The Manuscript of Marovik

It was a dull evening in early October when the train to Marovik Station came in two hours late.

In a quiet compartment, **Anna Petrov** sat staring at a dusty old notebook she’d found in her mailbox that day. It had no return address. The cover was black leather, edged with a faded silver emblem she didn’t recognize. The words *“Marovik”* and a circled cross were etched in the corner.

Earlier that day, border control at the airport had flagged her passport: the microchip read “MAR” in the country code field. The detective there had frowned. “There is no MAR,” he said. “Which country is that?” But her passport was otherwise valid. No irregular stamps. No alerts. The code “MAR” glowed faintly under his scanner. He returned it to her, shaking.

Now on the train, Anna flipped open the notebook. The pages, blank when found, were now filled with fine script. Names of places she had never heard of, coordinates, entries dated far into the future. A line read: *“When the train crosses forty-seven degrees, open the window and watch behind.”*

The compartment jerked to a stop outside a station she didn’t expect. A sign read “Marovik.” The platform was lit by a single flickering lamp. Outside, fog coiled thickly. Anna stepped out. No one else disembarked. She glanced back; the train was gone.

She looked around. The platform was silent, deserted except for a figure. A stationmaster in old uniform, cap low, face shadowed. He held out a hand. In it was her black notebook.

“Welcome,” he said. “You have arrived.”

Anna’s heart pounded. She asked, “Where am I really?”

He answered, voice soft, like wind over glass: “Where maps forget.”

He led her through dim corridors, echoing stone halls lined with portals — doors marked with names tethered to coordinates in her notebook. Each door hummed. She touched one: the panel glowed. Through the glass, she saw streets that bent oddly, buildings that swayed. She recoiled.

“Don’t look too long,” he cautioned. “Eyes linger. Glass remembers.”

They came to a central hall. The roof was star-bright though no sky showed. Shadows flickered—streetlamps, windows, but no walls. In the center stood a mirror framed in black wood. It showed not her reflection, but a city she recognized — one she had never seen: *Marovik*. Tall towers, canals, lantern-lit squares under a violet sky.

The stationmaster stepped away. The mirror pulsed. Anna felt breath at her throat. Voices whispered behind the glass: *“Buy the ticket. Cross the gate. Join the dusk.”*

She turned to flee, but found the station doors vanished. The only light was from the mirror. She flinched as her name appeared on a building: *Anna Petrov, citizen of Marovik* — a place that never existed.

A door behind her opened. Shadows spilled from it like smoke. Figures moved slowly: men in overcoats, women with lanterns. Their faces blurred. Anna recognized one — herself, but hollow-eyed and pale.

She screamed. The stationmaster reappeared. “The mirror opens the city. The city opens the soul.”

He gestured. The shadow-figures advanced slowly through the door — into her world.

Anna clutched the notebook. The pages fluttered. The writing glowed: *“Return before midnight, or be part of the tapestry.”*

She dashed through corridors, halls shifting with every turn. Doors led to alleys, alleys into stairwells, stairwells into void. The whispers grew: *“Step across. The mirror remembers you.”*

Midnight struck. A bell tolled. The mirror’s glow shattered spaces. The city beyond the glass merged with halls. She felt the edges of her body blur. The shadow-figures pressed close. Doors snapped open and closed. She tumbled forward — and found herself on the train platform again, the notebook in her lap.

The train roared behind her — it had returned. Doors hissed open. She stepped on, heart racing. The stationmaster’s voice echoed. “Some never truly leave.”

She looked at her journal. The emblem had changed — now **“MAR / TOR”** overlapped on the cover. The pages contained new entries: coordinates not just of Marovik, but distant islands, mountain holdouts, cities lost to memory.

When she arrived in Prague, her friends noticed it immediately: her eyes were darker, her step slower, as if she carried a weight others could not see.

Later, she heard a rumor: at Marovik Station, no train ever arrived in daylight. And sometimes at night, when the fog chases the wind, someone sees the mirror’s glow behind glass, even though the windows are boarded.

That night, in her flat, Anna found a postcard slip under her door: a single image of a bridge in a city she did not know — and a note in fine script: *“You belong. Ticket awaits.”*