How about Cosmic Horror? Chapter 1 - B

His body was perfect.

The physique wrapped in a suit looked less like a human and more like a meticulously sculpted piece of art. 

From the neck down, he was an incredibly attractive man. However, above the collar of his dress shirt… where a face should’ve been… There was a bundle of tentacles. Not just sitting there, but squirming in real-time.

There was no way anyone could look at this and say it was human.

“Honey?”

The monster tilted its second tentacle as if confused and called her “honey.”

Irae felt faint. Her heart raced, a chill ran down her spine, and her survival instincts kicked in sharper than ever.

She had to get out of this room somehow—without provoking the unidentified monster in front of her.

“I… I need to use the restroom…”

“Ah, shall I help you?”

The tentacle monster offered kindness totally mismatched to its terrifying form. Irae shook her hands and her head vigorously.

“No, no! I can go alone.”

Carefully getting out of bed, she walked towards the door at a pace that was neither too fast nor too slow. Who knows, the monster might lash out with its tentacles and grab her if it realized she was trying to escape.

The short distance to the door felt like a thousand miles. Breaking out in a cold sweat, she finally reached the door and looked back. The tentacle monster was standing still in its spot, watching her. Actually, she wasn’t sure if it was watching her because it didn’t have eyes. She just assumed it was since its body was facing her.

At that moment, the bundle of tentacles swayed gently. As if waving goodbye. 

Horrified by the sight, Irae shuddered and slid open the door, stepping out. Pretending to be calm, she closed the door and hurried down the hallway to find a hospital staff member. Spotting a nurse coming from the opposite direction, she rushed to her like she was a lifeline sent from heaven.

“Nurse! H-help me!”

“Yes, how can I help you? “

“There’s a monster in my room.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s pretending to be my husband, but it’s not. I mean, it’s not even human. Please call the police. No, regular police won’t do—we need a special forces unit…”

“Please calm down. You mean someone you don’t recognize is in your room?”

“Not someone—a monster! A tentacle monster!”

Irae raised her voice but quickly lowered it, worried others might hear. 

The nurse looked at Irae like she was questioning her life choices. ‘Is this really part of my job description?’ her eyes seemed to say.

 Irae’s chest tightened with frustration. 

“I know how it sounds, but it’s true! Please, just call the police!”

“Before that… may I check the room myself?”

“No, it might be dangerous. If you must, just peek through the door, okay?”

Seeing that the nurse wasn’t taking her seriously, Irae had no choice but to compromise. Once the nurse saw it with her own eyes, she’d have to believe it. 

With a robotic smile, the nurse followed Irae back to the room. The closer she got, the more her stomach churned at the thought of the creature inside.

“Here it is. Just slide the door a little to look inside…”

Before Irae could finish, the nurse flung the sliding door wide open.

Hey, that’s not what we agreed on!

She screamed internally and chased after the fearless nurse who entered the room. The nurse, face to face with the tentacled monster, covered her mouth with eyes that looked like they might pop out.

“How…” 

Irae was about to yell at the stunned nurse to stop gawking and run, but then—

“How can a human being be this handsome?”

Excuse me?

Irae couldn’t believe her ears. 

“Is he a celebrity? No, I’d recognize a face like that. No way he’s unknown.”

Are tentacle monsters celebrities these days?

While Irae was baffled by the blushing nurse, who seemed mesmerized by the bundle of tentacles… 

“Honey, what are you doing standing there?”

The monster waved tentacle number 2 at Irae. The nurse covered her mouth again.

“This is insane. His voice is perfect too.”

…Okay, the voice was nice, even to her. Sweet as honey, seductive, and undeniably charming. But the gap between that and the tentacle bundle where a head should be only amplified her fear. Think about it—a snake speaking with a voice actor’s tone isn’t cool; it’s creepy.

Irae desperately gestured to the spaced-out nurse.

“What are you doing? Let’s get out of here!”

“Why would I? This is heaven.”

The nurse responded with dreamy eyes. 

That wasn’t something a sane person would utter. Irae concluded that the tentacle monster must have done something to the nurse—brainwashing or some hallucinatory magic. It sounded far-fetched for a civilized mind, but with a suited tentacle monster standing there, how much did reality matter?

Determined not to fall victim herself, she decided to abandon the nurse and escape alone. Like in a zombie apocalypse, you have to cut ties with infected companions, no matter how much it hurts, or you’ll both end up as zombies.

Irae bolted out and grabbed a doctor passing by in the hallway, shouting desperately,

“D-Doctor! There’s a monster! A tentacle monster in my room!” 

* * *

“It seems to be a side effect of the accident.”

 

Recalling the conversation with the doctor, Irae stared blankly at the ceiling.

 

“So, to put it simply, because I hit my head during the accident, something went wrong with my brain, and that’s why my husband looks like a tentacled monster? So, to your eyes, does he look like an ordinary person? Like, he has a normal face above his shirt collar instead of a bundle of tentacles?”

“Yes. To me, he looks like a perfectly normal man with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I can’t guarantee anything since I’ve never seen a case like this before, but it could be a temporary condition, so for now…”

 

She turned her chin and looked to the side. The tentacle monster with the excellent body sat there. All his tentacles drooped downward, making him look a little dejected.

She took out her phone and snapped a picture.

Just before she pressed the shutter, the tentacle monster showed up on the screen. But when she checked the photo in her album, there was no monster — only a heartbroken, devastatingly handsome man.

So the nurse hadn’t been brainwashed by some evil tentacle monster. She had simply encountered an otherworldly beauty capable of reducing a sane person to gibbering admiration.

What stood out first was his jet-black hair and eyes.

You might say all Koreans have black hair and eyes, but his shade was unusually intense — black enough to evoke the image of a black hole that swallowed even light.

Maybe it was just how the photo came out, but it looked like a patch of darkness had been pasted into the image.

Next was his piercing gaze. Even though he looked down, you couldn’t miss the arrogance and coldness radiating from his eyes.

He looked like someone who had never once lived with anyone above him.

How did I end up marrying someone this outrageously good-looking?

No matter how hard she racked her brain, she couldn’t imagine how someone like him would have simply agreed to be her husband.

“Um…”

“Yes, honey?”

When she lifted her gaze from the photo, tentacle number 5 perked up as the tentacle monster responded sweetly.

She quickly looked away and returned her eyes to the photo before continuing.

“How did we end up getting married? Did I blackmail you or something?”

Otherwise, this didn’t make sense. How else could this severe mismatch in appearances be justified if not for blackmail?

Frankly speaking, she wasn’t anything special in terms of looks. She wasn’t hideous, but compared to the ridiculously attractive man in the photo, she was basically a potato.

“Blackmail? You? Blackmailed me?”

As she raised her head at his amused tone, her eyes met a bundle of trembling tentacles. She couldn’t be sure with that form, but it seemed like he was laughing.

“What if it was the other way around?”

Irae paused at his absurd words. Sure, to her eyes, he was a tentacle monster, but his real appearance was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And that kind of man had blackmailed her into marriage? Could that even happen in real life?

“Did I, like, strike it rich with crypto or stocks or something?”

Money. If logic failed, the answer would be money. For a man like this to cling to her, she must be some mega-billionaire, right?

“I have more money.”

The tentacle monster—no, her husband—said firmly. Irae stared at the photo. 

So I lost in looks and money. Then what was the point of this marriage?

No matter how she looked at it, it felt like he had gotten the short end of the stick.

“Then… why did you marry me?”

“Because I chased after you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I pestered you to give me a chance. Followed you around asking to meet. Begged you to notice me. Acted cute so you’d dote on me. And eventually, I devoured you whole. Then we got married. Does that answer your question?”

At his unbelievable reason, Irae turned to face the direction he was sitting in. Tentacles 7 and 8 curled together to form a heart shape.

Is that supposed to be a heart? Or a threat to split my skull open? 

It looked like tentacles to her, but maybe in reality, he was just doing it with his hands.

As she continued staring in disbelief at the bizarre tentacle heart, he asked, 

“You said I look like a tentacle monster to you, right?”

“Y-Yes.”

“So what exactly do you see?”

“Uh…”