Seonghwa knew that something was wrong when he awoke in the lighthouse.

For a moment, he was scarily disoriented. His surroundings were familiar and at the same time not what he had anticipated at all. As he turned to look around confusedly, he winced at the zap of pain that shot through his upper arm. When he glanced at the limb in question to check if he had laid on it weirdly, he found a grotesque slit down the length of it. The deep wound was still open and frayed at the edges. His blood had barely begun to clot in it, and Seonghwa had smeared it everywhere in his sleep.

With a disgusted frown at his dirty pillow, he sat up. Everything inside the lighthouse was as always. All pieces of furniture were in order, Seonghwa's shoes stood neatly tucked under the bed, and Hongjoong's research laid strewn all over the desk and ground. Hongjoong himself was not in sight.

Had someone had attacked them during the night? How had Seonghwa not noticed the slash through his skin?

Puzzled, he tried to remember and piece the information in his head together. Hongjoong and he had lived here for three months now, and they were in a doting, loving relationship. Both protected each other through the loneliness and hysteria this island put on them and every day, they went to the shore to build on the ship they had started to piece together as their means of escape. They were a matchless team.

Or were they?

Something didn't quite add up. A little voice in the back of Seonghwa's head whispered to him that something had changed. That he shouldn't trust those memories.

Seonghwa took a moment to close his eyes and breathe deeply through his mouth. All tiredness had fallen from him, and he was alert of anything that might show itself as suspicious. The mediation grounded him, and when he opened his lids again, he concentrated on all the things that currently disturbed him one by one.

As he checked his body for other wounds, he found the cluster of deep holes in his hands and feet. They weren't stabs, just indents as if his skin had bulged until the pores had widened enough to accustom the pressure. They were filled with something dark that sat deep in his flesh like tiny eyes. Repelled, Seonghwa tried to withstand the need to dig around the little asymmetric holes and get it out. The rash already looked as bad as it would get and he didn't want to make it worse.

When Seonghwa swung his legs over the bed to pack his weird feet into his shoes, a dull thud from upstairs reached his ears. For a second, he remained as he was to wait if Hongjoong would join him in their living space. But yet, fear welled in his chest.

Run! Flee this place! He has trapped you and nothing good will come of it if you don't leave!

Confused, Seonghwa hesitated to do either. He didn't want to stay, but an escape sounded like a sudden decision, too.

Thus, he remained in his place to spare his feet the undoubting pain of having to walk on his clustered soles at least for a while longer. Had he asked Hongjoong about this weird disease he had contracted? He should stress it, just in case.

When Hongjoong indeed came down the stairs just a few moments later, Seonghwa had to scrutinise him for a long wary moment. Hongjoong looked tired, his skin hollow as if it had fallen in on itself. It didn't pull taut, however. It hung from him like melted wax and had taken on the same colour, too. Hongjoong looked sick, and Seonghwa wondered if both of them would fall victim to some unexplored disease. They should document their symptoms for the generations after them. Seonghwa would like to make a difference by being the first to discover the new ailment.

Hongjoong noticed Seonghwa's appraising look and responded to it with a questioning raise of his brow.

"Did something happen? Bad dream?"

You are a bad dream.

"I'm... Not sure. I guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. That cut-" Seonghwa ended with a glance at the injury in question. When Hongjoong came closer, a weird squelching sound accompanied him as if his shoes were soaked in water. Yet, when Seonghwa glanced at his feet, his simple leather shoes were dry.

Had the sound come from outside? The waves did sound aggressive today.

"Ah, maybe you ripped it open again while you slept. Slipping from that rock could really have ended nastily."

Nervous, Seonghwa stared at him. Every step Hongjoong took closer to him felt like a threat and made the hairs on his neck stand. Something was horribly, terribly wrong.

When Hongjoong reached out to push Seonghwa's sleeve up so he could see the damage better, a memory that Seonghwa couldn't place zapped through his mind like a bolt of lightning. Clear and as if he had experienced it on his own even if it could have been no more than a dream.

Hongjoong above his bed and lit sinisterly by the candlelight in his back. How he had grinned as he had slit open Seonghwa's arm and pressed a hand on his mouth as he screamed. Not as if anybody would have heard his wet sobs and terrified screams as the man caught his blood in a jar.

The eyes that had madly trapped him back then had been black as ink. And Hongjoong's were just the same.

Seonghwa stood so abruptly that he nearly toppled over. Hongjoong froze in the middle of his movement as if he had to recalculate the situation. As if things weren't going how he had planned them. Every cell in Seonghwa's body recoiled from him.

"No... You're messing with me. This isn't right." Confused, Seonghwa looked around his surroundings as if he had lost something he had to collect.

Your memories. He makes you lose your memories.

Hectic, Seonghwa stared at his hands, trying to summon the sensations of what they had felt, what they remembered. Paper, shells, sand running through his fingers. Slippery skin of a maritime animal. The smooth surface of a black orb.

The scratches on the lower half of his injured arm also spoke a story. A number. The days he had to remember.

When Seonghwa looked back up at Hongjoong, his gaze was hard even when a triumphant smirk curled around his lips. Hongjoong regarded his changed expression with careful consideration.

"You. You're the bad guy. You're the one I shouldn't trust."

As he looked around the lighthouse, things made sense again. Hongjoong trapping him here. Hongjoong manipulating his memories. Hongjoong needing him to free the evil that dwelt within him.

When Hongjoong didn't reply and merely drew his brows together, Seonghwa's grin became all the broader. A sense of pride mixed into his fear.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

At his growing confidence, Hongjoong grit his jaw. His face looked less and less human by the second. Even his voice was distorted as if pulled apart by the edges to create a jarring sound that no human would be able to produce.

"Don't do this, Seonghwa. Let's make it easy for both of us."

Seonghwa giggled at the anger in the other man's face.

"I'm a nuisance, aren't I? Tell me, what is it you need? What forces you to keep me alive?"

When something whacked Seonghwa across the face, all his sudden arrogance left him in a puff. The force had been significant enough to rip him from his feet and throw him to the hard ground. As he landed roughly on his wounded arm, the scab ripped open again to soak his side in blood. A yell that was mostly surprise rather than pain escaped Seonghwa. His heart skipped a beat.

Hongjoong hadn't moved or rose a hand. The invisible force that had knocked Seonghwa off retreated.

In shock, Seonghwa stared up at him. His body remained frozen in fear with all of his muscles locked in place. Not even when Hongjoong knelt at his side to grab his collar did Seonghwa dare move.

"Quit the games, Seonghwa. I'm tired of you. Either you help me or you prepare to die."

His hiss was low and threatening. It made the candles in the room flicker and the shadows outside deepen as if the waves tried to swallow the island whole.

Seonghwa followed heavily, his eyes wide with naked fear. Hongjoong looked as if he would strangle him or rip out his throat in the next moment depending on Seonghwa's reply.

"I gave you time. I let you search on your own and play your games. But I have enough of all that. When none of the terrors on this island gets you moving, then I will become the terror to force you."

Seonghwa laughed nervously, but his eyes flickered around as they searched for an escape route. His arm throbbed with dull pain and the way that he squeezed it lying down on it forced even more blood from the wound.

"Let's talk this through. I play around a lot, but you see, I, ah, I'm willing to help." Seonghwa stuttered and stumbled over his words. The foul stench of rotting ocean life came from Hongjoong and repelled Seonghwa. Nothing about the attractive man he once was remained.

The chair, grab it.

Before Hongjoong had a chance to reply, Seonghwa lunged. His hand clutched the wobbly piece of furniture and blindly, he swung it at Hongjoong.

The wood burst under Seonghwa's fingers and sent little splinters into his skin. Yet, Hongjoong lost his grip on him. In the very second that his fingers let go of Seonghwa, the man scrambled out from beneath him. Without looking back, Seonghwa ran down the stairs. The howl Hongjoong let out sounded like that of a wounded creature. An enormous and very annoyed beast.

Seonghwa skittered down the stairs with panicked eyes and ripped open the door. The rush of wind and rain in his face choked him up and took his breath. All of the island had darkened as if the apocalypse had dawned upon them. Huge and raging, the waves reached nearly until the lighthouse and formed large puddles all over the land. Its hunger had already taken part of the shore.

Seonghwa swerved right and jumped down the stairs to the basement. Hectically, he barricaded it from the inside with a bolt. His naked feet slipped on the slick stone stairs, but he cumbersomely caught his balance. Even trembling in fear, he stumbled backwards and hid away with the body of the professor. No water filled this area yet, but it would only be a matter of time until his hideout would become a death trap.

Once he had moved back as far as possible in the cave, Seonghwa curled up in a corner. He shivered all over, and the raging steps in the lighthouse above him made it none the better.

Blind in fear, Seonghwa looked around for another weapon. He found nothing. He could only try to fix the cell door back in place to create another barrier between himself and Hongjoong. As he laboriously lifted the door from the ground to raise it back into its hinges, he heard steps near the basement door. Pale and scared, Seonghwa listened to the eerie knock that came from upstairs.

"You can't hide forever, Seonghwa. If you don't do your job, then I have no further use for you." Hongjoong's voice carried over the raging storm unnaturally. Too scared to reply, Seonghwa merely hooked the door up and closed it with trembling hands. He had no key, so another rusty bolt had to suffice.

He realized he was a fool to think that doors would stop Hongjoong. But the little flutter of hope in his chest mostly derived from frenzied desperation, anyway. Even if Seonghwa knew he couldn't win, he was not yet to give up.

Still, he ducked and protected his head with his hands when the first rough hit slammed against the door upstairs. Something far more massive and powerful than Hongjoong's little human body repeatedly crashed against the rattling door. At the third bang, the first boards broke under the heavy weight. A thick, dark tentacle slithered through the opening for a moment before it pulled back. Seonghwa's horrified scream echoed through the cave.

Hongjoong reached in to open the bolt with some difficulties. The rusty metal lodged quickly, and he clearly had no patience left to deal with it. One rough yank later, he already broke the door open and flung it to the side.

Seonghwa cowered in his corner and wrapped his arms around his knees. His blood rushed through his veins loud enough that he barely heard anything else and neither could he differ it from the waves nearby.

Like a murderous angel, Hongjoong stepped in to halt on the other side of the bars. His mocking eyes looked down on Seonghwa's form that scaredly rocked back and forth with contempt.

"I know why I never trust you humans. Not only are you weak, but you also betray anything unfamiliar to you. You just hate the unknown." He stretched out his hand to rip the door from its hinges after Seonghwa had tried so hard to put it up. The man flinched and scrambled further away. Fear and uncertainty about what Hongjoong was going to do to him fuelled his limbs. Yet, even as adrenaline rushed through him, he had nowhere to put it to use. Hongjoong hadn't sustained a single scratch from the chair, and Seonghwa had nowhere to go. He had trapped himself.

When Hongjoong stepped into the cell near Seonghwa, the man curled up in a foetal position to protect as much of his body as possible. His hope was in vain when Hongjoong reached out to grab his hair brusquely. With a painful yank at his roots that had tears springing into Seonghwa's eyes and some strands of black locks tumble to the ground, Hongjoong forced him up. Seonghwa weakly scratched at his hands as he knelt in front of the god. Powerless and entirely at his mercy, Seonghwa dropped all defences. He merely pleaded with his swimming eyes.

Hongjoong remained ruthless.

"Tell me what you know."

Seonghwa tried to shake his head, but the man's tight grip on him blockaded his movements.

"I can't. I don't remember a thing!"

He had tried so hard. So hard to seal the evil away. But it had regathered its strength. Seonghwa saw no escape anymore. No way to avert the certain demise that was about to dawn upon him.

Dissatisfied, Hongjoong pulled even harsher until a protesting whine tumbled from Seonghwa's lips. The need to laugh came up in him again because the situation was so grave and yet ridiculous, but his wobbling lips kept him from another stupid mistake.

"Where did you hide it?! Answer me!"

Crying, Seonghwa shook his head. The tears stuck to his cheeks and his mouth was contorted in a grimace between a grin and a sob. He had no worth. Hongjoong would get nothing from him. The Seonghwa of the past had been prepared to sacrifice his life to keep the furious god at bay.

Having decided over his future so far in the past like that felt unfair to Seonghwa. At the same time, he found it funny. He had really tricked a god.

"That damn orb. Where did you put the last orb? There were four? Oh, you fooled me so well! All my effort. I made you trust again, got you this far! Only for you to betray me once more! Where is that damn orb?!

A desperate chuckle escaped from Seonghwa. It mixed with a pained moan as he arched his back to try to accommodate the grip on his scalp. Hongjoong's eyes burned with icy flames as he stared down at him hatefully.

"Please... I don't know, Hongjoong, I don't know. I can't recall." His laughter took some seriousness from the situation. Yet, he knew he had lost when Hongjoong tipped his chin back. His angered voice dropped to icy coldness again.

"Well, then I will help you recall."

With that, one of his tentacles appeared behind him. Before Seonghwa knew what its intentions were, it already thrust down his throat. Black symbols flashed in front of his eyes as it forced its way deeper, ripping up his throat and breathing ways from the inside. The consciousness slipped from him as he slackened in Hongjoong's grip. All that he knew were pain and darkness.

With the darkness came a dream. Or a vision, given that he wasn't asleep. It tasted bile like the tentacle on his tongue and carried the ominous dread of death and pain.

Seonghwa walked along the shore in an image scarily similar to this current one. It was a younger version of him, a less mature one. But old enough to recognise the danger that surrounded him in the very air. He had already read those messages in those bottles before. And he found bodies just how he had done at his second visit. Just as he had written in his letter, R'yleh hadn't changed in those ten years in between his first stay and ever since Seonghwa had returned here.

To him, Hongjoong appeared as a shipwrecked apprentice of the navy. He claimed to have got hurt during his accident and that he needed Seonghwa to patch him up. Ever so kindred to help, Seonghwa did. But he soon saw through the lies. He studied the cult symbols all around and recognised the powerful entity that visited his dreams as the god invading his mind. Madness gnawed on him, but the goal to survive and stop Cthulhu from rising carried his wits. Back then, his youthful spirit had been harder for Hongjoong to manipulate.

Seonghwa found the three pits that later served as protective circles as mass graves. And he cleared them out to place the orbs inside that he seemed to create by trapping the scales he found in Hongjoong's personal belongings in the black glass. The glass stemmed from an odd stone he found outside that looked like the meteorites that sometimes fell from the skies to crash on the earth. Him of the past presumed that this was how Hongjoong had arrived here in his other form. From a world far from theirs, that harboured monsters just like him.

Current Seonghwa would call him foolish for his fantastic mind. But he couldn't help but think that the boy had been close to the truth.

After the orbs were sealed away, Seonghwa created another orb. But the angle of the dream was all wrong. Seonghwa couldn't see where he put it and what he did with it. The only thing that he knew was that he didn't wander off. He stayed in the very same location, in the lighthouse. And he wrote everything for later reference and sealed the bottle in the same way by creating a material that repelled Hongjoong.

A few days later, Hongjoong fell asleep. He laid motionlessly on the bed, and the fog in the island's distance lifted. Seonghwa escaped with a boat that travelled by and spotted him flickering the light of the tower. He got home, and the boat was destroyed years later by the rage of the oceans. But Seonghwa survived while Hongjoong searched for ways to get him back. Then, there was just darkness again.

When the tentacle pulled from Seonghwa abruptly, he heaved, throwing up right in front of his feet. Blood mixed with the black slimy liquid he retched up. It pooled in front of him and splashed over his infected hand. Despite his disgust with the liquid, Seonghwa didn't bother to move away from it.

Hongjoong stood above him with a dark face. Barely enough light fell through the trapdoor to light his features. When Seonghwa weakly rose his head to look at him, the man's face pulled into a snarl. Seonghwa's sight was blurry and his throat ached from the rough treatment it had sustained. A migraine banged around in his skull.

As Hongjoong crouched in front of him slowly, Seonghwa wanted to pull back from him. But his shaking muscles had locked in place. On his hands and knees, he stared at the cruel god. The gentle touch of his fingers on Seonghwa's skin made him flinch.

"Did you have fun, little one? Did you enjoy toying with me?" His whisper was scarily sympathetic. Pure poison carried in his tone. Seonghwa shook harder as more tears spilt over his cheeks. His fear threatened to swallow him and sunk him into hysteria. The need to push Hongjoong and scratch his own face off overwhelmed the man.

"Leave me alone... You are not real. You never were. You are a hallucination." Pitiful, he closed his eyes to try to get rid of Hongjoong's face so close to his. He was terrified for his life. Rhythmically, he rocked his body back and forth.

"I never was, indeed. I am a god. A mere order of mine can destroy your pathetic world. And yet, you played with me as if I were an insect, Park Seonghwa. You allowed yourself a lot." As his fingers travelled along Seonghwa's jaw, they left sticky goo behind. Trembling, Seonghwa tried to ignore how it tickled on his skin. He imagined it seep in, imagined it create the same holes in his skin, and he hated that paranoia. Hongjoong's madness took his very sanity away from him.

"I didn't want that. I didn't-"

"You were the one to lock me up. You were the one to tie me to this island and force me to withhold my powers." Still threateningly quiet, Hongjoong dropped his hand. The sudden loss of touch had Seonghwa's stomach plummet.

"I didn't." Seonghwa didn't hear his own voice anymore.

"You forced me to become like this. Treated me like a dog even though you knew who I was!" Hongjoong's voice rose again. When he stood abruptly, Seonghwa moved further back. He pressed his forehead to the cold ground of the cave, grovelling in front of the god. Salty tears touched upon his lips fresh and warm. Every breath hurt and rattled in his chest.

"I didn't. I swear I didn't. I never wanted to anger you."

"You dreamt up a pretty boy in my stead. How was it? Pretending I was another one? Did you enjoy my attention on you, mortal?"

A sinister chuckle followed those words. It echoed from the walls as if stabbing into Seonghwa's brain like multiple vicious needles. Pain throbbed behind his eyes.

"I didn't know! I didn't know you were him!"

"Oh, you knew. I just made you forget."

As if his words triggered the barricade, another vision flashed in Seonghwa's mind. Of him with Hongjoong. How he embraced the creature that he was. Tentacles were around him, in him, on him. They caressed his skin as he made love to a mass of hundreds of eyes on a formless, tentacled glob. The squelching sounds he remembered were not natural.

Seonghwa vomited again, crashing to the side from how weak he felt. Everything hurt and trembled, and the image in his mind repelled him. He clawed on his skin as it showed again and again. What he had slept with had never been a pretty boy. Just a monster. The sheer aversion that pulled Seonghwa's guts apart made him nauseous.

Hongjoong barked out a cruel laugh at his state. He didn't even mind how Seonghwa laid in his own puke. It didn't even smell of any food or stomach acids. Just salty like the sea. Seonghwa believed to see something moving within the black goo.

"Did you enjoy sleeping with a god? Did you feel the power that you will never regain?" Mocking, Hongjoong looked down on him even as Seonghwa's tears mixed with the rest of the mess.

"I... didn't. I didn't sleep with you. I never did."

Hongjoong only shook his head at that. Then, his feet stepped away from Seonghwa.

"Try to remember again. Let's talk again once you're coherent again."

As he left the basement, Seonghwa wanted to die. He just wanted it all to end. He couldn't bear the images in his mind, the sticky goo on his skin. He couldn't.

After a few agonising seconds, Seonghwa got to his knees again. Clammy sweat stuck to his skin and blood smeared most of him. His throat was violated and raw from the suckers that had ripped at his flesh. Every breath and notion felt fragile as if his body wouldn't be able to hold up with him much longer.

Tormented, Seonghwa looked around. And his eyes caught onto a stone in the wall.

It looked just the same as any other, but he remembered it. That particular stone. As grey and unsuspecting as it was in the entire spectrum of the wall, it buried a secret. A secret that only Seonghwa knew. Was it still there?

He crawled over on his hands and knees and didn't care how the rough ground ripped up his skin and shredded it on the way. With trembling hands, he reached out for the stone and wedged it from the wall. Barely enough strength to complete the action remained in his limbs. Yet, after a few troubled moments, he ripped the rock from its place. Cold and heavy, it dropped on the ground next to him. A hidden compartment appeared behind.

Seonghwa reached in and touched something cool and solid. When he wrapped his hand around it and pulled it out, a dagger, smooth and with a hilt made of bone greeted him. The slender blade was deeply black and ornate carvings of tentacles and scales decorated the grip.

When the tentacles once more reminded Seonghwa of what he had done, he nearly dropped the knife. Disgust so primal and fierce welled up in his chest that he wanted to rip his every organ apart and scrub his skin from his body until nothing remained that had ever contacted those things.

For the split of a second, Seonghwa looked between the dagger and his crotch.

When the knife came down the first time, immeasurable pain flared in his body. His wails and screams echoed from the walls and filled the room with white-hot agony.

When the knife came down the seventh time, he barely felt anything anymore. He merely grinned brokenly under the film of sweat and salty stickiness that his tears and the air created.

Outside, the ocean still raged.

Seonghwa fell over. He was covered in blood and black goo. Weak as he was, he barely managed to use his legs anymore. And yet, he didn't die. He just couldn't die.

By the time he understood it was Hongjoong who kept him alive and who decided his fate, Seonghwa didn't feel anymore. Empty and lifeless, he laid on the icy ground. His hand still clutched the bloodied knife tightly.

Idly, he dug around in his hand with the tip. The holes in his skin carried little parasites. As he scraped them out to drop them on the ground, they wriggled away like tiny black worms or tentacles.

Obsessed with removing them all from his body, Seonghwa spent the next indefinite amount of time digging around. He didn't care how the holes ripped open or blood spilt from them. He just dug deeper into his flesh while his stomach had long since stopped cramping. After his hand came his feet, and he stabbed every parasite he dropped from his skin. Only when they were a heap of dismembered slime on the ground, unmoving, he was satisfied.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he got to his feet the next time. Weak, his knees shook beneath him, but he pushed forward still. The knife rested in his hand as he slowly made his way up the stairs. It took him forever to reach the top and blood tickled on his feet from the large wound that his middle had become.

And yet, he felt better. Free from the grotesque thing that had connected him with the creature.

Hongjoong stood on the boulders next to the lighthouse. His longing eyes were directed at the sea as the waves crashed against the stones beneath him. They seemed to reach for each other, him and the ocean. Seonghwa would like nothing more than seeing them unite and disappear where they would bother nobody ever again.

Seonghwa dragged his damaged body over heavily. He left a trail of blood behind him, but the rain washed it away instantly. The ground drunk up the mixture with greed. It probably fuelled the living body that R'yleh was.

Climbing the rocks was exasperating. Seonghwa couldn't move through his injuries and everything worked against him. He made it up a few metres before he gave up. With a sob, Seonghwa crashed on his knees behind Hongjoong. He lost the knife from his hand and it lodged between two stones. When Hongjoong turned, he didn't spot it.

"Look what we have here. Seems like someone came to their senses. Or lost their mind entirely." His pleased eyes slid over Seonghwa's bloodied form. Pale and hanging onto his senses sparsely, Seonghwa stared at the ground in front of him. All strength had left him, and he only breathed in the wreck that his body had become.

A pool of blood gradually formed beneath him.

"Kill me. Please kill me."

His lips cracked open as he pleaded with the god. And yet, Hongjoong shook his head with mild annoyance.

"I can't. Not before you freed me." A distasteful sneer adorned his face. He turned back to the sea, not interested in Seonghwa and his business. The man squeezed his scratched up knees until his fingers became white and he left bloody handprints on them.

"I did everything I could. I brought you those orbs, I became your sacrifice! Now, please... Please leave me alone," Seonghwa quietly sobbed and screamed at him at the same time. He didn't know anymore. Nothing mattered.

Hongjoong ignored him. With crossed arms, he kept his eyes on the waves and the reefs that they covered.

Wailing, Seonghwa crashed down onto the ground. All hope had left him and nothing but darkness filled his heart. Darkness, and murderous intent.

When Seonghwa's eyes fell onto the knife, he made his foolish decision. Even if it was worth nothing and he wouldn't be able to kill Hongjoong. Maybe at least he would strike back and end things when he felt attacked. Seonghwa had nothing to lose anymore. They both were stuck here until all eternity.

The knife laid in his hand perfectly balanced. His first attempt at standing failed when his leg gave up beneath him. The second one succeeded.

Hongjoong still didn't mind him. Maybe he didn't even hear him coming closer from how loud the wind roared around their ears.

With his fingers tight around the grip of the knife so it wouldn't slip away from the rain, Seonghwa lunged at him.

The knife slashed through Hongjoong's back top to bottom. What spilt out of him was a mess of dark green to black tentacles. Lathered in black blood, they exploded in Seonghwa's face. The hit threw him back, and the knife got stuck in Hongjoong's lower back.

With a roar that shook the earth beneath them, Hongjoong whipped around to him. His skin frayed and thinned as if the rest of him was bursting out of the skin he wore.

Yelling, Seonghwa scrambled up. Adrenaline fuelled him when he jumped forward once more. And with a single desperate shove, he pushed Hongjoong towards the thunderous water. In his moment of surprise, Hongjoong could just open his mouth and eyes wide. Then, he lost his balance.

The man's protesting yell got swallowed by the waves. Seonghwa staggered back with wide eyes when he disappeared as if he had never been there in the first place. He was gone, and when he didn't resurface after another minute, Seonghwa couldn't fight his surprise. For a while, he froze with new strength as he digested the development.

Had he actually got rid of the man? Had he just... Killed him just like that?

Was that possible? Was it possible to kill the god while he was subdued? He had never thought about it.

With a disbelieving chuckle, Seonghwa searched the nearby waters for him again. Nothing, not even a piece of fabric came back.

"I did it... I actually did it."

So this was his legacy. This was what he had been supposed to do all along. Hongjoong bled when stabbed. Of course, he could also die.

Seonghwa momentarily forgot his pain as he pushed his short hair back. The rain aided him to keep it out of his face as he let his bafflement run free.

He had survived. And Hongjoong was gone. Would the fog lift again? Would the curse on R'yleh disappear? Endless options offered themselves from now on. Seonghwa should get back into the lighthouse and patch up his wounds. He could do it just like last time and toggle the light until a nearby boat found him and brought him home.

Seonghwa could go home.

The man nearly collapsed when all the tension fell from his shoulders. At once, he felt weightless and freed from all worries. Nothing mattered. He could do this. Finally, he saw a thin ray of hope on the horizon again.

Just when Seonghwa suspiciously eyed the ocean one last time to be really sure, something tickling at his feet divided his attention. When he stared at his ankles questioningly, he found that the water had risen. It caressed his skin hungrily as if it wanted to lap him up.

R'yleh was sinking.

Hurried, Seonghwa retreated to the lighthouse. As far as he knew, it was the tallest spot on the island. Only those obelisks were higher, but they were impossible to scale. Maybe if he found some equipment inside. He just needed to wait long enough until a ship might come by. But without the curse and the storm, he might utilise any possible driftwood to escape the reefs that disappeared beneath the sea. Now that no angry god was there to hold him back, Seonghwa's powers outweighed his fear.

Seonghwa cumbersomely climbed up the lighthouse. Everything remained as Hongjoong had left it but without the man hunched over it. Fascinated by how much his absence brightened and warmed the room, Seonghwa continued. First, he had to light the tower. And then, he could just wait and nurse his wounds.

The steps leading up felt unnecessary numerous for his wobbly legs. Seonghwa gritted his jaw through the pain that pulled on him as he dragged his grimy form up the stairs.

On top, he activated the lever that fuelled the lighthouse. Soon, the light moved at regular intervals. Spookily lost, the light beam travelled over the ocean.

Just as Seonghwa turned to retreat into the lower floor and patch up his wounds, an irregular movement in the sea distracted him. For a moment, he stuck around to watch out over the raging and constantly shifting surface beneath him.

The darkness of the light tricked him into thinking something was moving underneath the surface. The ocean shimmered greener than before and had got oddly bright from within. Whenever the light of the tower skimmed over the waves Seonghwa recognised it must just be the torrents and the pushing of smaller waves beneath. And yet, he couldn't help but remain rooted to the spot.

Something was in there. Something colossal.

Seonghwa flinched when thunder suddenly rolled over the sky. Out here, it was deafeningly loud. The storm must have been right above him, so he rose his eyes to search the skies for the accompanying lightning.

What he found, wasn't just clouds, however. While a mass of them had accumulated right above him and the lighthouse, they surrounded some odd pictures in the sky. Seonghwa blinked his eyes in disbelief in them.

Some clouds appeared like a shred in the sky. As if somebody had painted a few stars on it and held it in front of them.

Seonghwa didn't understand what he was seeing. The clouds moved in front of those several spots, and they remained in the same place despite the hefty winds.

When thunder crashed again, Seonghwa had to cower and press his hands to his ears. The pressure on his brain was enormous. Could his head burst of noise? Seonghwa was scared to find out. The next time he looked into the sky, the shred had increased. Beyond were only stars and galaxies as he knew them from pictures. They were far too close, far too big. As if the clouds, no, the sky was ripping apart.

Shivering, Seonghwa tumbled back.

Something wasn't right. He had seen no storm ever do this before. Had the end of the world actually dawned upon him? Was this how islands sunk into the ocean?

His heart dropped at the thought that he was still here. And not only as a beholder but as someone who would need to find a way out of this situation still. Or else the ocean and the skies would swallow him just like the rest of the lands.

When more icy rain hit Seonghwa's face in a splash, he gingerly moved back to the glass front. While his human mind couldn't fathom the true happenings around him, he very much recognised the danger.

Just as Seonghwa turned to stumble down the stairs and hide away again, a voice entered his mind. A distorted and deep voice that spoke a language he knew he wasn't supposed to understand. But he did anyway. It echoed in the back of his head as if it had penetrated his very mind.

You have fulfilled our pact.

Seonghwa swallowed and drove around again. Nothing was behind him. The voice had only been in his head. Yet, he stood petrified. The fog that surrounded the island naturally had thickened even more. It created a wall so impenetrable that Seonghwa could barely see out over the ocean anymore. The rips in the cosmos surrounded it.

Something moved in the fog.

At the next bolt of lightning, Seonghwa's mouth dropped open in shock.

A gigantic tentacle, big enough to probably wrap around the whole lighthouse and crush it with a single touch floated behind the fog.

Seonghwa crashed to the ground when his legs gave up their service. Shaking, he sat there and pressed his bloodied hand on his lips. The panic attack that seized him stopped his heart from beating. Tears wet his eyes, but he didn't know why or where they had come from.

The fog seemed to rise from the ocean up instead of rolling over it. The thunder and lightning originated from within the thick wall that shrouded the creature in mystery.

Seonghwa hadn't noticed the surrounding candles before. Now that he sat on the ground and watched the happenings in awe and utter hysteria, he spotted the circle they drew around the railing. Their waving flames defied the wind and rain.

"Our pact?" His lips whispered soundlessly.

You freed me.

The wind rushed into Seonghwa's face, taking his every breath from him. It couldn't be.

"You? Who are you?"

Seonghwa couldn't move anymore. He could only stare. At the gigantic creature that hid from his sight. Somewhere between the cosmic sky and the ocean beneath.

I am the Great Old One. Cthulhu. And I thank you for being a loyal servant of mine.

Seonghwa was no servant. He had served nobody. What had happened? Where had he gone wrong? Hadn't his entire plan had been never to free the slumbering one? How had he messed up this bad?

Still entranced, Seonghwa kept watching. There was nothing he could do anymore, nothing to avert the certain downfall of the world. He had unshackled the god, and he would see his end for it. After all his efforts, nothing had kept the god from making the humans his tools to reach his goal.

Fragile and hanging only onto a thin thread, Seonghwa's sanity screamed at him how wrong this was. That no creature like this could exist and that he had to wake from his dream. But Seonghwa only saw the universe bending under his might and he couldn't agree with his meagre human brain.

You can barely stand but here you are. To witness a spectacle no man will ever perceive again.

"What will happen? Will I die?"

Death is such a tiny fraction of life. Your kind fears it as if everything only ever focuses on that and you forget to live as you do. Don't fear it. Fear what is beyond it.

"What is beyond death?"

Seonghwa got no answer.

Gradually, more and more of the sky split open. The waves crashed higher and louder, but they couldn't lift the thick mist ahead. Right where Hongjoong had painted the monstrosity to be. Had him uniting with the ocean been the last push? Or had the knife set him free? Seonghwa would never know.

Something in the air altered. All at once, everything froze as if time itself had stopped. The raindrops around Seonghwa halted in the air. The clouds and fog had slowed in their frenzied movement. Not even the waves rushed anymore.

Everything stood still.

Seonghwa could still move. He got to his knees and stretched out his hand to one of the frozen drops of water. Upon his touch, it dispersed into smaller drops.

"What's going on?"

Reality as you know it ends here.

With that, a gush of wind so violent and forceful that it threw Seonghwa over hit him. He crashed into the glass wall that shattered behind him. Seonghwa acted in time to keep most of the shards from raining into his face, but some cut deep into his flesh, anyway. He barely minded them. As soon as the wind stopped, he opened his eyes again.

Darkness. Everything was dark. He couldn't see as if night had dawned upon him from one second to the next. Above him and far too close, the cosmos stretched. Open and vulnerable and so endlessly vast.

Seonghwa turned his head. The fog seemed to pull him in, to ask him to come closer. Everything had frozen again. Everything but him.

Seonghwa stood on trembling legs. One step closer to the edge, another. The island seemed to tremble from within. Beneath him, the tower and the cliffs broke apart to unite with the ocean. The railing had broken and bent under the impact of the wind, so Seonghwa came to stand on the edge of the lighthouse. With his breath held and eyes wide open, he stared into the fog.

Another flash of light exposed the fully formed creature.

An enormous beast, taller than any tower Seonghwa had ever seen. With a skin made of scales like that of a snake and two humanoid arms with claws large enough to grab entire ships and smash them to bits.

Wings reached over its back, huge like those of a dragon from ancient myths.

And its face was full of tentacles.

The image was there only for a split second, but it sufficed. From one moment to the next, the thin thread of Seonghwa's sanity snapped. Lost, his mind disconnected from his body.

No human could understand the being that this beast was. No human was ever meant to lay eyes on a god.

Empty, Seonghwa looked ahead. He had lost all will and consciousness. For a moment, he didn't know what to do, since everything around him was too mighty and complex for his empty head. Nothing but a void filled him.

The god aided him, however. The call of Cthulhu reached him one last time after having brought him this far. This far into lunacy and insanity. Further than any other had ever come since they had succumbed to madness long before him.

Come.

Seonghwa looked down at his feet. At the small edge, that separated him from the god. Beneath, only the dark and stormy boulders that had yet to disappear beneath the water awaited him. No human could survive the impact.

But Seonghwa wasn't human anymore. He had transcended onto a plane beyond. His understanding of the universe and what was real and what was fabricated had reached far more than theoretical understanding. Cosmic secrets laid open for him just after those stones.

A single step separated him from them.

Seonghwa took it.

And he fell.

********

Hello! So, first of all, this was a very different writing experience for me and I'm very happy about every comment and feedback you guys gave me! Thanks a lot for making it until here despite the 'sad end'!!

Currently, I'm doing a poll about what to write next on my twitter (Susimau_s) Either I channel my inspiration of the kingdom stage into another pirate AU or I write the one I originally planned about dreams ^^ Either way a few one shots will follow on this way, so check those out if you're interested ^^

Now, most credits of ideas here go to HP Lovecraft, the maker of Cthulhu and the makers of The Shore (beautiful game and the narrator has a great voice if somebody wants to check it out now). Some quotes in here are from that, too!

Again, thanks to everybody to reading! And see you soon~