The inside of the church was darker than the outside. I knew no one was here, but I couldn’t help but ask out of fear.
“Is anyone there?”
Maybe it was because of the spacious environment that my voice echoed. I shuddered for a moment and quickly lit the oil lamp. With the fire burning, I could see in front of me more clearly. In the middle of the room was a stone pillar of Romanesque architecture that supported the arched ceiling. The ruined building in its entirety stood out. My heart pounded with excitement. The “spookiness” was more than I expected. I’m sure I can get a good picture.
There can’t be a real monster, but it’s not a bad harvest to get a photograph of a scary atmosphere. With that thought, I ventured deeper into the church.
Crunch, crunch.
Was that a small animal? I walked toward the noise. As I got closer, an unknown stench stung my nose. The sound of chewing grew louder and louder. When I thought to turn back, the wind suddenly shut the wooden door behind me.
“Kereuk?”
From the shadows, something appeared.
“…”
The moment I saw it, I almost dropped my oil lamp. What the hell was that?
Kereuk, kereuk. The strange noise was none other than the sound of a monster. It had discolored, black skin, almost burnt-looking. Its back bulged like a hunchback. Aside from a few strands of hair, its features were more akin to a beast than a human. The monster was eating something with its sharp teeth.
Oh goodness.
The source of the rotten smell that made me want to vomit was the body the monster was eating. My hands trembled. I started to run because I thought I had to get away as soon as possible, but it was too late.
“Grr…”
The monster already sensed my presence. Its face, seemingly like a combination of multiple faces melted together, stared at me.
Kereuk, kereuk, kereuk.
The monster came closer and closer.
I… have to run. Yet my feet didn’t move as if they had been nailed to the floor.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.
The sound of my beating heart rang in my ears. The horrible stench grew closer and closer.
Whoosh! The monster rushed at me. Its sharp teeth sunk into my throat. The hot, intense pain made me dizzy. Is this how I’m going to die? Blood spilled onto the floor as I lost the feeling in my hands and feet.
Just before I welcomed Death’s warm embrace, I heard a whisper.
“My one and only apostle, Emily Carter.”
All I could see was a golden light. The feeling that I was dying gradually faded away.
“I’ll turn back your time.”
My mind went blank.
***
“…Ah!”
I opened my eyes to see third-class seats on the train. The book I had been reading was on my lap.
…I was on the train heading to the suburbs of the abandoned church. What just happened?
My whole body was in a cold sweat. I recalled what happened. Perhaps I just had a nightmare.
Then a voice spoke to me in my head. “Get rid of those who eat corpses.”
It was the one I heard in my nightmare… It wasn’t a nightmare?
“…”
I shook my head. When I fainted a few months ago, I had a hallucination and talked nonsense. Now I’m hearing things? Slowly, words began to appear in the book on my lap.
[Prove your qualifications, my apostle.]
They appeared to be printed on paper; as soon as I touched it, new words appeared in their place.
[You, Emily Carter, have been chosen by me, the King in Yellow.]
[The apostle is obligated to carry out the king’s orders.]
I quietly watched the marvelous sight of letters appearing and disappearing.
I met a monster at an abandoned church, was attacked by it, and returned to the past. Words come and go in a book… Everything so far was beyond the realm of reason and logic.
[You must fight those who eat corpses. This is the first trial to prove your worth as an apostle.]
I still didn’t know what was going on, but one thing was certain. This “King in Yellow” was the cloaked figure I saw in that hallucination months ago. “He” or “it” ordered me to get rid of the ghoul.
[If you can’t carry out the king’s order in six months, the end of the world will unfold before your very eyes.]
The end of the world? At first glance, it was insane. However, the implications caught my attention. Does “he” want me to go back to where I was before? In addition, based on the words I’ve seen, I encountered a ghoul in the abandoned church. Ghouls actually exist. When I briefly closed my eyes, the image of the monster that attacked me appeared in my mind. My whole body trembled. I didn’t want to go back to such a place. There’s no reason for me to die again.
“The next stop is Euston. Euston…”
I picked up my luggage and got off the train. I was going to get a carriage and return home. I hadn’t achieved my goal.
“Watch out!”
As soon as I left the train station, a carriage was racing toward me, its horses out of control.
I was crushed to death by a carriage.
Will you turn back my time again?
I heard a familiar voice, and a terrible pain washed over me.
***
I tried not to die again, but it didn’t work.
The third time, I managed to catch the train and got near my house. I died of food poisoning while eating at a local restaurant.
The fourth time, I ran straight to my house and didn’t eat anything. As soon as I was in front of the door, I was run over and killed by a speeding automobile typically seen during the 1890s.
Every time I died and returned, memories I never had before came back and confused me. The authenticity of the memory wasn’t important. I only thought about how to escape death.
What if I left London? Wouldn’t that prevent me from dying?
I took a train to Cardiff, a coastal city far away from London. When I saw the clear blue sky, I felt relieved.
“I think I’ll be fine here.”
I went into a nearby restaurant and ate fried fish with mashed potatoes. I didn’t suffer from food poisoning; I was safe. I won’t die for the fifth time. I decided to stay in Cardiff for a long time after checking into a hotel in the center of the city. I told only my aunt and a few magazine editors in London about my current living situation.
While enjoying a leisurely life in a coastal city, strange news articles began to appear.
Everyone at a party died from unknown causes. One of their family members saw an evil spirit and died from shock. Reanimated corpses rose from their graves. A beast that looked like a demon attacked a farm…
I clicked my tongue while looking at an illustration of “reanimated corpses” on the first page of the newspaper. “How can there be a ghost story on the front page of Illustrated London News?”
I was sitting on the balcony of a restaurant by the beach. When I put down the newspaper and looked out the window, I saw the vast ocean. I appreciated the quiet scenery.
Then suddenly, words written in near handwriting appeared on the tablecloth.
[The time given to the young, beautiful apostle has passed. The end of the world is nigh.]
…The end of the world. Wasn’t that the price for failing to carry out the king’s orders?
The entire restaurant shook. Everyone, including me, was surprised. Someone pointed to the window.
“The sea!”
Large waves appeared on the once calm sea. As soon as everyone’s eyes focused on it, there was a loud roar.
Quooo!
A huge figure rose from the sea that had been split in half.
“Argh!”
“Damn it, I have to get out of here right now!”
“Father in Heaven…”
As people screamed and shouted from witnessing “it”, I stared at the sea. The figure had long tentacles like that of an octopus, and its head proved it wasn’t a creature of this world… It was an existence that couldn’t be explained by human reason.
Everyone around me was seized by madness. Some fell to the floor and had a seizure. Some took out their pistols and aimed them at their heads. Some jumped into the ocean itself.
It was just me. I was the only one who wasn’t affected. I clenched my fists.
“My apostle.” The voice of the King in Yellow rang in my head. “I shall protect your mind.”
Was it because “he” had a certain kind of power? I was fine in the face of that dreadful horror. Thanks to the memory of my past life, I realized what “it” was.
The true ruler of the earth who slumbered in R’lyeh, the cosmic entity created by American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. What appeared before my eyes was none other than Cthulhu.
If there’s one thing I noticed after being reborn in a world similar to England in the 1890s…
It was a setting with cosmic horror, an otherworldly fear beyond human understanding. It had a motif found in the Cthulhu Mythos, where there were no hopes or dreams.
I was stiff as a stone in the face of that overwhelming fear. Then, my vision turned black, and I had a feeling of what happened afterward.
A Great Old One had appeared in London.
Thus, the world came to an end.
