Captain Enrique: "But Mary… just because you were a police informant and read some books by Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie… that doesn't mean you can solve a real case."
Mary, smugly: "Don't worry, Captain. I've got this. You should trust me more, old man."
The Captain replied: "I don't know, little one—but remember this: taking on this case means placing yourself in danger. If there is a killer… you're surely the next target. That is—if there's a killer. After all… we haven't found a body."
Mary: "Don't worry. I'll eat him for lunch before he eats me for dinner."
In the background, a great swarm of crows circled above the ship, screaming over the wild green waters—under the presence of night itself and a moon that glowed an eerie green. Our ship sailed on, deep into the unknown… headed toward a very real hell.
Mary thought to herself: Perhaps my words were driven by pride and excitement—but I swear, there's something strange about this case… something too vast for my mind to grasp. Was it the sea, the salty waters, that killed the victim… or was it something else—something unknowable?
Captain Enrique shouted: "Very well! We begin the interrogations after dawn. For now—get some sleep. Tomorrow will be long."
---
Mary made her way to the bathroom. She lit a cigarette and smoked. She opened the bathroom door gently, still smoking, thinking about the nature of the crime. Everyone's a suspect… There is no easy road in life, she told herself. She turned on the bathroom light and looked at herself briefly in the mirror. A heavy sigh followed, and a thick cloud of smoke rolled from her lips…
Then, the light flickered out.
In the pitch darkness behind her—two enormous red eyes stared back. A row of unnaturally white fangs smiled… and a long, blood-colored tongue—like a lizard's—slithered forth. Mary felt something grip her neck: long legs, but not human ones—hairy spider legs, tightening around her throat. The cigarette slipped from her lips. Her breath nearly left her.
Then—click—the light returned.
No one was there.
She gasped for air, wiped sweat from her brow, and muttered: "Oooh… what exhaustion. That damn Vito's murder—with its smell of marinara—is going to drive me mad."
She pulled down her pants and sat to use the toilet—only for something to leap from the bowl.
A massive spider-like creature burst forth.
Then… it shifted. Its form morphed into a hybrid.
It was now a beautiful woman—long black hair, like an Asian doll—wearing a traditional black Japanese outfit. From her back extended eight spider legs, weaving webs into the air, and around her form pulsed a dark, unnatural glow.
Her legs began to spit thick webs like a monstrous loom—then, without warning, the creature unleashed a barrage of silk at Mary. Mary screamed, "Captain Enriiiique! Anyone—help me!" But the web coiled around her mouth, silencing her cries as it slipped past her lips and choked her voice. The creature—the Jorōgumo—wrapped her in layer upon layer of silk until she was nothing more than a cocoon.
Then the Spider-Woman lifted her prey with ease and carried her out of the bathroom, into the storm-battered deck of the ship. Rain lashed down, the sea roared, and night bore witness to the horror in silence. The stars looked on, uncaring, as Mary's cocooned body was flung into the black ocean below.
And she began to drown.
But she was not merely drowning—she was disassembling.
Her body ceased to be matter and became an idea. Her awareness ground down between strata of darkness and cold until all sound—even the beat of her heart—faded. Even meaning disappeared.
Then… something pulled her out.
She floated—not in water, not in air, but in a fabric no human mind could ever comprehend. The cosmos twisted around her. Colors dripped like the blood of wounded galaxies. The stars were far, but the eyes of the thing before her… were too close to survive.
Before her stood… the true throne of the Void.
At the center of this cosmic panorama loomed an Unnamable Entity. No mind could fathom its beginning, nor imagine its end. Its body stretched like a divine nerve, composed of bone and stellar chains, curving around it in celestial rites. Atop its skull burned a black flame that bloomed into raw power, crowned with a wreath of tiny skulls, orbiting like cursed moons.
Its eyes? Not eyes at all—but windows into a dimension beyond nonexistence. Through them, a phosphorescent blue glow pulsed, threatening to rend the fabric of reality itself.
Its limbs spanned across space like the arms of a cosmic spider, each hand clutching spheres of violet energy—imprisoned galaxies. Each palm held a swirling maelstrom of secrets, whispering in languages that had never been written.
Its body arched over Earth itself, cradling or crushing it. The planet looked fragile, pitiful—like a ripe fruit about to be crushed between the fingers of an ancient god.
Behind it? Two stellar eruptions flared like wings—one glowing a blinding gold, the other a poisonous violet, both veined with crimson cosmic dust, glittering with the dying light of civilizations long turned to ash.
The Earth lay beneath its feet. The sky towered above its head. But no law held sway here. Time spiraled into itself. Space writhed like a lost serpent. Even being recoiled beneath its presence, as a soul shrinks before pure dread.
And Mary… drifted before it.
Weightless. Voiceless. A witness to the end of logic.
It felt as though all of her existence screamed:
> "This is the throne from which nightmares are born. Here, the final madness is forged."
Its mouth did not move, yet its voice flooded her mind:
> "Who are you? Who allowed you to gaze?"
Mary didn't answer.
She couldn't.
Her body trembled, her blood boiled, and her heart no longer pumped—it only echoed silence. Every atom of her begged for the scene to end, for memory to burn away before it became a curse.
And in the heart of this madness…
A crack opened in the void before her.
A way out?
No… a black hole.
It began to pull—drawing in all things: cosmic dust, radiant stars, shreds of galaxies and forgotten light. The black hole spun, ringed with a blazing golden halo of fire, consuming everything—until it consumed her.
And she fell…
Toward an unknown fate.