How about Cosmic Horror?

Irae studied him cautiously. Would he be hurt by this? However, no matter how hard she tried to gauge his expression, she couldn’t, due to the lack of eyes, nose, and mouth. Judging by his voice alone, he sounded rather amused, but without seeing his face, she couldn’t be sure.

“From the neck down, you look like a normal person, in a suit. But from the neck up… it’s a bit… you know.”

“What’s ‘a bit you know’?”

He sounded like he wanted a more detailed description. 

“Uhm… normally, there should be a neck and a face above the shirt collar, right? But instead, there’s a bundle of tentacles.”

“How many?”

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

“Twelve, I think.”

“Hmm, what about their length and thickness?”

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

She tried her best to explain with the utmost sincerity, and the man’s broad, straight shoulders trembled. It was obvious that he was struggling to contain his laughter. 

“So, out of the twelve, which one’s your favorite?”

He asked in a low, suggestive voice. 

With a puzzled look, Irae carefully examined the twelve tentacles. Now that she knew this was an illusion created by her brain and not reality, she wasn’t as scared as before. However, the sight of twelve tentacles wriggling above his neck was still far from pleasant.

The first and twelfth tentacles were about the thickness of her pinky finger, sleek and split into five parts at the end. It looked like if she threw food at it and shouted “Catch!”, it would open up at the end and gobble it down.

The second and eleventh tentacles were about the thickness of her wrist, with veins sticking out here and there, and blunt ends.

The third tentacle seemed thinner than the second one, with a double structure—like a shell and the contents inside, and a moist tip. As if it contained something that secreted fluids. 

The fourth tentacle was about the same thickness as the second, but covered in rough bumps. If he were to swing it like a whip, it looked like it would hurt terribly. 

The fifth and ninth tentacles were the thickest, and the most disgusting, with suction cups all over them, like octopus legs.

The sixth tentacle was entirely covered in soft fur on one side, like a brush. It looked like it would be perfect for cleaning windows.

The seventh and eighth tentacles were the most basic in shape, moderately thick, smooth, and rounded at the ends. 

The tenth tentacle was as thick as three of her fingers, shaped like a snake, with a forked tip that was opening and closing like a mouth. 

“Um… I guess the sixth one? Looks useful for cleaning.” 

She diligently provided an answer, even giving a rational reason. 

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

As she was about to protest internally, she heard his chuckling whisper. 

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

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

Besides, there was a bigger problem; she wasn’t even moved by his words any bit. Who could blame her? No matter how sweet his words were, with tentacles spilling out onto the bed, it was nothing but a scene from a horror movie. At first glance, it looked like his insides were spilling out and wriggling around. 

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

What was the point of marrying the most handsome man alive if she was the only one who couldn’t see it? 

No matter how handsome he was, he was nothing but a slimy tentacle monster to her.

That night, Irae had a strange dream. 

The whole world was consumed by bizarre colors. Colors that didn’t seem to exist on Earth. It was a contradictory thought because she saw it with her own eyes, yet it felt unreal.

Anything that came into contact with those colorful hues lost its form and scattered into dust. It was as if the colors were burning everything in the world.

She realized that she was no exception. This was a natural disaster, a calamity that humans were powerless against. There was nothing she could do.

She closed her eyes, accepting her demise, and a cold, damp sensation enveloped her body. The colors were swallowing her. She was going to disappear without a trace.

“That’s not going to happen, honey.”

At that moment, a low voice drifted into her ears. Startled by the familiar voice, she opened her eyelids. There stood the man who was supposedly her husband. Not as a tentacle monster, but in his human form, just like in the photo.

Atop his index finger swirled those multicolored hues, now condensed into a sphere. The sight of the very colors that were relentlessly consuming the world, reduced to the size of a ping pong ball and spinning pathetically at the man’s fingertip, left her speechless.

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

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

Instantly, the multicolored sphere let out a scream that seemed to belong to another world before exploding and scattering in all directions.

Irae opened her eyes to the dull hospital ceiling. The dimly lit room, neither fully dark nor bright, looked like the ash of a world consumed by those colorful hues. 

“What a weird dream…”

Was it because she hurt her brain in the accident?

A dream where colors were swallowing the world and trying to eat her, and her husband appeared like

and saved her… She didn’t even know where to begin picking it apart. How could colors possibly consume the world? And how did her husband manage to neutralize and obliterate such formidable colors with such ease? If there was at least a somewhat plausible setting, she could have accepted it, but the dream was so random and nonsensical that it left her dumbfounded.  

The only thing that lingered was her husband’s face. His terrifyingly beautiful face, revealed amidst the explosion of colors that scattered like paint. It was worlds apart from seeing it in a photo. The impact of that breathtakingly handsome man, alive and moving right before her eyes, was immense.

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

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

Feeling dejected, she sat up in bed and picked up her phone. She might as well browse the internet since lying down wasn’t going to lull her to sleep. After searching for her symptoms, she came across a condition that was similar, yet different. 

A psychological disorder where the patient believes that their close friend or family member has been replaced with an identical-looking imposter.

For example, the patient might look at their spouse and claim, “This is not my husband. Someone who looks exactly like him is pretending to be my husband!” It’s often seen in people with schizophrenia, but it can also occur in people with brain injuries.

Incidentally, it’s said that the reason behind this delusion is that when we see someone dear to us, a certain substance is secreted in our brain, but due to brain dysfunction, this substance isn’t released in people with Capgras Syndrome. Since they don’t feel a sense of familiarity, they perceive their beloved as an imposter who only shares the same appearance.

Reading the information on the website, Irae felt a chill of fear. What exactly was wrong with her brain? Could it be that her brain’s wiring was messed up, and now whenever she looked at someone she loved, her fear response was triggered? Like a misconnected circuit?

If she was unlucky, would she have to live like this forever? 

Perhaps it was a side effect of some medication she received during treatment. She read about a case where a perfectly healthy person developed temporary Capgras Syndrome after receiving a ketamine injection. If this was the case for her, then it would resolve itself over time. With any luck, her husband wouldn’t look like a tentacle monster anymore. 

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

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

“No.”

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

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

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

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

A large, well-defined hand brushed the underside of the planet. Irae was momentarily captivated by the elegant movement of his long fingers but quickly snapped out of it. Except for his face, which was strangely perceived, everything else about him was perfect. She assumed that he was probably touching his chin in reality.

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

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

“What do I look like now?”

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