Chapter Eleven: The Festivals

  Gabriel was lying on the bed in that accursed house—the witches' house. His eyes stared into the darkness, but his mind was lost between doubt and certainty. Had he lost his mind and gone insane, or was the contract he had made with Zolish real? He was no longer sure of anything... except for his one and only wish, which he clung to like a drowning man, even though everything around him felt like a nightmare.

  His body was torn apart—not only by physical wounds but by mental torment as well. His mind could not comprehend what had happened the day before—as if his delusions had crawled out from the depths of his psyche to become reality. He was trapped in a vortex of hallucinations and disorder, unable to discern whether what he saw was real or merely a figment of his imagination.

  In the dim darkness, his body was drenched in sweat, yet the air around him was unnaturally cold. The room was silent... an oppressive silence, as if it were watching him. The silence was more than just an absence of sound; it was an entity in itself, creeping along the walls, coiling around him, suffocating him.

  His bones ached as if they were broken, and his head throbbed with an inhuman rhythm. Then he felt it... the fever. A heat surged through his body, as if his blood had turned to molten lava, yet he shivered as if the cold were devouring him from within.

  At that moment, another thought crossed his mind—was he trapped inside a maze of fevered nightmares?

  Had the dreams brought the fever, or had the fever brought the dreams?

  Gabriel Sunderland did not know.

  Had he begun to imagine illnesses after imagining tales of monsters and entities? Which was worse, he wondered?

  Loneliness... that was the worst thing of all. No matter how strong a person became, no matter what they faced, loneliness remained the ultimate horror, lurking in the darkness, waiting for the moment to strike. Despite everything he had been through, despite having become a man now, nothing had changed—the same childhood fear still sat at the top, reigning supreme, unchallenged. That black void, that nothingness, had returned to swallow him once more after Rose's death.

  So tell me, dear readers... had everything he had witnessed during this time been real? Or was it merely a hellish manifestation of the destructive effects of loneliness and grief?

  In any case, the howling of wolves outside and the cries of ravens and owls in that eerie, snow-covered place made Gabriel shiver and freeze. He had thought about Erkantha a lot. Despite being terrifying, she was the most beautiful thing he had seen during this tragic period.

  Whenever he heard or thought of the witch’s name, the witches' house, where he now slept, would tremble violently, and a green aura would rise from it—an aura somewhat resembling that of the cosmic entity Zolish, though in different colours. Sometimes, it would glow silver, its power so immense that it seemed to reach into space.

  That infernal house never ceased to attack Gabriel in every possible way. Strange fits would seize him—bouts of terror more horrifying than anything else. These seizures made him tremble violently, his obsessive thoughts growing more overwhelming. He would shake so much that the bed beneath him would rattle, sweat pouring from his body, blood trickling from his nose and eyes.

  And when the convulsions subsided, his fever would spike, and he would begin to vomit continuously—vomiting red blood. But was it his own blood? Or was it the blood of the animals he had eaten alive? The room itself seemed to shake under the force of his suffering, as if on the verge of collapse.

  Suddenly, Gabriel woke up from this nightmare, gasping for breath.

  Gabriel: "Haaaa... haaaaa... It was just a nightmare! It was just a nightmare! Calm down... calm down... You're fine now. You're fine. It's nothing—just a slight headache."

  Gabriel got up to shave his beard and wash his face. As he shaved in front of the old, cracked mirror in the witches' house, he wondered...

  What had happened to that murderer back in his homeland?

  Then, he and everything there disappeared. Now, we set sail on our journey—away from the nightmares, yet not far from fear and sorrow.

  To the capital of New Zealand, where two young detectives found themselves caught in a web of confusion and tension following the recent developments in this intricate case. They sat in the library, deep in thought, contemplating their next move.

  Night had draped its heavy cloak over the New Zealand capital. Detective Karl and his assistant, Marcus, sat surrounded by scattered papers and incomplete reports. Silence filled the room—not a peaceful silence, but a stifling one, oppressive, carrying the weight of defeat.

  Marcus threw the case file onto the table with frustration, exhaling sharply:

  Marcus: "What are we supposed to do, Karl? It looks like we've lost this case. I can't believe this is our first real failure... But no human mind could possibly untangle this chaos."

  Karl lifted his gaze, his eyes lost in the shadows cast by the dim desk lamp. He didn’t need to ask whom Marcus was referring to—they were speaking of the Reaper of Wingleton, the serial killer who had eluded their grasp time and time again, like a ghost leaving behind only corpses and riddles.

  Karl sighed slowly, placing an unlit cigarette between his lips:

  Karl: "This wasn’t just a simple escape... It was orchestrated, calculated with absolute precision. How did he vanish from that alley behind the church in such a way?"

  Marcus: "Maybe he’s using dark magic. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything in this case."

  Karl: "This is the madness of Phantom Zero, Marcus. All the evidence points to them being behind this chaos—at the very least, behind the minister’s assassination."

  Marcus slammed his fist onto the table.

  Marcus: "We have more problems than just the killer, yes. But let’s agree that this was a coordinated execution by them, without a doubt... The minister’s assassination was just a small piece of the deeper puzzle that led us to this damn genius of a murderer."

  Karl stood, leaning against the table, his eyes locking onto his partner’s.

  Karl: "But we have a key to this puzzle… We have someone closer to the hell we’re chasing than anyone else."

  Marcus: "You’re talking about Gabriel Sunderland."

  Karl fell silent for a moment before replying in a cold voice:

  Karl: "Though I find your suspicion of him baseless and absurd, I’ll admit… He’s the closest thing we have to the truth."

  Before Marcus could respond, Karl’s phone suddenly rang. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the caller ID, then answered in a serious tone:

  Karl: "What have you got?"

  A cryptic voice on the other end spoke rapidly, filled with excitement and urgency. Karl uttered only a few short words before hanging up.

  Marcus raised an eyebrow.

  Marcus: "Who was that?"

  Karl straightened, his eyes gleaming with newfound intensity.

  Karl: "We've found Gabriel’s apartment, Marcus… There might be something there."

  Silence hung in the air for a brief moment before Marcus grabbed his coat swiftly.

  Marcus: "If there’s anything that could lead us to the truth… then let’s go and uncover it."

  The two stepped out of the office, the icy New Zealand air wrapping around them. But the real heat lay within the mystery that had finally begun to reveal some of its secrets.

  We leave the detectives behind and return to our greatest and only nightmare—the one we lived through with Gabriel.

  Gabriel lay on the bed in the old witches' house, clutching his head as he trembled violently. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, yet his body burned with the heat of fever. Scarlet eyes glowed from every corner of the room, lurking, sinking into the abyss of darkness, as if waiting for his fall. By the window, crows gathered in eerie silence, their gazes unreadable—was it pity? Contempt? Or were they merely watching, like emotionless entities?

  He began to mutter, his voice shaky, barely audible, as if he spoke a language not of this world:

  "??????????????... ?????? ?????? ????????... ?????? ?????? ????????..."

  Then, suddenly, his voice grew sharper, as if he were trying to tear himself away from something coiling around his mind:

  "Rose… why did you leave me? ?????????????? ??????????... Rose… why did you leave me? Rose… why did you leave me? ROSE!!"

  He repeated the phrase over and over, but his voice no longer sounded human. It echoed through the room as if spoken by more than one mouth, from more than one dimension.

  The eyes did not fade; instead, they seemed to draw closer, glowing ever more intensely, smoldering like embers in the depths of the void. The crows flapped their wings—as if preparing to take flight… or to strike.

  Then, abruptly, the murmurs stopped. The voices fell silent. Gabriel collapsed onto the bed—only to plummet into a void of pure darkness.

  He screamed as he fell, his voice tearing through the abyss:

  "Not this again! Not this again! Not this—!"

  But deep down, he knew. There was no salvation from this torment—only death.

  He kept falling, his body descending into infinity, screaming, but his voice was nothing more than a whisper dissolving into the void. It was not mere descent—it was disintegration. As if his very being was being ripped from reality, reshaped by something beyond him, something lurking in this eternal blackness.

  Then, suddenly, the fall stopped.

  There was no impact, no surface to land on, yet he was no longer moving. He was suspended in an endless space. And before him… was something no human mind could fully comprehend.

  A colossal eye, floating in the void, encased within a luminous triangle—like a gateway to another dimension.

  It was not merely an eye. It was a cosmos unto itself, its pupil resembling a black hole, devouring all light, surrounded by an aura of colors unknown to human perception—colors that had no names. Below it, a dead planet hung in space, cloaked in thick layers of cosmic dust, the remnants of a world annihilated eons ago.

  The space around him was not silent. It pulsed with a strange, unsettling life. Galaxies burned and collapsed, stars exploded like dying suns, yet everything seemed to orbit this one eye—as if it were the center of existence. Or perhaps, the center of nothingness.

  The void surrounding Gabriel was not merely black emptiness—it was a celestial tapestry, pulsating with an eerie, inhuman beauty.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The stars, in their myriad hues, were not distant pinpricks of light but blazing masses that danced upon the horizon, interweaving like shattered glass from an ancient divine explosion. Some pulsed with a faint blue glow, while others burned in shades of red and orange, like fading suns. Wisps of cosmic dust flowed through the expanse like rivers of light, shifting between deep purples and electric blues, mingling with tendrils of green auroras flickering in the far distance.

  It was as if this place were the very heart of the cosmos itself—the birthplace of stars, and their grave.

  And yet, nothing in this boundless scene drew the eye more than the eye itself. It was not merely an object within space. It was space. It had existed since the dawn of time. Its pupil, a pit of absolute blackness, was ringed by a swirling vortex of impossible colors, as though the fabric of reality itself revolved around it. There was no distinction between the eye and its surroundings—it was part of the void, and the void was part of it. The eye of the cosmos, watching everything. Knowing everything.

  The glow surrounding it was not steady, but pulsed, like the heartbeat of an ancient being, sending faint waves of light through the darkness, fading and returning—as if calling to Gabriel. Or perhaps, as if conducting an existential test, analyzing him, determining whether he was worthy of existence… or merely another illusion within this cosmic chaos.

  Then, a voice echoed through the void.

  It did not come from the eye.

  It did not come from anywhere.

  It was simply there, vibrating through existence itself.

  The voice was neither terrifying nor comforting—it was melodic, beautiful, and utterly alien.

  And yet, it was not speaking to Gabriel alone.

  It was speaking to us.

  To humanity.

  To all who had ever existed.

  "Ah, did you not get the message?

  Say I'm done callin' and textin'

  Don't be so passive-aggressive

  You're gonna pass that aggression

  We've been inside, have you been invested?

  I did not come to impress ya

  You're gonna know 'cause you're testin'

  You feel it in your intestine."

  Gabriel tried to grasp what he had just heard, but time did not grant him the luxury of understanding. Before he could make sense of it, he was falling again—this time through the vastness of space, plummeting between stars, nebulas, comets, meteors, and supernovae.

  Then, suddenly—

  His body crashed down as if he were a discarded piece of cloth caught in a storm. His back struck cold cement, so unforgiving that, for a moment, he felt as if it had cracked beneath his weight. His ragged breathing filled the rotten air, thick with the stench of decay, the scent of nothingness.

  A mass grave.

  An underground tomb, teeming with black cats and creatures of the night.

  His feet stumbled through the rubble and corpses, but his gaze remained locked onto a single object—the only thing that commanded his attention.

  A lone grave at the end of the tunnel.

  Perched atop the tombstone sat a raven, black as coal, and beside it, a dove, white as a ghost.

  He approached slowly. His eyes widened as he read the name carved into the stone.

  Rose Chevanchikov.

  The grave was open.

  Empty.

  As if it had been waiting for him since the beginning of time.

  Without hesitation, Gabriel stepped forward—

  And jumped.

  Plunging into the abyss once more.

  Falling.

  Endlessly.

  No hope. No mercy. No escape.

  Then—

  The fall stopped.

  There was no impact. No sudden jolt. It was as if gravity had simply abandoned him. His body remained suspended, floating in the void, as though he belonged nowhere at all.

  The air—if there was air—was utterly still. So still, in fact, that his own breath no longer made a sound.

  And then—

  He saw it.

  At the center of a swirling maelstrom of shifting colors, reality itself erupted into a surreal nightmare. Circles, eyes, phantoms—dancing in chaotic, incomprehensible patterns, like an ocean of liquid madness.

  These were not mere colors.

  They were watching him.

  Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of glimmering eyes, embedded within the storm of hues, fixated upon him. Studying him. Stripping him bare, not just in body, but in spirit—peeling away his existence, layer by layer.

  And from within this visual chaos—

  She emerged.

  A mass of darkness.

  Black as an infinite void.

  Like a black hole sculpted into the form of a woman.

  Her body was not mere shadow. It was nothingness itself.

  Absorbing light. Absorbing color. Absorbing him.

  Gabriel felt himself unraveling—his very essence thinning, like fabric being pulled apart by unseen hands.

  But she was not entirely empty.

  There was an eye.

  One single eye, glowing with a dim, eerie radiance, peering at him from behind the curtain of darkness.

  It was an eye devoid of warmth.

  Devoid of humanity.

  Devoid of life.

  And yet—

  It saw him.

  Not just his body.

  Not just his soul.

  Everything.

  It was tearing into him the way blades tear through flesh.

  She extended her hand.

  But it was not a hand.

  It was an extension of that living void—writhing like smoke, yet solid.

  And heavy.

  Not merely in weight, but in presence—gripping reality itself, bending it, reshaping it as she pleased.

  Gabriel did not move.

  He could not move.

  There was nowhere to go.

  "Who… are you?"

  He did not realize he had spoken.

  He was not even sure the words had truly left his lips.

  But the question existed.

  It lingered in the air.

  She did not answer.

  She only smiled.

  A brilliant, radiant smile—

  Carved into the darkness.

  White. Wide. Almost beautiful.

  But not human.

  A smile brimming with knowledge.

  With amusement.

  With danger.

  And then, with a voice as grand as a celestial symphony, she spoke:

  "Say I found the one

  That's enough for me, that's enough for me

  Run, the past, it's gone

  Love me in this league

  Heavy, every lie is a crown, preachers tired too

  Fall asleep on me

  Reach inside my mind and tell me where you want to go?"

  Then, as it had begun, the eyes began to melt away. The colors receded. The darkness thickened.

  And the fall began anew.

  This time, there was no impact. No collision.

  The descent simply… stopped.

  As if the very laws of the universe had been rewritten in an instant, leaving Gabriel suspended in nothingness.

  For a moment, he thought he had returned to the void, to that black abyss where the woman with the haunting words had confronted him.

  But this time—

  There was no darkness.

  There was light.

  A light that was not natural, that was not warm, that was not comforting.

  It burned with an unnatural radiance, piercing his eyes, invading his being, making him feel as though he was standing before something that should never be seen. Something that should never be understood.

  The light came from an unknown dimension, pouring into a stone cavern—its walls rough, covered in ancient cracks, worn by the passage of time itself. The rocks were jagged, uneven, as if they had violently emerged from the earth’s core, yet they all converged at a single point.

  The point where he stood.

  At the heart of this sacred cavern, there was a platform.

  Unlike the walls, it was not made of stone.

  It was smooth, flawless, polished as if sculpted from a metal unknown to man.

  And it glowed from within.

  A pure, white radiance pulsed through it, casting unstable shadows across the chamber.

  And upon this platform—

  The being stood.

  It was not human.

  It was not demonic.

  It was not divine.

  It was beyond definition.

  Its body was human-like—muscular, uncovered, yet not truly naked.

  For its very skin was wrapped in something… something like scales, like burnt flesh, like the twisted fabric of reality itself.

  Its hands were powerful, extended outward, marked with symbols he could not comprehend.

  One held a key and a chain.

  The other gripped a sword—a blade so sharp it seemed to cut through existence itself, glowing red like a dying sun.

  But it was what lay above the body that stole Gabriel’s breath.

  The being did not have a human face.

  It had the head of a lion.

  But not a lion of this world.

  Its eyes were empty.

  Not blind—empty in a way that was terrifying, as if they were gateways to the void itself.

  Its fangs jutted out, gleaming like blades, and from its nostrils, a dense smoke poured forth, writhing in the air like the breath of something ancient.

  It had wings—

  Vast, angelic, blinding white, yet flickering like sacred fire.

  But wrapped around them was something else.

  A serpent.

  A monstrous snake, coiled around the being’s ribs, slithering up its throat, its head resting upon its brow like a crown of the living.

  Its scales were deep red—stained as if with the blood of countless eons.

  And its eyes…

  Glowed with a dim yellow light, heavy with wisdom—

  And madness.

  Then, Gabriel noticed something else.

  There were people.

  They were not standing.

  They were not looking into the entity’s eyes as he was.

  They were kneeling.

  Three figures, clad in white robes, their faces pressed against the ground, their arms stretched forward in submission.

  As if offering their very souls.

  One of them trembled, as if his prayers were not leaving his lips, but burning through his very spirit.

  The second was silent, unmoving, as if he were a mere extension of the earth itself.

  And the third—

  The third was whispering.

  Words Gabriel could not hear.

  Could not understand.

  Yet he could feel them.

  The air shifted with every syllable, the unseen currents of the world twisting, speaking to his very bones.

  And still—

  The entity did not move.

  It did not look at him.

  Yet he could feel it inside him.

  Not a voice.

  Not a thought.

  Something deeper.

  Like the world itself whispering to him its truths.

  Then—

  Without warning—

  The being moved.

  It lifted its head.

  And looked at him.

  Directly.

  And then, with a voice that was not just sound, but an incantation, a cipher, a bridge between sanity and delirium, it spoke:

  "I took some drugs that done fucked up my mental

  I drove so far, never gave back that rental

  I've been so crazy, but baby be gentle

  See our potential…"

  The moment froze.

  When the entity uttered those words, they were not mere vibrations in the air.

  They were sigils.

  Spells.

  A key between perception and insanity.

  Gabriel could no longer think.

  Could no longer breathe.

  Because suddenly—

  Without warning—

  He saw everything.

  Everything.

  All at once.

  He saw the hallucinations flood back, like lost souls finding refuge within him.

  He saw them multiply, spiraling around him in an endless vortex.

  Shadows danced before his eyes, ripping through reality, tearing open tunnels of static noise.

  And he heard them.

  Voices.

  Whispering.

  Screaming.

  Singing.

  Begging.

  Familiar voices.

  Strange voices.

  Voices that were never meant to exist.

  The words cycled through his mind, over and over, dragging him deeper into the spiral.

  "I took some drugs that done fucked up my mental..."

  The letters became symbols.

  The symbols became beings.

  The beings became screams made flesh, writhing in front of him, slithering onto his skin, whispering in his ears, pulling him into the abyss.

  He tried to shut them out.

  But the voices were inside him.

  They could not be silenced.

  Because they were him now.

  The hallucinations spun.

  He saw her—

  The woman with the black eyes, standing before him once more.

  He saw Father Christopher, grinning as his flesh crumbled to ash.

  He saw Rose, standing in the darkness, her hands gripping her head, sobbing silently—

  Before she turned—

  And revealed that she had no face.

  He saw the moon split apart.

  The sea consume the city.

  The sky collapse in burning fragments.

  The hallucinations spun.

  He was sitting in the void.

  A place with no meaning.

  No ground.

  No sky.

  Only—

  Nothingness.

  And the visions dancing around him, swallowing him whole.

  Then—

  The spinning stopped.

  A new image appeared.

  Not a memory.

  Not a hallucination.

  Something else.

  Something new.

  He was standing before it.

  A black sky.

  Clouds glowing red.

  A blazing eclipse in the heavens, burning like the eye of an angry god.

  The air was thick, heavy, filled with sacred smoke.

  A sea of clouds below.

  As if the earth itself had ceased to exist.

  And in that moment, Gabriel knew—

  This was not just a vision.

  It was a window.

  A glimpse into something else.

  A place that should not be.

  And then—

  As if the universe itself leaned in to whisper in his ear—

  He heard a new voice.

  A voice from nothingness.

  A voice that echoed through the deepest corners of his mind:

  "Oh I'm so special."

  "Oh I'm so special."

  "Oh I'm so special."

  Then, the voice shifted.

  It was no longer a mere echo.

  It was mocking.

  It was pitying.

  It was breaking him apart.

  "No, I'm not special, kick back that pedestal.

  Stay for the ride or just leave on a high note."

  And then—

  He remembered.

  He remembered all the entities he had encountered.

  The beings that should not exist.

  The things that lurked beyond sanity.

  He saw Zwelsh.

  He saw the whispers in the darkness.

  He saw Erkantha, Queen of Witches.

  And finally—

  He saw the Shadow Demon.

  But this…

  This was not just an entity.

  It was not a god.

  It was not a ruler of reality.

  It was something beyond all that.

  It was the final truth.

  It was… his end.

  Gabriel felt the weight of this realization pressing against his soul, like a cosmic tide pulling him under. He was no longer merely seeing; he was becoming.

  He could feel the boundaries of his existence melting away, dissolving into the infinite vastness of this thing—this being that had no name, no form, only an overwhelming presence.

  And then, as if the universe itself were laughing at him, the voice spoke again.

  Not in words.

  Not in thoughts.

  But in pure, raw understanding.

  It whispered to him the truth.

  And Gabriel screamed.

  Then, Zwelsh entered the hallucinations.

  Flames—red, all-consuming flames—devoured everything in sight.

  And then, with a mere gesture, Zwelsh tore Gabriel back to reality.

  Everything had vanished.

  As if they had feared Zwelsh.

  Even the Witch’s House—the place that had once pulsed with eldritch energy—was now nothing more than an ordinary home.

  Zwelsh turned to Gabriel, and for the first time in his existence, he looked uneasy.

  Zwelsh (hurriedly): "Quickly, boy. We have no time for foolishness."

  Without another word, Zwelsh grabbed Gabriel and dragged him away.

  Beyond the mountains of the leather-skinned island, a sight of unimaginable magnitude awaited them.

  Gabriel: "What… is this?"

  Zwelsh: "It’s… The Festival."

  Gabriel: "The what?"

  What stood before them was beyond comprehension.

  ---

  Beyond the mountains, a sight not meant for human eyes was revealed.

  The ground was smooth, its texture resembling the flesh of a living being. It breathed—a slow, rhythmic pulse beneath their feet, as if the island itself was alive, witnessing the ritual.

  At the heart of this massive clearing, a green firestorm spiraled toward the heavens, twisting, writhing, feeding upon itself. It crackled, releasing strange sparks that dissipated before touching the ground.

  It was not fire.

  It did not burn.

  It did not emit heat.

  Instead, the closer they stepped, the colder the air became—an unnatural, biting cold that seemed to drain warmth from existence itself.

  Around the fire stood a crowd of creatures that barely resembled humans.

  Draped in long, black robes, their faces were shrouded in darkness. But their heads—they were not normal.

  Some bore twisted, gnarled horns.

  Some had eyes that burned with an unnatural purple glow.

  Some had no faces at all—only a void of endless blackness.

  They stood in a perfect circle, their hands raised, chanting in a language that should not exist. Their voices did not belong to this world, a mixture of distant oceanic echoes and whispers from realms yet to be born.

  At the edges of the clearing, massive stone pillars loomed, their surfaces covered in cryptic engravings—symbols that seemed to slither and shift, as if trying to escape the stone.

  Among the pillars stood statues of faceless women, each bearing a black stone crescent moon upon her head. These dark moons pulsed softly with green light, feeding upon the ritual’s power.

  Everything was alive.

  Everything was watching.

  Everything was waiting.

  Gabriel could only stare, his mind unable to process the sheer vastness of the scene.

  This was not a human ceremony.

  This was not something that should ever be witnessed.

  But Zwelsh, for the first time, looked tense.

  His eyes glowed with quiet urgency.

  Zwelsh (his voice low, but firm): "They’re summoning Erkantha… and so far, they’re succeeding."

  Then—

  Everything vanished.

  The figures.

  The fire.

  The pillars.

  The entire ritual was swallowed by the void, erased from reality in the blink of an eye.

  Gabriel and Zwelsh descended the mountain, moving quickly, trying to understand what had just happened.

  But then—

  They saw it.

  A black war tank.

  Its turret was missing.

  And upon it, a figure sat—waiting.

  ---

  A woman.

  Beautiful.

  Terrifying.

  She sat with unshaken confidence, one hand resting against her cheek, her posture regal and demonic at once.

  She was a half-elf.

  A creature from a forgotten age.

  Her long, silver hair shimmered in the eerie twilight.

  Her eyes—deep crimson, burning like ancient embers— stared straight into Gabriel’s soul.

  Upon her head, she wore a classic witch’s hat—purple, majestic, timeless.

  She was dressed in a flowing black gown, its fabric darker than the abyss itself.

  But what surrounded her was even more unnerving.

  A thousand shadowy hands.

  They floated around her, shifting, writhing, adorned with twinkling stars trapped within their darkness.

  And on her pure, pale thighs, rested a human skull.

  Then, she spoke.

  And at the sound of her voice—ethereal, melodic, yet drenched in terror—

  The entire planet trembled.

  Erkantha: "I missed you… little brother."

  ---

  End of Chapter.