Public health officials announced the discovery of a new pestilence. Its symptoms were like those of influenza—chills, fever, aches— but those were just the early signs. After a day or two, the disease’s viciousness would devastate the body. The capillaries swelled and burst, and blood poured out through the pores and orifices. One’s temperature could reach up to boiling point, shutting down organs one by one.

  Some doctors had observed their afflicted patients oozing out thick, bloody, soft stools, and after studying a sample under the microscope lens, they discovered that these stools were gooey chunks of melted organs. As they cried tears of blood, most sufferers begged to be killed.

  Then, a few weeks after the discovery of the pestilence—dubbed as the “Crimson Tide”—, the government declared a national emergency. There was no escape. No other allied country that hadn’t yet been infected would kindly open their door to evacuees. Planes were turned around, and ships were docked. Not only that, but cargo trucks were halted at the borders. And so, naturally, the country plummeted into chaos as its panicking citizens, blinded by fear, robbed and killed for limited resources.

  As the months dragged on, the country’s population had more than halved. Society had collapsed within itself. I journeyed from the inland cities to the coast, witnessing the devastation. Morgues could no longer store the bodies, so hundreds were left outside to rot, soaking the streets with the ever-flowing stream of the Crimson Tide.

  I was unbothered by the suffering, not because I lacked empathy for those sufferers, but because I had foreseen the event. I had lived through similar plagues many years ago as well. War, famine, pestilence, and death. I was used to such tragedies. They were inherent traits of human civilization.

  Despite all this, peace and beauty could still be found in tiny pockets throughout the nation. By dawn, I finally reached the destination where my calling had pulled me. An abandoned lighthouse. I was supposed to wait for a guest. The stove and the water in the kettle and the stove were still warm. The candle on the dining table was still aflame. Whoever had been here must’ve sensed my arrival then fled out of fear for their life. That was what sometimes would happen whenever I came within the vicinity of anyone with a heartbeat.

  I ascended the spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse, embracing the fresh sea breeze and taking in the breathtaking sight of the expansive sea. While most people had no other choice but to make do with scraps to survive on the mainland, a very thin, yet effervescently wealthy sliver of the population sought refuge on private islands. About a couple miles off the coast was one such island. Prospero Island. It was owned by an enigmatic high-tech tycoon. He only went by a single name: The Duke.

  At night, one could see the bright festive lights shimmering like a pulsing beacon of hope in the dark. But there was no escape. Of course, one could delay the dreaded meeting with Death, but not for long. Every one of us would eventually meet our end.

  The next morning, my long-awaited guest, the Duke, arrived in a sailboat crashing into the rocky shore below. The wind and waves were particularly violent that hour. He was slumped over at the helm, barely clinging to consciousness. Still, he managed to climb out of the wreckage, seemingly unharmed. He struggled on the way up to the lighthouse, fighting against the rough winds.

  As soon as he got inside, he collapsed into a chair, shivering in his soaked tuxedo. With shaky hands, he grabbed a mug from the table and guzzled the water. Some color returned to his pale cheeks and blue lips. Being a little more alert, he scanned his surroundings, jumping in surprise when our eyes met. Scrambling to his feet, he backed into a corner with the chair as a barrier between us.

  “If you let me stay for a couple days,” the Duke started to say, fidgeting with the large gold and silver rings on his fingers. “I’ll reward you greatly, I promise. I’ll be out of here soon; I just need a place to rest.”

  He took off one of the rings and offered it to me. “Here, take this as the first payment for your troubles.”

  I shook my head. Money and jewelry meant nothing to me. These days, they were worthless to everyone. “You can rest, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  He sighed in relief and fixed the ring back on his finger. “You’ve no idea what I’ve been through, what kind of horror I've seen...”

  I chuckled. I already knew every last detail of what he’d been through.

  The Duke relaxed and started stripping off his wet tuxedo, ordering me to hand him a set of dry clothes. His face, particularly around the jaw, tightened when I didn’t move an inch to follow the order. Huffing and puffing like a frustrated child, he went up to the second floor and rummaged through the closet and drawers. He came back down wearing a pair of brown trousers and a tunic that looked like they’d been fashioned from flour sacks.

  Looking me up and down with a judgmental eye, he suggested that I treat myself to better clothes, promising that once society returned to normalcy, he’d connect me with his tailor who could give me a discount on a brand-new suit.

  “And I know a surgeon,” he added, squinting his eyes to get a better look at me. “He could probably help you with whatever you find undesirable about yourself. Is that why you’re wearing a mask? Or are you going to a masquerade?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he reminisced aloud about his old life while raiding the fridge. He wolfed down a few cold sausage links and tore off a chunk of bread with his teeth. He washed down all the food with wine he found in one of the cabinets.

  Now, with his hunger satiated, the Duke leaned back in the chair, patting his swollen belly. He asked, “So, have you been here since the world had gone to shit?”

  “I’ve traveled far and wide, witnessing the destruction that the Crimson Tide left in its wake.”

  “I’ve also seen what the disease could do. Horrible! You just have no idea what I’ve seen! Oh, just horrible! I was on my island. I thought I was...” his voice faded, and he guzzled his wine, thinking perhaps the booze would make him forget. But it only brought the nightmare closer to the surface, with every vivid detail flashing before his eyes.

  ***

  Long before the Crimson Tide revealed itself to an unsuspecting public, the Duke had heard whispers of impending doom through friendly channels. Once the word had spread in hushed corners, he moved quickly. While some of his peers hurried to their underground bunkers or isolated castles in the mountains, he escaped to Prospero Island on his yacht.

  Along with his wife and grown son, he invited hundreds of other nobles and celebrities. And since they’d have to shelter in place for God knows how long, he booked dozens of entertainers—dance troupes, musicians, and a circus act—as well as a petting zoo of exotic animals.

  Prospero possessed every modern convenience and comfort. Sprawled across the land was a palatial-like resort with crystal-clear pools, manicured gardens, banquet halls, and hundreds of suites for the Duke’s distinguished and wealthy guests. There was even a self-checkout grocery store and a garage where guests could pick out the finest cars and race around the island. Over a hundred servants, maids, and cooks ensured that the lavish getaway ran as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

  For many of the guests, the chaos of the Crimson Tide was as distant as the violent storms of Jupiter. The suffering of those on the mainland was too far removed for even a moment’s thought.

  Prospero was its own world. Feasts ran from dawn to dusk. Wine and champagne poured into glasses as endlessly as rivers flowed to and from the ocean. Delicacies marched out of the kitchen to the delight of the guests’ palates. The revelers roamed the island, shamelessly drunk, with their clothes strewn haphazardly across the land as they indulged their desires.

  Unbeknownst to them, there were small, hidden cameras nestled in every tree and angled in every which way. And as the revelers lost themselves in their reckless abandon, the Duke sat upon his throne in the observation room. With sharpened eyes, he scanned a wall of screens. He couldn’t be more pleased by the sheer joy of his guests.

  Then, as he peered closer at the screens, he spotted something out of the ordinary. Something that, despite all of his extensive vetting, was simply not supposed to be.

  There were three uninvited guests—two in tuxedos and another in a dress. At first, he thought he was imagining them. But as he rubbed his eyes and looked again, he knew that this was not to be. The intruders stuck out like plain sedimentary rocks among a trove of diamonds and gems. Though they wore the appropriate formal attire for the festivities, their clothes looked ragged and old and were frayed at the edges.

  Their battered-looking animal masks—a pig, a bull, and a lamb—were crude and haunting. As if they knew they were being watched, they stared back at him through the cameras. The Duke could see nothing but eternal darkness in their hollow eye holes.

  The Pig sat at the long table, not eating but watching the party unfold around it. On another screen, the Bull glided down corridors and circled around the swimming pool. And then, the Lamb pranced about in the gardens before entering the ballroom, where the guests whirled and twirled in throes of passion, in time with graceful music. What the Duke couldn’t understand was that no one seemed to notice them.

  The Duke couldn’t allow the three strangers to remain on the island. Their trespass was a breach of the health code. Every guest and staff member had been tested for disease prior to admittance, and he suspected that this uninvited trio had not been cleared.

  He ordered the guards to detain the trespassers. However, his security team returned empty-handed, claiming there wasn’t a single trace of any of them. Growing ever more frustrated, he decided to find them himself. So as not to alarm the guests, he coolly waltzed into the rowdy banquet hall and settled himself at the head of the table. At the opposite end, he found the Pig sitting. While the partiers occupied themselves with cakes, pies, and unlimited amounts of liquor, the Duke and the Pig quietly stared each other down.

  "Enjoying yourself?” he asked, bitterly.

  The Pig gave no reply, not even a nod.

  Mustering up the courage for a confrontation, the Duke downed a glass of wine in two large gulps. He marched over to the other end of the long table, ready to haul the Pig off the island. Perhaps, he'd throw it off the high cliff into the water just for kicks. But as they came face to face, those words that he wanted to scream only came out softly and weakly from his lips, “You don’t belong here. You’re not one of us…”

  Without breaking its stare, the Pig rose from its seat, towering over the Duke. Then, it spoke in a low, gruff voice, reminiscent of a metal object being dragged slowly across asphalt, “We shall eat up your harvest and your food, your sons and daughters, your flocks and herds, your vines and fig trees. And the walls you trust to protect you from the world, shall be beaten down with the sword.”

  The Duke paled. “What do you mean by that? I’ll call my guards to—”

  The Pig continued to stare through him, repeating its verse like a mantra.

  “Security!” he shouted, frantically searching around.

  The hall quieted. All eyes turned to him.

  “What’s the matter?” asked his son, the Prince, who was visibly annoyed at his father for killing such a joyful mood.

  The Duke pointed at the Pig. “We’ve an intruder—three of them, in fact! Get security now!”

  “Okay, old man, I think you’ve had enough to drink. It’s past your bedtime.”

  The guests howled with laughter, angering the Duke. He slammed his fist on the table, instantly silencing them. “Don’t disrespect me,” he growled. “I could throw all of you into the ocean if I wanted to!”

  The Prince glowered. “I was only joking. Who were you even pointing at, anyway? What intruders?”

  “There are three of them, and one is here in front of me! Can’t you see it?”

  Brows were raised, and whispers fluttered like butterflies. The atmosphere in the room grew dour as guests stared in concern. His wife, the Duchess, urged him to calm his nerves with a cold glass of cognac. He did just that, and gradually the party resumed. The Pig, however, remained by his side, peering down at him with its soulless and hollow eyes. Not a soul could see it but him.

  He began to tremble in fear as his heart pounded loudly in his ears. “W-who are you?” he heard himself ask.

  The Pig didn’t answer. Instead, it roared with deep, manic laughter that towered above the clamor of the boisterous guests. Its laughter was deafening, only to his ears. Shaking with anger and fear, the Duke seized it by the snout and ripped it off, wanting to see who sat and mocked him behind that mask. But there was no mask. The texture was as real as flesh, and his hands were soaked in its blood. There, staring back at him, was the bloodied skull of the Pig, shrieking with laughter.

  Horrified, he flung its fleshy mask onto the table, spattering blood across the food. The guests continued to stuff their mouths and howl with laughter. That is, until one took a bite out of an apple. In sheer revulsion, the guest spat chunks out onto the table. As though they were following some perverse comedy routine, more and more began to gag and spit out their food.

  At every table in the banquet hall, the food had turned rotten. It was covered with mold and infiltrated by pests. The wine, too, had become spoiled. Some found this to be the most vexing aspect of it all.

  ***

  The Duke jolted awake from the loud clang of the window shutters. A storm was brewing outside the lighthouse. The island was no longer visible; a thick, rolling fog had obscured it. He peered outside, only to slam the window shut immediately. Something on the horizon had left him shaken. He scrambled to his feet, knocking over the bottle of wine as he hurried to shut the other windows and lock the front door.

  “It followed me!” he cried.

  “What followed you?” I asked.

  “The Pig! And I’m sure its friends are out there, too. Do you have a gun?”

  “I’ve no need for one.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The wind beat against the house with such intensity that the window shutters flung open. There, walking toward the house, was the Pig, bathing in the murky glow of the lighthouse. Behind the creature stood its two shadowy companions. Just as he had remembered, one wore the head of a bull, and the other hid behind a lamb’s bashful facade.

  The Duke grabbed a large knife off the kitchen counter and crawled under the table, rocking back and forth with his knees against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat quickening. It thundered as loud as the storm.

  *****

  The joyful spree of indulgence came crashing to a halt as the island’s bountiful offerings shriveled into sickly nothingness. Panic swelled as most of the food in the kitchen had suddenly and inexplicably spoiled. To make matters worse, the crops in the fields and gardens had withered, and perhaps most painfully, the animals began to drop dead, whether from starvation or some unknown disease.

  Any food left untouched by this curse was strictly reserved for the Duke, his family, and their guests. In their newfound, dire circumstances the Duke was forced to make an executive decision: not everyone could be fed. Naturally, being no fool, he recognized the necessity of keeping this truth concealed. Instead, half of the servants were forced off the island.

  The Duke provided a half-hearted justification for incidents of food theft and inappropriate fraternization with the guests. When pressed for specific details, he offered no further explanation. He then commanded his guards to seal the gates and secure the doors, requiring his strongest men to fend off the cries of desperation and mounting rage.

  And so, within the grand palatial resort, the party carried on. The remaining servants, kitchen workers, and maids were to be seen but not heard. Yet amongst each other, they brutally fought for whatever crumbs and slop left oh-so-generously behind on the tables. As night fell and the clamor of the festivities momentarily subsided, the guests slouched in drunken stupor. But there would be no peace, and no silence, for in the distance the Duke could hear the moans of gnawing hunger of those left behind outside.

  The Duke hated nothing more than that sound. He couldn’t bear it. One evening, amid a lavish banquet, he simply thought he had heard its faint echoes outside of a window. And so, he pounded his fists on the table, jolting the guests awake. Everyone looked around in bewilderment. Instead of screaming, he demanded that they laugh and tell him whatever jokes and amusing stories they could conjure. In a frenzy, he commanded the musicians to keep playing louder and louder, until their music drowned out the accursed noise from outside.

  But the Duke failed to account for one crucial factor. You see, hunger is a great motivator for violence. Not even the wails of violins could drown out the deafening cacophony of clashing metal and ravenous shrieks as the front gates were breached. The poor and desperate souls dropped dead, one by one, as security fired upon the mob. The Duke averted his gaze, urging his jesters to laugh harder, and play with greater intensity.

  The doors of the banquet hall came crashing down, torn from their hinges as easily as paper. From every direction, the Duke was confronted by those who had been pushed far beyond their breaking point. Feral rage burned in their eyes, and their frothy mouths salivated for any morsel that had been hoarded away from them. So intense was their hunger, that the notion of consuming human flesh didn’t seem insane in the slightest.

  Among the mob, the Duke spotted the Bull, its chest puffed out in a fierce display of confidence, and its arms spread apart in a gleeful embrace of the enveloping chaos. It appeared as if all this was the creature’s plan, its masterpiece.

  Like a conductor, it waved its arms as if orchestrating the feeding frenzy. The tender parts were the easiest to pluck and swallow. The eyes and tongues were the first to be gouged. Then, with a hard stab from a fork, the guts opened up like steaming minced pies. The organs were the most savored delicacies.

  The Duke stared in utter mortification before narrowly escaping by the skin of his teeth. Along with the Duchess and a few lucky survivors, they managed to leave without being detected. Protected by his most loyal footmen, they were guided to a secure room on ie upper level. They swiftly bolted the doors shut, with armed guards posted outside ready to shoot at the first sign of trouble.

  He counted the survivors one by one. As he reached the end, his heart sank into a bottomless pit. One life, the one that mattered the most, was not among the survivors.

  “Our Prince!” the Duchess cried in despair. Their first-born and only son was gone.

  A horrible thought flashed across his mind: somewhere out there, what remained of the Prince was in the stomach of some wretch. But a thin ray of hope emerged through word of mouth. The Prince was alive. The mob had not devoured him.

  The Duke scanned the screens, switching on every camera and sending out drones to hover areas that the cameras couldn’t reach. Just before one of his drones was shot down, he caught a glimpse of the Prince amidst the bloodied shadows. They poured through the corridors, ascended the stairs and sniffed out noble blood.

  Armed with guns, armored vests and helmets, the guards pressed forward as if stepping into a war zone. However, despite their training and ample supply of bullets, nothing could stop the bloodthirsty horde. The blackest despair pervaded the air, weighing heavily upon the Duke and his companions, as they were forced to listen to the final, agonizing shrieks of those who stood as the final barrier between them and their own demise. All they could do was pray, fiercely protecting what little food and wine they had managed to save.

  “The door’s steel-framed and reinforced with carbon fiber!” the Duke said. “Not even a firing squad with semi-automatics could make a dent in it. We’re safe.”

  He repeated the last two words, over and over. His frightened wife and the surviving guests gazed at him with bewilderment. Those words provided solace only to himself. They reverberated throughout the room, tormenting the survivors with their hollow promise of survival.

  The Duke’s mantra was broken by a guttural roar unlike any other. It ripped through the air, hurtling towards the door. Fate lurked on the other side, and the Duke felt an icy chill creep into his bones. Once again, the entity bellowed in fury, rushing toward their last recourse from the unfolding massacre. The bolts of the door began to tremble.

  Searching the room, he retrieved a sword that had been proudly displayed on the wall. Though originally intended for decorative purposes, it still possessed the potential to inflict significant harm with a forceful thrust.

  The clamor had reached the upper level, and not even the hail of bullets could stop the fury of the mob. The Duke listened, covering his ears to shield himself from the deafening roar of screams, howls, sobbing, and gunfire.

  He was jolted back to his senses as the sturdy metal door was battered. Two sharp, twisting dents marred its surface, forming coarse, pointed protrusions resembling the shape of two long horns.

  He held the sword in front of him, poised to thrust it into the ungrateful horde’s jugular. Oh, he’d cut off all of their heads. Every last one of them! He’d finish them one by one. Though he’d never received formal training, he’d seen enough films to imitate the movements of a skilled swordsman.

  But when the door finally gave away and the Bull stormed into the safe room with seething menace, he froze. The creature had stripped off its tattered tuxedo and stood atop the shattered door. Its muscles glistened with a putrid sheen of sweat and the blood of noble victims, savagely torn apart by its brutish horns. The mob loomed behind, ready to swarm the few remaining survivors.

  “No peace for the wicked!” The Bull grunted, before lowering its horns. When it finally charged, the ravenous crowd swept the Duchess and the guests away.

  The Bull lunged at the Duke, who swung the sword with clumsy desperation. With sheer, blind luck, he managed to strike its left horn. The strike, however, did no harm, but instead seemed to fuel its anger, invigorating the creature further. With a deafening roar, it charged at him once more.

  Clank!

  He steadied himself, despite the slippery floor smeared with blood. The world around him had blurred into a sea of red. Body parts flew in all directions. The Duchess's decapitated head was grotesquely mounted on the mantelpiece, her eyes plucked out and eaten. Blood oozed from her mouth; her tongue was torn off. The loss of his dearest love evoked fleeting sorrow in his heart. Yet, no fear was greater than the thought of his own head being displayed beside hers.

  The Bull pounded its fists against its bare chest like an ancient tribal drum, as if to summon some unknown force in a primal display of power and strength.

  The crowd cheered on.

  The Duke raised the sword, mustering all his courage. With closed eyes and a fervent prayer for a miracle, he swung the blade. The weapon grazed the beast’s thigh, but it continued its relentless charge. Undeterred, he brandished the sword once more, and a long, sharp gash materialized across the creature's back. It howled in pain before resuming its attack. This time, the sword’s tip found its way under the beast’s chin, and then slipped out, coated in blood.

  The Bull stumbled, its legs giving away as it crumpled to the ground. Reaching a hand toward him, the beast let out a mournful cry filled with profound, thunderous grief. It tried to crawl its way to the Duke, its hands groping for any semblance of support.

  He peered down at the dying beast, wondering who hid behind its hideous mask. Kneeling beside it, he noticed something peculiar about its eyes. Unlike the Pig and the Lamb, they possessed a glimmer of humanity. They stared up at him, carrying a hint of sorrow. Drawing in a sharp breath, he reached out and removed the mask… And in that moment, the world around him shattered into fragments.

  There, gasping for his last breath, lay the Prince, his right hand clutching the fatal wound in his neck. The Duke searched the crowd in disbelief, looking for someone else to blame. Once again, his gaze landed on the Bull—the true Bull. It fixed its menacing grin at him from the broken doorway.

  The Duke would rather the crowd had torn him apart. Dear God, how he wished they had. But they merely encircled him in an unsettling silence, observing as he cradled his son in his arms, gently rocking him back and forth.

  ***

  After the Prince’s death, the Duke locked himself into one of the suites. From the balcony window, he watched as lawlessness ran rampant throughout the island. The first thing that assaulted his senses when he poked his head out the window was the odor. The wind carried the stench of burning flesh, akin to rancid meat grilling over an open fire. He felt a wave of nausea as he surveyed the island grounds below, now littered with dismembered body parts. Even the once pristine swimming pools had been tainted with the hue of blood.

  Some, he saw, had the common sense to leave the island. However, their attempt was ill-fated. A large group tried to commandeer the yacht and sail away, although the captain and crew were missing, presumably dead, and no one else knew how to operate it. Others tried to escape on smaller boats. The number of passengers simply became too much, and the boats soon overloaded. With turbulent waters and searing winds, the boats overturned and many drowned. Their bodies floated aimlessly in the water. A select few washed ashore, pale blue and entangled in kelp.

  The chaos soon subsided, yet this would bring no relief. The Crimson Tide swept the land, and more and more collapsed. Their agonized groans shook the sky as they stared up, beseeching a deity to have mercy and end their suffering.

  The Duke wondered how the pestilence had managed to reach the island. After ensuring that every guest and staff member had passed a strict health check, he was convinced that Prospero was the only place in the world where the pestilence couldn’t touch.

  Then he saw the Lamb. It pranced among the corpses in the gardens, energized and enthralled by the final moans of the dying. The creature twirled around, the long skirt of its tattered white dress flaring up with each graceful motion. Everything it touched died. The flowers withered, and the grass blackened. From all directions, the sick and ailing spewed blood and excrement. Chunks of liquefied organs floated in the ever-widening pool of human waste.

  Aghast at what unfolded around him, the Duke was determined to get off the island. He saw his chance when he spotted a boat that had been left at the dock. With grim determination, he took a deep breath, secured a cloth over his nose and mouth, and stepped out. He hurried down several flights of stairs, kicking and shoving off every frail and diseased inhabitant that grasped at his sleeves.

  “Save me!” They cried with blood oozing from their lips and eyes.

  Finally, he burst through the front doors and into the warmth of daylight. Although the stench of death assaulted his senses, he couldn’t help but grin. Yes, finally! Freedom was within his grasp. Energized yet frightened, he hastened toward the docks. However, as he zigzagged and leaped over bodies, he came to a sudden stop. The Lamb appeared before him, its eyes resembling two black holes where sunlight died.

  The Lamb bleated. “Hell does not thank you; death does not praise you,” then stroking the Duke’s cheek with a calloused two-pronged hand— “those who go down to the pit do not hope.”

  Then it removed its drab mask. The Duke stumbled back in terror as he gazed upon the face underneath. Before him was a grinning red skull, with patches of pale skin dangling loosely from its cheek and chin. The Duke picked himself up, shaking breathlessly in abject terror, and stumbled toward the dock. He bolted away from the apparition, occasionally glancing over his shoulder in horror. The Lamb was closing the distance between them, effortlessly gliding over corpses and debris.

  The Duke climbed into the last remaining boat and cried in relief as the engine whirred to life. Everything would be alright, he thought. As he pulled away from the dock, the Lamb dove into the water. With bated breath, he peered over the side, anxiously waiting for it to resurface and attempt to climb aboard, dragging him down to his watery end.

  Slowly, it emerged from the ocean. However, instead of making its way onto the boat, it floated beside him for a while like a drifting piece of kelp. Then, it submerged again. That was when the black clouds rolled in, and waves swelled to the height of mountains, violently rocking the boat.

  He felt the boat teeter sideways, dangerously close to overturning. Just as he thought he would slip into the roaring wet darkness, trapped beneath a sinking vessel, it would wobble back into an upright position. The Pig, the Bull, and the Lamb seemed to taunt him. Lightning streaked across the sky, and for a split second, the silhouettes of the Pig, the Bull, and the Lamb danced above the waves. Thunder roared, booming with mocking laughter.

  The creatures continued their torment, alternately threatening to drown him and then sparing him at the last second, leaving the Duke gripping the steering wheel for dear life. Just as he was about to resign himself to his fate, a blurry light seeped through the dense fog, rekindling his hope. It was the lighthouse, a beacon of salvation in the midst of chaos. The waves seemed to guide the boat toward the light, but not without further teasing, rocking the vessel, and the creatures roaring with laughter, their taunts echoing across the tempestuous sea.

  ***

  The storm outside the lighthouse began to subside, leaving only a gentle whistle as the wind lightly tapped on the shuttered windows and door. The Duke cautiously crawled out from under the table, his knuckles white from gripping his knife tightly. With trepidation, he carefully cracked open the window, allowing for a brief glimpse of the outside. Instantly, he slammed it shut, his eyebrows furrowing in mounting panic.

  His voice quivered. “They’re still out there. The Pig, the Bull, the Lamb. All three of them. They’re just standing outside in the rain!”

  “What do you think they want?” I asked him, curious if he had grasped the answer himself. The answer was plain for all to see.

  His eyes hardened, and his jaws clenched. “I won’t let them take me! They’ve stolen everything I had—my island, my family… but they will never have my soul!”

  “Do you believe you can escape?”

  He glared at me with caution, his gaze fixed on my face, and pointed the knife in my direction. “You’re with them, aren’t you?”

  “I work alone. But occasionally, a few acquaintances and I come together for...” I paused, carefully choosing my words, “...some necessary housecleaning.”

  “Take off that mask!” he demanded, his tone growing increasingly hysterical. “What kind of mask is that anyway? It’s demonic! Are you even human?” He continued to ramble on.

  Suddenly, a violent cough overcame him, causing him to stumble back into the chair, desperately gasping for breath. He coughed into his hand, and as he lowered his gaze to his palm, a wave of panic washed over his face. His complexion flushed with fear, for in that moment, he realized it was only a matter of time until he would succumb to the relentless grip of the Crimson Tide.

  He hastily wiped his hand on the front of his shirt, his mind consumed with panic. Then, in a frenzied manner, he began to ramble incessantly about the whereabouts of a hidden bunker. He insisted that he knew the man who had built it, emphasizing that reaching that refuge was his sole purpose. Urgency coursed through his veins, compelling him to repeat to himself, like a mantra, that he would set off on his journey the following day to rendezvous with his friend. I supposed the thought of finding solace and safety deep underground in that bunker provided him with a modicum of comfort amidst the chaos that surrounded him.

  The cough worsened, its intensity escalating with each sharp breath he struggled to take, accompanied by a raspy gurgling sound that reverberated through the air. Despite his deteriorating condition, he once more raised the knife and demanded that I remove the mask.

  “I need to see your face,” he said.

  “Alright, if you must...”

  I stepped out from the corner, positioning myself in front of him while he shivered, both from fear and the tightening grip of the disease that had worked its way into his bones.

  As I slowly removed the mask, the knife slipped from his trembling fingers, tumbling to the floor with a dull thump. He clutched his chest, his eyes wide with realization. To his horror, he beheld his own reflection, for I have no face of my own. He desperately grabbed at my robe, attempting to pull me closer, only to find emptiness beneath the fabric. In that moment, I merged with him, our essence intertwining. Now I was inside of him, feeling the weakness in his lungs, the fading throb of his heart, and the sickness coursing through his veins, becoming intimately familiar with the depths of his affliction.

  I wormed my way into his ear and whispered, “When your breath departs, you shall return to the earth. On this day, all your plans shall perish. I am your death.” Already, I coursed through his veins, a presence devouring the vitality from his very cells.

  The Duke’s scream of disbelief pierced the air as his hands and feet began to decay, the putrid stench of death filling the room. Wracked with wretched agony, he felt himself slowly wilt like a flower in the midst of a drought.

  The front door began to jolt. It swung open. His fate was sealed. And just before his eyes melted into his skull, the Duke's gaze settled upon the shadowy figures of the Pig, the Bull, and the Lamb.

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