I stepped close. Too close. She couldn’t object. I traced a finger along her sleeve. Then I pulled her ponytail elastic out, just to see her hair fall. Then I unbuttoned the top button of her coat. Just to see. Then the next.

The first prank was innocent. I walked onto the silent train car and gently turned the businessman’s newspaper upside down. Then I swapped the teenager’s phone with the old lady’s knitting pattern. Then I drew a tiny mustache on the baby with a marker from my bag—washable, I’m not a monster.

I stepped back. The silence pressed in. I looked down the frozen train—at the upside-down newspaper, the swapped phone, the mustached baby. My little kingdom of stolen seconds. My stomach turned.

And the train. God, the train. It had pulled in, doors open, but nobody moved inside. A woman reaching for a strap. A teenager mid-scroll, thumb hovering. A baby’s dropped pacifier levitating two feet from the floor.