by Garygold33
where the railroad should end but never quite does, stands a lonely hotel known as Mercy’s End. Mercy runs the saloon alone. Once she was a gunslinger. Now she pours whiskey, keeps the lamps burning, and tries not to think about the night the town died. But the desehas a long memory. One by one, strangers arrive beneath a restless sky: a gambler who cannot lose, a quiet train conductor with eyes like judgment, a fortune-teller who reads more than cards, a burned lawman chasing old ghosts, a grieving baroness with secrets buried deeper than the grave, an inventor searching for answers he shouldn’t ask, a shapeshifter who remembers the land before the rails, and a wanderindrifter who may know the truth behind it all. None of them came by accident. Something is drawing them here. The road out has vanished. The train is late. And the hotel seems to be waiting. As old sins rise and hidden bargains come due, the guests of Mercy’s End must confront the choices that brought them here—before the last whistle blows. Because some places aren’t meant to be escaped. And some debts can only be paid in full.
