THE FEAR "[English]"

Chapter Eight

The scene opens with Detective Karl sitting comfortably in his office chair, exhaling a slow curl of smoke from his Trichinopoly cigar, an air of nonchalance surrounding him. In stark contrast, his partner, Marcus, paces back and forth, his movements restless and erratic, his mind clearly troubled.

Karl: Relax, Marcus. They said the case was closed.

Marcus: How can you say that? The fingerprints on the knife didn't match any of the ones in the precinct!

Karl, unfazed, waves a hand dismissively.

Karl: In any case, tell me—more importantly—will the technician be coming to fix the air conditioning?

Marcus, his frustration evident, stops pacing and glares at him.

Marcus: The apartment is falling apart, and yet I'm the one who has to pay for repairs?

Unbothered, Karl leans back in his chair, taking another slow drag from his cigar. He closes his eyes as if about to drift into sleep, a stark contrast to Marcus, who is barely keeping himself together. The weight of their first major case—the Wellington Reaper—hangs over them like an ominous storm cloud. A phantom killer, one who has eluded capture at every turn, leaving behind no clear trail.

Marcus, exasperated and on edge, finally snaps:

Marcus: Will you stop pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and actually help me think of a solution to this case?!

Karl, smirking, blows out a thick ring of smoke before replying.

Karl: What else can I do? He is my idol, and I am a genius in my own right. Besides, these are my victory rituals. After all, I have found my very own Moriarty—Gabriel Sunderland. Even his name has a grander ring to it than Moriarty.

Marcus throws up his hands in frustration.

Marcus: You are irresponsible and utterly insane!

Karl shrugs, entirely unbothered.

Karl: Calm yourself, my dear partner. There hasn't been a murder in over a month. That only strengthens my theory—Gabriel Sunderland is undoubtedly behind all of this.

Marcus, arms crossed, eyes Karl skeptically.

Marcus: In all my time working with you, I have never seen you so certain about solving a case, despite your complete lack of evidence. So tell me—what makes you so sure this time?

Karl opens his mouth to answer, to say the whispers in the darkness have told me, but before he can utter a word, a voice—deep, eerie, and laced with something unnatural—rings in his ears. It is a sound no human should ever hear, a sound that would drive a lesser man to madness.

"Do not speak my name, mortal."

Karl's eyes widen, his heart hammering against his ribs. He jolts upright, turning to Marcus in a panic.

Karl: Did you hear that? That—That voice! That overwhelming presence!

Marcus scoffs.

Marcus: Oh great, now you're hearing things. What an absolute joy for me.

Karl regains his composure quickly, a grin returning to his face.

Karl: Relax, you fool. We are about to become legends once we crack this case wide open.

Marcus sighs, rubbing his temples.

Marcus: You are a damn dreamer.

Before their argument can continue, the sudden, sharp ring of Karl's phone slices through the tension. Answering the call, his expression shifts.

A voice from the Wellington Criminal Investigations Department crackles through the speaker:

"The Reaper has struck again. Another victim—this time at a local church."

Both men freeze, eyes locking onto each other in a silent exchange of shock. The cigar slips from Karl's lips, landing on the floor with a soft thud.

Marcus, snapping out of his stupor, grabs his coat and turns to Karl with a mix of urgency and grim determination.

Marcus: *Come on then, Gabriel Sunderland's

They got into Karl's car, speeding towards the crime scene with urgency pressing against their chests. The city lights blurred past them as they navigated through the streets, the weight of their mission sinking in with each passing second.

Upon arriving at the church, they were met with a bloody hellscape—a massacre beyond anything they had encountered before. As expected, the carnage was overwhelming. The shattered, dismembered bodies of children littered the sacred ground, their innocent forms reduced to grotesque remnants of life. The entire church had been painted in crimson—from the statue of Christ to the pulpit, every surface was drenched in blood.

Fifty bodies lay strewn across the nave—men, women, priests, and children—all victims of the Reaper's cruel handiwork. This was the largest slaughter ever committed by the Wellington Reaper, a scene so horrific that even the most hardened investigators would struggle to keep their composure.

Yet, amidst the grotesque display, something even more bizarre stood out—on the pulpit lay the corpse of a massive black wolf. Above it, smeared onto the wall in thick, drying blood, were the chilling words:

"Who are is Rule the Universe."

Karl and Marcus exchanged a look—one of confusion, unease, and grim determination.

Steeling themselves, they ventured deeper into the church, stepping over blood-soaked pews and shattered glass. They pushed open the heavy wooden door leading into the confessional chamber—and there, at last, they came face to face with the Wellington Reaper.

He stood before them—a tall, pale young man with a slender frame and a poor posture. His right leg was prosthetic, a

After a few moments of shock and disbelief, they attempt to attack him. But the killer swiftly leaps out of one of the windows in the confession room. Without hesitation, Marcus and Carl rush after him, initiating a long chase across the city. They sprint through streets, vault over cars, and even scale buildings in pursuit. The killer possesses remarkable physical agility, making it difficult to catch him. The chase eventually leads them into a dead-end alleyway.

Carl, catching his breath, raises his weapon and says, "There's nowhere left for you to run, Gabriel. This is the end of the line."

Marcus, still skeptical, keeps his gun trained on the suspect. "We haven't even seen his face yet, and you're still insisting it's Gabriel?"

Carl shoots him an exasperated look. "Marcus, this is hardly the time for an argument!"

The killer, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, tries to climb the wall to escape. Reacting quickly, Marcus fires a warning shot near his feet, forcing him to halt. He then aims his gun at the man's head and growls, "Enough of this game, you deranged lunatic. This is where your reign of terror ends. You'll die in a manner far worse than the helpless citizens you slaughtered."

Carl scoffs. "You're nothing but a sick freak. You're not a mastermind, not some genius. You don't even have a twisted code or ideology. All those crime scenes I visited—you stole from every single one. Were all those massacres really just about money? You're pathetic."

But instead of responding directly, the Grim Reaper of Singleton begins muttering strange, incoherent phrases. His words are a mixture of seemingly random statements, spoken in English, almost like a cipher rather than a genuine reply. The chaotic nature of his speech makes Carl and Marcus pause, and then suddenly, a realization dawns upon them. There's something crucial hidden in what he just said.

His exact words:

*"Actually, you're right. Partly. See, I usually do this kind of thing

On my computer, but this time, I wanted to do it AFK, in person. Trying to work on my social anxiety. But there's always the threat of you fleeing after I call you out. You'd tell your sysadmin to take your servers down and wipe all the data. So I made sure to include the current time and location in my anonymous tip."*

Marcus tightens his grip on his gun, his patience wearing thin. "What the hell are you talking about, you money-hungry bastard?!"

The Grim Reaper of Wingleton tilts his head slightly before responding with an eerie calm:

"That's the part you were wrong about, Rohit. I don't give a shit about money."

Then, without warning, his figure seems to dissolve into the shadows, vanishing as though he had never been there at all.

Marcus, eyes wide with frustration, scans the alleyway. "Where the hell did he go?! I'm going to search every inch of this place!"

But Carl, still processing the cryptic words, places a hand on Marcus's shoulder, shaking his head. "Forget it. That wasn't the killer. That was a clue—no, a confirmation. Our real culprit is a hacker… and a fan of Moriarty."

Marcus glares at him in disbelief. "You're insane."

Carl lets out a weary sigh. "Didn't you notice? His appearance… matched Moriarty's description perfectly. And that nonsense he was spouting? It wasn't nonsense at all. It was a direct quote from a hacker in a famous movie. This wasn't the killer, Marcus. This was another clue from my terrifying 'friend.'"

While Karl and Marcus grappled with their confused realization.

We now move to one of the bloodiest places in the world, Skull Island of the Devil. Here, we witness some prisoners being tortured with ancient sadistic tools. Skull Island of the Devil is a cursed place, where mercy is absent, and chaos reigns. In the heart of this island, which reeks of death and suffering, dark dungeons hold prisoners who have fallen into the hands of sadistic masters. Here, there is no salvation, no hope, only the screams of agony echoing through cracked stone walls, bearing witness to horrors that the human mind cannot fathom.

The Red Room, as the guards call it, is the stage for absolute torment. In the center, one prisoner is lifted, chained, and placed in the Iron Maiden—an iron coffin lined with sharp spikes like fangs. Slowly, the door is pushed shut, driving the spikes into their body, avoiding vital organs, prolonging their agony for hours before they die from slow bleeding.

On the other side, a prisoner is forced to sit in the Iron Chair, a wooden chair studded with sharp iron spikes. Their body is tightly bound, and with every slight movement, the spikes penetrate deeper into their flesh, tearing the skin and exposing bones. Blood flows into a special channel beneath the chair, where the torturers make sure it is not wasted but instead used to decorate the walls with demonic engravings.

In another corner, a prisoner is subjected to the Spanish Donkey, a horrific torture device consisting of a sharp-edged wooden board. The victim is forced to sit on it, with heavy weights attached to their legs. With every passing minute, the pressure on their body increases, causing muscles to tear and the body to split slowly. Their screams are deafening, but no one cares.

But the harshest tortures await them in the lower basement, where the Catherine Wheel is used—a hellish device that crushes the bones of prisoners one by one. The prisoner is tied to the wheel, and the torturer begins to twist their limbs at impossible angles, causing the bones to break and tendons to tear. Some victims don't die immediately but are left for hours or days, watching their torn limbs rot while they are still alive.

Finally, there is the Iron Rat—where a hungry rat is placed inside a metal container fixed to the prisoner's stomach. The top of the container is heated, forcing the rat to burrow through the victim's flesh in a desperate attempt to escape. The screams of the victim as the rat starts gnawing at their internal organs are considered music to the torturers' ears.

On Skull Island of the Devil, pain is the only currency, and blood is the water of life. No one leaves this place unscathed… if they leave at all. But our heroes want to change the world, don't they?

In the cave below, we see Eva and Mason chained to the wall, with a giant cauldron of lava below, resembling those used by witches in legends, but this time filled with volcanic magma.

The priest screams, raising both hands as if preaching to the sky:

"Oh, Shadow Devil, Ruler of the Mighty Universe, we are your faithful servants, and in humiliation, we offer you these heretical sinners—our children who do not know their place before you and have defied you—accept their burnt flesh from the volcanic pits and forgive us."

Eva screams: "What are we going to do, you madman? Will you just let us die?"

Mason shouts to the priest: "You mad bastard, just do it already!"

Eva swings and kicks Mason: "You filthy Nazi, if I'm the type who's not afraid of death, then I'm certainly not the type who's afraid of facing the gods."

Mason: "Looks like you'll accept it and pay for the days you slept with the high school and college boys, huh, sweetie?"

Eva: "You twisted whore, I'll kill you with my hands before the lava does!"

Mason says: "Calm down, idiot, and let the rituals of those foolish heretics run their course."

Eva and Mason are thrown into the lava, and the cult members rejoice and celebrate the removal of their wrath. But their disgusting celebrations are interrupted by a loud alarm, a sound that hasn't been heard in the prison since its establishment. The bell, once useless, now rings at its highest pitch, sounding like the drums of revolution and freedom. The cult members are quickly dragged upstairs to find out what is happening.

After they exit, Eva and Mason emerge from the lava pot.

Eva says: "You fool, why didn't you tell me you replaced the volcanic lava with blood from the blood pool where they collect the prisoners' blood?"

Mason: "The first reason is that you would have exposed me, and the second is that you would have objected, calling blood a disgusting idea."

Eva: "No, I wouldn't have, or maybe I would have. Anyway, how did you make the bubbles and steam?"

Mason: "Some technology, you idiot. Anyway, let's go. I've freed all the prisoners, and I made a deal with them that they'll join Phantom Zero. We'll meet with Rose, Gabriel, and the rest. Our first real plan will be to return and bring down this prison after we escape, and all the facilities owned by the Chevichenkov family. One of my allies stole information about their facilities—prisons, factories, government buildings, hospitals. We got all this from the prison owner, the fool."

Eva: "You're insane. Wow."

Mason: "Let's go, cowgirl."

The heroes march forth toward freedom and the unknown. Will their plan to escape this infernal island truly succeed? And should they return, will they be stronger than before? Let us not dwell too much on such questions,

for now, Elsewhere, far from the clamor of physical torment, a man was facing a different kind of suffering—Gabriel Sunderland in his hellish home, haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Our gaze shifts to another—our tormented and despondent protagonist.

Gabriel lay upon his wretched bed in that loathsome house, his face smeared with blood. Scattered beside him were the remnants of his latest meal—rabbits, their carcasses mangled and torn asunder in a display of brutal carnage. He brooded in silence, his mind a tempest of doubt and fear. Was Zolish real? Or merely a hallucination born of his fractured psyche? And if the entity was indeed real, would cooperation be a wise course, or merely a transition of power from one monster to another? A new form of submission, a shifting of chains rather than their breaking?

A terrible notion wormed its way into Gabriel's thoughts—Could Zolish betray me as well?

As these ponderings consumed him, a spectral presence emerged before him—Mason's ghostly form, hovering with an accusatory glare.

"Coward! Do you truly intend to abandon your principles and align yourself with a being that embodies pure malevolence?"

Then, from the void, another apparition manifested—Rose, her voice laced with scorn.

"Coward! Do you intend to reject Zolish's pact and forsake your vengeance for eternity?"

Both phantoms spoke in unison, their voices merging into a relentless, damning chant:

"Coward! Coward! Coward! Coward! Coward!"

Gabriel clutched his head and let out a scream, his voice echoing through the decayed walls of that cursed dwelling.

"Silence! Silence! Silence! SILENCE!"

And with that, the apparitions dissipated, vanishing into the void from whence they came. Gabriel exhaled heavily, the weight of their words still pressing upon his mind.

"How strange," he muttered to himself. "The sheer presence of that demonic entity, Zolish, has altered the very essence of the island—perhaps even the world itself. And yet, this decrepit house remains untouched, unshaken. What is the true nature of this house of devils?"

Even as he spoke, the world around him twisted, his surroundings melting into an abyssal void before coalescing into a new and dreadful setting.

He found himself seated at a long banquet table, draped in a white cloth, yet the hall that housed it was one of unspeakable dread. Before him sat a grotesque figure—a hulking hybrid of man and goat, its massive horns spiraling skyward, its shaggy fur matted with filth. And around the table, an abominable congregation of skeletons, some still clinging to the decayed remnants of flesh and strands of hair, feasted upon an unspeakable repast. Before them lay an obscene spread—rotting, putrid viscera that could only be of human origin, writhing with maggots and thick with the droning of flies.

Then, the goat-headed fiend, with eyes like twin abysses, fixed its gaze upon Gabriel and uttered, in a voice like the grinding of stones:

"Mē hupodōis tōi skotei."

At those words, the world collapsed once more, and Gabriel was cast into a fathomless void.

He tumbled through the blackness, his consciousness drifting toward the precipice of oblivion when a stark, radiant presence emerged—a great white moon, luminous and full, its glow cutting through the oppressive darkness. Near the celestial orb hovered a figure—an angel, resplendent and terrible. Though his form bore the likeness of a man, his great wings were as black as the abyss, and his face was veiled in a shadow darker than the void itself. Only his hair, soft and eerily human, could be discerned.

The angel's voice rang forth, solemn and commanding:

"Do not give up, hunter of the dark."

Once more, Gabriel was cast downward, his descent endless and maddening. As he fell, another vision seared itself into his mind—a black crescent moon, its surface contorted into a grotesque semblance of a face. Before it stood a chalice, dark as night, brimming with blood. Upon its surface was etched the sigil of infinity.

Three drops of crimson fell from the moon's twisted visage, rippling as they joined the sanguine pool within the cup.

Yet the moon did not speak.

And still, he fell.

Until, at last, the void receded, and he found himself in a place of impossible beauty—a sky untouched by time, a sea of clouds stretching infinitely in all directions. And within those celestial mists loomed a colossal, unblinking human eye. Beneath that terrible gaze upon a floating carpet sat a being beyond comprehension—a shadowy figure whose form was woven from the very fabric of the cosmos. His body, a tapestry of stars, swirled with constellations, and his nebulous cloak billowed with the winds of eternity.

And from that being, the words came:

"Σὺ ἐσὶν ἡ ἐσχάτη ἐλπίς."

Then, with a gasp, Gabriel's eyes snapped open.

He was in his bed once more, his breath ragged, his body drenched in cold sweat. His mind reeled, struggling to grasp the enormity of what had just transpired.

"Madness... utter madness... What was all of that?"

His thoughts were abruptly shattered by a sudden, violent pounding at the door.

Then—CRACK!

The door splintered, crashing inward as shadowy figures flooded the room.

They were the disciples of the Cult of the Devil's Shadow.

And at the forefront stood the truck driver, his eyes alight with eerie conviction.

"See? I told you—he's here, in the Witches' House!"

Gabriel exhaled, exasperated.

"Damn it. How many names does this cursed house have?"

The truck driver took a step forward, his voice ominous.

"That is its true name... but I do not believe that is your greatest concern at the moment. I am sorry, Gabriel, but there are only two paths before you. Join us, or become an offering to our god."

Gabriel raised his hands in a gesture of appeasement, his tone calm, his mind calculating.

"Alright, alright... let's not be hasty. No need for such commotion—I shall go with you willingly."

And so, he stepped forth from that accursed house, standing before the gathered cultists.

A terrible wind howled through the night, thick fog curling around them like spectral tendrils. And there, amidst the storm and the shadows, Gabriel strode forth toward the unknown, toward the heart of madness—toward the Cult's lair, hidden beyond the accursed Mountains of madness