The Soledad Railway is a narrow-gauge line clinging to the high Andes, connecting a handful of mining towns to the capital. The town of Quillcay, at 4,200 meters, is the highest station and end of the line. For six months of the year, snow and avalanches make the pass impassable, and the railway officially shuts down. The stationmaster is the sole authority, maintaining the empty station and a timetable for trains that no longer run—a ritual of hope and duty. The town itself is a collection of forty souls: railway families, a few miners, a telegraph operator, a priest. Life is pared down to essentials: water from the communal pump, news by telegraph, heat from llama-dung stoves. The thin air makes every exertion a labor, and the isolation breeds secrets as dense as the fog that rolls down from the peaks. The railway is both lifeline and curse: it brings supplies and news, but also audits, inspections, and the outside world's demands. The company offices in the capital are a distant, faceless bureaucracy, and the line's chief engineer, based in Quillcay, wields enormous power over maintenance schedules and budgets. Paperwork is the currency of truth: ledgers, timetables, telegrams, and audit reports. In this world, a misplaced entry can be a death sentence, and a forged signature can summon a ghost.