Garden of Earthly Delights

Chapter Nineteen

The Garden of Earthly Delights

The chapter begins with Karl, who continues to fall, tears streaming from his eyes as he recalls the trauma that has caused him PTSD for years. He thinks about all the pain he has endured. Small black creatures emerge from the void and tell him, "It's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault," while laughing. The creatures climb onto Karl's skull and enter his head, their voices and laughter echoing from within: "It's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault, hahahahahahahahahaha!" Karl screams intensely, grabbing his hair and tearing it out, shouting,

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! It was an accident!" He holds a clump of his hair in his hand, crying, "It was an accident!"

Old Kazia emerges from the shadows and says, "Ohhh, really, Karl? Was it really an accident? What made you not tell the truth to anyone? Hahahahahahaha!" Then she emerges from the other side and says, "What made you hide the remains of your burned daughter's body and throw her and the gun into the river? Your wife and the people thought you went in to save her, hahahahahahaha!"

Then she emerges from above his head and says, "But you put her charred remains in a bag, along with the weapon, and left, saying there was no one there. Were you scared for yourself, you coward?"

Then she and the small black creatures chant, "Murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer!"

She pulls him up with her magical staff and crucifies him on a black cross filled with stars in the dark void, saying, "Let's see your truth, amigo, and the rest of the crimes you've committed, you dog of false justice."

Then he begins to fall into the dark void.

---

Karl falls into the void. He continues to scream, but his screams find no echo, as if the void itself swallows his voice. His eyes burn from the bloody tears that fall incessantly, and the more he tries to stop them, the more they flow, as if his entire body is vomiting his inner pain. But suddenly, everything stops.

He is no longer falling. Instead, he finds himself standing in the midst of thick darkness, suspended in nothingness. The air is still, but he feels it piercing his bones like knives. Then, slowly, the scene before him begins to unfold.

On the horizon, four horses appear. They are not ordinary horses, but ghosts that have emerged from a nightmare. Four riders mount them, their faces skeletal, empty except for darkness. Their cloaks ripple despite the absence of wind, as if made from the shadows of death itself.

The first rides a white, dead horse, its eyes empty, its body as if it had just emerged from a grave, its fur eroded, as if death had begun to gnaw at it but had not yet finished. Its rider, a creature with hollow eyes, extends a hand toward Karl, whispering incomprehensible words, but Karl feels they are cursing him.

The second rides a black horse, its body emaciated like burned skin, its breath exhaling like toxic fog. Its rider is cloaked in a torn black robe, his face nothing but a cracked skull, his long fingers pointing at Karl, as if accusing him of an unknown sin.

The third, the most terrifying, rides a red horse, as if painted in blood, its flesh scattered to reveal its horrifying bones, each step leaving a trail of hellfire. Its rider wears a tattered robe, but the wind reveals a completely burned body beneath, half of its face melted, the other half laughing in a distorted manner.

The fourth, atop a gray horse caught between life and death, drips with decay, each step burning the ground. Its rider resembles Death itself, covered in a thick black veil revealing nothing but its hands, which hold a massive scythe, as if ready to sever Karl's soul.

Karl freezes in place. The four horsemen advance, their steps silent, no sound from anything, as if the entire universe is holding its breath to witness this moment. His heart beats wildly, his mind screams that this is just an illusion, but everything feels real, more real than the world he left behind.

Then, suddenly, they begin to laugh. An empty laugh, not human, but more like the sound of graves opening. Their voices merge with the void. The first undead says, "Stuck in this place, was just looking for placement." Then the second undead says, "Haven't you forgotten what this place meant?"

Then the third says, "Just when I feel safe, then this turned to an escape room. Right when I escape, feel displaced from this place, um. I've been displayed, then disgraced, then dismembered." Then the fourth pulls out a strange mirror, showing a repeating video of Karl fleeing the burning house where his daughter died. The fourth undead and his skeletal ghostly horses, along with Kazia and the small void creatures, appear during the video, looking at Karl and laughing simultaneously, saying, "Can't you remember? It was in November. I was so sad, carried on 'til December. I light this up, then I put on a record. Smoke on these embers, I lie back forever."

Karl collapses to his knees. The air grows heavier, the horsemen advance further, and the horse of death raises its hoof, ready to crush him, but stops at the last moment, as if wanting to prolong Karl's fear.

Old Kazia emerges from the darkness, holding her magical staff, then says one word: "FALL." Karl's soul is ripped from his physical body, and he begins to fall into the void once more.

Karl falls. The void is no longer just emptiness, but more like tears in time, black walls crumbling around him as if illusions are dissolving, revealing what lies beyond. His eyes bulge, his breath chokes in his throat. Here is the paradise he was promised, the paradise he deserves.

He opens his eyes to an endless expanse, as if the world itself has split into two parts: mesmerizing beauty and absolute madness. On the horizon, under a deceptive blue sky, green lands stretch out, filled with naked bodies entwined in distorted forms, limbs stretched beyond reason, bodies merging with others, as if flesh itself refuses to remain independent. Their laughter echoes, not laughter of joy, but screams mixed with pleasure and pain, as if they are drunk, lost in an endless ecstasy.

In the midst of this nightmarish scene, stand massive creatures with indescribable forms: a creature with the head of a tree, but its branches stuffed with human skulls smiling into the void; another with a human body but the head of a giant bird, its beak open as it swallows small humans writhing in its throat, its hands extended, holding a swollen pink fruit dripping with a sticky liquid, while other humans rush to it, licking the dripping juice as if it were the water of life.

The lakes below are not water, but a strange, moving substance that forms and then returns to stillness. Creatures emerge from it, half-human, half-monster, their bodies melting, yet they continue to laugh, continue to drown in their desires.

Then, on the other edge, Karl's true paradise is revealed.

The Paradise of Torment.

The sky, which was blue above, begins to burn at the edges, turning into thick blackness mixed with tongues of fire rising from the ground itself. The distant buildings, which appeared as golden palaces, slowly melt, revealing their insides: walls made of living flesh, countless eyes opening and closing, screaming, pleading, while enormous fingers protrude from the walls, grabbing people and shoving them into the openings as if they were worms being returned to their cocoons.

Massive statues, humans with shattered faces, their mouths open in silent screams, carry cages filled with writhing humans on their heads. In another corner, a creature with bat-like wings but no face holds a stringed instrument, but it does not play; instead, it tightens the strings made of human intestines, each note releasing a new scream.

Karl falls into this madness.

His hands tremble, his eyes refuse to comprehend the scene, but everything is real. This is not a hallucination. This is not just a nightmare.

This is the paradise he deserves.

And Kazia stands above, looking down at him, smiling. Then she says mockingly:

"Didn't I tell you you'd go to paradise? Only... this is the only paradise the entire human race deserves, Karl. Not just you, but all the billions of humans existing now and those who came before. This is the only place you deserve." Karl begins to scream at the top of his lungs, so intensely that some of his vocal cords snap as he shouts, "Nooooooooo!" at the top of his voice. Then Karl wakes up from this nightmare to find all the officers who were sleeping around him have disappeared The strange thing is that we can hear Kaziya's old laughter in the background so clearly that even Karl heard it and was shocked. ...

A few hours before Karl's terrifying nightmare, precisely at midnight at the camp's watch post, Barin had taken his rifle and decided to follow the shadow he had seen. He walked into the darkness where there was no light except for the faint glow of the moon. The storm was intense, and he struggled to walk. After an hour of following the tracks that had piqued his curiosity and made him more determined to catch the shadow, the tracks were strange. One set belonged to a wolf, and the other, attached to it, belonged to a goat, as if this wolf had two legs, one normal and the other just... weird. The other tracks were filled with blood and had a strange shape, unlike any earthly creature Barin knew. The tracks stopped at a massive fiery smoke behind the trees. There was another camp there.

Barin was surprised, as he was certain there were no other soldiers here besides them. He was sure this was the camp of the killer Gabriel. He went to investigate, hiding behind a massive rock about nine and a half meters away from that hellish camp. At first, he couldn't believe what he saw, to the point where he began to sweat. Those in the camp were sitting and chatting, but they were not human—they were monsters. The first had the head of a wolf, resembling a werewolf, a white-furred werewolf with the horns of a bull, one leg like a goat's, and massive bat wings, with teeth like those of the extinct Smilodon. The other was a terrifying amphibian, like a black devil fish, but with a humanoid amphibious body. The amphibian smelled Barin's scent. Barin felt fear as the amphibian approached him.

He screamed loudly, but it was his last scream. The amphibian ate his head in a grotesque and bloody scene, then ate his right hand, and vomited his brain. The wolf then ate poor Barin's brain. The amphibian said, "This will be a sacrifice to my god, the master of the whales, Cthulhuuuuuu!" Then the terrifying werewolf stole the corpse and flew away with it, saying, "You're dreaming, you fool. This will be a sacrifice to my god, the master of all wolves, the great cosmic entity, Nyctwrath!" Then the amphibian sprouted crow wings from its body and flew toward the werewolf, saying, "In your wildest dreams, Absaloth, don't forget we're here primarily to learn Zolish's plan to summon the master of demons under the orders of my lord Cthulhuuuuuu! Hey, are you listening to me?" Then the two of them disappeared into the void, those metaphysical monsters.

In a distant place, yet on the same cursed island, in the forest of witches known as the Twilight Time Forest, Zolish stood atop a mountain within the forest, eating human hands as if they were popcorn. Below, Gabriel was practicing the use of magic. Suddenly, Zolish leaped down from above and said to him, "That's enough, Gabriel. Let's go to the battlefield of the Demon Lord." Gabriel replied, "But what about me? You've only taught me two spells: one that lets me replace oxygen and another that allows me to fly." Zolish retorted, "You have no meaning, boy. Your existence merely amuses me. I am deranged. Look, they have sent investigators to this island for me. We must go." Gabriel asked, "But where to?" Zolish answered, "To the Sick Temple, the only place I wish to go is my grave." Zolish then declared, "We are going to the sky," and uttered a single word, "Zemlithob." Instantly, they found themselves transported far into space, away from their solar system.

The place they arrived at was vast, filled with colorful planets—one green, another dark red, a third pink, and a fourth black. There were also numerous moons, stars, and nebulae. Suddenly, the dark red planet in front of them exploded, and from behind it emerged Arcanta, followed by the enormous sun of this system, which was completely swallowed by the cosmic whale, Cthulhuoooooth. Gabriel and Zolish were trapped.

Arcanta smiled, tilted her head to the right, and said, "It seems the battle you've always dreamed of has come, brother." Arcanta and Zolish extended their hands and simultaneously said, "Black hole," causing a giant black hole to emerge from their hands. The two black holes began to try to swallow each other. Due to the immense power of these black holes, everything around them, including the chapter, was swallowed, and thus it ends here.

End of Chapter