kostya’s ears a moment later, like the sound of a loud firework lagging a bit behind its flash.

He looked up, searching the night sky for the sparkling, hissing firework flowers. A train like that could’ve had any kind of surprise in store.

Indeed, he saw a faint glow right over the chimney that looked remotely like a flying lantern, though a shapeless one, not properly filled with hot air. But the next moment, the “lantern” flashed up. Spreading its transparent paper wings, it made a series of smooth claps and, craning its long, snake-like neck, peered around for something…or someone.

As the creature’s eyes found Kostya, its head stopped, although the craned neck kept moving, and the wings clapped broadly. The gyroscopic stabilization system. A military term popped up in Kostya’s mind, followed by a war documentary showing a tank move up and down the hills while its gun remained fixed on the target.

Fear came over Kostya like an icy-cold wave. Backing away slowly, he kept his eyes on the crimson serpent that was powerfully flapping its wings before diving right at him, the monstrous head still fixed on its target…

Jolting away from the attack line, he awoke in bed.

He was lying on his side, peering at the yellow face of the digital clock.

4:10.

Tomorrow.

No. Today.