Chapter 36
The Horror at Red Rook
There are secrets of evil and gods around us, and we live and move, in my belief, in an unknown and absurd world—a place where there are caves, shadows, fog, and dwellings in the twilight, things beyond time and space. It is impossible, in my opinion, that man, in the 197,000 years he has existed here, has not returned to the path of evolution, nor discovered this path until the last 160 years. Perhaps the path he has discovered is a primitive one, based on what was found in the past. And in my hopes, this terrible story has not yet died, for it is immortal within all our minds.
The chapter begins with Marcus, Gabriel, and Bruno, who continued falling through space toward the God of Fear, who had emerged beneath them from the void. The God of Fear opened its terrifying maw, waiting for them. Its mouth was the size of a thousand planets, and within it raged a ghostly green hurricane, filled with the corpses of aliens, their spirits, and some spectral human skulls spinning in an endless loop of wrath. Stardust assaulted them, choking their breath, and above them stretched a twilight that wept eerie green spectral droplets. In the midst of this colored void, they seemed to be hurtling toward their doom.
Gabriel awoke from his stupor and found himself in this bizarre predicament. "What is this...?" he muttered in disbelief, before they continued their descent into the grotesque maw of the God of Fear. Then, Gabriel and his companions heard a voice from the void. It said to him: *"The day when I shall be the end draws near, O perishable one... And so too does your wish approach."*
Then, they awoke to find themselves aboard a dilapidated boat, sailing upon true horror—the most terrifying place in all the worlds. They sailed upon the ocean, the embodiment of the unknown, of enigmas, of our deepest fears—the most dreadful place in the galaxy, even though it is near us, and we go to it every day. We eat from it, we sit upon its shores in the dead of night, watching the waves and opening ourselves to the universe, only to realize we know nothing of it. The unknown.
They sailed through the unknown along the cursed shores of that accursed island. Then, the stars vanished from the sky, and the rest of the darkness swallowed the moon. The winds disappeared, and the rest of the darkness consumed even the island—they could no longer see it. Everything vanished, and absolute darkness reigned. Yet the ocean remained. They continued sailing through the ocean in the heart of the dark, realizing they had entered the Void once more.
They trembled in terror—the men aboard this ship. I assure you, they had lost their fear of death, yet they remained terrified. For sometimes, staying alive is more horrifying than dying. They knew they would be tormented here every day. That is why they hide the Void. That is why we fear the ocean. That is why we drown every day. That is why we disappear from ourselves all day long, living with dual personalities—the superficial one, and when the darkness looms, when midnight passes and dawn approaches, when the twilight rises and the sea winds howl in the midst of silence and darkness, our true selves emerge—our brilliant selves.
They were living with their true selves, but they were not happy. Instead, they were sorrowful, aware of the fear coming for them from the black winds in the midst of the dark, tranquil ocean. They continued sailing against their will, just as you continue living against yours.
Then, they saw their nightmares.
Rose came and stabbed Gabriel with a dagger in his heart. Bruno's mother, Georgina, came and stabbed Bruno with a dagger in his mind. And the Egyptian girl came and stabbed Marcus with a dagger in his soul.
—
In the midst of absolute emptiness, where there was no time nor direction, they found themselves sailing upon a colorless sea, its waves rising like the dying breaths of a corpse. The ocean around them was merely a reflection of something incomprehensible—its surface was not water, but a substance between life and death, between awareness and oblivion.
But when the winds raised their voice, the darkness suddenly tore apart, and the tower appeared before them.
A colossal tower stood upon a black rock, as if placed there by something ancient to warn all to stay away. It seemed alive—a crumbling body of stone, its walls eroded as if gnawed by centuries of wandering spirits. Its single window, an empty eye, stared at them as if it had been waiting for them since the dawn of time. At its peak, a sickly light pulsed—not a light of salvation, but something diseased, rotting, as if trembling from fear itself.
Then came the storm...
The clouds above them began moving unnaturally fast. They were not mere clouds, but masses of shadows writhing like creatures suffering from an incomplete birth.
Beneath them, the sea began to change...
The waves were not mere water, but shapes moving within it—spirits drowned since time immemorial, decayed faces rising with the foam, screaming soundlessly as if trying to escape something even greater than death.
Marcus, Gabriel, and Bruno did not speak... they could not. This place was beyond words—it was something only felt, devouring the soul before the body.
They were approaching the tower... and the tower seemed like the legendary lighthouse of the Legendary city of Innsmouth.
Bruno said:"Does any of you know how to stop these endless nightmares? Even though we're far from the island, it doesn't end. I'm starting to lose my mind—my eyes have turned black from terror. I haven't slept since we came here."
Marcus replied in despair:"We don't know. It's as if we're in hell, suffering endlessly. We don't even know if the island with the lighthouse is real or not. But let's hope that getting away from that frozen island that imprisoned and tortured us might save us… might end this.
Bruno:"Honestly, I don't want anything from life anymore except this to stop."
They continued sailing in the boat, filled with tension, fear, and suspicion. They clawed at their nails until they began biting their fingers, scraping their teeth until they started to crack. But Gabriel sat quietly—somewhat relieved, thinking they were finally leaving the island.
"We're getting closer to the lighthouse," he muttered. "The nightmare might finally end."
But suddenly, the lighthouse's beam swung toward them, illuminating their boat. It seemed whatever lurked in the lighthouse—some strange, unseen entity with the body of a fish—had noticed them. The beam of light that struck their boat began to burn it, forcing them all to leap into the depths of the ocean.
---
Meanwhile, our story shifts to Detective Karl...
The Gothic Necronomicon book had also cast him into the void. He, too, was now swimming in absolute darkness under the glow of a red moon, amidst the screams of the stars—until his fall abruptly stopped.
He awoke from that horrific nightmare to find himself back where he had started—in the Witches' Forest section of the island, standing before the Japanese Buddhist temple where he had found the book. The ground was green, the cherry blossom trees filling the air with their petals.
Karl stood up, disoriented. "Where did the book disappear to this time?" he wondered.
His instincts for solving mysteries, combined with the insatiable hunger the book had planted in him—the lust for power—drove him forward. Under the red moonlight, amidst the tall grass, the darkness, the temples, and the sakura trees, Karl followed a path illuminated by the crimson glow.
Ahead, several cherry blossom trees stood—gnarled, thorn-covered, and bound together by some unseen force. Words formed in blood, shaped by the moonlight, appeared before him. Fallen sakura petals drifted onto the words, staining the elegant temple floor.
The inscriptions were carved in a strange language—one no human could comprehend, not even Karl. Yet, he heard the translation whispered into his ear, as if the book itself was speaking to him in a tongue beyond understanding.
"The book lies this way," it seemed to say, "beyond the sakura trees whose petals have turned from pink to dark red."
The rest of the trees in the vast forest remained their usual pink—only these, marked by the red moon, had changed. The demonic book was waiting there.
And so, Karl walked toward the unknown.
---
As Karl approached the sakura trees, he moved through the bloody thorns, his body torn, thin rivulets of blood streaking his skin in jagged lines. But he didn't stop. There was no turning back now. Logic had vanished—only the voice of the book remained in his head, whispering secrets no man should know.
Behind the trees, where the cherry blossoms had turned into bloody shadows, Karl saw something that should not exist—something no human eye should ever witness.
There was... an entity .
Not just a monster, but the embodiment of fear itself , as if the abyss had taken on a grotesquely humanoid shape.
Before him stood a woman—or something resembling a woman. Her hair was thick, black, hanging like a curtain soaked in death, covering most of her face. But it did not hide her eyes —lifeless, hollow, dark, like pits leading straight into the void.
She wore an ornate kimono embroidered with sakura flowers, but it was decaying at the edges, crumbling like dead skin, as though time itself was slowly devouring it.
But what made Karl's breath freeze was not her face, nor her clothes—but what lay behind her.
Her back was not human.
Eight massive, twisted legs—long, spiked, covered in bristling hairs—sprouted from her spine, like those of a spider perched on the edge of death. The limbs moved slowly, as if preparing to strike. Black veins pulsed beneath her skin, throbbing like tubes pumping poison.
Her nails were not nails—but thin, serrated claws, like needles carved from human bone. Her hands trembled slightly, not from fear... but from patience , as if waiting for the perfect moment to tear him apart.
Karl felt his body lock up. Every cell in him screamed to run, to flee—but he couldn't . He was trapped, not by ropes or chains, but by something deeper.
Not just fear.
Pure, absolute dread.
Then, she moved.
Not with a step—but by gliding , as though time itself no longer functioned properly around her. Her hair parted further, revealing a slow, twisted smile—stretched too wide, as if her lips had been torn to form that cursed grin.
She whispered something—not in his ears, but into his marrow, into his blood, into the core of his soul.
Then, before he could comprehend, the thorns he had passed through began to move... as if they had been waiting for this encounter. They transformed into something else—something alive, something that knew it would never let him leave.
Now, it was no longer in his hands.
---
The blood froze in his veins despite his severe wounds. He ran, screaming wildly, leaping through the thorned trees as his injuries multiplied. Gasping for breath, he distanced himself from that yokai .
"It seems madness is becoming reality," Karl muttered in distress.
Then, he returned to the heart of the forest, behind the temples. The red moon's glow intensified, and strange words began carving themselves into the earth once more. Karl heard the whispers—they told him:
"Now, go beyond the mountains... you will find what you seek."
And so, Karl turned toward the mountains. It seemed the book's allure was stronger than fear itself.
The wind blew slowly, drifting through the long grass covering the mountains like frozen waves—moving only when touched by the breath of darkness. The red moon hung in the sky like a demon's eye, gazing indifferently at the horrors below, casting a strange, glowing light as if the air itself was saturated with blood.
Karl stood where the path ended—where nothing lay behind him but the void, and before him... something that *should not exist.
From the depths of the mountains, where the eroded hills twisted like half-buried corpses, emerged a creature unlike anything humanity had ever known. It was massive, coiling around itself like a colossal serpent, floating in the sky—yet its skin was not skin at all.
It was covered in *thousands of tiny eyes.
Each eye flickered in a different color, watching the world from impossible angles. Some blinked rapidly, others remained fixed—staring at Karl as if he were its next meal.
Its body seemed made of clouds —the strangest Japanese dragon any eye could behold.
Its head was not one, but many —a shifting amalgamation of faces, their features constantly morphing as if trapped souls screamed, moaned, and whispered in inhuman voices. Its breath came in thick red smoke, twisting in the air like burning spirits, emitting cries that were not human... but the universe itself weeping, as if in agony from this abomination's existence.
Its mouth—no, mouths —were impossibly wide, filled with jagged, elongated teeth, coated in remnants of flesh (human or otherwise). With every movement, a metallic scraping sound echoed, as if bones were breaking inside it—as if its own form was too grotesque for even itself to bear.
And when Karl looked down, he saw no feet.
Instead, roots extended from the earth itself, as if the soil had grown this creature—as if it had not been born, but summoned from the void, from a place beyond comprehension.
The creature did not move toward him. It did not attack. It did not scream.
It simply existed, watching—as if its mere presence was enough to terrify the cosmos.
Karl felt his insides shrivel, something within him collapsing, as if his soul wanted to flee his body before this *thing* did the indescribable to it.
Yet despite the terror, despite every instinct screaming at him to run—he couldn't.
Because he felt something stronger than fear.
But nothing is stronger than fear.
So what was this feeling?
Unnameable.
---
Karl fled. He ran, screaming, tearing at his hair, biting his hand—madness had taken him.
Until he reached the shore.
There, the red moonlight bathed the ocean, now filled with sakura petals—scratching his face like razors.
Karl understood the message the wind had sent him:
Salvation lies in the ocean.
And so, in true horror, he prepared to leap.
---
The ocean stretched endlessly before him, its black waters churning as blood-stained sakura petals swirled in the air, cutting his face—warning him, begging him not to.
But he had no other choice.
The ocean was his escape... or so he thought.
But when he looked up, he saw what should never be seen.
From the depths of the black waters, a nightmare without form rose—an indescribable leviathan. Its body was a fusion of shadow and mist, lacking solidity, yet tangible, as if the void itself had taken shape.
It moved slowly, but each motion made the waves tremble, the air thicken, Karl's heart stop.
It had a head—but not a human one.
No features, only two enormous eyes
glowing with a faint, cold white light—windows into an eternal abyss. These were not eyes that saw.
They were eyes that *consumed.
As if all existence was meant to bow before them, dissolve into them, vanish.
Its hands emerged from the water like ancient ruins—long, skeletal fingers ending in black claws. The horror was not their shape, but their *resemblance to human hands*—as if they belonged to a giant whose soul had been stolen, or a corpse trapped between being and nothingness.
When one hand rose, the waters screamed, cracking as if the entire ocean was trying to flee—but could not.
The clouds in the sky tore apart—as if existence itself could no longer bear this creature's presence.
The wind felt fear.
The earth felt fear.
The ocean felt fear.
And Karl?
Karl was no longer even human.
He had become a *singular point of pure terror, severed from reason, severed from his own body. He felt nothing now except one undeniable truth:
This thing was not a creature.
It was a law of the universe.
Salvation? Not an option.
Death? Not enough.
Escape? Impossible.
---
Then, Karl saw what his mind could not endure.
His right hand clutched his hair.
His left hand seized the other side.
And he pulled.
With a force beyond madness, he *tore himself apart*—his body splitting down the middle as he ripped his own scalp from his skull.
His organs spilled out—heart, liver, kidneys—slapping wetly onto the blood-soaked shore.
He died without ever understanding:
Were these creatures entities of the Blood Moon?
Or yokai from Japan's darkest folklore?
---
End of Chapter