Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. The guy who was assigned to
be my partner will call him Dave. He was a
lot older than I was, but he was the most
patient guy I had ever met, and I'll always be
thankful for that. Anyway, Dave and I was sent to
check out a small town a couple hours away for
your safety and leaving out the name, but we were
apparently in regular contact with them. They were understaffed, so
we lend a hand here and there until they went
dark for over two days. No matter who you contacted
in that town, the cops, the doctors, the local garage,
you wouldn't get an answer. So we were obliged to
find out why. We set off after handling half a
shift of DUI and domestic violent calls, and were bound
to get there by nightfall. All the way, Dave's got
a look in his eyes like he'd rather be bowling again,
winning that state championship or whatever he said he'd done.
On Dave's requests, we had picked up an embarrassing amount
of fast food and stopped to stuff our mouthful of
those mini burgers until the sickness set in road fuel,
Dave called it, and by the time it was dark,
we caught sight of a sign jutting out of a bush,
welcoming us to the next beautiful town one mile. So
I've known you what less than a week now, I ask,
keeping my eyes on the road. Why don't you give
me shit like everybody else? Dave sat in silence for
a moment, cause I remember, he said, tapping himself on
the head. First time I showed up there, I was
shaking in my boots fret out the academy, just like you.
I had no fucking clue what I was doing. But
you'll learn on the job, and sooner or later you're good.
Just smile more, writing up a bit, even if it's
just for show, and you'll be fine. Oh and suck up,
suck up a lot, he chuckle to himself, pausing a
moment before continuing. He may be an asshole, but the
chief likes to think he sees something and people me
I personally think it's my charm and good looks. How
about you, I don't know, I said, fighting back a smile. Hey,
you don't have to answer this, but why are you
always so quiet? What do you mean, I asked, I
mean you look like somebody shot your dog or something like.
If it's just the way you are, then that's cool.
But if it's something else, it's nothing, I said, hesitating.
I figured he'd find out eventually, one way or another.
I just hit next in a while back, I had
a sister. I was walking her home after her dance
classes and we got marked. When he found out we
had no money. This guy stabbed over with a switch
and ran off. She died in the ambulance. I keep
telling myself this nothing I could have done, but I
know there was I could have stopped it. I think
there was a saying that covers this, said Dave, Discretion
is the better part of valor. Right. Maybe you could
have tried, and maybe you might have even succeeded, But
you also could have taken a knife to the gut
that It'd be honorable, sure, but you'd also be dead.
How do you think your sister would feel about that?
I'm sure you did the best you could. Bravery ain't
all it's cracked up to be, I thought to myself,
watching the shadowy forest speed by only the side of us.
But in any case, I'm sorry it happened. Nobody deserves
to go through that. I sped up, eager to get
it over with. Dave nudge me with his elbow and
pointed at the road ahead. Slowing down, I saw a
crook in the asphalt, lit by the headlights, splitting into
a deep fissure that trailed off into the darkenss. I
heard Dave swear under his breath, and I followed his
gaze to her path of trees not flat against the ground,
splitting through the thick forest at our side. Looking down
the broken trail, the lights of the town radiated faintly
in the distance. What the hell happened here, I asked,
Looks like a bomb went off. I killed the engine
and stepped out of the car. Dave followed close behind.
Might have been clearing it for something, he said. I
could see the doubt on his face. Small tans got
expand the night was still and silent, pitch black beyond
the steady glow of the moonlight light that cast itself
upon the splinters. Dave walked ahead to get a better
look at the damage. Looks like we're going on for
he said. Car can't go any further. Roads two beat
up stepping forward, my eyes trees across the bed of
splinters that cracked beneath our boots. Those trees were never
not done or even cut. There was too much debris.
It was almost likely exploded. There was a kind of
electricity in the air. The needled at my skin and
set my nerves on edge. The closer we got to
the tan, like I was sucking on a live battery.
Every time I looked the head of us, there was
always this fear, and I got that I knew something
was wrong, not just your run of the mill, I
know something bad's about to happen, kind of thing like
you're anticipating something. I mean that feeling you get when
you know something's wrong. You feel in a version that
you can't quite explain, a sickness, because you know this
thing shouldn't be happening, but it is. Reaching the first street,
we stopped, scanning the building's shops and houses, all with
their doors wide open in the night, with no soul
to be seen. From myles, there was an eerie silence
that lingered in the air, breaking only for the tap
of our boots against the concrete. Even the wind had
left the place. Looking back at my partner. I could
see it since Sensovenese creep across his expression. We didn't
say a word because nobody had to. I felt my
hand drawing closer to my ulster. The further we went,
my heartbeat thumping in the oppressive silence, as the shadows
started to play trucks on my eyes. We figured we
try and find the local station, but in truth I
wasn't counting un much. The streets were darkened and mockoming
in every turn, still barren and devoid of even a
rat or an insect scurian behind an allyway dumpster, no birds,
no crickets, nothing. Those hung open on homes and stores,
lawn since abandoned, but nothing had been cleared out. Like
every soul and ton just got up and left as
quick as they could. Everybody just split. But for the
life of me, I couldn't understand why a turned like
that to be a nice place to live under normal circumstances.
Real small, everybody knows, everybody, a real hometown atmosphere. Turning
another anti corner, the station came into view a small
concrete tees story. The light shone DEMI from inside, leech
dry by the hunger and darkness that surrounded us. Walking
up the steps, Dave's hand crept toward his holster. The
door creaked open out the slightest push, revealing an end
to lobby alo. I called, my voice, echoing throughout the room.
Only silence responded. Dave moved the head and slowly pushed
open an office door to my right, Breathing heavy, peering inside,
he jumped back, starring at there. The door creaked up
and to reveal a man slumped over in his chair,
a bloody hole in the back of his head, and
a revolver and the groan beneath him. Skull fragments and
bits of brain matter were still sticking to the wall.
It felt like my heart had seized in my chest.
I had seen dead bodies in the Mark, but never
anything like that. An old cassette player sat on the
desk in front of him, covered with flecks of dried blood.
Stepping into the room, I pushed a man back, revealing
a Walter Bennett stamped onto his shirt. Look up water
Bennett in the registry, I said, turning back to Dave.
He left the room. Footsteps traillly en off toward the
front desk. Eyem the cassette player. I leaning to rewind
the tape inside and pushed play. A horrible static kissed
in the background, working only by the stutter and chicken
voss of a man to inner body, to friend's the tape.
To anybody that's left, Listen very carefully to what I'm
about to say. If everybody in this town is dead,
wherever you come from, you need to leave right now.
Get anybody you care about, and I'd pack as much
food and water as you can. Stay out of the
city's thy'll eat them first. We're sorry, We're sorry about
everything they made a steward. A gunshot sounded, and only
the steady shift of the static remained. My fingers clinched
as a cold tingle shot up my spine. You okay,
Dave asked from behind, startling me. I turned to see
him at the door. I found out about the guy.
He said he got to Stow about two days ago. Paranoise, schizphrenia,
had a mental breakdown on the job or something. What's
with the tip call in? I said, to get some
people over here. Normally I wouldn't have panicked like I did,
but the place was something different. I felt like I
was in danger, look him or rowed. Dave took out
his phone and called back, but didn't seem to get
an answer. A minute passed and he began to look concerned,
giving up and punching in another number. Nothing the fox
going on here. Dave stepped inside and leaned against the wall,
looking down at the cassette player. Which it's say, he asked,
the hiss of static still playing, he said, everybody in
this town is dead. I said, well, I can certainly
see how one might come to the conclusion, said Dave,
chucking with the knees still. I don't think we're that
far up the creek. This is a pretty small place. Chance,
so they're all off getting drunk somewhere. We'll find them eventually.
Don't worry about it, he paused, looking down at the floor.
I knew he was just trying to calm me down,
but his face told me the truth. He didn't believe
a word he was saying. Something had been terribly wrong,
and we both knew it. The static kiss radiating from
the cassette player suddenly grew a feeling of a knees
washed over me as another sound pushed through in the background,
slowly of riding the kiati, cracking before evolving into an
human shriek that set my nerves on fire. In pain,
I fell to my knees, struggling to look back at it,
seizing madly upon the floor like every sense, yet it
was being righted by the horrifying knives, blood trickling down
from my ears as my vision buckled alarmed at the
cassette player and slammed my fist down in the stop button.
The world's farm around me as I collapsed, a steady
ring and piercing through mys as a taste of blood
filled my mouth. The lights overhead flickered and dimmed, and
the world drifted into darkness. I remember having a dream then,
or more a nightmare that still can't shake from my mind.
The skies were rolling overhead like a storm, but they
were the color of an infected bruce. The air shirked
with a stench of fuel as free crimson suns burned
through the toks of myosma. I sat up, but the
only thing I saw was an endless field of bleeding meat.
Trees of mutilated people fused together into the shape of
writhing branches as them owned in constant acony. Then there
was nothing. I woke up on my back, staring at
it mindedly at the ceiling as a splitting headache throomed
in my skull. Rolling onto my side, I saw a
smear of blood trailing out into the lobby. Dave was gone,
replaced by an impenetrable silence that ponated every inch of
the room. Struggling to regain my strength, I called to
my feet and stumbled into the lobby. A blurry after
him was trailing behind my vision. As something crunched beneath
my boots, I looked down. It was human teeth, scattered
and soaking in the blood. The trail led across the
lobby before turning out of sight down a dark corridor.
The failing life its fluckered overhead. I followed it, jumping
forward in the renants of my delirium. As the last
of my senses returned to me. Looking down the hull,
a trail dispersed into spatter of fresh droplets. As I walked,
the light grew dimmer, giving way to the encroaching shadows.
I removed the flasklight from my belt and held it out,
keeping my free hand on my holster. As the darkness
swallowed me. I drew the column of light across the
decaying walls of the building, pouring down the shrouded corridor.
The beam of the flosclight was devoured by the shadow,
as though the hole went on forever. A feeling of
unease prickled at my skin as my mind struggled to
grasp what I was looking at. The hole shouldn't have
been there. This building was acilate small. There's no way
it could hold it, I remembered, Oh, I don't know.
I only saw the front and the sides, and it
was dark out, so I could have missed something. I
figured I must. It was the only way it made
any sense. A feeling of vertigo san within me as
I stepped out into the void, creeping forward and anticipating
the worse. The further I went in, the more I
noticed the ashen markings of astrological symbols that began to
crowd the walls the ceiling, slowly extending out of sight.
As the corridor seemed to narrow around me and silling
me with the sense of harrow and claustrophobia, my boots
crunched on something again, and I looked down to see
another trail of fresh blood stricken across the concrete. Human
teeth and argments of bone scattered with a sketchmarks swept
through the spatters of cunson and dug deep into the walls,
broken nails jetting out of the sweeping fishes as though
someone had been drugged, into the darkness beyond. A muffled
cuff founded in the distance, followed by a patter of
footsteps that steadily drew closer to me. I drew my
weapon and named it down the hall, figere on the
slide as my hand shook with terror. I twitched as
a shadow passed over the beam of my flasklight, revealing
my partner stumbling haggardly toward me. A sheen of blood
coated his face. A deep chen of blood coated his face.
Panicked and distressed, run he spat, coughing as he moved
to get out of here. I ran to catch up
with him. As he passed by me, heading back into
the lobby. It's coming, he gasped again, throwing himself against
the doors and blundering out into the night. He collapsed
upon the pavement, writhing and screaming in the blinding shade.
He was hysterical, looking like something I had ripped his mind
into and cast him out into the dark. I held
him down and he looked up at me, his eyes
filled with fear and adrenaline. It's here, he said, his
voice trembling as he repeated the phrase over and over again.
It's here, it's here, It's here, It's here. I felt
a prickling sensation on the back of my neck as
a sodden paranoia invaded my mind. Something was watching me,
something in the sky, but saw only blackness above. The
moon was full, but the stars were gone. I felt
a sensation of absolute dread, like I was less than
a pimperke of dust up was about to be wiped
off the face of the universe. My hand shaking with fear.
I looked back at Dave, but as seizing had stopped
and he fell still. He laid face up on the ground,
thick arches of blood trickling down from his nose and ears,
and tracing patterns on the concrete beneath him. I backed
away from his body, still struggling to comprehend what had
just happened. I pressed my fingers down upon his neck,
feeling for a pulse, then held my hand above his mouth,
waiting for the faintest breath of air. Nothing. The realization
crept in, slow, playing at my senses as it swallowed
my disbelief. He was dead and he had seen or
felt something in this place, something dangerous. My mind jumped
back to the decaying memory of the noise flowing out
of the tape recorder like a symphony of nightmares. Already
my brain picked and prodded at the thought, struggling to
shut it out and forget it ever happened. Something was
just wrong about it. It was almost like it was
to sound at all, more, just a force pouring into
my head. As my body thought to rejected, A deadly
silence filled my ears. As the present came rushing back,
I was alone, surrounded by darkness that drowned every nook
and crovice in its shadow. The lights of the police
station flickered up behind me, leaving only the hollow, miness
skeleton of the structure its presence for fouling the air
with an aur of seething dread. The memory of the
whole way lingered in the background, fattening my curiosity and
aching on some deluded sense of vengeance that brewed within
my mind. I could go back, it was always a possibility,
But what would I look for? What could I really do? Nothing?
There was no sense in risking my life for nothing,
I figured, And if that makes me a coward, then
I am a coward, and I didn't even care. Discretion
is the better part of valor, right at least that's
what I wanted to believe. I could hear Day's voice
screaming in my head, belittling me as I called to
my feet. That's when I felt the presence return. Something
in the sky I looked up in how to sound
that I still can't rightly explain. It was like a
cross between a yowling hyena and an elephant. And though
I couldn't see anything but darkness up there, I knew
that something was moving. A hot putre wind panted against me,
like something immense was breathing on me. It was watching me,
but at didn't strike It just let me stand there,
trembling and shaking, with any thoughts of vengeance perged from
my mind by absolute fear. I turned away from the
station and started to make my way back. I glanced
at the fun on my hip wanting to give it
another shot, if only to hear the voice of another
human being. But something in my instincts called for silence.
Everywhere I went, I still felt like I was being watched,
as though a thousand eyes were following my every movement.
Yet every time I shot a glance over my shoulder
at the streets would be empty and the skies would
be dark. I spun around once more, facing the barren
vastness of the night. Even then, a tinkle ran up
my spine as I felt the eyes tracing my features,
devouring every drop of paranol air. I constantly catched shadows
moving along the edges of my version, but whenever I looked,
they'd be gone. Eventually I reached the tree line. The
broken passage of topple timber still bathed in the moonlight,
inviting me onward. I tried to peer into the distance,
but couldn't see far enough to catch a glimpse of
my cruiser cruiser. I stepped forward, listening to the twigs
and fallen branch just snapped beneath my feet. A feeling
of uneasiness came over me as I glanced at my
side and stared into the unfelt depths of the forest.
I stood still, eyes blinking an impenetrable darkness that shrouded
my sight. I could feel a part of my mind
trying to convince me that things were moving through the shadows,
obscuring the dim rays of moonlight for only a second
before carrying onward through the trees. I tried to convince
myself that it was just a wild animal, but I
knew better than that. My eyes panned across the darkness again.
A feeling of dread washed over me as I fixed
it on the particular spot within the nivels, but I
couldn't say why. I traced over the area again, terrified
and confused, until a sliver of moonlight illuminated a trail
of visaer stricken across the ground. What looked like a
ragged spinal column hung loosely from a hole in a tree.
I stepped toward the blood stained evergreen and removed the
flashlight from my belt, switching it on and shining it
within the hole. A light revealed a cash of mangled
flesh winding upward into the tree, like it had been
hollowed out and filled with the afamath of an industrial accident.
I stepped back, as if fat it smell wafted it
up from the hole, forcing me to gag. I let
out a love cough, struggling to muffle it at the
last moment, but failing entirely. The feeling of being watched intensified,
as though I had offended some mo line presence. Turning
away from the forest, I began walking at a brisk
pace toward my car, burrowing cautious glances over my shoulder
as the unnerving feeling persisted. Picking up speed, I scampered
and vaulted over the rows of fel trees that brought
my path, hoping that by some miracle, I wouldn't lose
my footing. The shifting cracks of snapping branches approached just
out of my sight, my mind struggling to differentiate between
my own blunderings and those of the enzene horror that
storked me. But I could have sworn that I heard
something following me. As I leaped over another lock, the
cruiser slipped into my view. My limbs burning with exhaustion,
I threw another glance over my shoulder, dashing quickly toward
the vehicle. Nothing I stopped as I reached my destination,
turning once more to the shattered woodland. As I struggled
to catch my breath. Scanning the shadows, all was still,
the dying lights of the town radiating through the blackness.
I entered the car and started the engine, hand shaking
aimlessly on the wheel, I turned the vehicle around and
drove off into the night, falling into a familiar days.
Everything felt like a dream, but I was helpless to
awake from it. Somebody or something killed my partner, maybe
the presence that followed me or whatever made that awful noise.
The same thing happened right both made him seize him
bleed out when he came running out of the dark
in the hallway. I don't think I ever saw anybody
that scared before, and I just left him there, dead
on the ground. There was nothing I could do. Looking ahead,
the road began to bleed into the night, the reach
of the head light with a further and further, until
all I could see was a thick wall of darkness.
A lingering fear grew within me as the blindness set in.
Then images of my crosswarving off the road flickered through
my mind until the yellow divider crept into existence once more.
The wall shadow slowly dispersed, and I found myself speeding
straight down the road. A feeling of relief swept over me,
only to be snatched away as I shot a glance
to the side, slowing the car. A sinking feeling weight
on my mind as a dip in the tree line
slipped into my view. Mystified, I stared down the shattered
path of trees, the lights of the town gleaming deliriously
in the distance, mocking the dyeing sliver of hope that
I still clung to. My mind struggled to comprehend what
had happened. It was like I had never left, or
had gone in a circle without knowing it. But that
wouldn't work either. I looked at the map. It's just
one road straight down the line of it made any sense.
I turned the car around and went back the way
I came. But it wasn't long before the dark is
flooded in and I was driving blind through the shadow.
The divided materialized in the void, and the moonlight split
through the blackness, for revealing the forest at my side.
Once more, The past to the town rip is under defeated.
I cut the engine and opened the car door, a
cool gust of wind chilling my skin as I stepped
out into the night. Fighting back the creeping malice, I
shut the door and turned to face the fading lights.
As I walked, the lonely ambience that had struck me
before had all but faded to an awe of crippling malevolence.
Run this to the air and everything it touched, I
knew that I was alone. The streets were as dark
and barren as ever, not even the howl of the
window to infringe upon the black radiance of the town.
A part of me hoped for some sort of confrontation,
some winding horror that would pull itself free from the
alleyways to swallow me hole. But nothing came. All that
faced me was the sound of my own footsteps, until
a sense of an airying distance flooded over me. A
short ways ahead, stod the police station, dark and empty
beneath the sinister moonlight, I picked up the pace, still
scanning the building for whatever seemed to disturb me. Then
I saw it. My eyes draced across the concrete, discovering
a thick streak of blood that sneaked down into an
open man hole. Dave's body was nowhere to be found.
I panicked. He couldn't have been alive. I checked, he
had stopped breathing. He didn't even have a pulse. There
was just no way. I walked toward the man hall
and looked into the darkness. A faint buzzing came from below.
The pale moonlight that shone upon the concrete began to
slowly fade to a deep crimson, and as I looked up,
I saw streaks of blood begin to drip down across
the full moon, obscuring the pristine lunar surface until only
a glowing ray remained. Feeling like I was slowly losing
my mind, I looked down at the open man hole.
I didn't want to go down there, but I didn't
have much of a choice at that point. I unclipped
my flat light and turned it on, shining it down
into the depths of the sewer. Only the walls of
the grand Court chaff were iliminated by the light, the
bottom nowhere in sight. Hesitating for a moment, I lowered
myself down into the manhole, grip in the ladder tight
as I descended, the shaft was cramped in claustrophobic, and
the crimson moonlight that once shone above at all but
slept into a dark obscurity. Soon the bottom came into
sight the flasklight, revealing a dirty concrete floor. I dropped
down from the shaft, landing with a soft that that
felt like a gun. Shut in the overwhelming silence. No,
it wasn't entirely silent. That buzzing was still there. I
swatted at a fly that landed on my cheek. I
shined a flasklight down the dark corridor, illuminating a long,
tennother fork in the distance, swarms of flies buzzing through
the light. As I walked forward, I noticed the thin
film that covered the ground rising in random locations to
form small super pastols that crowed magus and flies like
the foe was the hide of some disease beast. I
approached the fork in the tunnel and began to hear
the sound of breathing in the distance. I stopped shining
the flashlight down the corridor. To my left. The pitch
darkness seemed to swarm around the column of light, revealing
nothing but a distant expanse with flies swatting the insects
away from my face. I turned toward the other corridor,
trailing the small spot of light slowly across the ground
before revealing a small spatter of blood. Terror prickled at
the back of my neck as I shifted the light
to the side, revealing a grotesque mound of gorslumped against
the wall. The decaying remains looked as though they had
been run through a meat grinder, to the point that
it was difficult to tell whether the corpse belonged to
a human or an animal. My eyes caught sight of
a shredded hand, answering my question, if not for the
single dealated I embedded in its open palm. I turned
away from the disturbing sight and began to walk down
the other corridor, struggling to fight back the overwhelming sense
of nausea and the lingering fear for my life. The
sound of labor breathing grew around me, as though it
were coming from the walls of the tunnel themselves. I
shined my light across the festering brick, revealing strands of
disease and a cock meat that went beneath the crumbling surface,
as though the sewer had been built within a living
breathing organism. Continuing down the passage, the flashlight illuminated an
old wooden door set at the end, a bloody ham
prince stained upon the yellow coat of paint that slowly
peeled away from its surface. I approached it, listening closely
for any sound on the other side. I gripped the handle,
feeling the warm, dampness of its surface as I fought
back the fear that surged through my veins. Every fast
sat of mining screened at me, begging me to turn away.
A fleeting image of my partner flashed through my mind,
but faded just as quickly, giving way to the truth
that had been worming its way through my thoughts ever
since my escape attempt. I could have kept trying to
drive away, but I didn't. I could have tried to
call someone, whether it would have worked or not, I
gave up. I barely even made an effort. I knew
then that some part of me wanted to be there.
I felt like I deserved it. Why should I leave right?
What did I really have to live for? Anticipating death,
I opened the door and shined my light into the
darkness before me. It swarms of flies buzzing through the air,
I stepped forward and swept the beam across the expanse.
I stood within a vast chamber of dimensions unknown, with
any attempt of revelation and vilain only the dark radiance
of the beyond. I advanced, feeling an overwhelming sense of smallness,
into the trembling void, spitting as flies began to crawl
upon my lips and ripe beneath my clothing. The further
I walked, the pestilence that had come assumed the grand
slowly faded to a creeping, blantt of raw flesh that
reminded me of my nightmare, tendrils of meat sneaking between
panting raised or teeth masks that jutted up from the
crawling hellscape. I felt like I was walking through the
organs of some eldrich horror, the stench of death choking
the air, as the swarms of flies only grew in number.
There was something else, though, beneath the nauseating miasma of decay,
something that made my head throb with pain. It smelled
almost like fuel. Then the light illuminated something entirely different. Hundreds,
if not thousands, of mutilated bodies towered high into the air,
upon the dark terrain of bleeding meat. Wired together by
knotted entrails and bizarre fusions of flesh, they were arranged
in a colossal, looming wing that encircled a vertical ocean
of blood. Defying all natural laws of the universe. It
warped and corroded the air that surrounded it, as if
the ring contained some immense gravitational force. Ignoring all reason,
I crept toward the towering vod, climbing over the sea
of bodies until I could see the chuning of the liquid.
I stopped before the pool, standing only a foot away
from its influence. Staring into its depths, I felt as
though I were shifting through infinity. TI tame around me
began to slower to a crawl, my thoughts devoired by
the harrying of us, A feeling of wrongs began to
flood over me, and irving every sense I knew existed.
Whencing in pain, I reached toward the pool, as though hypnotized.
As I stood there, it began to dawn upon me
that the churning depths were not what truly disturbed me.
It was whatever lurked beyond them. I was stirring into
a portal to another place, another dimension. I don't know.
I don't know how to make sense of what I
saw in that moment. Possibilities flushed through my mind, though
none of them I could rightly describe that gateway. That
aberration was beyond me. But whatever it was, whatever I
would see, would it really answer my questions? My hands
still lingered in the air, what by the lensing effect
of the pool? A feeling of morbid curiosity egged me onward,
but the fear began to swallow me whole. I withdrew
my hand, unwilling to continue. Utterly numb to my surroundings,
I climbed down from the hill of mangle bod as
infell to the ground. Overwhelmed and defeated by my own insignificance.
I did not understand what had happened to the town,
and least of all, what was happening to me. Grasping
at straws, I studied every possibility, but drew only blanks.
I couldn't do it. I distant rumbling sounded from within
the ring, setting me on edge. The flesh beneath me
hummed and vibrated as though it will liquid, threatening to
pull me in. I crawled to my feet and backed
away from the portal, confused and terrified by the loath
firm of power that now radiated from within, infecting the
air with an awe of row depravity. Something was coming
hannekover taking me. I sprinted blindly into the darkness, But
no matter how far I ran, I couldn't find the
door that I had entered from. It was like the
chamber went on forever, the festering meat sinking beneath my boots,
as the flies crawled and coalesced upon my skin. The
sound from the gate, now far from sight, rose like
an oncomon train, splitting my ear ROMs with its deafening vibrancy.
I collapsed to my knees, shaking in terror and cupping
my hands over my ears. But it didn't help. In
the slightest It was like the sound wasnt entering through
my ears, but through my mind. Unhinging every sense I
heard as a pain within me steadily grew. A familiar
wine began to rise from the crescendo utterly, a mean
to any feeble attempts to shout it out. It sounded
like every noise that I had ever feared, bound together
into an incoherent scream, yet still somehow separate. It burned
my senses to dust as I called up on the ground,
helpless to resist it. As the mad symphony reached its peak,
my skin began to shift upon my bones, as though
a thousand insects ride beneath the surface. I sensed another.
All at once, my mind began to ache. The wailing
presence of whatever now looked in the chamber sent me
into a reeling delirium. My skin began to melt away
before my eyes, rocking me with blinding pain. As the
viscous soup threatened to slough off my bones, shifting from
solid to liquid to solid again. My bones began to
snap and re align themselves, pushing me over the edge.
As I screamed helplessly in the darkness, the world around
me began to spind as a whirl and shadow overcame it,
and I knew that I was dying. The last hinges
of pain surged through my body, until finally I let
go and felt myself slip away. I don't know how
I survived, but I woke on my back, my eyes
blinded by the glare of daylight, but something was wrong.
The sky was a toxic miasma of rolling violet clouds,
the sun burning crimson through the other worldly chaos. An
immense pain began to surge through my body, and I
screamed in agony, violently riding upon the concrete beneath me,
groting my teeth, I calmed myself for a moment to
look at my surroundings. I was in the middle of
an empty street, still in the town, though I could
see the break in the tree line that led out
onto the highway. Looking down at my body, I onced
in disgust, assaulted by a chaotic flurry of fear, nausea,
and depression. My skin had been repeatedly liquefied and reconstituted,
scarred and malformed as it barely adhered to my body.
My bones felt rigid and splintered with pain, like half
of my doints had been fused together. Struggling to call
to my feet, I looked down at my hands, the
runnants of my fingers gnarled and elongated, if not missing entirely.
The red sun beat down on me from above. As
I worked to support myself, trying not to scream as
I slowly made my way down the splindid path and
toward the highway, my vision blockening as the delivium slowly returned.
The smell of fuel lingered in the air, the toxic
skies rolling above me. Whatever happened in that town, it
was spreading. I remember reaching my car, but it was
a blur after that. I apparently managed to drive a
good distance before crashing, and somebody wound up finding me.
I woke up in a hospital, patched up as much
as as they could be, but the surgeons couldn't do much.
There was no rational explanation for what had happened to me,
but I remembered it clear as day. I ran away
as soon as folks from the government started showing up,
and joined with some others. Since then, the sky's are
normal out here, but I think it's only a matter
of time before it's breadths. Something was released into the world,
something awful that nobody can explain. The others have been
telling me stores of small towns covered in meat and bone,
like something unnatural was assimilating the earth. They ought to
be dropping bombs in the whole area, but I don't
know if even that would do the trick in any case,
don't rely on the news. The government's probably keeping the
story under wraps, so nobody panics. I'm sure it'll come
up eventually, but by then it may be too late.
The sounds are getting louder again, and the stars have
started to disappear. The others are packing up. I don't
know if you'll hear from me again, but I hope
to God this all works out. Stay safe out there,
and that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
I will see you in the next one.