Chapter Six
A Hell of Riddles The death of Rose Maousai occurred in early 2025, yet before we can comprehend the full extent of its impact on Gabriel, we must return once more to Detective Carl Johnson, who finds himself sinking deeper into a maelstrom of enigmas.
Carl Johnson sat at his desk, his mind weighed down by an oppressive uncertainty. The dim glow of his desk lamp cast shifting shadows over the scattered case files—each one tied to the relentless Grim Reaper of Wellington. His keen intellect, always working at full throttle, struggled to weave together the fragmented clues, yet nothing seemed to align.
There was something missing, an elusive fragment of logic that, if uncovered, would bring clarity to this chaotic puzzle.
He took a sip of his coffee—the bitterness anchoring him to reality amid the swirling confusion. Then, from the abyss of silence, a voice—deep, sinister, almost demonic—whispered into his ear, by the the whisper in darkness its resonance seeping into the marrow of his bones like a malevolent specter: "Gabriel is still at large." Carl's breath caught in his throat.
A visceral chill slithered down his spine as pure, unadulterated terror gripped him.
He jolted upright from his chair, his chest heaving, sweat beading at his temples.
He gasped out loud, his voice hoarse with disbelief. "Gabriel? Who...?" Was this the result of his mind, frayed from ceaseless contemplation? A hallucination borne from exhaustion? Whatever the cause, the voice—the dread it instilled—was unlike anything he had ever experienced. By the following evening, Carl found himself once again seated within the confines of his small office, his ever-watchful companion, Officer Marcus, at his side.
Yet his thoughts were elsewhere, consumed by the grisly murders—the cryptic symbols, the eerie phrases scrawled in their wake. The blood smeared across the walls was no mere signature; it was a cipher, an enigma demanding to be solved.
And yet, despite his every effort, despite the countless hours spent scrutinizing the clues, the pattern eluded him, its meaning slipping through his fingers like mist. Marcus, who had remained taciturn since their last discussion, now studied Carl with an expression teetering between curiosity and concern.
The detective, pacing feverishly across the room, muttered to himself with an intensity bordering on mania.
His wild gesticulations, the restless energy in his movements—he looked less like a seasoned investigator and more like a man possessed. "I refuse to lose this battle of wits," Carl declared, his voice thick with defiance. "I will not be outmatched by this deranged harvester of souls! No matter what it takes, I will unravel his riddle!" Marcus, attempting to inject a sliver of optimism, ventured cautiously, "Perhaps we should take solace in the fact that you have at least deciphered something from these seemingly nonsensical symbols.
Tell me, Carl—are you truly suggesting that this all ties back to James William Moriarty? That the leader of Zero Phantom worshipped him?" Carl's expression darkened, his voice dropping to an ominous murmur. "That lunatic stated, during interrogations, that he forged this organization to reshape the world. He proclaimed himself the new Moriarty—an architect of destruction, a mastermind of chaos." Marcus exhaled, folding his arms. "And yet, despite all our efforts, nothing substantial was ever extracted from him. Yes, every record affirms that he was a ghost—no name, no nationality, no traceable lineage.
A bastard without a past." He hesitated before adding, "Regardless, Carl, we must approach this rationally. Take a step back. Consider the broader picture." Carl narrowed his eyes, sinking deeper into thought. His words came in a near whisper, spoken more to himself than to Marcus. "The killer is following a pattern. This is not the work of a mindless butcher. This is the obsession of Zero Phantom's former leader... Every, the hacker who ensnared—"
A sudden shift in expression halted his words. "No." His voice was sharper now, conviction seeping into every syllable. "Moriarty was Every's inspiration—his blueprint for calculated destruction. If this killer is not Every himself, then he is someone of equal cunning, someone molded by that same doctrine." Marcus lifted an eyebrow, his skepticism plain.
"Rumor has it that one member of the organization was never apprehended—one of the higher-ups, an individual with significant influence over Zero Phantom's operations. But Carl, you of all people should know this—it was not Every. Every is imprisoned on Skull Devil Island." Carl did not immediately respond. Rising to his feet, he resumed his restless pacing, the gears in his mind turning with renewed ferocity. "I do not care whether it is Every or one of his disciples," he finally muttered. "What I do know is that this murderer is the most formidable adversary I have ever encountered." Then, he stiffened.
His gaze, once scattered in frantic contemplation, now fixed with laser-like precision. "The last remaining member of Zero Phantom? What was his name?" Marcus hesitated only a moment before replying. "According to the latest intelligence... Gabriel Sunderland.
" Carl's breath faltered. The name echoed in his mind, twisting, warping, interlocking with the horror of the previous night. "Gabriel." It was the same name that had been the whisper in darkness tolde him about . The same name that had sent ice crawling through his veins. The room around him seemed to spin. The walls, the furniture, even Marcus himself—all became distant, hazy. He staggered slightly, his mind reeling. What had the whisper in the darkness that name to him? Was it madness? Or was it something far, far worse? Carl turned to the officers, his voice steady but commanding.
"Compare these fingerprints with those we found at Zero Phantom's secret headquarters. As for us, we have... other matters to attend to."
Marcus asked in surprise, a mix of curiosity and tension in his voice. "And what might those matters be, my friend?"
Carl smiled faintly, but there was an unwavering resolve in his expression. "We are going to hunt down Gabriel Sunderland..."
Carl was stunned by what he heard from Marcus, dizziness overtaking him—the whole world spinning around him. Gabriel. It was the same name the whisper in the darkness had told him.
Marcus said, "What do you think, mate? Shall we head to another crime scene? Maybe we'll find something new?"
Carl: "Where?"
Marcus: "A butcher shop. Yeah, don't laugh. The deranged butcher went to a meat shop and slaughtered everyone working there."
Carl: "Alright, let's go."
The two companions got into Marcus's car and drove to the butcher shop. When they arrived, the place was a blood-soaked nightmare. The workers had been hacked into small pieces. Four men had their heads placed into a meat grinder and minced completely, while others had their limbs severed and ground to pulp. The scene was drenched in blood, and the cold air from the freezer only made it more chilling.
As usual, there was no trace of the killer—no physical evidence, no footprints, nothing. It was as if he was a ghost.
But there was one thing left behind—a message, written in the victims' blood on the wall:
"I get high, high, higher—ride with my blood."
Carl searched frantically for any clue, combing through every inch of the crime scene. But he found nothing.
Then suddenly—everything froze.
The world around him stopped, and in an instant, he was transported at the speed of light—as if pulled into another dimension.
A place filled with endless darkness.
And there, for the first time, he saw the Whisper in the Darkness.
It was a monstrous entity, resembling a demon. Tentacle-like appendages hung beneath its mouth, like those of an octopus. It had wings like an angel, but on its abdomen was a demonic pentagram. Twisted ram-like horns crowned its head, and it moved as one with the shadows, as if it was the darkness itself.
The Whisper in the Darkness spoke: "Your clue is there."
It pointed towards a bloodstained knife lying on the ground.
Carl darted forward, his breath heavy with fear. "This is a critical piece of evidence!" he told the officers. "Secure it and run a fingerprint analysis!"
Marcus turned to the police. "Compare these prints with the ones we found at Zero Phantom's secret hideout."
Then he glanced at Carl, curiosity in his eyes. "And what about us, mate?"
Carl's expression hardened.
"We're going to hunt down Gabriel Sunderland."
"Let us move the events of our story to Gabriel."
Gabriel was in a state of severe depression, the highest level of despair and hopelessness. He sat on the floor, hugging his knees tightly, staring at the wall with a look of utter despair.
His eyes were red and swollen, as though he hadn't slept for weeks.
His hair and beard were long and untamed, giving him the appearance of a homeless person. His body was gaunt, skin stretched tight over bones, as if his very flesh had given up on life.
At that moment, Gabriel was physically in the room, but it felt like he had entered his own mind. He sat in the emptiness, a place devoid of anything, completely consumed by nihilism.
He hadn't spoken to anyone or left his house in days.
He had reached the pinnacle of nothingness, a place where the world outside seemed so distant, so irrelevant.
In his mind, Gabriel made a decision. He had to escape this filthy world of mammals, escape from everything. He began collecting his things, searching the internet, and found an abandoned hut on a remote island.
At least there, he thought, I might save myself from this mental extinction. I won't become like those fools, addicted to TikTok.
He packed his belongings and made up his mind: he would buy a rickety raft and sail to that isolated, cold, hellish hut. It didn't matter how cold it would be—even if the temperature dropped to 20 million degrees below zero, nothing could be colder than the despair Gabriel felt deep inside himself.
With his raft ready, he arranged for the shipment to be delivered to the beach of the city. He made his way to the docks, where he climbed into the fragile raft, starting the engine and setting off into the vast ocean. As the boat moved forward, his favourite song played in the background. The lyrics echoed in his ears:
"What a contrast, smart skin and bones, and guess the colour of you are..."
On a Sunday, Walking slow while all time's still running...
At that very moment, everything around Gabriel shifted. The world began to transform as if time itself was accelerating at an impossible rate.
The sun, the clouds, even his very eyes seemed to move with a frenetic pace, and the ocean transformed into a giant clock, its hands spinning out of control. Gabriel sailed forward, heading into the unknown, his soul now adrift in this surreal time warp.
Everything had become one with time, and Gabriel, with his gaze fixed on the vast, endless horizon, sailed further into the abyss, unsure of where he was heading or what awaited him.
After days of agonizing starvation, Gabriel could no longer bear the insatiable hunger gnawing at his insides.
His body, weakened and frail, had deteriorated to a state where every muscle screamed for sustenance. The mental anguish, the deep emptiness that accompanied him on his lonely journey, felt like an unbearable weight crushing his chest. He had barely the strength to lift his head, but as his eyes flickered with the final remnants of consciousness, he spotted a small group of frogs and fish leaping onto the raft, their desperate attempts to escape the surrounding water futile.
Without hesitation, driven by the raw and primal instinct of survival, Gabriel lunged at the helpless creatures. His hands trembled as he gripped them, tearing into their still-wriggling forms, tearing apart their bodies and devouring them whole, uncaring of the brutality of his actions.
The scene was gruesome, soaked in blood as it splattered across his face and hands, leaving him drenched in the evidence of his desperate hunger. His face, smeared with crimson, became a grotesque mask of the beast he had become. It was a definitive sign, a clear and irreversible mark that he had lost his humanity. In that very moment, Gabriel had transcended the man he once was, becoming something far darker, far more monstrous. But this grotesque metamorphosis, this horrifying reality, was only the beginning.
What he had come to, this savage existence, was nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to what lay in store for him in the House of Devils.
Days stretched on, each one more unbearable than the last. Gabriel's suffering had reached a point where his very soul seemed to ache. His body was gaunt, his once vibrant eyes hollow and dead. And then, after what felt like an eternity of torment, Gabriel arrived at the island. It was as though he had stepped into a different realm entirely.
The island was a frozen wasteland, completely enveloped in a thick layer of ice, its surface glistening under the dull light. The air was thick with an unsettling fog, swirling ominously around him, as if it were alive. The atmosphere was suffocating, weighed down by an unnatural silence that permeated everything. The place was devoid of warmth, a frigid expanse where the cold seemed to seep into his very bones.
But there was something far more unnerving about it—a sinister presence that hung in the air, making Gabriel feel like he was being watched. In the distance, a colossal mountain towered over the desolate landscape, its peak lost in the mist. The mountain was a monstrous silhouette, a beacon of the hellish landscape that Gabriel had found himself in.
Without a second thought, he disembarked from the raft, his limbs stiff from cold, and began to make his way toward the frozen hell that awaited him.
Now, the scene shifts to the South Pole, to a place of unimaginable darkness—the Hall of Power, the throne room where shadows reigned supreme. In this abyssal chamber, a shadowy entity sat upon a throne forged from the very essence of darkness itself. The air around it crackled with power, a weighty presence that seemed to devour all light and hope. The entity was draped in an impenetrable cloak of shadows, its form barely visible in the ever-encroaching darkness. It spoke, its voice a deep and resonant rumble that filled the room with an overwhelming authority.
Standing before it was the Whisper in the Darkness, a being who appeared as an ethereal figure, cloaked in a whispering mist that seemed to shift and flicker with each passing moment. The Whisper in the Darkness materialized before the shadowy entity, speaking with a voice that was both haunting and reverent.
"Father, I have carried out your orders. I have taken control of the detective's mind, and I will guide him to capture Gabriel."
The Shadow Demon, its presence like a black hole, absorbed the very essence of light, responded in a voice that sent shivers down the spine of anyone who dared listen. It was deep, rumbling with an authority that echoed through the very fabric of reality.
"Well done, my son. You shall be greatly rewarded for your obedience to my commands."
The demon's words were filled with a promise of power, the kind that only those who had witnessed the darkest of the dark could understand. It gestured with one long, spindly hand, signaling the Whisper in the Darkness to leave. Its eyes, glowing with a malevolent gleam, flickered with the promise of a power yet to come.
As the Whisper in the Darkness departed, the camera of our imagination panned out to reveal the vast corridor outside the throne room. The long, cold hall stretched endlessly before us, lined with towering shadows that seemed to shift and flicker like phantoms. And in the dim, flickering light, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of terrifying, nightmarish entities stood, their forms grotesque and ever-changing.
Some were humanoid in shape, while others seemed to defy logic, their twisted forms almost too horrendous to comprehend. They stood, silent and expectant, as if waiting for something—or someone. It seemed as though these dark beings, these offspring of malevolent forces, had gathered for some unspeakable purpose. Their collective gaze was fixed on the shadowy entity on the throne, all of them striving to please their father.
In that moment, the tension in the air was palpable. The forces of darkness were mobilising. The time was drawing near. Everything was converging on Gabriel's fate, and it was clear that the House of Devils was about to play its hand.
End of Chapter