A few hours had passed, and time now hung heavy, as though trudging over bleeding corpses. Their steps led them toward the Enchanted Wood though "enchanted" was a fool's name for it. This was the Swamp of Madness, a theater of endless screaming, home to creatures the mind could not fathom nor the eyes endure.
The air here was not to be breathed but licked, like the tongue of a feverish beast. The stench? A putrid blend of charred flesh and the breath of a corpse mistakenly buried inside a tree. Every leaf moaned. Every trunk pulsed like dead skin breathing slowly. Every shadow hid eyes behind it do not stare. Do not stare.
For there, in the dark, lurked arcane things that devoured consciousness before flesh. A single direct glance was enough to unravel a mind thread by thread, like a book slowly torn apart by the hands of a mad child.
Yet despite the forest's grotesquerie the trees trembling with the hiss of trapped spirits there was an illusion of safety. A fragile illusion, thin as a snake's shed skin. The main road, the forest's petrified artery, was lined with ancient magic, whispered into existence centuries ago by Holy Magicians.
This unseen barrier kept the festering entities at bay, powerless to cross. Not because they did not desire it, but because something older than hunger forbade it. The magic acted as a metaphysical shackle, lashing anything unnatural that dared approach, forcing the abominations to writhe and scream until they shriveled inward.
But barriers do not last forever.
And the magicians… had long since stopped checking.
After entering the woods, the carriage moved in heavy silence between the twisted trees, carving its way forward as though through living flesh. Then, suddenly, it stopped.
No rocks blocked the path. No slope, no visible obstacle. Just… stillness.
A shuddering whinny came from outside.
Simon stepped out, followed by Butler and Mogan and froze at the sight before them.
The horse pulling the carriage or what resembled a horse to their eyes stood there like a nightmare sculpted from the womb of nuclear war. Its body was not covered in fur but in organic plates, like burnt skin that never healed, threaded with steel veins pulsing a lightless black fluid. Its hooves were split, sharp as rusted bone blades, screeching with every step on the trembling earth.
Its eyes… were not eyes.
They were holes, glowing with quicksilver light, flickering with dying embers as if seeing things that had no name.
This was no creature born to flee. It was made a machine of ruin, incapable of mercy, deaf even to the voice of death. And now, it was unraveling from within, consumed by a terror it was never meant to feel.
It convulsed, lashing at the air, at nothing, as if something unseen gnawed at its flesh. Its cry was not a whinny but a howl, as though every part of it screamed in horror. Its massive frame trembled like distorted memories in a madman's mind.
Simon stepped forward, his voice sharp with anger and dread:
"What in the hell is happening here?!"
The driver was pale, eyes wet but not crying, lips trembling uncontrollably.
"I—I don't… understand. It just—it started screaming. Like something got inside it. Something from… here."
The air around the horse was thick, as if wading through invisible toxic fumes. Time itself seemed to stutter, stagger, slur.
It was as if the horse had heard a call from something older than life, older than meaning.Its fear was not of any physical thing. No—it was as if something deep in the woods had looked at it.
Only at it.
Amid the tension, between breaths so heavy they seemed dragged from the lungs of the world itself, everything began to… fade.
The horse's terrified screams, the creaking of the trembling carriage, even the sound of their own frantic steps—all of it dissolved. Not silenced. Erased.
Even their thoughts no longer echoed in their skulls. The silence that seeped in was not mere absence. It was **primordial**, older than language, older than understanding. A silence not to be heard, but felt like trying to recall a dream that had not yet been dreamed.
Then the rupture.
A strange, electric sound, spasming through the void, as though the universe had torn. The crackle of high-voltage electricity exploded, followed by the stench of raw, scorching fire—not of wood, but of something deeper: the burning of soul itself.
And then…
Everything collapsed into emptiness.
Silence devoured the noise. No trace remained. No sound. No thought. No awareness. Only a thick void, as though the forest had become a gaping maw that swallowed time whole.
And in the depths of that void… the world began to sense something.
Something unseen.
Something undeniable.
Something that belonged nowhere.
Something that had come to end.
Simon moved first not out of courage, but because terror had hollowed him into something moved by absence alone. His steps were not steady but dragged, as though pulled from his core like nails ripped from living flesh.
He looked toward the road's end.
And there…
The darkness split.
It was not a shadow it was a curse given form.
It wore the shape of a man, but that was only a visual lie a trick to convince you it had features, when what you saw was merely a flaw in your own perception.
It did not walk. No, it **slid** across the earth as though gravity refused to touch it. The air around it rotted. Darkness withered where it passed.
Then, its features appeared. Or something like them.
It wore what might have been a robe, but it was not cloth it was woven from dried human veins, stitched together with strands of flayed nerves. Shriveled scraps of flesh dangled from it like mementos from graves slowly emptied.
Its skin? No. Not skin. A layer of something dark , as if the ashes of burned corpses had fused with pus and hardened. Where its eyes should have been, there were only hollows deep, weeping voids spilling a black substance that moved on its own. Blood with purpose. Blood that searched .
And its mouth ah, its mouth.
Tongues hung from it. Not one. Many Grey, slimy, pulsing with a rhythm that was not human. They whispered in overlapping voices.
And in its hand… it held a book.
But this book was no inanimate thing. Its cover stretched human skin still branded with burns and silent screams shifted as though breathing. Its pages were black, black as the abyss, and whenever someone drew near, they parted on their own, pulsing. Every page it opened knew your name.
And it waited.
Simon was not stepping forward. He was being consumed slowly, by its gaze, by his own name, by the endless pages.
They understood the truth, the way the dead understand they will never wake.
This was no magical entity. No creature birthed from an enchanted forest.
This… was the End.
The end of their stories. The end of them
And as it advanced
Simon moved.
One step. Then another. Not as though he walked, but as though something behind him pulled him by the marrow. His lips trembled, his voice warped between doubt and dread:
"Wh—who are you? What is this thing? Answer me!"
But the reply… was not words.
It was collapse.
Sounds erupted as though from a rotting throat caving in on itself with every syllable. A voice that belonged to no human tongue, not even to nightmares
It was the sound of pain forced to speak.
The whispers at first were like the gurgles of a drowned corpse…
Then they began to gather, to stitch together, to twist into something almost legible
D̴͠͝-̵̨͘E̷̕̕-̶͢͝A̵̛͝-̴̕͢T̸̛̛-̷̨͘H̶͟͝
Simon gasped like a drowning man grasping at air:
"Death?... What… what do you mean?"
But there was no time to understand.
Because the earth began to groan.
The sound of hooves.
Distant at first… then closer.
Then too close, in a way that defied logic, as though distance itself crumbled beneath their weight. The soil trembled… the air splintered
And then, beneath the ringing
Screams.
But not human ones.
These were souls screaming.
Soldiers without true flesh, without life, without death. Forgotten shrieks from a war that had no name only vengeance.
Mogan cried out, his terror carving wounds into his voice:
"Ready yourselves!"
And he began to chant
Incantations torn from the world's skin, hastily woven into cocoons of frost and dread around them.
Then…existence split open.
They emerged.
From nothingness. From cracks. From the corners of vision.
Horsemen.
But no flesh clothed them. No souls guided them.
Ghosts astride dead steeds, their armor corroded, their skin like sodden cloth wrapped around boiled bones. Their eyes were holes, weeping pus that glowed as though light itself had rotted.
Each one of them screamed.
But not a battle cry—
A scream from those permitted to die.
Not dozens. Not hundreds.
Endless.
An eternal tide of neglected curses, of soldiers who perished without their names being spoken.
Yet they did not attack. They did not stop.
They passed through them.
Through their bodies. Through Mughan's wards.
And as they did, they dissolved souls.
Cold not of the skin, but of bones weighted from within.
Nausea as though organs had begun to misarrange themselves.
Nightmares fermenting beneath fingernails.
They passed… and passed… and passed…
Until time itself seemed to grow old.
Then—
Silence.
Simon gasped, his breath ragged:
"Are… are you still alive?!"
The replies came—broken, terrified, but there:
"Yes!"
Simon turned.
The entity still stood there.
Unmoved. As though nothing had happened.
But now, Simon understood.
This had not been a display of power.
"O̴͝͠h̶̕͝ ̴͠͞t̷̕͝i̶̛͝m̴̛̕e̷̕̕…̶͝͠ ̷̕͝d̴͠͞i̶̛͝e̷̕̕."
The entity spoke—not in a voice heard, but imposed. Not speech, but erasure.
And with it—
Time did not stop.
It strangled.
The universe curled inward like a creature clutching its own guts upon hearing a cosmic joke about the futility of existence. Colors forgot their names. Light stuttered Shadows began to weep.
Simon stood frozen, a statue in a shattered dream—yet unlike the others, he was aware.
His widened eyes locked onto the entity's face as it drew near, as though existence itself had finally acknowledged something that could not be fought.
"Did… did you kill them?"*** Simon asked—not as a man, but as a child who had just realized the universe was not a playground, but a trap.
The entity replied, carving truths from the marble of suffering:
"I̵̛ ̸̕d̶̛i̷̛d̵̛ ̶̛n̷̛ơ̷t̸̛ ̶̛k̷̛i̵̛l̴̛l̸̛ ̷̛t̶̛h̷̛e̷̛m̶̛.̶̛ ̴̛I̴̛ ̷̛k̸̛i̷̛l̵̛l̴̛e̷̛d̶̛ ̷̛w̴̛h̷̛a̷̛t̵̛ ̸̛m̶̛ơ̴v̴̛e̷̛d̴̛ ̷̛t̶̛h̷̛e̴̛m̶̛.̶̛"
"I̵̛ ̴̛k̷̛i̴̛l̴̛l̴̛e̷̛d̷̛ ̸̛t̶̛i̴̛m̷̛e̶̛.̴̛"
Simon swallowed as though gulping down a knife.
"Then… why can I still move?"
The entity answered in a tone written where no language existed:
"B̴̛e̷̛c̸̛a̴̛ư̸s̷̛e̴̛ ̶̛I̷̛ ̴̛k̸̛i̷̛l̶̛l̶̛e̵̛d̶̛ ̴̛t̸̛h̶̛e̸̛ ̶̛i̸̛d̴̛e̷̛a̵̛ ̷̛t̷̛h̶̛a̷̛t̴̛ ̵̛s̶̛a̷̛i̷̛d̴̛:̶̛ ̸̛'̴̛S̴̛i̸̛m̶̛ơ̴n̴̛ ̷̛n̵̛e̴̛e̷̛d̶̛s̸̛ ̸̛t̶̛i̷̛m̸̛e̴̛ ̷̛t̴̛ơ̷ ̴̛m̷̛ơ̸v̷̛e̸̛.̴̛'̶̛"
"N̷̛ơ̸w̴̛…̶̛ ̷̛y̸̛ơ̸ư̷ ̷̛a̴̛r̷̛e̷̛ ̴̛ơ̷ư̵t̸̛s̷̛i̸̛d̵̛e̷̛ ̷̛t̴̛h̷̛e̷̛ ̴̛g̸̛a̸̛m̴̛e̸̛.̶̛"
Simon whispered, groping for logic that had died with time:
"Why? What do you want from me?"
The entity tilted its head, as though recalling the scent of an ancient death:
"I̴̛ ̴̛a̵̛m̷̛ ̷̛n̷̛ơ̷t̶̛ ̷̛h̶̛e̴̛r̸̛e̴̛ ̷̛f̷̛ơ̷r̸̛ ̴̛y̷̛ơ̶ư̴.̸̛ ̷̛B̴̛ư̷t̸̛ ̴̛f̷̛ơ̷r̴̛ ̸̛m̸̛y̴̛ ̶̛b̷̛e̴̛l̵̛ơ̴v̶̛e̷̛d̴̛.̷̛"
"Your beloved? Who?"
"Who is she?"
She cannot be reduced to a name. Cannot be bound to identity.
She transcends even the pronoun "her."
"Who?"—that is a question for creatures imagined by the shadow of her flame.
But she?
She is the origin The being beyond comparison.
Transcendent.
Supreme.
She was written beneath the shade of an apple tree, when the sun neither dimmed nor set.
Language… melted.
As did my face… when I saw her walk.
She moved… without a shadow.
And yet, I was behind her.
Or was I before her?
Was there even a before or after anymore?
A pause. The entity turns slowly—not looking at Simon, but at itself
"My name… was hers."
As all names were Adam's.
Before I was created, she knew it.
Before there was a "before."
She sang.
Singing is… strange.
Singing offers the end… as though tired of waiting.
And it made me—I don't know—older? Younger?
No.
It made me fade.
It places a hand on its chest.
"I never touched her."
You cannot touch what does not wish to be touched.
She is not an idea… she is the afterimage of one.
The shadow that chases light after it vanishes.
Its voice cracks. It repeats, as though replaying an old recording:
"I visited her… every time everything died."
The Creation perished? Yes, I visited her.
She was there.
She was not there.
She waited.
She did not wait.
It laughs—a sound that does not suit it.
"Every time, I say: She will not be there."
"And every time… she is."
"She is what I have not yet corrupted."
"I wanted to remain pure… only for her."
"I loved her… I think."
"Or I loved what she meant."
"Did I even say that?"
Simon, tense, utterly detached from the scene:
"Man… I don't understand. What does this… beloved have to do with me?"
The entity smiles. Death flickers.
"I came to thank you."
"Because you will make her realize."
"You will save her… without knowing."
Simon falls silent. No questions. No denials.]
"When you see the King… give him my regards."
"We will meet again one day, Simon."
"But…"
"You will accompany me then, on my eternal journey where the others wait."
And with its final word—
The world around Simon fractures, as though reality itself were bleeding.
Sounds. Lights.
Existence screams like a body having its soul torn out.
An electric roar.
Everything shatters, collapsing like broken glass.
Then—
Everything returns.
The others rush to Simon, shouting, trembling—but Simon is no longer **among them.**
"Everything is normal… and yet, it is not. Everything is happening at once. Time? No… it has no flavor. No law. No… existence."
From above them, Fayet emerged from her cage.
She hovered, her voice laced with a bitter weight:
"Your shackles to time have been undone—but your flesh was never meant to bear it. Your mind now sees what cannot be seen, while your body still gasps for breath in a dead rhythm."
"You live in paradox now. You are…"
"...an error in the laws of meaning."
Then, softer, as though confessing a secret no one would comprehend:
"Time is no longer illogical…"
"Time no longer exists enough to be illogical for you."