Mash-up Anime World: Creating the SCP Foundation to Contain Anomalies Chapter 271 - 266: Fear Stems from Insufficient Firepower

The call ended.

Ai Hayasaka glanced at her phone, her expression sowhat grim.

Her phone was a special one for Foundation investigators, connected to satellites and capable of piercing through spatial barriers.

That was why, even though regular signals had long since disappeared, she was still able to make calls.

But now, the call had been cut off.

Clearly, even the special signal had been jamd.

Taking a deep breath, Hayasaka decided to follow her instincts. She stepped off the train and entered the station.

She had just examined the other passengers.

Those tired-looking salaryn had all been dead for a while, their bodies stiff. But the cause and exact ti of death were indiscernible. The only conclusion was that they seed to have all died in a single instant.

Their faces still bore tired expressions, without any signs of fear or pain.

It was clear that death ca so swiftly, they didn't even have ti to react.

Hayasaka's instincts told her that if she stayed on the train with these passengers, she'd likely et the sa fate.

Although she wasn't soone who blindly trusted her intuition, this ti she chose to get off.

Cautiously, she stepped forward.

Her foot landed on the platform.

Nothing unusual happened.

Hayasaka walked out of the train. Before she could even look around—

The train doors slowly closed, and the train began to move.

Hayasaka watched as it disappeared into the grayish-white mist.

Nothing strange happened.

The dead passengers remained frozen in their poses as the train vanished with them. Turning around, Hayasaka began inspecting Station 867.

Above her hung the station sign.

It read: Kisaragi Station.

The platform looked aged. There wasn't any litter, but it was overgrown with weeds. Hayasaka headed toward the platform's service center to gather so information. But just as she reached the service window, a group of people appeared nearby.

A high school girl, a delinquent-looking guy, a couple, and a middle-aged man.

They all looked confused.

Perhaps because they were both high school girls of similar age, the girl ca running up to speak with Hayasaka.

"Did you take the last train and end up at this Kisaragi Station too?"

Hayasaka nodded, her expression noncommittal.

Her fingers quietly moved toward her sleeve.

Seeing her nod, the girl seed to feel she'd found a companion and lit up with joy.

"We also ended up here on a night train. It's so weird!"

"There's no signal at all, and I've never even heard of this station before. It's a real headache."

She complained, and Hayasaka nodded along, playing along nicely.

Hayasaka was the kind of person with many masks, she would act differently depending on who she was dealing with. Even though these strangers looked like allies, she didn't trust them.

The couple peered into the service center.

But it seed long abandoned, completely empty.

The station showed no signs of modernization—more like sothing out of the 20th century. There were no computers or automated machines inside, just an old landline phone.

Rusty and useless. The phone cable had long been severed.

Seeing this, everyone sighed.

The middle-aged man slumped onto a bench, pulled a bottle of shochu from his pocket.

"May as well wait for the next train."

And he started drinking.

The high school girl tried to persuade him.

"This place is too weird. Let's all go look for so locals nearby, maybe find a working phone!"

But the man ignored her completely.

Frustrated, the girl turned to persuade the others.

Eventually, the delinquent, the couple, and Hayasaka agreed to search the area.

They walked through the station and exited from the other end. But outside wasn't the paved road or sidewalk they expected—

It was a dirt path.

Which was incredibly strange.

What era was this? How could there still be dirt roads near a train station in this day and age?

Hayasaka looked around at the environnt and began to form a theory.

A parallel reality.

The Foundation had so records about alternate realities, and Hayasaka was familiar with the concept.

It now seed certain—this wasn't the main world. They were in a parallel version of reality.

One stuck sowhere around the 20th century.

Looking ahead down the dirt path, they saw a town. Made up of old brick and tile buildings. The group started walking toward the town to seek help. While walking, a strange drumming sound echoed behind them.

It sounded like the taiko drums used in Japanese festivals.

But behind them was only the station.

And the only person left there was the middle-aged man. There was no way he had a taiko drum hidden sowhere.

Unless... another train had arrived.

But if that were the case, they should've seen or heard it.

Train arrivals were loud.

They turned back, confused.

Hayasaka frowned and moved to the rear of the group. The next mont, a blood-curdling scream pierced the air.

Clearly, it was the man they had left behind.

The scream carried far, sending chills down their spines even from a distance. Then, they saw the walls of the station in the distance—

Covered in thick, pulsing blood vessels.

The entire station looked like it had beco sothing made of flesh. The blood vessels then began to slither down the dirt path toward them.

"Run!!"

The high school girl scread and bolted forward.

Though no one knew what those blood vessels were, the man's scream was enough warning—they ran as fast as they could.

Hayasaka kept to the rear, watching the others carefully.

The blood vessels were fast—soon, they were about to catch up. In desperation, the delinquent shoved the boyfriend of the couple.

Mid-sprint, caught off guard, the man fell forward.

The girlfriend tried to help him.

But the blood vessels caught up, and they seed to burrow into his body.

In the next instant, the man's skin turned a bruised, blackish purple, his veins bulging grotesquely.

Then he collapsed, lifeless.

The high school girl dragged the girlfriend away, and the rest kept running.

Hayasaka noticed sothing—the drumming had stopped.

The blood vessels on the ground were gone too.

But the others were only focused on escaping. Eventually, they reached the town. They frantically knocked on the door of a house. Surprisingly, it was already ajar. They pushed it open and rushed in.

Once inside, they closed the door and collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

The girlfriend then lashed out at the delinquent, screaming.

He looked annoyed and didn't seem to care about what had just happened. The high school girl tried to calm them down. Hayasaka watched the chaos silently, sothing clicking in her mind.

After the argunt settled, they searched the house for a phone.

But there were only so pieces of furniture. No other items.

No signs of people.

In fact, the entire town was eerily quiet.

Despite their earlier screams, no one ca out to check.

Clearly, this was likely a ghost town.

After searching for a bit, the delinquent gave up first. He slumped onto the sofa, clearly done. The girlfriend went to argue again. The high school girl quickly stopped her.

Then, the high school girl turned to Hayasaka.

"What do we do now? What even was that thing just now? It was terrifying..."

She clearly wanted Hayasaka's opinion. Hayasaka only stared at her quietly, without responding.

"W-What is it? The way you're looking at ... it's kind of scary."

The girl flinched, clearly frightened.

Still, Hayasaka said nothing.

Just as the girl was about to lose it—

Boom!

The drumming began again.

At the sa ti, heavy footsteps ca from the front entrance. The middle-aged man and the boyfriend from earlier rushed in. They were both covered in those sa purplish-black veins, their eyes lifeless and gray—they didn't look human anymore.

The girl scread.

The delinquent jumped up from the couch, trying to repeat his earlier tactic—use the girlfriend as a shield and run.

But in that mont of chaos—

Bang!

A sharp gunshot shattered the madness, and the room fell silent.

Everyone stared, stunned, at Hayasaka.

She held a jet-black handgun.

But instead of a normal barrel, the muzzle glowed faintly with white light.

The middle-aged man who was shot exploded on the spot—

Turning into grayish-white mist, vanishing into the air.

Silence fell across the house.

Everyone looked at Hayasaka in horror.