What force was it that made our ancestors quit the ocean? What pushed them to climb out onto the land and grow larger? Was it perhaps out of fear of the horrors down there in the depths? The things of tendril and chela and mandible. Did they flee in panic from the violence of the abyss to crawl on solid ground? The strong biting at the heels of the weak as they escaped toward the light and out of the soup.
Out on solid land there was scant respite. The parasites and the devourers followed in their hunger. The weak had to adapt, some grew larger and smarter. Eventually primates developed the neo-cortex and they learnt to fashion simple tools and emulating the tooth and claw of their predators they invented the first artificial weapons. So they quit the forest and roamed the land becoming lords of the earth. Millenia passed and eventually their children settled and planted seeds. They built walls around their enclosures and developed art and ritual and civilization.
The barbarism did not stop there. Nature always breeds new forms of warfare.The growth of cities demanded an ever growing supply of resources. Tyrants developed the mega-machines of slavery and war. Mankind spread like a plague upon the earth and their appetite could not be satisfied. There was nothing to hold the population in check and with the globalisation of humanity the cities became ever more crowded. So man came to look to the stars, seeking new sanctuary.
...
It was like a teardrop falling from the heavens. Enveloped in the glow of atmospheric re-entry the craft traced a downward arc across the alien sky. It glided down from the stratosphere and the parachutes bloomed into life, the module feathering down to the martian surface.
Settled down in the dust, the landing craft opened its mouth and extruded its tongue. A catterpillar wheeled buggy lurched out into the sand blown mesa. The three cosmonauts dwelt in silence. Before them rose the pile. The dark mountain greeted them with malignant immplacability as they angled towards it under the hostile sky.
A schism reached out from the foot of the eminence and a strange glow rose up from the scar, a shifting aurora of sickening colors. The strange hues of the auroral anomaly seemed to creep into the compartment with them as they descended into the rift. As they went deeper, they became aware of massive skeletal things reaching out from the cliff faces, as if trying to escape from the rock. Giant things like the leviathans of earth's prehistory but of too many bones, as if parts of different organisms had been fused into singular abominations. Now in front of them they were piled in their multitudes.
The cosmonauts were in sight of their destination. A piece of alien architecture broke out fom the precipice at the end of the canyon. The shape of it resembled that of a gothic cathedral, though of decidedly unholy aspect and of dimensions dwarfing anything human. The construction of the frame, somewhat eroded by the passing of the ages, was a grotesque carcass of bony scaffolding, echoing the delicti that was heaped up in front of the temple. Adding to the aura of death and decay, the alien shrine and the area surrounding it was suffocated in some kind of fossilized fungal growth. A latticework of mycelial cords that clung to everything and enormous mushroom bulbs sprouted up the sides of the towers like cancerous growths.
When the rover could get no further through the mess they abandoned it and continued on foot. They had to struggle on through remains that were now hideously regenerating flesh, pieces knitting themselves together. They bore on through the madness, scrambling through the gore, hypnotised by the call emanating from the sacellum. Its presence grew stronger with every step, crying out for communion.
Their pilgrimage was only half complete when they eventually arrived at the bottom of the enormous steps which led up to an alien god's doorway. The stairs were of stone blocks too large for human feet and they had to climb laboriously from one step to the next, crawling all the way. One man fell and his head depressurised through a crack in his helmet. The others showed no sign of noticing, they merely clambered on.
Finally they stood before the massive doors. The surface of the stone was covered in strange reliefs. Alien heiroglyphs, which as the men looked, began to change shape, morphing in a nauseating kaleidoscopic fashion. A hallucinatory slideshow of images unfolded before their eyes. Some intelligence had reached into their minds and was revealing to them its history in its terrible cosmic narrative.
It drew them back through nameless aeons and inconcievable dimensions, to the elder, outer entity. It sang of Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat with a Thousand Young. Of Him in the Gulf, Azathoth. Nyarlathotep, the Messenger, who comes down from the world of Seven Suns to mock. Of Great Cthulhu, of Tsathoggua and of Him Who is not to be Named.
It told of the elder things arrival here when the sun was young. Of their black science and the vile experiments performed in their shadow labs, the creation of their servants and their pets. It told them of the earth and how these entities had tilled the land, sowing the seeds of life as a farmer sows his crop.
But the day of harvest had been delayed. There had been wars in heaven and the elders had been weakened, almost fatally, and they had been forced to retreat into their vaults to sleep and dream, waiting for the time to rise. The presence of consciousness here had awoken them from their slumber.
Around them now the horrors were rising from their graves with the hunger of their long rest.
A sound, like a demonic chorus, vibrated through the world, signalling the opening of the gate. The doors now started to change. Not merely retracting but rather revolving, moving about an impossible axis of symmetry. The doors dissapeared to be replaced by a liquid mirror of dark matter. Something was coming through...
Spoken secrets filled the air as Penny Lane walked by. No longer a mouse, no longer an image, no longer fooling around. She was on the other side of the crowd barrier at this concert, and the others viewed her as they would an apparition from their past. Was that the same smell of incense on her, the same fanciful attitude, the same curly golden mess on her head? More wrinkles on her face though, how could she have aged? She was the legendary Penny Lane.
Something in her had died though, they all agreed, was it good or bad? No-one could know.
She knew that the wildfire of her heart had been replaced, replaced by an ease of herself in the world. She no longer felt compelled to anything. The beautiful destruction of her heart, that would inspire the musicians no longer held sanctity. The songs she would sing, they heard, but they did not see her. She smiled a secret smile as she saw them whisper about her behind the stage, knowledge of an alien past, and contemplating their futures in an industry of broken hearts, which she knew too well.
The world had moved on, but she still heard the echoes from the seventies. She had a child now, named Annabelle. The little Lady who moved around the house, lighting candles and singing joyfully along with the radio, also laughed along with the wonderment of her daughter, a miracle who had come from someplace better, better than this. For this she was grateful, grateful to the tips of her toes, and it had changed her.
He never mattered anymore, none of the He's that had floated in and out of her life mattered anymore. She could put on her rugged threads, head down to the shops, and she was free to knock over a row of food for anyone cared. It was had been her choice to entrance musical men, and her choice to finally stop. She got out before they hated her, too, for she still had that impeccable sense of timing to leave when she was still wanted. Buskers on the street still gave her looks, which seemed to say, ‘I know where you've been, and I know where you're going…’, but she no longer cared. The open road was no longer paved with the souls she loved, or music that mattered to her; now it all came back to Annabelle. Annabelle was her anchor.
She learned to shake off feelings of resentment with the new girls, something she had trained herself to do when she saw the lithe-limbed newcomers back then. Being a muse was hard work, that’s what these girls did not understand. When you do view the opium of the spotlight, with others that seek it, it is hard to turn away. You are the proverbial wild animal in the headlights, faster and faster it comes, but no-one wants to slow down. Smarter people than her had died pursuing more than what she ever craved.
The deadly catch is that the wild animal is what the audience craves; the vulnerable crazed one that they can project fantasy onto. Up on stage is a different life, every movement an amplified gesture to the watchful ravished eyes. Penny Lane had understood that. The humbled woman visiting the concert today was tired, but thoughtful. She was a tourist in their world now, albeit one who had been the lead tour-guide for many years.
Annabelle would have loved this, the atmosphere; the rush of leather and feathers and hair and glittery made-up glamourous women, so different from the decade of hippies. Annabelle would tell her mother she was going to be an actress just like her when was when she was older, and Ms. Goodman would have to stroke her hair and gently remind her that she no longer did that kind of work. How could her mom not be an actress, with that dress-up box? Annabelle was enthralled by it, and Ms. Goodman knew she would discover the meaning of those clothes too soon.
She had thought of moving again, leaving this country. She didn’t want Annabelle to believe in the American Dream. William had encouraged her here tonight, a way to close off this era of her life, to see what she was leaving behind, the finality of a last hurrah. His purposeful words overrode her thoughts of Russell on a similar stage to this one, as the lights went down in the stadium.
(Thanks for the comments guys. Here is the final copy!)
The stereo played only white noise. There were empty pizza boxes scattered everywhere. Oh god, the bottles, the shear amount of bottles…all fiends from down South: Jack, Jim, Gordon, Jose, and of course, everyone’s favourite Russian companion, lay emptied of their life-force, disregarded, wherever they had landed.
The heavy stench in the air was a mix of stale alcohol, cigarettes and burnt hair. It was clear that at some point in the not too remote past, this suite had been stunning, luxurious even, with three separate king-size bedrooms, plush Missoni furnishings and floor to ceiling panel windows overlooking the East River. There was obviously something missing from the room, which would explain the TV sized hole in the north-facing window. The bridge that had looked so beautiful the night before, spanning the river and Roosevelt Island, covered in hundreds of fairy lights, was now disenchanting and drab.
Just like the bridge, the apartment now looked distinctly different in the harsh early morning sunlight. The stagnant haze was broken suddenly by a platinum blonde figure who tumbled, somehow gracefully, out of one of the oversized beds. Jenny groped around underneath the bed and pulled her boots free. While fastening them around her ankles and then manoeuvring her iPhone into action, she smirked at the moans of pain emanating from the Egyptian cotton sheets she had just removed herself from.
“Ha ha, serves you right!” she teased the pile of bedding.
“Ohh, everything hurts. And where do you think you’re going?” the faceless mound questioned, while flailing in her general direction trying to come into contact with a body part sufficient to pull her back to the bed.
“You know I have the Eleanor Waldorf brunch this morning, I’m showing my own pieces this time, remember?” she said as she inched just out of his reach.
“You want me to come with you?”
“Well, I would if you didn’t smell like a bar floor…”
“I’ll shower…”
“I’ve gotta go home and pick up the outfits, I’m assuming you-“
“And you would be correct in that assumption. I haven’t even had coffee yet, it’s clearly too early for Brooklyn”
“Okay, I told Eleanor I’d be there to set up at 9am, so I’ll just meet you there later?”
“Spectacular.”
Jenny looked down at her phone and saw eight missed calls from Rufus and a few text messages from Eric. It was nothing new. In fact, eight was a relatively small number of attempts from Rufus, all things considered. He was clearly starting to get the message, and so he should after all this time.
On the upside, there were no new alerts from Gossip Girl – and as always in her case, no news was good news. Jenny piled her things into her carryall and stepped over the debris to the front door, deleting her call history as she went.
She could have called a private car. Chuck would always insist on such a thing. But today she felt like taking the subway, and she actually enjoyed the walk to the station in morning sunshine. The subway was even nicer at this time on a Saturday: quiet, comforting even. She was listening to the last half of ‘Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik’ for what must have been the millionth time and almost missed her stop. She called in at Bergen Bagels and grabbed a large, black coffee, she would need at least that to deal with Eleanor later on.
She was uncharacteristically early, and so took her time ambling towards their apartment. She poked her head around the doorframe and into the living room of their 3-bedroom loft. As far as she could see, it was empty. Only a few months ago, it would have been only natural to walk into this apartment on a Saturday morning to find Rufus, Dan, herself and any number of stragglers sitting around the breakfast bar sharing waffles and the latest gossip. But today, like the increasing number of Saturday’s before this one, the breakfast bar was bare, and Jenny was able to slip into her room, grab the dress bag and disappear completely undisturbed.
He knew he had to get up. He had lay in bed for at least an hour after Jenny had left, and would be seriously late if he didn’t get up now. Thank god he had a driver. After spending a sufficient amount of time in the shower, ridding himself of the odour of the previous evening, he dressed in a freshly dry-cleaned Hugo Boss suit and demolished a cup of black coffee. A quick call downstairs for a car and he was on his way to the Palace Hotel. He knew Jenny would already be there, and he would make his entrance fashionably late. The car pulled up outside the hotel, and he stepped confidently through the front door. The Ball Room was signed posted “Eleanor Waldorf Spring/Summer 2011 Preview Brunch”. Just as he lent in to open the door, a tall, thickset doorman stepped in front of him, “Name please?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes sir, there is a guest list. I will need your name…”
Final Copy
Thanks for all the feed back along the way. Really helped, peace out - Michael
Dawn snatched me from my sleep with an anguished howl of salty air. Alone. I am now alone. I look out across the wasted planes. From the charcoal of the burnt tree husks to the off-white the snow had assumed due to the ash diluted into it, my sight is met by a landscape painted in faded greys. "Each day is more gray than the one before. Each night is darker - beyond darkness. The world gets colder week by week as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived. All the crops are long gone. Someday all the trees in the world will have fallen."
I remember my Papa's words. He has been dead for a while now but they still couldn't bear a word more of truth. I had to keep moving, now is a time which deprives us of the rights to luxury we had taken for granted. Nesting was one of them. I had made camp on the coast, in the dunes. Not to far from what I suppose use to be a small fishing town. Its just a ghost town now, it's no longer safe but there might be food. I would follow the road down to the town today, to scavenge what I could.
Ash and sand blows through the air, stinging my eyes. The dust gets everywhere. Choking, clotting, blinding dust. I look at the ocean trying to imagine what it would have looked like before, before it had become this harsh abomination of rolling void. Papa had told me it was blue once, like the sky had once been. The morning creeping upon me when I decided enough time had been wasted off the road. I turned to my rag tag camp to collect my things.
I unassembled the makeshift bed, it would soon be on my back along with all my possessions, consisting of a knife, tarpoline, rags, odd shoes and a leather pouch which I use to keep food if scavenge in. It had been empty for weeks.
I stripped down so I could wash before I leave for the town. The sand was cold and unwelcoming to my bare feet. I placed my clothes down next to my rucksack, briefly catching my reflection in the blade of my knife. It brought back memories of Papa's history lessons. A flesh coloured skeleton of Auschwitz gleamed from that blade showing my mortality. I fell to my knees coughing with disgust at myself, at the wooden figure I had become. The cough that shredded my throat. Blood mixed with ash and phlegm pools in my hand. Examining it, I knew there is too much this time.
The hazed sky was beating down upon me. The world became a whole lot harsher with each burning second of daylight. I was on the road. Standing on the outskirts of the town. Watching. Searching the windows for any signs of movement. Nothing moves in the derlict remains of the town. I examine the buildings, there is a supermarket across a snow covered clearing. No trees, no rocks, nothing but 100 meters of open ground separating me from the store. I don’t think. As my stomach begins to pang with hunger pains I don't need to think. My feet take leave of the road and make their way towards the abandoned building. The snow is deep here, its well above my knee. I struggle to make ground as my feet sink deeply into the cold searching for solid ground.
Good, the harder it is to get to it means the chances of there being food increase. I think to myself as I wade through the snow that is numbing my limbs. Half way across now, the ground beneath me is slippery, like glass. I hear a creaking, like wood bending. I step forward. My foot breaks through the ground and is consumed by freezing water. My blood pumps faster, my drenched foot could only mean one thing. I was standing in the middle of a frozen lake.
That is why there were no trees or rocks. That’s why the road went around it.
Another creak as the ice beneath me started to shift again. I have to keep moving, the only alternative is to drown.
A third creak sounds, the ice gives way and cold water hits me like a sledge hammer, stealing the air from my lung in one tremendous moment. The taste of blood leaks onto my taste buds. Looking up, there is only darkness.
"Beyond Darkness". I realized I have been left with a bleak choice; to drown in the icey depths...
"The world gets colder" Either water in my lungs or my own blood.
"The world slowly dies." I should have stayed on the road, or realized when there was nothing but snow.
"Someday all the trees in the world will have fallen"
Said the voice of my papa I finally understood that he meant we will never see that day.
Dawn snatched me from my sleep with an anguished howl of salty air. Alone. I was now alone. I looked out across the wasted planes. From the charcoal of the burnt tree husks to the off-white the snow had taken due to the ash diluted into it, my sight was met by a landscape painted in faded greys. I had to keep moving, now was a time which deprived us of the rights to luxury we had taken for granted. Nesting was one of them. I had made camp on the coast, in the dunes. Not to far from what I suppose has been a small fishing town. Its just a ghost town now, it's no longer safe but there might be food.
Ash and sand blew through the air, stinging my eyes. The dust got everywhere. Choking, clotting, blinding dust. I unassembled the makeshift bed that would soon be on my back along with all my possessions, which mainly consisted of a knife, tarpoline, rags, odd shoes and a leather pouch which I used to keep food. It had been empty for weeks. I stripped down to wash before I left for the town. I caught my relfection in the blade of my knife. It brought back memories of school history lessons. A flesh coloured skeleton of Auschwitz gleamed from that blade showing my mortality. I coughed with disgust at myself. A cough that shredded my throat. Blood mixed with ash and phlem pooled in my hand. Examining it, I knew there was too much this time. I was deeply sick.
The hazed sky was beating down upon me. The world became a whole lot harsher with each burning second of daylight. I was on the road. Standing on the outskirts of the town. Watching. Searching the windows for any signs of movement. Nothing moves in the derlict remains of the town. I examine the buildings, there is a supermarket across a snow covered clearing. No trees, no rocks, nothing but 100 metres of open ground between me and it. I dont't think. As my stomach begins to pang with hunger pains I don't need to think. My feet take leave of the road and make their way towards the abandoned building. The snow is deep here, its well above my knee. I struggle to make ground as my feet sink deeply into the cold searching for solid ground. Good, the harder it is to get to it means the chances of there being food increase. I think to myself as I wade through the snow that is numbing my limbs. Half way across now, the ground beneath me is slippery, like glass. I hear a creaking, like wood bending. I step forward. My foot breaks through the ground and is met by freezing water. My blood pumps faster, my drenched foot could only mean one thing. I was standing in the middle of a frozen lake. Another creak as the ice beneath me started to shift again. I had to keep moving, the only alternative was to drown.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been in the cabin, days, weeks, months, time didn’t seem to move. There was no light outside. The inky darkness that surrounded the cabins exterior blocked out the world in which I had left, it locked me in, consumed my thoughts and dreams, took away my diminishing hope.
For a while the cabin was empty, I existed alone, the writer, the man who dared to rewrite destiny. I had written the manuscript to save the only person to ever matter to me, my wife, my muse.
I battled through plot twists, drama, and horror, fought against creatures of the night; I called them Taken, the empty shells of those dominated by the dark presence. I had sacrificed myself and many others to save her; I took on the darkness with a childhood myth, the clicker. I then ended the story with a metaphor.
I thought with the story over I could leave, but I kept writing. I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t Departure anymore, not even the sequel, my writing had lost rhythm, it no longer flowed like it used to when I had motivation, words were disjointed, jumbled and lacking any sense. Alice was saved but the story had died. Did I die?
At some point I noticed a change in the small house, a presence, one of dark twisted insanity. When I was completely alone, everything seemed calm; I still seemed to have my sanity intact somehow. Then he appeared. The man that existed outside of logic, I wasn’t sure if my manuscript had brought him here or if my sanity had slowly started to disintegrate, either way he was here. But why?
He would smile at me, maniacally like a psychopath restrained. His eyes were wide and bloodshot; they never lost contact with my own, as if he only existed in my gaze. He spoke in mutters, never directed to anyone, insane whispers about no escape.
His features were identical to those of my own, like a clone or an evil twin, his clothes were copies of my own, the same tweed jacket and black hoodie combination, that 5 o’clock shadow, even the same plaster I had received after the car accident, he looked so real but was he. Was I real?
It was unsettling. Zane had called him Mr. Scratch, he told me not to worry about him, he would meet my friends when I was gone. But I was worried. Why was he here? What had happened to my friends?
Sometimes my mind would shift outside of the cabin, into a world of my own twisted imagination, a world fighting me, dragging me deeper into insanity; its surroundings were familiar yet strange, like something out of a demented dream. The landscape was cracked and broken, shifting every time I slipped deeper into the dark void. Zane tried to help me through these times, told me to follow the signal to safety, he gave me tools to aid me through the darkness but they were not the only things that helped me. It had been the memories of times long forgotten that had kept me going the most, memories of Alice, of our times together before I lost my creativity, memories of Barry Wheeler my literary agent and sheriff Sarah Breaker who had aided me on my mission to save my wife who was trapped beneath the black waters of Cauldron lake.
Unfortunately Scratch had followed me into the nightmares too, he watched me suffer through the TV, tried to drag me back under into the darkness that I was trying to escape. He had dictated the horrors that came at every turn; created a new breed of Taken which were both stronger and faster than anything I had faced up in the real world, if that had been the real world. He forced me to fight, forced me to use up my short supply of batteries and bullets. He spoke like a demented storyteller, as if being trapped within the four walls of Bird Leg Cabin had driven him insane. If what Zane had said was true, if he really was so harmless, then why was he trying to kill me?
I’m trying to escape the cabin now, hunting through the scattered pages of the manuscript for a loophole, insurance, the key to escaping the nightmare that I have locked myself in. There has to be one here. I need to discover the truth about the dark presence and the power of Cauldron Lake, stop this from ever happening again, I need to finish what Thomas Zane started.
How did I get here…?
There’s no way out, no way out of here, I need to get out of here, get out of here, how do I get out!
Spoken secrets filled the air as Penny Lane walked by. No longer a mouse, no longer an image, no longer fooling around. She was on the other side of the barrier now, and the others viewed her as they would an apparition from their past. Was that the same smell of incense on her, the same fanciful attitude, the same curly golden mess of mop? Something had died in her though, they all believed, whether it was good or bad, no-one could know. The wildfire of her heart had been replaced by an ease of herself, of where she was in the world. She no longer felt compelled to anything anymore, to the beautiful destruction of her heart that had been there for all to see. There, in a song. She heard it in her head one day as she was walking home and had smiled a secret smile, knowledge of an alien past. The world had moved on now, but she still heard it, those songs. She had a child now, named Annabelle, who thought the world of her mother. The little Lady who moved around the house, lighting candles and singing her songs, also laughed along with the wonderment of her daughter, a miracle who had come from someplace better than this. For this she was grateful, grateful to the tips of her toes, and it changed her. HE never mattered anymore, none of the HE's that floated in and out of her life mattered anymore. She could put on her rugged threads, head down to the shops, and she was free. It was her choice to entrance them, a choice to stop. The buskers on the street still gave her a look, a look that seemed to say I know where you've been, and I know where you're going, but she no longer cared. The open road no longer was paved with souls she loved, it all came back to Annabelle. Annabelle was her anchor.
More to come on Russel and William methinks... Sorry for the EXTREME lateness guys, let me know what you think :)
Two individuals stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking a sick and twisted forest, gazing towards the ruins shadowed in darkness just beyond the forest border. The two were a curious pair, one was short where the other was tall, one was cheerful where the other was serious, and one wore green where the other wore blue. They were a contrast of characters, but it did not affect their treatment of the other. A comfortable silence was held between them, indicating long companionship and intimate knowledge of the other.
“Do you remember the fables of times long past?” spoke the short and cheerful one, turning his head to regard his taller companion, head tilted upwards like a child looking up to a parent.
“Places like this, those stories are almost too kind,” was the response received, keen eyes roving over the shapes in the distance.
Silent agreement passed between the two. The surface on which they stood was the planet Ziost, dark and tainted, unfit for life, but held multitudes of dangerous creatures in the dark depths of its wilderness. The two could feel the taint of the planet, crawling over their skin due to their sensitivity to the Force, far more attuned to such things than ordinary mortals.
Sage Masters, the few individuals who dedicated their lives in study of the Force itself, its nature, and its effect on the living. They were old and wise, had met many dangers that they had bested, both alone and together. Now they were undertaking the most important of tasks, and the most difficult. To cleanse a place of Dark Side taint was difficult and draining for those involved, but these two were sworn to serve the Light and chase shadows away from every corner of the galaxy.
The forest ahead was thick with no clear course to follow, treacherous for all who dared wander, but despite this the two found a rocky trail to lead them into the heart of it. It was one of many obstacles to their ultimate goal and it would be defeated like all the rest.
Branches of dead trees curled their bony fingers into the fabric of the two Masters cloaks, silently discouraging them from their planned course of action. The two ignored the silent warning, shrugging the appendages off, sharp snaps accompanying as the flimsy limbs broke. Fallen leaves crunched underneath their boots as they made their way along the obscure track created by nameless creatures. The wind howled above them, foreboding.
The path led them onwards, out of the forest and amongst ruined walls, the empty remnants of the city that had rested on the border of the forest eons before. Beyond the ruined city a fortress rose up from the ground, resting on a plateau and looming above them. Like the city, it was also in ruins, but its dark spires held firm, empowered by the dark presence that still dwelled in its walls. It was their final warning, the point of no return.
“It makes one wonder what sort of culture lived on Ziost before it became corrupted,” the shorter murmured, with far more interest in history than his companion. They did not meet each other’s gaze, staring ahead.
“It is no worry of ours,” he replied, a hand gesturing towards the looming citadel beyond the city. Their route was clear, they had to merely step along the provided passageway.
As they walked, they noticed that there was little trace of former inhabitants, merely the empty shells of abandoned buildings, mournfully drooping as their walls crumbled. This was not the place it used to be. The road beneath their feet led them towards their intended goal, cracked and ruined, worn.
The pathway came to a sudden stop by the foreboding gate of the citadel, an area awash in shadow, portcullis looming above them, angled to the side thanks to erosion of the supports. The two cut through, their step firm and sure as they left the broken cobbles and stepped over the cracked flagstones of an ancient courtyard. Weeds and dying foliage grew out of cracks, crawling up the wall in a futile attempt to reach the sky. Ahead there stood three grand archways, two of equal size flanking a larger one, leading into a black void. The ancient outdated architecture elicited begrudging respect from both Masters, admiration of a glorious period long past, but now had been tainted.
“We must be cautious, the dark side is treacherous,” the shorter muttered, knowledge of the traps and tricks that awaited them held intimately in his mind. They had been encountered many times before in similar buildings, darkness was uniform.
“We will prevail, brother. The Force will guide us,” the taller returned, staring ever impassively at the scene before them, the three massive archways’ black mass seemingly draining all light from the area. Leeching off hope, fear, and anger.
“The Force will guide us home,” the other finished, a bright untarnished grin flitting over his face as he turned to his companion.
The serious and severe man cracked a tentative smile at the sight of his partner’s unabashed joy in light of their knowledge of the Force. He settled a hand on the others shoulder, squeezed it lightly, and they stepped through the largest archway together. Facing their destiny as the Force dictated.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been in the cabin, days, weeks, months, time didn’t seem to move. There was no light outside. The inky darkness that surrounded the cabins exterior blocked out the world in which I had left, it locked me in, consumed my thoughts and dreams, took away my diminishing hope.
For a while the cabin was empty, I existed alone, the writer, the man who dared to rewrite destiny. I had written the manuscript to save the only person to ever matter to me, my wife, my muse.
I battled through plot twists, drama, and horror, fought against creatures of the night; I called them Taken, the empty shells of those dominated by the dark presence. I had sacrificed myself and many others to save her; I took on the darkness with a childhood myth, the clicker. I then ended the story with a metaphor.
I thought with the story over I could leave, but I kept writing. I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t Departure anymore, not even the sequel, my writing had lost rhythm, it no longer flowed like it used to when I had motivation, words were disjointed, jumbled and lacking any sense. Alice was saved but the story had died. Did I die?
At some point I noticed a change in the small house, a presence, one of dark twisted insanity. When I was completely alone, everything seemed calm; I still seemed to have my sanity intact somehow. Then he appeared. The man that existed outside of logic, I wasn’t sure if my manuscript had brought him here or if my sanity had slowly started to disintegrate, either way he was here. But why?
He would smile at me, maniacally like a psychopath restrained. His eyes were wide and bloodshot; they never lost contact with my own, as if he only existed in my gaze. He spoke in mutters, never directed to anyone, insane whispers about no escape.
His features were identical to those of my own, like a clone or an evil twin, his clothes were copies of my own, the same tweed jacket and black hoodie combination, that 5 o’clock shadow, even the same plaster I had received after the car accident, he looked so real but was he. Was I real?
It was unsettling. Zane had called him Mr. Scratch, he told me not to worry about him, he would meet my friends when I was gone. But I was worried. Why was he here? What had happened to my friends?
Sometimes my mind would shift outside of the cabin, into a world of my own twisted imagination, a world fighting me, dragging me deeper into insanity; its surroundings were familiar yet strange, like something out of a demented dream. The landscape was cracked and broken, shifting every time I slipped deeper into the dark void. Zane tried to help me through these times, told me to follow the signal to safety, he gave me tools to aid me through the darkness but they were not the only things that helped me. It had been the memories of times long forgotten that had kept me going the most, memories of Alice, of our times together before I lost my creativity, memories of Barry Wheeler my literary agent and sheriff Sarah Breaker who had aided me on my mission to save my wife who was trapped beneath the black waters of Cauldron lake.
Unfortunately Scratch had followed me into the nightmares too, he watched me suffer through the TV, tried to drag me back under into the darkness that I was trying to escape. He had dictated the horrors that came at every turn; created a new breed of Taken which were both stronger and faster than anything I had faced up in the real world, if that had been the real world. He forced me to fight, forced me to use up my short supply of batteries and bullets. He spoke like a demented storyteller, as if being trapped within the four walls of Bird Leg Cabin had driven him insane. If what Zane had said was true, if he really was so harmless, then why was he trying to kill me?
I’m trying to escape the cabin now, hunting through the scattered pages of the manuscript for a loophole, insurance, the key to escaping the nightmare that I have locked myself in. There has to be one here. I need to discover the truth about the dark presence and the power of Cauldron Lake, stop this from ever happening again, I need to finish what Thomas Zane started.
How did I get here…?
There’s no way out, no way out of here, I need to get out of here, get out of here, how do I get out!
"The nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh that was built in measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults and sending out at last, after cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of the sensitive and called imperiously to the faithful to come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration."
"He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion; making me see with terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stone—whose geometry, he oddly said , was all wrong— ...abnormal, non-euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours."
One Nation Under Cthulhu
Cthulhu Rises
There is an extroadinary amount of fantasy art on the internet based in the Cthulhu mythos. Lovecraft trully created a completely new and original mythology, one that artists of all kinds continue to tap into. The above examples will give you a sense of what Lovecraft was all about but there's just somethign about non-euclidean geometry or beings that straddle dimensions and will send you bat-shit insane just by glimpsing them, that defies visual representation.
2. I Cthulhu
I Cthulhu or What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?
Neil Gaiman, famous as a comic book writer, a novelist and recently, a script writer, has written a homage to Lovecraft by way of a parody in which Cthulhu relates his memoirs to a human slave. It is quite funny and although it obviously takes license in its rendition of Cthulhu (as if the Great Old One would stoop to having a chat with a mere mortal), it is full of faithful references to the whole Cthulhu cannon. Gaiman even uses some of the language of Lovecraft in some of the dialog although overall, it is written in his own unique style. The character of Cthulu in this piece has basically a human psychology-something which, if I had less sense of humor, I might deem downright heretical. I always preferred Gaiman's comics to his prose (never did manage to finish one of his novels), that said, I really enjoyed it. I imagine though that a lot of the humor would be lost on non-believers.
Each of the songs are based on a story by H. P. Lovecraft. I find the interpretations really interesting even if the music is not of a kind I would imagine when reading Lovecraft.
Some people might be put off by Martyn Jacques' falsetto vocals but I find them very haunting and dramatic. I thought The Tiger Lillies cabaret style an odd fit for Lovecraft when I first heard it but the music is meticulously constructed and humurous in a macabre way. Alexander Hacke reads Lovecraft brilliantly, his guttural narrations bringing the words to life and his electronic doom soundscapes are perfectly visceral in their brooding. The stage design and artwork by Danielle de Picciotto is again not what I associate with Lovecraft but it is very interesting work and suits the performance in its head-spinning strangeness.
4. Do You Know What's Wrong?
Now his souls an empty cup. Like a vampire of the night, Shies away from the daylight. Does he know what's wrong? So edward is eaten up, By somethign so corrupt. What is left? A poisoned shell And his own living hell. Does he know what's wrong? Oh Edward, you should've been This castles king. Now you're left in dungeons dim, To mourn, mourn your sin. Does he know what's wrong? What is left is raw regret. Like a man who's lost the bet. Just a case of might have beens. How you pay for your sin? Do you know whats wrong? So the thing under the doorstep Is just your regret, In your funeral shroud. I will sing, sing it loud- Do you know whats wrong? And right?
The song is based on The Thing on the Doorstep. The story is narrated by a man, Daniel, whos best friend Edward Derby marries a woman named Asenath. Shortly thereafter Edward begins to suspect that his wife's late father, Ephraim is still alive. One night Edward tells Daniel that Asenath has been using his body by soul-transferrence and that he suspects that it is actually Ephraim inhabiting Asenath's body. Eventually Daniel gets Edward taken to Arkham Sanitarium. Daniel is then awoken in the night by a knock on the door. He opens it to find a dwarfen messenger who gives him a letter from Edward. In the letter Edward tells Daniel that he killed his wife and buried her in their cellar but that Asenath-Ephraim have taken over his body. The letter asks Daniel to go to the sanitarium and kill Edward and so be rid of Asenath-Ephraim. Daniel does so. The "thing on the doorstep" was Edward using his wifes putrefying corpse.
A very melancholy but powerful song. It is very evocative of regret and weakness-It was due to Edward's weakness of character that he fell victim to his wife's machinations. It is an oddly domestic story from a writer that usually carried his stories with overtones of cosmic horror. The song itself is fairly straightforward and makes a lot of sense once you know the story.
5. The Mountaintops
On the tallest of earth's peaks, live the gods of whom I speak, In the wastes where no-one treads, except those who are dead, Climb the mountaintops and have no fear. Barzai The Wise dreams, seeks god before he dies, He believes it to be a lie, to see them means that you must die, Climb the mountaintops and have no fear. So he climbed to the peaks, to see the god whom he did seek, Though all around they cried: "Barzai is sure to die", Climb the mountaintops and have no fear. So strong is his belief, or is it just deceit, So onward he does climb, to god and the divine, Climb the mountaintops and have no fear.
The song is based on Lovecraft's short story The Other Gods. The story is set in a pre-historic civilization. The prophet Barzai the Wise and his apprentice Atal venture through the desert to Hatheg-Kla and climb the mountain in search of the Gods of Earth. Instead of the Gods of Earth however they find "other gods, the gods of the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of earth!" Atal abandons his master to his fate and Barzai is never seen again.
The song makes me think of Barzai's spiritual quest as a metaphor for the human pursuit of knowledge. Lovecraft saw potential dangers coming from the progress of science and technology. In particular he saw Einstein's Theory of Relativity as "throwing the world into chaos and making the cosmos a jest." (Wikipedia.) The refrain "climb the mountaintops and have no fear" is a mockery of the quest. In Barzai's case there certainly was cause for fear and it was the strength of his belief that led to his doom.
“Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age."
Preview of the new audio / visual project 'Unearthing' written and narrated by Alan Moore with images from Mitch Jenkins. Soundtrack from Crook&Flail, Mike Patton, Zack Hill (Hella), Justin Broadrick (Jesu / Godflesh) and Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai). Box set including 3 x LP, 3 x CD, photo, transcript and poster only available to pre-order now from Lex Records.
Alan Moore was the creative mind behind influential comics such as Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Unearthing is a spoken word homage to Steve Moore, a british comic book writer and pioneer of fanzines who inspired Alan Moore (no relation) to enter the comics industry.
The prose is heady and thick, Alan's voice a seductively low vibrating drone set to transcendental post-rock riffs. It lulls the listener into a state of arousal akin to a psychedelic experience, transporting us to Shooters Hill in South London and into the UK comic book scene with its tales of "omnipotent losers". It has a kind of mythological resonance but instead of gods the writer is hero and the imagination his weapons.
7. Between the Stars
Short film, Netherlands, 1998. Directed by Djie Han Thung
Between the Stars seems to ape the style of David Lynch's early films Eraserhead and The Elephant Man with its bleak industrial environment filmed in black and white and the psychic queerness of the character. I've never been the biggest fan of Lynch and this short film seems a bit plodding for me. I did like though the idea of this guy sticking the board out of the window to lie staring up at the stars, or rather, at the space between stars. The scene in the book store shows that he has found something that is eating away at him, slowly but surely drawing him down into the abyss. He lies night after night, transfixed on the night sky, looking apparently for something, we don't know what. Then finally, the firmament gives way and he reaches for the void, finds the gap and vanishes into it. It is a neat little metaphor but it is ultimately too simple and unfulfilling for me.
I'm sure everyone is aware of the genre of fake movie trailers, produced by mashing up clips from different movies to create a new hybrid storyline. Usually these trailers are ironically hilarious. In this one the creator has attempted a more earnest depiction of what an adaptation of "At the Mountains of Madness" would actually be like. I'm not sure where the clips are from but the narrative depicted by their sequence is true to the novel as far as I can tell (not having read it).
As far as trailers go it is suspenseful and dramatic and gives an idea to the epic scale of the story. It shows the underground vaults into which the explorers descend but otherwise does not show anything of the "Elder Things" or the "Shoggoths" they find there. This might be a problem in a real film trailer as the viewer would be left wondering what the film is all about. Within the genre of faux movie trailers however I think it was a cool idea and well executed.
~ApparentlyGuillermo del Toro is set to direct a big budget 3D adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness. James Cameron has signed on to produce.
9. Ryleh
3D short film, France, 2003. Director: Mikael Genachte-Le Bail, Gaetan Boutet. Music: Cédric Genachte-Le Bail.
"An old fisherman brings a mysterious chest up in his nets. He brings it back home only to discover that it was best left at the bottom of the sea. A digitally animated short film inspired by the world of H.P. Lovecraft".
The animation and music in this piece is very professional and the story captures many of the elements of the Cthulhu mythos-The dreaded sea and the desolation of forgotten shores; the fisherman's catch of an apocryphal book and the stone statue of the Cthulhu cultists (both familiar artifacts in the mythos) which lead him to fascination, bleeding into delerium; the arrival of the cyclopean city and the final liberation of death.
I think this film could be a good introduction for anyone unfamiliar with Lovecraft. Ultimately however the simplicity of the story and the unoriginality of it left me flat. There just wasn't enough of a story and it just felt like a recombining of obvious themes from many of Lovecraft's works. I didn't have enough of a feel for the character or for the descent into madness that must surely occur on the road of any worthy pilgrim slumping his way to R'lyeh. And oh yeah, I just don't think being french is any excuse for misspelling the name of His Unholiness' throne.
10. A Lovecraft Dream
Animated short film, Italy, 2008. Written & Directed by Michele Botticelli Music and drawings by Leonardo manna
"A short movie based on the real H.P.Lovecraft character and his nightmares."
The stochastic nature of the animation and the music in this film does a great job of evoking the sense of dread and the looming threat of madness in the clutches of feverish dreams of contact with abominable entities from unknown spaces. The queer motion of things and the flash cuts add a queesy feeling of sea sickness making you feel how the dreamer is tossed about on the ineffable seas of infinity. The sketchy black and white artwork works because it plays on the sketchiness of the imagery with its demented forms that can only, even vaguely be captured by falling into metaphor. It provides us a view into the authors state of mind as he is assailed by nightmare visions from which he wakes to scrawl out "The Call of Cthulhu" in his note book. To know these beings is to see down into the cracks in a seemingly ordered universe and glimpse the chaos that threatens to crush in upon our naive reality.
I, Artemis, is the first chapter of Artemis, Lady of the Hunt, a fanfic story based on Greek mythology. Centering on Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting, the author begins with a short back-story; giving insight into how the other Gods view Artemis. Through the premise of a winter solstice meeting of the Gods, Artemis then offers her personal bias on each one of them, from Apollo to Hades. This gives the reader an insight into the psyche of the character by her opinion of others. Although slightly tiresome to read a personal opinion on an assortment of characters, they give vital information for which the rest of the story rests on. The ‘everyday’ life of a Greek God is played out, including power plays, friendships, and feelings of insecurity and anger as strong as any humans.
Quarantine is a short piece of crossover fanfiction between the worlds of The Mighty Boosh and Red Dwarf. The majority of the work is a dialogue between the two main characters of The Mighty Boosh, Howard Moon and Vince Noir. It is only revealed at the end that they are on the spaceship of Red Dwarf, which is the only Red Dwarf mention in the story. However, the dialogue is well-written and stays accurate to the characters, while managing to be humourous.
The Wind is a piece of fanfiction about the movie Almost Famous, from the point of view of main character Penny Lane.It incorporates the lyrics to the namesake song by Cat Stevens, to an inner dialogue of the character, musings as she lives her life as a rock n roll ‘band aid’. The lyrics fit well into the ‘flow’ of the story, giving extra significance to words following them. The dialogue is written as a flow of consciousness, making it easy to relate to. The author captures the tone of the movie and the character of Penny Lane, through well-realised language that combines her whimsy and emotions.
Animal Farm Journal Entries and Poem is a fanfic piece based on the novel Animal Farm. It includes three journal entries from the point of view of the character Benjamin, a poem about the events of the novel, and a diary entry from the point of view of the character Moses. The poem is a well-written overview of the events of the novel, however both the journal and the diary are too jarring to read, and would benefit greatly from some editing by the author. Too many linking words take away the impression of trains of thought, which is what they are supposed to be. The hand of the writer is too evident in the crafting of the words.
Fidelity is a fanfic inspired by the author’s belief in the bible. A dentist’s waiting room is the catalyst for a Christian and an atheist to have a conversation about religion, faith and evolution. It is written from the point of view of the atheist, with a short introduction of the Christian observing the atheist in the office. The woman’s evolutionary beliefs are challenged by the disheveled Christian man, who is hinted at as being an angel. The author gives a good sense of who the characters are by well-observed description of how they interact. Whether a reader’s beliefs align with the character of the atheist or the Christian, it is a well-observed story that gives food for thought.
Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare is a fanfiction based on the movie (500) Days of Summer, focusing on the two main characters having a chance encounter three years after the movie concluded its story. The movie ended with Tom, heartbroken over ‘girlfriend’ Summer’s decision to end their unconventional relationship, start to rebuild his life after the discovery that Summer is to be married, and also shows the potential for a new relationship. This fanfic captures the slight awkwardness of their first encounter since then. The author manages to say a lot about the relationship with little information, and the characters come to life quite vividly. The development of the character of Autumn from scratch, who only appeared in the movie briefly, is very well done, and contrasts nicely with the character of Summer. However, this work could use some editing in the non-dialogue parts, to make it flow better.
Inevitable is fanfic about the television show Green Wing, and shows characters turning up hung-over the morning to work after a big night. The author captures the very particular comedic tone of the show surprisingly well, with surrealist elements shown through this mainly dialogue-based work. However, the way the work is laid out, with lots of singular lines, with a lack of commas to give rest to the reader, gives it a rushed tone that could be augmented by some editing. It does however; suggest the author would have adeptness for script-writing.
Sense of reality is based on the television series Black Books. It is the first chapter in a series about what happens when the characters of Bernard, Manny and Fran accept an offer to take part in a reality show, filmed at the Black Books shop. The author has a habit of following most lines of dialogue with descriptions of what the characters are doing or feeling, taking the focus off the dialogue, which is where the potential for humour lies. It takes on narrative structure like a book, or some kind of drama. However, the artistic license is well-used to express the spirit of the characters from the show, humour or no humour.
Glue is a short and snappy piece of writing about the IT Crowd. It involves an incident in which the character of Jen returns to the basement to find her workmates Moss and Roy have had a mishap with some superglue. It is a short piece of writing about an incident, and does not contain extraneous information apart from the dialogue, which puts all the more focus on the funny dialogue. Editing down work seems to be a hard skill to master, but it is very beneficial to works based on television shows.
The Switch is based on the television series The Mighty Boosh. It is the first of many chapters following the main characters as they go on a magical adventure, reminiscent of an actual episode. This work is extremely well-written and engrossing, balancing both abstract and concrete descriptions which bring it vividly to life. It is written in such a way as it could be a book, or a very detailed script for filming. All aspects of this fanfiction are great.
