Darkest Before The Dawn

Part 4:

  “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn” The Call of Cthulhu – HP Lovecraft

  An old metal archway leads into the park. You hesitate on the border. This was never much of a place to hang around; now it positively reeks of menace. Beyond the fallen gate the ground is covered by a sickly yellow grass, all the way up to the dark woodland. The trees are thin and leafless, choked by a jungle of brambles and weeds.

  Despite the fact that all sensible notions within you scream at you to turn back, you begin reluctant footsteps toward the dark thicket. You raise your gun, but it is little comfort, feeling like a toy in your grasp. How foolish you feel, ever considering the notion that you could contend with the will of things to which you are little more than an ant. Yet still you continue, desperately holding to hope.

  The bushes around the edge of the park are overgrown. At least you will be shielded from unwanted eyes in the city outside - although those would form the least of your concerns. One hand finds the handle of the dagger and you grip it through the wrapping you have made.

  There is a sense of something taking a breath. You cannot shake the notion that something is waiting for you in amongst the trees. It knows you are here, an irrational part of you insists. You struggle with yourself, even as your involuntary footsteps take you closer to the spiky dark.

  Reaching the outskirts, you kick and thrust at the thorns, forcing an entrance into the forbidding wood. The dagger would do its work well here, but you sense it is not meant for such mundane craft. The suffocating dark enfolds you as you duck to crawl your way inside. Your breath comes fast and your heart beats heavy. Let this be over with fast, you pray, but not to any particular entity. There are those in this reconfigured land who might answer, beings you would not want to draw attention from.

  Here you can only make out shadows and shapes. Already your imagination is playing tricks on you.

  The space inside widens and you inch forward, thinking you see the column you seek, but when you switch on an old flashlight, it is revealed as being only a tree. You wander aimlessly for a few minutes, following the largest spaces between the trees. The sense of danger ebbs as your nervous energy begins to burn out.

  Suddenly you have the terrible sense of something approaching. You try to run, to hide, but your feet have taken root. Your hands become claws and the gun falls uselessly from your grip, disappearing into the undergrowth. It would be little use against the minions of the enemy anyway.

  You can see something sliding toward you from the corner of your eye. You cannot bring yourself to look, as though in not acknowledging its presence it will not get a proper hold on your reality. So you hide metaphorically under the bed sheets, like a frightened child, for this presence has stripped away all pretence of confidence in you. A horrid smell chokes your every breath, like rotting cheese and it moves inevitably into your view.

  You see it and suddenly are screaming, fighting with your frozen limbs. It has trunks at its base like elephant hooves, yet it moves quietly, with only the faintest rustling step. A dark, rictus grin is hidden in shadow by a dark hood. From its centre depend a series of hideous prehensile tendrils, ends like penises. One reaches out to touch you and you scream again, knowing that one brush will be the end of your sanity.

  Suddenly, something comes rising up within you, a voice like a choir, stealing your voice as your limbs have already been stolen.

  “Mwag Thugluei Isinwa Fhtagn,” the choir chants.

  “Mwag Thugluei Isinwa Fhtagn,” the voices rise louder with every incantation. Around you the world begins to spin, faster and faster, the lines of the trees blurring.

  “Mwag Thugluei Isinwa Fhtagn.” You feel something sharp cutting into your hand, but are unable to scream now the chant has taken on a life of its own.

  “Mwag Thugluei Isinwa Fhtagn.” The woods are filled with awful floating coloured light, like the harbinger of a burst of radiation - and then paradoxically everything goes black.