“Midnight Journey on a Train Going Anywhere” by Lori Green—Our September 2025 Gold Medal Winner
Lori Green is our first place winner from the contest posted in our September 2025 issue and her story will be published in the December 2025 edition. Congratulations, Lori!
What the judges had to say:
“...a heartwarming story and frighteningly plausible.”
“Great job using suspense and urgency to build nicely to a dramatic conclusion.”
“A taut, emotionally resonant story.”
Meet Lori
Lori Green writes poetry and speculative fiction. She has been published with Off Topic Publishing, Blank Spaces Magazine, Quill & Crow Publishing, and many more. She lives along the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Huron, weaving magic wherever she goes. She is currently working on her first novel.
Midnight Journey on a Train Going Anywhere
an excerpt of Lori’s winning story
Stevie felt a low rumble beneath her feet and knew it was time to go.
She tucked her jeans into her stolen Uggs and stood, scraping her back on the birch she’d been leaning against. She cried out, feeling for blood with fingers that were cold and numb, well on their way to frostbite. She felt nothing and breathed a sigh of relief.
Thunder reverberated along the forest floor, growing louder and more insistent. Stevie picked up her backpack and started to run. The train station wasn’t far, but she had wasted too much time back at camp, waiting until midnight to leave. She’d been careful to keep away from the fence line with lampposts on every corner. She then dug her way under the fence on the northern side of the greenhouses, where it was not unusual for a girl to have a spade in her possession.
Or maybe even a shovel.
The Return to Order Movement placed teens in mandatory training camps where traditional gender roles for English-speaking citizens were taught; segregation between the two sexes being strictly enforced. Stevie could only see her younger brother Charlie through the glass walls of the tunnels the boys passed on their way to target practice—each boy laden with a rifle and a desperate fear in their eyes. Fortnite had not prepared any of them for this.
As she ran, the icy air she breathed felt like razor blades slicing through her tired lungs. She had no intention of stopping, though. Charlie was counting on her. At least she hoped so. There was no real way of knowing if Charlie had figured out the code she’d sent through the kitchen. Girls were only allowed in male dormitories to serve meals or make beds. Mattresses that lined the wall like toy soldiers waiting for armor. Stevie had made a deal with the kitchen “waitress” to give Charlie a particular plate every lunch, with hidden coded drawings. If he could piece it together, he’d have a blueprint to escape. Stevie had already started making plans for them to stay alive.
Like their mother would have wanted.
It hurt to think of her mother. Part Métis, she had always kept that part of her heritage a secret. Even changed her name to Sarah, a common English name. Even in the land of Canada, freedom was often just a word, meant only for some. Like her cancer, it didn’t matter if you were full-blooded, male, female, two-spirit, non-binary, or queer in any way, shape, or form. Only the government cared about that, and they cared about everything. Even the books you read.
…
to read the rest of the story, order your copy of the December 2025 issue.
