Chapter 39
His face was a twisted skull, framed by a beard of fossilized seaweed. His eyes were not eyes, but black voids pulsing like the hearts of some ancient beast. He drove his hook into Bruno's shoulder—the pain was not just physical, but as if *time itself* was tearing inside him. It wasn't just a wound; it was as if moments of his life were bleeding out with him.
*"What are you doing in my waters?"* the Dutchman rasped, his voice like the grinding of crushed bones.
Bruno couldn't answer. The very air was toxic, as if his presence here was a sin his soul was being punished for. He struggled, but skeletal hands dragged him toward the bow of the ship—where he saw something that should not exist.
The sea beneath was not water. It wasn't even darkness.
It was space itself.
Stars twinkled within it. Supernovas exploded in its depths. And eyes—*thousands of eyes*—watched him from below.
Then, from that infinite abyss, something moved.
He was The Kraken.
But not the Kraken of legends.
Its body was not flesh, but *void* itself. Its skin was the cosmos—filled with dying stars, swirling nebulae, and arms coiling like black holes. Its eyes were red meteor fragments, burning with madness, as if witnessing disasters older than spacetime.
One of its tendrils rose—and as the skeletal crew laughed, it struck the ship.
The ancient wood split like paper. The crew fell into the endless sea, their laughter not human, but *tears in the fabric of reality itself*.
Bruno fell again—but this time, not into the sea.
Into the void
This was not just a fall—it was an *unmaking*, as if his body was being reshaped by concepts not yet born. All he could see were the Kraken's eyes, staring, waiting…
---
Then—the fall stopped.
Bruno found himself back in the old Witch's Forest. He stood, looked around, and exhaled in relief—his wounds were gone. Trembling, he muttered:
"Thank God... You saved me from something beyond my comprehension."
He crossed himself, then walked onward through the dark woods, past the ravens and the ghostly apprentices of witches, clinging to the hope that one day, he would find the shore of escape—that one day, he might breathe freely again.
---
Now, this—in the same way.
Then, behind the bushes, a herd of Wendigos appeared before him. They were creatures whose bodies were made of dead shrubs and plants, their heads the skeletal remains of alien deer, with massive, jagged teeth. The herd of Wendigos slowly advanced toward him, and Bruno was sweating profusely, consumed by fear that gnawed at his skin. He stepped back slowly as the creatures crept forward until he neared the edge of the black hole. Then, one of the Wendigos lunged at him, extending its long, grotesque tongue from its skeletal maw. The tongue nearly grazed Bruno's face—but the creature stumbled and fell into the black hole, plunging back into the void.
This time, it was not a fall—but a collapse, a disintegration, a transformation into something indefinable. Time dissolved, and space was no more than a shredded concept. Bruno was falling into something that was not a void, but something far worse.
When he stopped, he was not on solid ground, but on an expanse of unreality—a carpet of torn darkness, reflecting a light that came not from the sun, but from something that watched.
Bruno was no longer falling… but sliding into a scene where reality had warped into a nightmare carved onto the walls of his mind. He found himself in a land that should not exist, a land without logic or rules, where everything resembled a distorted memory of a child seeing a corpse for the first time. The sky was not a sky, but sagging, screaming skin, its pores oozing unblinking eyes that stared without understanding… without acknowledging his existence. The wind was not wind, but wet, labored breaths, as though some massive creature was panting above him, watching, waiting for the moment to swallow him whole.
The ground beneath him was not earth, but a web of dried veins, cracked like the skin of a mummy left in the void for millions of years. The earth pulsed slowly, bleeding black ink that writhed like serpents, rising as smoke that took the shape of human fingers trying to escape. And above this frozen hell, the wheels moved…
The creature was not a bicycle, nor a rider… but a fusion of curse and motion, as though someone—or something—had tried to craft a vehicle but used corpses instead of steel, limbs instead of wheels, and madness instead of design. Its bulging eye did not see—it was a mix of pleading and rage, as though aware it was trapped in a body that should not exist. Its mouth stretched too wide, its jaw dislocated yet never falling, its tongue covered in deep fissures from which came not words, but the gurgling of burning souls.
Its hands were not hands, but remnants of limbs clinging to the wheel, as though trying to free themselves but stuck forever. Its legs were horrifyingly thin, nerves exposed, writhing as though alive on their own—as though the creature was merely a vessel for endless torment. As for the rider—if it could even be called that—it was an extension of the catastrophe, its head swollen like a leather sack filled with something squirming inside. Its arms were unnaturally long, ending in slender hands holding trumpets that made no sound—only whispers… whispers in a language that meant nothing, yet made Bruno's heart pound violently, as though his body wanted to flee from within itself.
Then… the wheels moved toward him, slowly, but they were not rolling on the ground… but over time itself. With every rotation, the world around them shrank, warped, disintegrated—as though the creature was not moving, but rewriting existence in the worst possible way. Bruno could no longer move, could no longer breathe, as though the air itself refused to be part of this scene.
The wheels drew closer… the whispers grew louder… and reality was never the same again.
Then, he fell once more—this time, the void spat him out, discarding him, returning him to the witches' forest from which he came. And before him, an unbelievable sight unfolded—one that inspired hope and reassurance. Or so he thought.
It was the three witches he had seen at the beginning. Bruno had assumed they were just ordinary women, so he stumbled toward them with a hopeful smile, seeking their help. They were walking in the opposite direction, their backs turned to him, until he approached them.
As Bruno staggered closer, his heart pounded with a mix of hope and dread. Before him stood three women—or so he had initially believed. Their bodies were unnatural, rotting masses of withered flesh, swollen in some places and withered in others, as though dragged from a grave soaked in mud and decay. Their bones jutted out from beneath their stretched, ulcerated skin, while tangled clumps of hair hung from their hunched shoulders like dead snakes.
The one closest to him had a grotesquely distended belly, pulsing slowly as though something moved inside, and arms stretched unnaturally long, as though ready to coil around any victim foolish enough to approach. Her face was a nightmare in itself—her mouth torn in half, revealing jagged, decayed teeth, while her sunken eyes oozed a foul black substance, like wounds that had never healed.
Behind her stood another woman, her exposed skeletal frame jutting through her rotting flesh, her tattered clothes soaked in a revolting, viscous fluid. Her long, hooked fingers dripped with a slimy substance, as if she had just emerged from an ancient swamp of corpses. She watched him with a twisted grin—half of it was mere bone, while her flayed skin hung in thin, ragged strips.
As for the last one, she no longer seemed like a creature at all. Her entire body resembled a forgotten corpse, decayed, with mold wrapping around her as though she were part of the forest itself.