Chapter 3: Breach of Contract

Chapter 3: Breach of Contract

The offer of tea hung in the hot, bloody air like a disease. Arjun stared at the Conductor, his mind a screeching feedback loop of horror and disbelief. His stomach churned, threatening to disgorge the little food he'd eaten that day. Tea. The creature had offered them tea while the stains of a dozen obliterated lives were still fading into the floor.

"Get away from us," Arjun snarled, the words tearing from his raw throat.

Bimal, who had been muttering prayers, fell silent. His eyes snapped open, fixed on the Conductor with a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. His knuckles were bone-white around the small wooden totem he clutched. It was a pathetic ward against this industrial god of slaughter, but it seemed to be all that kept his sanity tethered.

"Now, now, there's no need for hostility," the Conductor said, his grin unwavering, though a flicker of something—annoyance? distress?—passed through the deep shadow of his hat. "The rules are the rules. The toll has been paid. Your passage is secure. A breach of etiquette is all I—"

He was cut off by a violent lurch that threw Arjun hard against the back of his seat. It wasn't the biological sway of before; it was an angry, convulsive shudder, a spasm that ran through the entire length of the train. The rhythmic thud-thud-thud of its legs quickened, becoming a frantic, irregular pounding, like a runaway heart.

A low growl rumbled through the carriage, seeming to emanate from the walls, the floor, the very air. It was a sound of profound, cavernous hunger. The bioluminescent sacs in the ceiling flickered, plunging them into momentary darkness before flaring back to a sickly, intense green.

Arjun felt a vibration start in his own seat. A deep, menacing tremor that travelled up his spine. The plush velvet beneath him felt suddenly thin, a fragile membrane over something awake and ravenous.

The Conductor's perpetually cheerful mask finally slipped. His grin tightened, becoming a pained rictus. He took a half-step back, his head cocked as if listening to a command only he could hear.

"No," he whispered, the sound shockingly clear in the tense carriage. He wasn't speaking to them. He was speaking to the train. "The manifest is clear. They are protected under the original Thakur Accord. They are passengers."

The growl deepened into a furious, guttural roar that vibrated in Arjun's teeth. The train was hungry. The meager toll of a dozen souls hadn't been enough. Thakur Birendra was dead, his life force no longer anchoring the pact, and the entity's appetite had grown beyond the old agreements. It was agitated, ravenous, and it was right here.

"This is a violation!" the Conductor shouted, his voice cracking with genuine panic. His professional veneer shattered, revealing the terrified functionary beneath. "Cease! This is a breach of contract!"

It was too late.

The velvet of Arjun's seat tore open with a sound like ripping canvas. The mouth within was not just teeth; it was a swirling maw of bone shards and glistening, black sinew. Before Arjun could even scream, a thick, muscular tendril, the color of a fresh bruise, shot out from the seat's core. It wasn't a metallic instrument of death like the ones from the ceiling; it was pure, hungry flesh. It whipped through the air, aimed directly for Arjun’s chest.

Time seemed to warp, stretching into a thick, syrupy crawl. Arjun saw the tendril coming, its tip unfurling into a three-fingered claw. He was paralyzed, a fly watching the spider descend. His college exam, his ambitions, his entire life, had led him to this single, obscene moment: to be consumed by his chair.

"ARJUN!"

His father’s scream was a raw explosion of love and terror. In that single, stretched second, Bimal moved. He didn't hesitate. He didn't weigh the cost. He lunged from his seat, throwing his body between Arjun and the attack. He shoved Arjun with all his might, a desperate, powerful push that sent Arjun sprawling into the aisle.

Arjun landed hard on the yielding floor, the air knocked from his lungs. He twisted around just in time to see the tendril find a new target.

It wrapped around his father's outstretched left arm.

The seat-mouth, a foot wide and impossibly deep, gaped open. The tendril retracted with incredible speed, dragging Bimal’s arm into the churning vortex.

Bimal’s scream was a sound Arjun would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life. It was not a sound of pain, but of a soul being ripped apart. There was a wet, heavy CRUNCH that vibrated through the carriage, the sound of thick bone snapping like a tree branch. It was followed by a series of rapid, grinding noises as the mouth worked, devouring, swallowing.

Blood, hot and shockingly red, sprayed across the opposite wall. The beautiful, ornate seat was now a demonic engine of consumption, shuddering as it fed.

And then, it was over.

The tendril vanished. The mouth snapped shut with a final, wet squelch, leaving behind only the torn velvet and a dark, spreading stain. The furious growl of the train subsided, replaced once more by its steady, rhythmic churning. The lights stopped flickering. The hunger was, for the moment, sated.

Bimal collapsed onto his side, a choked, gurgling sound escaping his lips. Where his left arm had been, there was only a mangled, unrecognizable stump of flesh and splintered bone, gushing a torrent of blood onto the carriage floor. He was clutching the stump with his remaining hand, his face a contorted mask of unimaginable agony, his eyes wide with shock.

Arjun scrambled to his father's side, his mind utterly blank with shock. "Baba! Oh god, Baba!" He ripped his shirt, trying clumsily to staunch the flow of blood, his hands instantly slick and warm with it.

The Conductor stood frozen in the aisle. The grin was gone. The shadow under his hat seemed deeper, colder. His form shimmered, unstable, as if his composure was the only thing holding him together.

"Unprecedented," he breathed, the words trembling with a strange, bureaucratic horror. "A direct contravention of the Accord. Compensation is… required. This is a severe service failure."

The train began to slow, its leg-falls becoming less frantic, more deliberate. Through the grimy, pulsating window, Arjun could see the faint, distant lights of civilization. The lights of Malda. They were arriving.

The Conductor seemed to pull himself together, his posture straightening. The terrifying grin began to re-form on his shadowed face, though it was strained now, a grimace of professionalism.

"Do not worry, valued passengers," he said, his voice a hollow echo of its former cheer. "The Chhayagarh Line always settles its accounts. We will make this right."