Chapter 33:
The Black Dress
The chapter begins with Bruno, who found himself thrown in front of a massive tree in the leathery lands. He turned on his audio recorder and said:
*"This is Detective Bruno speaking. To whoever finds this in the future, know that three months have passed for me here, though I am certain it has only been three earthly days. Do not misunderstand me—I am not saying that one earthly day equals a month on this devilish island. Rather, the days here are repetitive, monotonous, and identical to one another.
Every day since I escaped that terrifying cemetery—which held a strange tomb for that creature that existed before time and space—has been the same: I wake up, go hunting, eat lunch, search for Gabriel, and then sleep, only to be haunted by strange dreams and hallucinations. Sometimes I see myself renouncing my faith and worshipping bizarre creatures instead of my God. Other times, I find myself floating in a colorful void, drifting through emptiness.
And sometimes, I dream of the day I killed my mother or the girl I loved as a child. That last dream might not seem terrifying, but it is deeply painful and sorrowful on a personal level.*
*The differences between days are almost nonexistent on this island. Every minute, hour, day, and month feels the same. Yet, I am still certain that time moves faster here than on Earth. It's as if this island exists outside of time altogether, as if we are suspended in oblivion, floating between sorrow, pain, and the nightmares that chase us. It feels as though we have died and gone to hell, though I suspect this torment is far more intense and horrifying than burning in flames.
This is undoubtedly a bleak psychopathy, but friends, it's natural that I can't accurately perceive time here. There is no sun—none at all. We are perpetually here, and the only thing illuminating this place is that terrifying blood-red moon. This tree I'm under also has a strange light shining above it, and crows always perch on its branches, along with a white owl. The owl I can explain, but what are crows doing in a leathery land? And why is this tree not covered in snow, standing alone in its glory? And why, when I sleep beside it at night, do I wake up to find red water dripping on me? And why do I dream of hallucinations and nightmares when I sleep near it? My instincts as a detective prevented me from ignoring this.
Today, I decided to climb this tree, which is shrouded in a shadow—or should I say, a black dress."*
---
He began climbing the tree. In his first three attempts, he fell, as expected—failure is the beginning. Then, he decided to tie a rope around his waist and secure it to the tree. As he climbed, he noticed the tree's surface was sharp, as if made of glass, forcing him to wear strong leather gloves to protect his hands. Yet, he still felt pain. When he reached the top, the tree stretched, and its summit ascended into the sky, leaving him back at the base. But this didn't deter him. He wasn't doing this for survival or success, but to break the monotony. He continued climbing, and the black dress draped over the tree began to expand. The dress grew, engulfing the entire surroundings, turning everything into its color.
The little black dress was no longer just a small garment hanging on a tree—it had transformed into a pitch-black darkness that swallowed everything. Only Bruno remained, clinging to the tree in fear. His skin began to bleed from the wounds, but the fear was stronger than the pain. He knew this place well—it was the infinite void he had fallen into when he first arrived here. This only fueled his curiosity and determination. He would reach the top of the tree, the top of the void.
---
There was only emptiness… and the monster that devoured the emptiness itself.
Bruno kept climbing, ignoring the pain bleeding from his palms. He no longer cared about the wounds—only about moving forward, reaching the summit… but then he stopped.
He looked up, and his entire body froze in terror. Above him, between the shattered ribs of the sky, an impossible sight unfolded.
There, in the midst of nothingness, stood a being that should not exist.
Its body was like the remnants of a star that had died eons ago, hardened like cosmic rock, yet pulsing with an inner blue glow, as if it imprisoned an eternal soul in torment. Its claws extended, massive as moons, clutching planets and celestial stones as if they were mere pebbles. The surface of its skin constantly shifted, as though tiny galaxies were born and died upon its body.
But the worst part wasn't its body… it was its face.
That mouth, shattered into an endless series of sharp teeth, as if the universe itself had tried to devour itself but failed, leaving only this abyss of fangs. And its eyes? They didn't exist—only black shadows stretching like twisted horns, as if trying to grasp reality itself and tear it to shreds.
The space around it wasn't space, but a distorted color, a blend of impossible hues swirling in nightmarish vortices, like the memory of the universe before it was born, before it knew the meaning of existence.
Bruno felt his body tremble, not from cold, but from the truth seeping into his mind:
This thing should not be seen.
This thing should not be comprehended.
But he saw it. He saw the endless, terrifying explosion of colors from that entity and the space around it. He saw colors that no human should ever see or comprehend. He saw *The Light from Out of Time.*
Despite this, he kept climbing—not out of courage, but because every day he spent witnessing this embodied horror was a break from the monotonous routine. For him, the feeling bored was more terrifying than anything else.
In the cosmic void, where the horizon was submerged in a thick red mist as if the sky had bled into an endless darkness, Bruno climbed the tree. But he no longer knew whether he was climbing a tree or an entity pulsating with nothingness. Suddenly, everything around him vanished, leaving only emptiness... and the throne.
In the midst of absolute darkness, amidst swirling cosmic dust, a figure sat upon the throne, as if it were the embodiment of absolute fear.
The figure resembled a forgotten god, an ancient warrior who existed before the birth of time and space—or perhaps a shadow formed from the very fabric of the universe. Its skin was not merely black but a living void, its surface rippling as if distant stars were trying to escape from within. Its muscles were carved from nightmares, pulsating with an otherworldly strength, etched with lines of living shadows that moved slowly across its skin, like trapped souls screaming in silence.
On its head, two horns twisted like extensions of the waves of darkness, and in the center of its forehead was a third eye—not a human eye, but a glowing abyss, a vortex of deep light that was not light but something deeper... and far more terrifying.
It sat in eerie relaxation, its extended leg covered in mysterious black engravings, its long fingers ending in twisted claws, as if they belonged to a creature yet to be named. In its right hand, it held a trident spear, not made of metal or wood but seemingly carved from the void itself, emitting a cold gleam that contrasted with the glowing red background.
The space around it was not space... it was an extension of the human mind when it breaks, when a human realizes their true size in the face of the infinite. Cosmic clouds watched from behind, stars appeared like hollow eyes staring in anticipation, and the air was absent, yet Bruno felt it—he felt the breaths of something far greater than himself filling the void with silence.
This was not just a scene; it was a sensory experience, a harbinger that there was something beyond the boundaries humans know, something waiting, watching, and perhaps... nothing at all.
---
Then he continued climbing, and when he reached the top, gravity flipped, and he fell from the tree into the vast expanse of space. He screamed, sweating, terrified, sad, angry, and trembling as he fell. He saw someone falling in the opposite direction, approaching him during their descent. It was Gabriel. Gabriel grabbed his hand. Gabriel was unconscious as they fell, and then... they saw before them the Ruler of Beauty.
---
In the infinite void, where cosmic nebulae rippled like seas of mysterious colors, where stars shone like eyes watching without eyelids, the entity appeared. Its appearance was not a moment but an eternity, as if it had always existed, waiting for the moment when human eyes would perceive its presence.
The entity was not merely a monster. It was distorted beauty, flawed perfection, horror sculpted with divine precision.
Its black cloak was not fabric but fragments of space itself—intertwined galaxies, small meteors moving slowly, vortices of cosmic dust dancing around it. Golden lines wrapped around it, but they were not mere engravings; they were glowing veins, pulsating as if the universe itself breathed through them. Within this cloak, cosmic eyes of varying sizes were scattered—some as small as a fingernail, others as large as a human palm—all moving, blinking, shining with reflections of other worlds.
Its face was not a face in the traditional sense but a celestial masterpiece... a single eye, yet not just an eye—a gateway to something beyond comprehension. Its glowing violet-blue iris was not a surface but a depth, a bottomless well, within which impossible geometric shapes moved, symbols shifting in a constant rhythm, as if they were a living cosmic equation. Its eyelids did not exist, for this eye did not blink, did not close, did not stop observing.
Its extended arm resembled a glass statue, transparent as if made of light itself, but within it, stars shone, galaxies rotated slowly, and lines of light moved like sea creatures in the depths of space. Its long, slender fingers ended in sharp edges, but they —they were elegant, as if carved from enchanted gemstones. When it moved its hand, it left behind a trail of cosmic dust, slowly dissipating in the air, as if the world refused to let it depart entirely.
Even the darkness around it was weird. It was not mere emptiness but a moving backdrop, where nebulae burned with deep colors, and starlight pulsed as if afraid to extinguish in
Everything about it was perfectly wrong, terrifyingly captivating, as if it had been sculpted to be the cursed beauty that no one could look at without losing a part of their mind.
It was an impossible temptation, a horror that made you want to approach, to touch it, to drown in its gaze and never return.
He raised his hands in front of them and began to say:
Listen
Seeing you got more ritualistic
Cleansing my soul of addiction for now
'Cause you're falling apart
Yeah, tension
Between us just like picket fences
You got issues that I won't mention for now
'Cause they're falling apart
The chapter ends with a massive black hole beneath Gabriel and Bruno, pulling them in, twisting and swallowing them, ending them forever.
End of chapter.