Reincarnated Cthulhu
Chapter 41: The Gap

As if mesmerized, we began walking back along the path we had originally come from.

The cause of all these strange phenomena was undoubtedly the green characters carved into this black obelisk. They shone vividly even in darkness, and I had seen something like this before.

A mysteriously glowing green meteorite that had been swept away by the rapids of the Thames. The characters on the obelisk gleamed with that same otherworldly green hue, bright enough to pierce the darkness.

There was no mistaking it.

For months, I had been obsessed with Madame Curie’s records, studying them so intensely I could almost hear her breathing beside me. Every pathologically detailed description and paranoid observation she’d recorded seemed to float through my fevered mind. Even in dreams, I saw Madame Curie’s face, twisted with madness, captivated by the green fluorescence of the meteorite.

“Is that you? What happened?”

Voices called out each time we passed through a train car. Marie slowed her pace at each call, but I continued forward without answering.

“Didn’t I warn you not to go!”

We brushed off all interruptions and pressed onward against the flow of the train.

The car positioned exactly at the center of the train, where we had originally departed from. I eyed the sharp metal numerals forming the number “5” and pulled the door open.

The stale, confined air rushed out, replaced immediately by a swirling red dust storm. A woman’s cough cut through the air. We stepped inside under the scrutinizing gazes of the passengers. The fat man, who had been delivering some passionate speech in the center of the compartment, fell silent as he noticed our entrance.

Some passengers showed hope in their eyes seeing our safe return, but most remained skeptical.

“What happened?”

The husband from the bourgeois couple asked cautiously, clearly suspecting there was a story behind our returning without the others.

“Everyone is—cough. Coughcough.”

I had anticipated the question and was ready to answer, but instead broke into a fit of coughing. With each cough, particles of red dust flew from my mouth. As I struggled to catch my breath, Marie gave me a concerned glance.

“Everyone is safe.”

As soon as I managed those words, sighs of relief rippled through the car, followed by quiet applause. I raised both hands to silence them.

“It’s too early for relief. The problem remains unsolved. The train cannot run forever, can it?”

The moment I finished speaking, the fat man deliberately avoided my gaze. I took a deliberate stride—careful to conceal my prosthetic leg—and positioned myself directly in front of him. Intimidated by my assertiveness, he lifted his frightened eyes only as high as my chin.

“You know something about our situation. Am I wrong?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I had intended to ask exactly what he wanted to hear, but his response was unexpectedly defensive.

It was surprising that he would try to hide anything at all. This man had previously acted as though he couldn’t wait to flaunt his knowledge, but now apparently believed he was being cleverly discreet.

“Have you seen this before?”

At my signal, Marie displayed the obelisk she had been carrying for me. It was the black obelisk we had discovered at the end of the train. The green light emanating from it illuminated the darkness of the compartment, casting an eerie glow across the man’s pudgy face.

“Gah! Put it down! Put that thing down!”

At that, he recoiled violently as if scorched by flames, then crumpled to the floor in a defensive huddle.

“So you do recognize it.”

“It’s just common sense! Avoid green! Beware of red! It’s basic knowledge!”

He blubbered through his tears.

“So please, put that cursed thing away! No—throw it off the train altogether!”

“Is it because of the Becquerel rays?”

No answer came. I pressed further.

“I asked if you’re concerned about Becquerel rays—radiation.”

“What’s that…? Never heard such a word in my life.”

Clearly, he wasn’t thinking of radiation. This was understandable—Becquerel rays had only recently been discovered, and remained specialized knowledge known only to a handful of cutting-edge physicists. But if not that, why would this man react with such terror to the green fluorescence?

“Tell me everything you know. You never intended to travel to Oxford. Your purpose on this train was something else entirely… measuring its speed, perhaps?”

Speed. I didn’t miss how his substantial belly quivered when I uttered that word.

“So it is about speed. I’ve hit the mark.”

“Eighty-eight miles per hour.”

The man muttered in a hollow voice. Eighty-eight miles per hour—approximately 141 kilometers per hour.

“That’s the Men’s Limit. Humanity has evolved specifically to never exceed that speed.”

“Wait, what are you talking about? What exactly is happening here?”

The man whose clothes reeked of manure—likely the son of the gentleman who had headed toward the front car—interjected.

“Are you saying this isn’t just a train accident? Do you people know something?”

“I boarded to verify! Who in their right mind would create a train that exceeds 88 miles per hour?”

The fat man protested indignantly.

“Especially George Hudson Junior—the Railway King’s son should certainly know better…”

“The Railway King? What relevance does being his son have? Even when the Railway King was alive, the fastest steam locomotives barely reached 40 miles per hour.”

“No, they’re all aware. The Railway King, the Yellow Facade Company that controls SMR—they all know. The Men’s Limit is common knowledge in high society.”

He seemed desperately determined to present his knowledge as ordinary information. This only made him more suspect in my eyes, but now wasn’t the time to interrogate him about his sources.

“Are you familiar with the Eiffel Tower collapse?”

“1889.”

The woman who had been sitting and coughing throughout our exchange finally spoke.

“Five workers were at the tower’s peak when the steel framework gave way. They plummeted to their deaths. Eiffel went bankrupt paying the compensation, and when no one would continue the work, the tower remained unfinished—an eyesore marring the Paris skyline. Is that the incident you’re referring to?”

The fat man heaved himself upright with visible effort. His excessive bulk seemed to render him especially susceptible to gravity’s pull.

“This wasn’t first discovered recently… Isaac Newton established the theory. He determined that objects falling from certain heights fundamentally transform in their very composition during the descent. He continued his research and identified 88 miles per hour as the critical threshold. But humans were never test subjects—no one could drop a person from such heights, nor did structures of sufficient elevation exist.”

He articulated each syllable with scholarly precision. Having only witnessed him shouting or mumbling incoherently until now, this display of erudition was jarring.

“But the Eiffel Tower provided the perfect conditions! Those workers plummeted 300 yards in unobstructed free fall! The impact was so violent that fragments of their bodies were found floating in the Seine River a hundred yards from the site!”

At the fat man’s horrifying proclamation, the woman of the bourgeois couple released a strangled cry.

“The public was told that the remains of those five men were mangled together after impact, but that’s a lie! They had already fused together during the fall! When they exceeded the Men’s Limit, something happened—they merged into one another! God have mercy!”

He wailed like the protagonist of a Greek tragedy. Or perhaps more accurately, like livestock at slaughter.

“But that was still manageable! Unless you fall from hundreds of yards while meeting specific conditions, humans shouldn’t be able to exceed such speeds! If only this train hadn’t accelerated beyond the threshold, we would have been fine!”

Completely consumed by despair, the man began to sob uncontrollably.

“Technology must halt for humanity’s sake! Make it stop! Tesla, Hudson Junior, Chancellor O’Gerald, and Chairman Tudor! Someone must stop them!”

He descended into panic like a soldier caught in an artillery barrage. The temperature in the car seemed to drop several degrees from his hysterical cries alone. The other passengers shifted anxiously, uncertain how to respond.

I pulled him to his feet, and when he showed no signs of composing himself, I slapped him sharply across the cheek.

“Gah—please don’t hit me! I beg you, don’t hit me!”

“Now that you’ve regained some semblance of sense, let me ask one more thing. According to you, objects that disappeared should return to their original locations, correct?”

His mind still addled, he made a show of processing my question for an excessively long moment. Finally, he nodded, his multiple chins folding as his head bobbed.

“Then if the train slows to below 88 miles per hour, could we potentially return to our original location?”

“That… I can’t say for certain. I’m only familiar with the phenomenon itself, not its mechanics.”

“Then it’s worth attempting.”

“No!”

The man shrieked. He operated like a malfunctioning gramophone—either whispering or screaming, with no modulation between extremes.

“I saw birds earlier! Birds larger than elephants!”

“Yes, I saw them too.”

“They’re waiting for us to stop! The moment we halt, they’ll swoop down and devour us all! The train must continue running! Under any circumstances!”

I decided to shatter his delusion.

“There’s no such thing as a train that never stops.”

His eyes clouded over with pure, abject despair. Then suddenly, he jabbed a trembling finger toward Marie.

“That object! Where did you find it?”

“At the end of the train.”

At my answer, he exclaimed with desperate vindication.

“Just as I thought! Then we must check the opposite end of the train! There might be something there as well! If we bring the two together, we might discover a solution! We can postpone stopping the train until the very end!”

Moments ago he’d begged us to throw the obelisk away, yet now he insisted we collect more. He pleaded as though he believed the train’s steam engine was directly connected to his heartbeat, desperately trying to prevent me from halting our journey. Yet his reasoning wasn’t entirely without merit. If stopping the train yielded no change, I would effectively be condemning everyone aboard to death.

“Very well, we’ll do that. But if we find no solution, I will stop this train.”

“Yes, excellent! That’s the right approach!”

He nodded vigorously, his voice suddenly bright with relief.

“Marie, let’s go.”

“Wait, I’ll come too!”

The young man who had been standing motionless—still reeking of manure—called out.

“AAAIIIEEE!”

At that moment, a blood-curdling scream erupted from one side of the carriage.

“What’s happening to us?!”

“Help! For God’s sake, help us!”

It was the bourgeois couple who had been anxiously clutching each other’s hands. He and she—though such distinctions seemed meaningless now—were melting into one another, their flesh fusing together like heated wax.

“Save us! Please, help us!”

They writhed and squirmed toward us in a grotesque, half-crawling motion.

“Hold on, I’ll help you!”

“Stop!”

The young man ignored my warning and rushed toward the melding couple. The moment his hand touched their amalgamated flesh, something horrific occurred. He became instantly adhered to them, like an insect trapped in viscous resin.

“AAAGH!”

“A blade! I need something sharp!”

I frantically scanned the carriage and spotted a scabbard in the fat man’s bag. I lunged for it.

“No! That’s—”

“Silence!”

Ignoring the fat man’s protests, I drew the blade and sliced through the young man’s wrist where it connected to the fused couple.

“AAARRRGGHH!”

“Get back, now!”

I seized the young man by his shoulders and hurled him backward. Marie, in what seemed a reflexive act of compassion, caught his stumbling form. Whether from her touch or from the excruciating pain, his screams intensified.

“Don’t move! Everyone stay exactly where you are!”

“Help me… save me… please…”

I warned the couple repeatedly, but they only moaned the same pleas while crawling toward us. Their clothes had peeled away from their liquefying flesh, revealing an obscene mass that grotesquely displayed both feminine and masculine features merged into one abomination.

“Stop! I beg you, stop!”

I retreated until my back pressed against the wall, but they continued their relentless advance. Perhaps sensing my retreat, they turned toward the next closest target like predators operating on pure instinct. The solitary woman sat trapped in the corner, her escape routes completely cut off.

“Please help me…”

She fixed her gaze on me, her voice quavering—whether from genuine terror or calculated manipulation, I couldn’t tell.

I had no choice whatsoever.

With blade in hand, I plunged the steel into that repulsive, writhing amalgamation that had ceased being human. They offered no resistance, making the gruesome task mercifully quick. Only after severing both heads did the mass finally cease its undulating movements.

“Are they… dead?”

The woman’s voice carried a disturbing note of relief. I couldn’t bring myself to give her a proper answer.

“I suppose so.”

I sheathed the blade without bothering to wipe away the viscous fluids. I lacked even the strength to question why the fat man carried such a hunter’s knife with him. The young man, blood still streaming from his mutilated hand, no longer expressed any desire to accompany us.

“Marie.”

“Yes.”

Marie responded in a higher pitch than at any time since we’d entered this carriage. The passengers’ expressions had transformed completely as they stared at her—fear replacing curiosity with alarming speed. Feeling waves of revulsion toward both myself and these strangers, I positioned myself before the compartment door.

“Monster… she’s a monster…”

As I opened the door to leave, I heard the fat man’s whispered accusation. Fearing Marie might catch his words, I deliberately slammed it shut behind us with excessive force.

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