The Festivals

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 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 colors. 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 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 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 Singleton, 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 and 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:

"𒀭𒊩𒌆𒄿𒈾𒁲𒉡... 𒋗𒉡𒌝 𒀀𒉿𒈠 𒁹𒂆𒈨𒂗... 𒅆𒂖𒀀 𒊑𒉡𒉡 𒈠𒀭𒄿𒊏..."

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? 𒀭𒉡𒌝𒈠𒀭𒄿𒊏 𒊩𒌆𒄿𒁲𒉡... 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, and 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 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.

End of chapter