He had worked there for twenty years. Had sweated and even bled there from time to time, pouring himself into the dirty glass that was the Southrun Railyard. He spent most days reading books, watching the rats that would scamper across the yard and listening to the rush of water from the storm drains under the station when the rains came, which they often would.

It was on one of those dreary, grey days that he saw the rat staring at him. The little creature never grew close, but unlike the rest that were off on some kind of ratty business, this one sat watching him for close to half an hour before running off. The next day the same rat was back—he knew he couldn’t say for sure it was the same rat, but he was sure all the same. He tossed it a bite of sandwich during lunch, but it didn’t budge from its vantage spot upon the rusty coupling of an old livestock car. When he looked up and the rat was finally gone…well, he was more than a little relieved.

The next day, his reading glasses were missing. He’d sat them on the table in the office…but now they were gone. No one else had been around in nearly three days, so he didn’t know how someone could have stolen them.

That afternoon he saw the rat back outside. Standing on his hind legs, with something shiny perched on his head. Were those his damned glasses?

He stood up and went to walk outside when his feet slid out from under him. Hitting the floor hard, his hands dug into a spread out patch of rail grease. Then he was being slid down the stairs to the basement, and from the basement, down a new hole in the floor that lead into the sewers beneath that place.

The man was floated, screaming and cursing, to a small, black tidepool shored up with detritus. The surface of the water was crusty with a thick, pink film. As though hearing his thoughts, a small, raspy voice whispered in his ear as rat claws dug into the flesh of his cheek from the usurper’s weight.

“This is all you. Your flesh and hair, your blood and sweat and tears. I have kept it and saved it until there was enough.”

He let out a terrible cry as the rat bit through his ear before jumping to a nearby floating hand. Not just a hand, a body. His body, whole and vacantly staring as it bobbed in the muck. The hand lifted the bespectacled rat as it gently placed the glasses on that nose before climbing inside the mouth. Immediately the eyes lit up, focusing on him as it paddled over to grasp him tightly.

“Do not worry. I will go to your family and treasure them.” It slowly pushed his head underneath the water. “Just let go, pitiful thing.”

“Just let go.”