How about Cosmic Horror? Chapter 2

Irae studied him cautiously. Would he be hurt if she said this stuff to his face? It was hard to read his mood — he had no eyes, nose, or mouth. His voice sounded amused, but without facial expressions, she couldn’t tell for sure.

“From the neck down, you look like a normal person—wearing a suit. But from the neck up… it’s kind of… you know.”

“What’s ‘kind of you know’?”

He seemed to want specifics.

“Um… normally, there should be a neck and then a face above the shirt collar, right? But in that spot, there’s a bundle of tentacles.”

“How many?”

Why was he curious about that? Squinting her eyes, she counted the writhing tentacles. 

“Looks like… twelve?”

“Hmm. And the length and thickness?”

“They’re all different. Some are as thin as a pinky finger, some thicker than my wrist. And the length seems to change constantly, getting longer and shorter, so it’s kind of like… retractable? As if there’s a storage space inside your body and only a part of it is sticking out? If they all come out, they’d probably be incredibly long…”

As she tried her best to explain with the utmost sincerity, the man’s broad shoulders started to tremble. 

He was clearly suppressing laughter.

What’s so funny about being seen as a tentacle monster? 

“So, out of the twelve, which one do you like the best?”

His voice dropped to a softer, more suggestive tone.

Like? Which one do I like the best…? I have to pick one?

Reluctantly, Irae closely examined the twelve tentacles. Knowing this was a hallucination caused by my brain damage made it less scary than before. Still, the writhing bundle above his neck wasn’t exactly pleasant to look at, even as a courtesy.

Tentacles 1 and 12 were about pinky-thick, smooth, and had five-pronged tips. Like, if she threw food at it and shouted “Catch!”, it would open up at the end and gobble it down.

Tentacles 2 and 11 were wrist-thick, with bulging vein-like patterns and blunt ends.

Tentacle 3 was thinner than 2, and appeared to have an outer layer and a moist inner core — maybe secreting fluid?

Tentacle 4 had a similar thickness to 2 but was covered in bumpy protrusions, like it would really hurt if used as a whip.

Tentacles 5 and 9 were the thickest, resembling octopus arms with rows of suckers — the most grotesque.

Tentacle 6 was covered on one side with soft bristles like a brush — looked perfect for cleaning windows.

Tentacles 7 and 8 were basic, medium-thickness, smooth, and rounded.

Tentacle 10 was about as thick as three fingers, snake-like, with a split end that twitched like a mouth.

“Uh… I guess number 6? Seems useful for cleaning.” 

She answered thoughtfully, even giving a rational reason. 

Now the man’s upper body collapsed onto her bed. Judging by the way her bed shook, she could tell he was laughing his head off.

“Cleaning, huh. You’re thinking about cleaning with a monster’s tentacle.”

As she internally grumbled, wondering what was so funny, his whisper came sweetly to her ear.

“This is why I can’t get enough of you.”

Irae was caught off guard. Throwing in such a cheesy line out of nowhere made her look bad for mentally preparing to curse him out. 

But even hearing that, she didn’t feel flustered at all. Who could blame her? No matter how sweet his words were, with tentacles spilling out onto the bed, it was nothing but a scene from a horror movie. At first glance, it looked like his insides were spilling out and wriggling around. 

How did my life turn into cosmic horror?

Just because she’d bumped her head and now her husband looked like a tentacle monster? 

What was the point of marrying a drop-dead gorgeous guy if all she saw was a hellish tentacle bundle?

It’s probably just temporary, right?

Surely, he won’t look like this forever… right?

 

That night, Irae had a strange dream. 

The world was consumed by bizarre colors—colors that shouldn’t exist on Earth. And yet, she was looking at them directly with her own eyes. It felt contradictory to say “they shouldn’t exist,” but that’s exactly what it felt like.

Anything that touched those swirling colors lost all life and crumbled into dry, flaky ash.

The colors burned through the world as if consuming everything in their path.

She realized that she was no exception. This was a natural disaster, a catastrophe no human could do anything about. She’d be devoured by those colors.

Sensing her end, she closed her eyes, and a cold, slimy sensation wrapped around her. The colors were swallowing her. She would disappear without a trace.

“That’s not going to happen, honey.”

A low voice suddenly whispered in her ear. Startled, she opened my eyes. There stood her husband—not as a tentacle monster, but in the human form she’d seen in the photo.

On his index finger, the vibrant colors were balled up, trembling pitifully as they spun, reduced to the size of a ping-pong ball. Just moments ago, they’d been ravaging the world.

She was speechless.

“We promised to live a lovey-dovey life together, didn’t we?”

Meeting her gaze, the man flicked his index finger with a grin. 

Instantly, the multicolored sphere let out a scream that didn’t belong in this world, before bursting, scattering in every direction.

 

When she opened my eyes, she faced the hospital’s dull ceiling. It wasn’t pitch-black, but the dim room felt like ash swallowed by those vibrant colors.

“What kind of crazy dream…”

Was it because of the brain injury?

A dream where strange colors devoured the world, and her husband appeared like poof and saved her… 

She had no idea where to begin poking holes in the logic.

How could color devour the world?

And how did her husband manage to neutralize and obliterate such a thing with such ease? If there had been at least a somewhat plausible setting, she could have accepted it, but the dream was so random and nonsensical that it left her dumbfounded.  

All that lingered was his face. That terrifyingly beautiful face, seen amidst the exploding colors. It was on a different level from the photo. The impact of a living, breathing, drop-dead gorgeous man was overwhelming.

“And to think, such a man is a tentacle monster only to me…”

It was unfair. So utterly unjust that she wanted to pound the floor. While everyone else got to enjoy his stunning visuals, she, his own wife, was forced to wear cosmic horror filters. 

Frustrated, she sat up and grabbed her phone. No way she was going to fall back asleep after that.

After searching for her symptoms, she came across a condition that was similar, yet different.

Capgras Syndrome (Capgras delusion) A mental disorder in which a person believes that a close friend or family member has been replaced by an identical impostor. For example, they might see their husband and insist, “This isn’t my husband! It’s someone else pretending to be him!” It’s commonly seen in schizophrenia patients but can also occur in those with brain damage. Reportedly, the reason for this belief is that when people see someone they’re emotionally close to, certain substances are released in the brain. Due to brain dysfunction, these substances are no longer released, so they fail to feel emotional familiarity and instead perceive the person as merely someone who looks the same.

As she read the encyclopedia entry, fear crept in. What exactly had gone wrong in her brain? Had the neural circuits twisted so that when she saw someone she loved, it triggered the fear center of her brain instead?

If I’m unlucky, will I have to live like this forever?

Maybe it was a bad reaction to some of the meds they’d given her during treatment. She found an article describing a perfectly healthy person who developed temporary Capgras Syndrome after a ketamine injection. 

If she was like that case, maybe her condition would resolve with time.

If she was lucky, maybe today her husband wouldn’t look like a tentacle monster.

With a mix of hope and dread, she waited for her husband’s visit.

 

“Honey, how are you today? Do I still look like a tentacle monster?”

“No.”

Irae replied weakly to her husband’s question. He didn’t look like a tentacle monster. Not exactly. 

Floating above his dress shirt’s tab collar, in place of his head, was a planet resembling Uranus, surrounded by thin rings rotating in real-time. Some spun quickly, while others moved at a leisurely pace. 

Dumbfounded, she stared blankly at the sight. Couldn’t he just have a normal human head?

“Not a tentacle monster, but I guess I don’t look human either.”

A large, well-defined hand brushed the underside of the planet. Irae was momentarily distracted by the elegant motion of his long fingers before snapping herself back to reality. 

Everything about this man was perfect—except for the bizarrely perceived face. He was probably touching his chin in reality.

Whatever the truth was, he was definitely perceptive. To notice her inner turmoil and react so quickly. 

Whatever the truth was, one thing was certain — this man had sharp intuition. To notice her thought immediately…

He approached her bedside and sat down. Tilting his planet-head, he asked, 

“What do I look like now?”

“A planet… There’s a planet where your face should be, sir.”