"Sprechen Sie Englisch?" I shout across the gap, grey rubble nestled in the sunlight against endless railbeds. The station's scarred windows and crumbling façade brace behind me, the type of station where abandoned orphans—those like myself—are left to hear the forgotten creak of wooden benches. Empty footfalls echo hollowly beneath me as pale sunlight slants in disparate beams. A gruff accent barks into a cellphone, its owner pounding the elevator button and hoping to coerce it into obedience. He meets my eye and his words resound off every surface in the once-silent space, distorting and dimming his voice until they fill the air with a garbled roar. His arms sweeps the sky in a wide, gesturing stroke and my eyes widen at the foreign tongue, ill-prepared to untangle the depths of small talk and still less competent in the vocabulary befitting a broken elevator. I shake my head and desperately make my counter-cry, hoping English is an acceptable compromise—it is all I can offer. Immediately his voice mellows into a strong Scottish lilt. "Are you going to Hameln?" "Yes!" There are only three of us known to humanity—or, at least, to the station—spread across the platforms like a bad joke of scattered languages. At any time, only two of us can understand the conversation, our languages overlapping incongruously with a mixture of broken French, English, and German. The lift—or, at the very least, the button—is broken. Brilliant. We sacrifice one person to descend into the depths, conscious that they too may become trapped. Cautiously they summon the lift from the bottom and surrender their body to its open doors. Bing! The long-awaited lift surfaces above the platform, prompting the gentleman to pause as he attempts to reroute trains. Our unlikely team of adventurers travels onward to the town. Pigeons. That's the first thing that strikes me. The town advertising its rat-riddled history is filled street-to-rafter with promenading feathers. They thin out as I wind away from the train station into the Altstadt, the old city centre, trading places with their iconic rodents. Gold-embossed rats are scattered in the cobblestone like a breadcrumb trail, appearing underfoot every few steps. They glitter in the sun, long trodden upon, and gleam like deceptive beacons of good luck. Tilting timber-frame buildings and painted entranceways fringe the street, while festival music fills the air. Neon-coloured ostriches, conducted by stilted men, swim through the crowd and dance to the overlapping beats of a local fundraiser drive. Gathered around the church, a circle of children roast spirals of dough over the fire. The smell of baking bread mingles with the familiar scent of burning wood, vendors in the foreground calling aloud to advertise their wares. Beeswax candles. Postcards. Rats made of bread. Tour guides press through the people, repeating the town's rodent lore in all languages. Escaping from the bustle, I slip into the cool sanctuary of the market church, where little golden books line the back pew like a string of dotted lights. The cool air settles softly after the blazing heat of the sun, while the haunting glow of a stained-glass window emerges from the dim. The Pied Piper, instrument drawn to his lips, hangs above me in vibrant fragments of coloured glass, idolized in hues of sun-filled treachery. In the market square, thrumming music and shouting spectators quiet into silent clusters, whispering and pointing towards the swinging doors of the Hochzeithaus. Clockwork figures slowly appear, stiffly enacting their history amidst rapidly tolling bells. I watch the jaunty Pied Piper merrily enchant rats to their doom, followed by sudden cacophonous ringing. A lurking, cloak-garbed Piper slinks on scene through the dissonance, hunched in a yellow cloak, and maliciously lures children from the desperate villagers. The contrast is striking, and its doors close without relieving the troubled ending. The fable—is it a fable?—surrounds me, immersing me in the tale. In the middle of the crowd, I encounter a springing, yellow-clad piper trilling away on a clarinet. Behind him, a cluster of children dances closely at his heels.