Cthulhu Panel: One organ mutates every day

Deep in the mountains and old forests, withered trees and stagnant water.

The lamplight was dim, and the surroundings were dilapidated.

Ahead, above the gate of the courtyard, hangs an old wooden plaque, on which a few large, crooked characters can be vaguely discerned:

"Special Bureau Deep Mountain Welfare Sanatorium".

Dark purple, tentacle-like plants grow on the courtyard wall, and withered yellow vines climb all over the top of the wall. At the ends of the vines hang sac-like fruits that drip sticky sap constantly, as if they might burst open at any moment.

Wayne had long since lost track of where he was.

He didn't even know how he got here; she had led him through a series of twists and turns, and he couldn't even remember the buildings along the way.

"The Special Affairs Bureau has a place like this? What are we doing here?" Wayne asked, puzzled.

The gray-haired girl grinned and said, "You'll see when you come inside."

Then, she pulled Wayne toward the dilapidated sanatorium.

I had just stepped through the dilapidated courtyard gate.

A bloated corpse walked up from the side.

To be precise, it was a walking, humanoid, decaying ecological mass, its entire body covered with pustules and swollen blisters, with maggots crawling in its eye sockets, and its segmented limbs like rotten mud, dripping wet with yellowish-green mucus.

It can only be said that it barely retains a human form.

Judging from the work badge hanging around his neck, he should be a staff member of the sanatorium.

Wayne's lips twitched:

"Fortunately, given the current distorted and upside-down visual situation, it's not surprising to see any ghosts or monsters. After all, the entire Times Square has become a parade of ghosts, which means that the ghosts and monsters in our field of vision are all human."

Its movements were clumsy, and strange noises kept coming from its mouth, which resembled a mandible. Then, its head tilted to the side, and a bunch of maggots fell out of its eye sockets.

Its posture appears to be slightly bent over, then it extends a multi-segmented appendage, the end of which glows with a faint green light, as if it is respectfully welcoming you.

The gray-haired girl shook Wayne's hand back and forth, a hint of joy in her voice:

"The people in this sanatorium are all investigators, but they've all retired due to injuries or disabilities."

"A disabled investigator?" Wayne asked, puzzled.

"Let's go in and see for ourselves."

Ignoring the staff members around her, the gray-haired girl pulled Wayne and led him into the sanatorium building.

She pushed open the wooden door.

The wooden door creaked, as if wriggling and hissing.

Stepping inside.

It is a long and narrow corridor.

The corridor was dimmer than the courtyard, with several old, dim green oil lamps hanging on the walls, and the air smelled sweet.

There is a row of cubicles on each side of the corridor, each cubicle is about four or five square meters, and the door and wall are integrated.

The wall is made of a special material that is transparent, with twisted patterns that flow in a wavy pattern, and a faint silver light that flickers like breathing.

Metal nameplates are also hung on the outside of the cubicles.

The name tags all bore the word "investigator," with many even labeled "senior investigator."

It looked just like being imprisoned.

Is this still a sanatorium?

The gray-haired girl released Wein's hand, skipped two steps forward, turned around and waved to him:

"Look, these people are all delicious and tasty."

Wayne's gaze passed over her and took in the scene inside the first cubicle.

This feels like a lounge.

A worn-out, rotten rattan chair sat in the center, while several stacks of yellowed newspapers and magazines were piled up in the corner.

A fire was burning in the fireplace, but the flames were an eerie, ghostly green, and there was no heat to be felt.

A short, old man sat in front of the fireplace.

He was thin and wiry, with almost no hair left and his scalp covered in dark scars. He was curled up in a large wicker chair.

He held a book upside down, with the words on it also upside down. His lips would move slightly, as if he were reciting some words. As he recited, he would tap his withered fingers twice, as if he had suddenly realized something.

He had cotton stuffed in his ears; the cotton was yellowed and hardened, clearly indicating it had been there for many years.

He's actually a normal person?

Actually, Wayne had been having doubts in his heart:

It's strange to see a normal person now.

After all, many things in our current field of vision are distorted, or rather, reversed.

All the normal people in Times Square turned into ghosts, all the food on the plates turned into wriggling maggots, and the streets and buildings became dilapidated and lifeless.

That middle-aged man with white hair was one thing, but he was the leader of the second section.

Charlotte is alright, after all, Section Two is a secret security section, it's normal for Section Two to have some targeted mysterious items.

I never knew what secret the Second Division was protecting before, but now it seems they are protecting secrets from the past.

Although the buildings in this remote mountain sanatorium were also dilapidated, you could actually meet normal people inside.

In the current distorted and inverted worldview, the fact that normal people are being imprisoned further proves that those actually imprisoned are not normal people, and it is even uncertain whether they are human at all.

The gray-haired girl smiled and said:

"Him? He used to be a professor of occultism and a senior investigator. Guess what he went through?"

After a moment of silence, Wayne spoke:

"The detained senior investigator, a branch office chief or section chief, is a disabled retired officer. Given his past as a professor of occultism, could it be that he read some forbidden materials?"

The gray-haired girl clapped her hands gently:

"Hehe, you guessed it. Many years ago, he read some things he shouldn't have, so he retired completely. Now guess what made him crippled?"

Wein wasn't afraid of her capturing his analytical train of thought. After a moment's consideration, he replied:

"Putting cotton in his ears... could be a symptom of auditory hallucinations? Holding the book upside down could indicate cognitive disorder? However, stuffing cotton in his ears won't block out auditory hallucinations. He might also have pathological avoidance symptoms, which is why he's forcibly blocking his senses with external objects to try and avoid stimuli."

The gray-haired girl nodded and exclaimed in admiration:

"The amateur analysis of modern medicine that you used is indeed systematic, but I don't like it. I prefer to put it more simply: it's been contaminated."

He interpreted even the slightest sound as the whisper of some great being. His constant contemplation led to chaos in his life, eventually causing his health to collapse, and he went completely insane. His cerebral cortex practically turned into pages of a book.

Wayne expressed his understanding:

"I see. He will continuously generate extremely painful and terrifying memories, and these memories are also related to pollution, so they are naturally delicious to you."

The gray-haired girl continued:

"But that's not the most fun part. The most fun part is up to you."

Wayne asked, puzzled, "Looking at me?"

The gray-haired girl glanced at the bluish-black bite mark on Wayne's neck and nodded happily:

"Yes, don't you feel like you're different now than before?"

After a moment of focused attention, Wei En indeed sensed a mysterious power that was traveling throughout his body along the bite mark on his neck.

"It's definitely different now."

He followed the sensation of that power and made a thought.

Then you could see countless dark gray threads extending from the short old man's body.

Those threads stretched as far as the eye could see, seemingly infinitely close yet infinitely far, densely packed, some thick, some thin, some warm, some tinged with emotion, all converging and intertwining into a massive ball of yarn.