As of the posting of this chapter, I now have just one full, and one mostly finished, chapter left to go before Reddit has caught up to my manuscript. Honestly, I'm not really sure where the story is headed next; My writer's block led to me writing the final chapter of the novel so I could move on from it, so I know where the story ends... But I'm as clueless as all of you about how it will get there. And personally, I'm excited to see it unfold... Especially with what takes place in this chapter and the next.
Up until now it's been merely place-setting for the REAL story. Welcome to the meat of the story, Reddit. Shit's about to get insane.
[First] [Glossary Addendum] [Previous]
[From the Abyss Artisanry, Wolfreach Commercial District, 23rd of Nocun, 5016 TE]

[Boltz]
Darkness... Flickering reality, ever-shifting... The screams of the half-Taken and the un-natural howls and cries of... things, jumping in and out of the places where reality itself wavered...
"GAH!" I shot up in bed, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my heart thundering in my chest. Chit, who had apparently been laying against my shoulder, let out a small cry of alarm as my shoulder suddenly shot past her head. I looked around the room, expecting to see it flickering like an old archive record from the Terran History Archive. But it wasn't... My breathing started to slow, though my heart continued to beat in my chest like a demented war-drum. I'm fine... Reality is fine. Nothing is - I let out a yell and my body jerked away as Chit reached out to touch my arm, before recovering. I looked down at my hands, and was shocked to see them shaking as though I was freezing. Chit laid her hand on my arm again, and this time I didn't flinch. Taking it as a cue, my lover shifted her body to be on my lap, and simply wrapped her arms around me. She hadn't seen what I had... But I was grateful for that. I simply wrapped my own arms around her and gripped her body tight, willing my nerves to settle. What I saw... I could only pray to the Duality that it wouldn't come to pass.
As my lover held me though, instead of my nerves simply calming, my composure slipped, slowly, cracking little by little as it slipped away, until I was crying like a child into my beloved Siren's neck. If it bothered her, she gave no indication of it; She simply held me tight, allowing the tears to flow.

[A Few hours Later...]

[Cewa]
I leapt off of Lan and ran into the workshop, Chit having already unlocked it for me. My Greatwolf companion collided with the door as it was closing, making a crashing noise as his shoulder connected. However, it was then allowed to continue closing, as Chit led me back to the apartment, where Boltz was on the bed, rocking back and forth. I had never seen such terror on his face before, and his eyes looked as though he had been crying. He registered my presence, and asked,
"Reality... Outside... It's not... Not..." He trailed off, shaking his head and rocking himself back and forth once more. I frowned, turning to Chit, and she said,
"All I could get out of him was that he had a nightmare where... Reality was... Flickering? Like the original records from the ship Terrans arrived on." The words sent an icy chill down my spine, and I froze. As I did so, Lan let out a fearful whimper as the mental image leaked across our connection. Seeing my reaction, and giving Lan a worried glance, she asked,
"What is it? What does he mean, reality flickering?" I looked at her, my body feeling hollow, and I replied,
"Obliteration."

[That Lunwatch...]

[Cewa]
I opened my eyes, finding myself in the Cascade. I looked around, and spotted Luunah, watching the universes in their eternal, slow-motion fall in the distance.
"How long do we have?" I asked by way of greeting. He turned to look at me, and frowned.
"What do you mean, Cewa?" He asked, and I growled.
"My Sparkborn, Jakob, woke up last night from a nightmare... Where he saw Khaos Taking a reality. It scared him more than anything I've ever seen.
Luunah fully turned to face me now, and I saw a flicker of concern in his eyes. He walked over to the Observatory, a small, table-like construct with a viewing sphere, he had called it. He gestured to the Observatory and said,
"Show me." Taking a deep breath, I focused on imagining Boltz, and soon enough, a vision appeared of him, sleeping, though his head was twitching left and right. Luunah reached out, and the vision rippled like water, before being replaced by...
"So it's happening again." Luunah said simply, and then looked out at a dark spot on the Cascade. I frowned at him, and he said,
"You must increase your vigilance, Cewa. The first indication of Khaos approaching a reality with Stormbirthed is them receiving visions. The second is the twisting of weak minds. You will find that there are people who will follow Khaos for what it claims to offer them. They will believe it, and follow blindly." I nodded, and Luunah sighed.
"It seems time is running out once more..." He said, and returned to his watching of the Cascade.

[A Cycle Later...]

[Chit'Eiwu]

"... And in other news, rumours have begun to circulate about a new pirate group calling themselves 'The Fingers of Khaotum'. These 'Fingers' have begun to make small time raid attacks on passing freight ships. It is unclear who is leading them or what their ultimate goals are, however-" I turned off the newscast, and sighed. It had taken just three weeks for this group to suddenly start appearing... And I had been one of the victims of their raids. I'd been waiting for a shipment of metals for creating new weapons for sale when the supplier had contacted me to tell me that the courier freighter ship had been attacked and their cargo stolen.
As I was sitting at the table and wondering what was to be the next step, Cewa walked in, and stood near the table. I looked up at him, then froze as I saw the expression on his face. He looked as though he had to inform somebody of their upcoming execution.
"What is it?" I asked, and he sighed.
"The Fingers of Khaotum... Boltz and I have to deploy alongside some Warriors and the CDF to combat them." I blinked, not sure why that would be such a bad thing. The Cluster Defence Force was, after all, a powerful military force.
"The Fingers... Will most likely be able to wield a pale fragment of the power of a Khaosian." He said after a short pause. My heart sank into my stomach; That would mean that only the Kaurine armour that we had developed would protect them.
"I can... I can give you and Boltz a couple of Watches. A week at the most. Make them count... My friend." He said, and gently squeezed my shoulder, a uniquely Terran gesture. I nodded, and he walked out again.

[Seven Watches Later...]

[Boltz]
Resting my elbows on the counter, I ran my face up and down my palms. It had been a hectic week, contacting all of my regular customers, and informing them that I'd be out for a while, and that due to the nature of why I would be absent, I couldn't guarantee my return. The messages also stated that if I was to return, I would look forward to serving their needs once more, but if this was to be our last correspondence, I was honoured that they had chosen From the Abyss Artisanry for their equipment needs. The countdown timer buzzed, indicating that it had finished and was now displaying the "closed" signage, and I straightened, and wearily walked into our apartment and through to the bedroom.
As I rounded the corner however, the weariness melted away; As she had each Lunwatch since Cewa had informed her that we would be deploying, Chit sat on the bed, her body proudly on display as she waited for me. And just as every night before, I couldn't help but grin. It was like she wanted to ensure that our memories had each other's body burned into them in case I didn't return. Not that I was complaining... Though tonight, with it being the last Watch before I deployed, I decided to make it... Special.
Taking a deep breath, I took off and folded each item of clothing with deliberate slowness. First my jacket, which was made of genuine cattle leather, then my shirt, then my shoes where neatly placed beside the door, but out of the way. After that, my pants came off and were folded once, twice, then placed on top of the other two items. My underwear of course, sailed into the washbasket. At last the only thing left to do was reach the bed, at which point things become a bit fuzzy...

[The Next Watch...]

[Cewa]
I knocked on the door to the bedroom of Boltz and Chit's apartment, and I saw an amethyst head raise tiredly from the bed, where both Boltz and Chit were laying together in something of a crumpled mess. Her green eyes gazed at me without focus for a few seconds, before slowly focusing on me, then her head fell back, and she groaned,
"What time is it?" I chuckled, and replied,
"It's about two hours past Solpeak. I figured I'd give you guys almost as much time as possible; We need to be leaving atmo by five." I leaned against the doorframe, and couldn't help but grin as Chit almost lazily hit Boltz with an arm.
It must have been one hell of a Lunwatch they had... Boltz's sandy hair popped up, then turned, and he rolled over to squint at me. I gave an exaggerated wave, and his head dropped, then came back up as he asked,
"Can't delay it?" His words were slightly unclear from drowsiness, and I shook my head.
"Nope, but I deliberately came early in case this very thing happened. Bitterbean?" I replied, and an arm flew up before dropping again. Chuckling as I turned to go into the kitchen, I called out,
"If you're not dressed yet, throw something on; Got a new uniform waiting for you on the ship anyway so that's not an issue." And with that, I strode into the kitchen, knowing from many a visit where the ingredients were. Biterbean granules for the heart of the drink, and an equal amount of sweetcrystal to take the edge off the bitterness. I placed a cup under the receptacle tap, and hit the "bitterbean" button, followed by "type A". The machine scanned the cup, and began to heat up the right amount of water, as set by Boltz, and then walked over to the fridge to grab out a bottle of milk.
As I walked back to the receptacle, the fridge door closing itself without pressure against it doing so, the tap dispensed steaming water until it was about a quarter from the top, before stopping. I pulled the cup out and poured milk until it was just under the lip, paling the color from a dark, almost black, to a muted, muddy brown. Then I took the now empty milk bottle to the reducer and dropped the glass container into it, just as Boltz stumbled out of the room. I noticed however, that he was walking in a slightly awkward way, and chuckled. Definitely a hell of a Lunwatch... Though I couldn't blame him; I was walking the same exact way for the first hour after I woke up. I gestured to the bitterbean, now steaming away on the counter, and he gave me a tired grin.
"Thanks. How long til we gotta be out of atmo?" He asked, and, as I moved out of the way, I replied,
"By five. You've got about two and a half hours to down that and wake up, then we gotta get mobile." He nodded, and grabbed the cup with one hand, lifting it to his lips. He took a sip, and I saw some of the tiredness immediately dissipate from my friend's face.

[Two and a Half Hours Later...]

[Cewa]
I watched in amusement, Aerrin by my side next to the transport shuttle, as Boltz shared one last kiss with Chit before boarding. Aerrin laughed as Boltz finally turned around, jogging over to the shuttle and boarding, his cheeks flushed. I grinned at his expression, which resembled that of a schoolboy who got caught kissing his crush in behind the gymnasium practice mats. Turning to Aerrin, I wrapped my arms around her waist, and said,
"With a bit of luck we'll be back in person in around two weeks." Lifting up one hand, I brushed some hair out of her face, and leaned down to kiss her goodbye, hoping against hope that it wouldn't be our last.
After a few blissful moments though, I had to let go, and reluctantly did so. I stepped back and onto the shuttle ramp, and grabbed onto the overhead stability rail. Aerrin took a few steps back, and I turned towards the pilot, and nodded. The shuttle immediately began ascending, and Aerrin waved, continuing to do so until the shuttle turned away, the side door sliding into place and sealing.
Sighing, I moved to the seating section, and swung myself into one of them beside Boltz. Soon enough, the shuttle rattled as we approached the sound barrier, and then slowly calmed down as the atmosphere around us grew thin. Off to war again, it seems... I thought, and then glanced at Boltz, who had his eyes closed, and teeth clenched. I felt a smile tug at my lips, and added, But at least I'm not alone. I've got the closest thing I've ever had to a sibling here with me.
After a few minutes more of flight, the pilot began speaking into his comms, and I stood up, walking to the cockpit, and taking hold of the handles on the twin seats in the front. The pilot looked around at me, hearing my approach, and said,
"Just received docking clearance, sir." I nodded, and focused my attention ahead of us. Reaching down my connection to Kaelani, I said,
Whereabouts are you, Lan? There was a moment of silence, before he replied,
Approaching the hangar. You're inbound? I nodded, then realised he wouldn't be able to see me do so.
Affirmative; Just a few clicks out. The ship's just come into view, and we're on approach to the hangar area. I caught a flash of the doors to the hangar from the ship interior, and flashed back the sight of the ship we were to serve on.
The Aurora Caelum Procella, was one of a small family of nigh-identical ships. The bow of each, had a sensor array, looking like needles poking out ahead of the massive vessel and the hull was a gunmetal grey aside from a patch displaying the Warrior Emblem: A Kaurine Blade, half Empowered, resting on a metal shield like in the ancient archives Terrans brought with us when we fled wherever we previously called home before the Cluster.
Behind a section of nearly featureless hull, broken only by small lines of dotted windows for the crew quarter areas, sat a series of three large hangars. We were headed for the closest one, but I could also see a set of three visible, and massive, engines a ways behind the last hangar.
From having the systems described to me, I knew there was a fission-fusion duel operation reactor which measured a cube of approximately fifty metres, or about thirty of my roughly one and a half metre height, stacked, in each direction, which provided a number in energy units that I couldn't even remember due to the size of it being impossible for me to grasp at the time.
Alongside this reactor however, were the massive engines of the ship, each of which stretched about twice as far inwards from the nozzles I could see, and with a width of around ten of my height, or just over a metre and a half, the engines would be a most dangerous place to be indeed. Soon enough however, the shuttle docked, and the door popped open with a hiss. Lan sat on the other side, waiting for me.
However, Boltz reached him first, and rubbed the fur between his ears. Over our connection, Lan let out an almost... Terran groan of pleasure, before recovering his composure as Boltz moved on, and saying,
Why does that feel so good? I chuckled as I walked to the door, and hopped down from the shuttle, which this time had not lowered the boarding ramp. Resting a hand on his neck, I shrugged.
"Who knows?" I said aloud, and he stood up to match my stride as we walked to the command bridge.
A few minutes later, we stepped out into a large chamber in the center of the ship, with the walls covered in viewscreens. Lan and I reached the Command Table, and he assumed a bowing position, while I snapped a salute, which consisted of bringing one's arm up as though cradling something to your chest, and clapping your hand to the front of your shoulder, before forming a fist with the same hand and thumping said shoulder. As I did so, the ship's Commander turned from where she had been studying a star chat with one of the navigators, and returned the gesture as she fixed me with a sapphire gaze.
"Ah, Lord Aerrus! Did you have a pleasant flight up?" She asked.

This particular Commander, one Akyra Vikrian, was an Arctus Lepardis, to my great surprise. Her fur was dotted with various patches of black on her silvery coat, with some rings of black enclosing sections of an almost greenish grey color. Her black and white tail swished from side to side for a couple of moments as she spoke, indicating her happiness at seeing me. Her uniform, like the one I would soon don, was a mixed color; The majority of its shape was deep, Lunshade blue, and the hems and collar were a perfect, snow white, though unlike me, her insignia was that of a Blade and shield, with three bars below it, resembling support pillars.
I flashed a grin at her, and nodded, assuming a more relaxed posture.
"Yes, it was slightly bumpy, but that's to expected with a rapid ascent. So, what's the latest?" I asked, stepping down towards the Table, or CT, as we referred to it internally. She pressed a few buttons, and brought up a holographic archive.
"They call themselves the Fingers of Khaotum, though we're not sure yet what their ultimate goal is; They seem to be raiding for supplies right now, though they also leave no survivors behind." She said, bringing up a classified document which contained a report from a recent attack.
"Have the Shadesteppers worked out why they named themselves that?" I asked, stroking my chin thoughtfully, where some facial hair was beginning to develop. She brought up another report in the archive, and paraphrased a summary for me.
"They seem to be a religiously fanatical entity, espousing the virtues of what they call 'The Evershifting Paradise'. Beyond that, Khaotum seems to be their... God?"
I groaned at the words, and her gaze flicked to me.
"What? I've heard of what that sound means from a Terran..." She said. Sighing, I nodded to the door, and said,
"You'll want to follow me. This is... Not something you want to burden the crew here with. Bad enough that leadership members need to know." One of the Terran crewmembers turned to look at me, a frown on his face. Anticipating the question in his eyes, I said to him,
"This is something you would rather not know. If you knew the nature of the force behind these raiders, the lack of sleep would kill you." His face paled, and he nodded.
"Don't worry, crewman; Anything that won't adversely affect you simply by knowing, I will tell you. Anything that will... Well, that's my burden to bear." I added, and rested a hand on his shoulder. I smiled inwardly as the relief washed over his face.
Then I turned and led Akyra out of the bridge, and down to the Cerebis chamber of the ship. Cerebis chambers were a kind of mental projection theatre, used for primarily interrogation techniques, where a person merely thinking about something will project it. As we passed the med bay, I asked Akyra to wait for a moment and walked in, finding a medical assistant on her commpad. She looked up and then rapidly stood and saluted, but I waved a hand.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to report you for that. Do you have any spare bodily waste disposal bags? Specifically I need one with a reverse filter." The assistant nodded, and grabbed one out.
"Using the Cerebis chamber?" She asked, and I nodded.
"Need to show the Commander something... And I don't think she will handle it well." The assistant's face paled slightly, and I allowed myself a grim smile. She shakily sat down again, and I returned to Akyra, handing her the bag.
"You may need this for what I'll be showing you." I said.
[Next: The Fingers of Khaotum]

I'm not here to flaunt, (okay maybe a bit) (damn you ego!)
The real deal.
Here to serve higher purpose, changing the world, saving lives. Let me help you all speedrun this, as I have.
It happened several days ago. It's cracked, lemme tell you about it.
There are various viewpoints/stages... You have to transcend each one... Such as the Rational level of Science mindset he Empathy level... At the stage I'm at, you can use all the perspectives like a multi-faceted lense.
There is no attachments , especially not any ideas of self as held formerly.
It requires high levels of energy state - such as bliss/peacefulness
You must understand who you really are through each stage, eventually realizing 1) we are machines to be reprogrammed 2) the cosmos woke up as consciousness you.
There are various models/maps, just pick a decent one, and do the work. If you get stuck, look for Shadow at each level (my Shadow was a financial perspective, had to go back down and address this)
There will be many ups and downs... Imagine each perspective as a color on the Rubix cube... You get one lined up for a while in life, then change happens and you find another color lined up... You will find the challenge to be that while going through the perspectives, you lose others (Like being a hustler for a period, then being a humanitarian for a while). Eventually you get the higher tier of perspectives of Integration and Holistic... (How can I use each perspective and How is all of these valid)
I have simultaneous perspectives , though getting 4+ perspectives overlaying is quite the feat. It's important to be in highly positive energy as your natural base-line.
It's really a matter of Integrating perspective folding in/out on itself until you shatter the illusions of Reality (it's hallucinated) , Ego (that "I" voice within of False Self) and Limitations created by it , and Separation "All/God is me," not 'I am' "All/God" -- while simultaneously moving from Negativity->Neutral>Positivity>Super Positivity as your default vibe.
Transcendence will express itself differently for us, I'm weird AF. You don't go full Tolle (unless that's you) There are many roads (maps) that get to Transcendence, (just remember it's perspective stages/ego development+ energy vibe emotional state)
Figured I'd just write something to those who are ready for this message. Feel free to use me, or check me.
"The Mind is a Wonderful Servant, but a Terrible Master"
Emotions control you in this way, or you release energy as higher purpose. (Fight or flight vs rest and relax modes).
Stop Thinking! 🤔 Relax! 😌 Breathe Out 💨💨💨💨 , and Hold.
Edit:/// My state in this post is way off... State is totally distinct from Stages though... States are emotions 1-10 , Stages are Perspectives 1st PoV, 1.5 , 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 , 3.5 , 4.0 etc. (Yeah literally that's been in front of us this whole time from English basics)
Edit 2// This post is cringe for me at least... It's called absurdity. 90% of you would downvote me because
Higher Stages Can Not Be Understood By Lower Stages. (See Evolutionary Developmental Psysychology / Transpersonal Psychology)

I often avoid uncomfortable topics and answers to questions that concern me. I won't say that it's difficult for me, but... I prefer not to talk about what I really think and how I feel about what. I sincerely adapting to the opinion of the person and what he wants to hear from me. Namely, under the opinion of my girlfriend. Numerous reproaches have proved to me that my opinion is poison. This is something that only you should have. No one needs it and it's better to keep it to yourself.
At some point, you understand what a relationship is. This is a lack of opinion. At one point, your opinions and decisions turn out to be wrong. You become guilty of who you are. For example, you are used to folding socks in one corner. Or you like to wear the "wrong" clothes. And you become guilty for it. You're being punished. Your are punished with screams, tantrums, silence or loneliness. You don't understand what's wrong, you've been doing it all your life and it's convenient for you. It doesn't create debris, it doesn't make more dust. Yes, maybe the view of your corner is not the same as the pictures of the advertisement. But it doesn't make it any worse. And this is a mistake... A mistake that you will pay for. Your will be forced to she'll, even if you didn't really want to do it. And so it is in everything. She will knead you like dough, shaping you into something incomprehensible. Wanting to see you making you kind and caring. Or that's wanting to see you brutal in bed. Sometimes more confident, sometimes more modest. Sometimes stylish, sometimes careless. And when your partner gets tired of sculpting you, seeing in front of him just a shapeless, ugly, impersonal piece. She'll get tired. And he will leave... To something that already initially looks more like what she was sculpting. And you will stay. So you will remain a piece of chewed dough. Which can only lie sadly and ostensibly remember the person you once were. By continuing to imitate all those things Imiteid, all those things that were shoved at you. Like a twisted, broken Rubik's cube. Looking at yourself like a broken mirror. No alcohol, No friends will glue this mutilated thing together. The because of the desire to be a good and perfect partner. Your love for your neighbor will strangle you like a noose. And you'll get so used to it. That you can't live without it. And you will tearfully beg that benefactor to return. Because you can no longer live without a pointer and these painful sensations.

Chapter One: Rapid Field Promotion
Oh I've done it, I've really done it this time.
It was already risky enough. Committing not just forgery, but impersonation and trespassing, all on Star Federation property. Such offenses could easily land you 5-10 years in a rehabilitation center. But specifically impersonating an officer of the Star Federation on the most important ship in not just Human, but Orion Arm history? That's life imprisonment on Tartarus Station right there. The SFS Magna Carta has been under construction for decades and represents the first Human ship capable of traversing the void between the Orion Arm and the Perseus Arm, the only chance for mankind to expand beyond our shrinking borders. Not even I am pessimistic enough to waive such a dream, which is why I forged a random ID from black market images I was able to get my hands on, to start a new life in the Perseus Arm. However, it just so happened that this “random id” belonged to someone a bit important…
I looked in the mirror at myself, dressed in the uniform of the Twenty-Sixth Ranking Federation Officer of the SFS Magna Carta. It was a miracle their clothes fit, I don't know what I would do if I had to try and put on the attire of a six legged Mantechar. I looked again in the mirror, and straightened my blue and white cap before giving myself a mocking salute. Twenty-Sixth Officer… Oh William, what have you gotten yourself into now?
Three knocks rapped on the door behind me, I turned, startled.
“S-sir? The ceremony is about to begin, the Admirals want the Magna Carta off the ground by 14 hundred hours. And sir, its 13:30.” A young male voice says from behind the door, slightly rasped and inhuman. I regain my composure and begin my walk towards the door before stopping. “My walk” wouldn't cut it, I had to walk like an officer, I raised my head and straightened my shoulders before doing a walk that more so resembled a march. Perfect, now, I am presentable.
I opened the door to be greeted by the visage of a Yueliosan. A species hailing from the long destroyed world of Jekosia, lost to a war with the Prunteni Imperium. Yueliosan’s are tripedal, three armed, three eyed, and three brained. They resemble a camera tripod if it had a torso, disk shaped head, and silver sandpaper like skin. They are, on average, the same height as Humans, but this specific specimen was so short that I had to bend my head at an extreme angle just to meet its obsidian eyes.
“I am Private Keslosio, I'm here to escort you, sir.” The Yueliosan raises one of his three jointed (of course its three jointed) arms to his head to form a salute. Not knowing what to do, I saluted back, hoping that was the right mannerism. Evidently, it was not, as Keslosio began to look confused. That's good to know then. I'm sure Mr. Keslosio here will probably forget or disregard this interaction after a few minutes, but a more keen eyed man may become suspicious of my odd behavior.
Keslosio put his arm down and began walking backwards. Well, backwards relative to me. Yueliosans don't really have a front or back with their 360 view. I began to follow him down the hall of accommodations of the various officers and other high ranking members of all states of the Star Federation. Technically, this base belongs solely to the Federal Republic of Earth, but when didn't the other members of the Star Federation leech off of Earth property? God, you could even see it in the construction of the SFS Magna Carta. Built on Earth, with Earth docks, and Earth construction workers, with Earth technology, the biggest contribution the other members of the Star Federation make are their refugees when they inevitably fall from their own decadent incompetence. At least the Letotians had the honor to build the sublight engines for the small-mountain sized ship that is the SFS Magna Carta.
Before I could internally rant any longer, the entire wall in front of me shifted open, folding and pulling away to expose me to the outside world. So extra, why not just build a door like any other normal building? Slightly shaking my head in disappointment at this prime example of over engineering, I take my step outside the base. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the bright view, but when they do, i'm greeted with one of the most beautiful sights ive ever had the fortune to lay my eyes upon.
I stand atop a bridge connected to the Magna Carta a few kilometers or so away, its massive light gray form blocking out most of the horizon in my view. The ship had very few sharp angles on its massive rectangulacylindrical form. The first half of the ship resembled a smooth cone sliced in half down the middle. The back of the cone sloped upwards until a sort of spine was formed. From this spine came large modules of the ship resembling thrusters more than their actual industrial, scientific, and colonial purposes. The spine then thickened out at the back to form the massive sublight thrusters that would carry the ship into and out of orbit. On the side of all of this were inscribed in red, white, and blue, were the words “SFS Magna Carta”. Most ships of the Star Federation are built from the bottom up and generally stay in that vertical form, a remnant of the old Earth space travel ways involving ancient shuttles. The SFS Magna Carta however, was placed on its belly. The reasoning behind this I know not. While I have impersonated engineers many times before, I'm not actually one. “Fake it until you make it” doesn't just beam seven years of academy training right into your cranium.
“She’s truly a sight to behold, isn't she?” Says a deep voice from behind me. I resist the urge to snap around as quickly as I can to see who it is, instead I slowly turn with the grace and formality that is expected with an officer. When I complete my arduously long rotation, which probably took about four seconds, I meet the gaze of the Grand Star Admiral Durojaiye Folorunsho…
Well, shit.
If anyone is the “keen eyed man” that I feared earlier, it is him. Durojaiye Folorunsho has served for nearly fifty years in the military of Earth, spending another twenty as Grand Star Admiral. He fought as a private in the First Federation Civil War, when the fringe states of the Jegethi Republic and Husheu Navarchy turned to authoritarianism and attempted to secede from The Star Federation. Then he was just a humble private, fighting for the ideals of the Star Federation. Now, he is much more. He has commanded fleets of hundreds of ships into battle against the Purenti Imperium, Void Birds, The Okenaw, and the unknown malevolent beings of the Orion-Perseus Expanse. He is literally one of the most skilled Human beings in Orion Arm history, and he is standing right in front of me.
The Star Admiral begins a speech, just for me. “You know, the territory of the Federal Republic of Earth peaked nearly two hundred years ago in 2180, back during the young days of The Star Federation. Back then, we controlled almost two hundred planets. Now? We have been pushed back to only a handful of worlds. We have been pushed so far back that even the Core Worlds of Earth are now under threat. The rest of The Star Federation refuses to acknowledge what we have learned long ago, we are fighting a losing war, we have been for almost a quarter of a century now. The vast majority of Humans live on Earth, Mars, Centauri, and Ross, the rest of the worlds under our underdeveloped hellholes where we send refugees fleeing tyranny. It makes us almost as bad as the rest of The Star Federation. But this ship, this grand ship, can change that. If we can set up a hyper-relay between Orion and Persues, we could exploit those untouched resources. No more material shortages, no more rationing, no more raid drills even, we may finally begin to push back for the first time in centuries. This ship will carry ten thousand to start that dream. In all my years, through joy and strife, never have I been more proud to be Human than in this very moment.” He says, his words battling against the pessimism inside of me.
He doesn't seem to have realized that I'm in the clothes of the Twenty-Sixth Officer, or maybe he thinks that I actually am the officer. Little does he know, the true and original Twenty-Sixth Officer is unconscious at his summer home, doped on enough sleeping agents to keep him asleep for at least another day. By then, the Magna Carta would hopefully have begun its journey, too far to receive transmissions.
The Star Admiral pats his hand on my shoulder and smiles. I can see the creases and wrinkles in his dark skin, characteristic for someone of nearly one hundred years old. He looks me directly in the eyes, right into my soul. I feel the need to suppress my own thoughts as I feel like his eyes can read my mind. After a while, he releases his grip from my shoulder.
“I'm an old man, I won't be joining you on the Magna Carta. I worked for a better life for the next generations, not for myself. I am content with that, content that I know that all I have worked for is in good hands.” He says before he hands me a box.
“A gift, for all officers of rank twenty-five or higher” He says, presenting the box closer to me.
“I'm thankful sir b-but uh, I'm twenty-sixth rank.” I respectfully reply. My slight stutter causes me to internally wince. I swear the presence of the Grand Star Admiral is making it hurt to lie.
“I know, but you’re the only officer who isn't doing that stupid new fangled duck march that's trendy with the new recruits. So, I insist.” He says. I consider myself a master of all things regarding deception, manipulation, imitation, and especially reading, guessing, and deciphering the thoughts of people. Yet, at this moment, I genuinely can't tell if that is his actual reason or a joke. Before I could give it any more thought, he was already walking away. I look down in my hands recoil in surprise to see that the box is already in my hands. What the actual frak?
I stare at the box in my hands, it’s obviously high quality. It seems to be built with polished Pink Ivory Wood and Burmese Blackwood, with marble making up its corners. I examine the top of the box and see the insignia of Earth, a phoenix holding a globe in one hand and a shield bearing the old UN logo in the other, in bronze, adjourned onto the wood through high quality work. A box of this detail and quality could easily be sold for five hundred credits just for the rare wood alone. I decide to slip the small box into my pocket, I can open it once I am safely aboard the SFS Magna Carta.
After a few minutes of standing in the bright sun, a high pitched horn blairs through the air,
“Sir, your escort is here,” Keslosio informs me. I turn to him and see a small armored Hovercopter descend through the sky, its thrusters silently expelling ion particles to maintain flight. The vehicle slows down as it nears the ground before finally making contact. Keslosio steps aside and stands straight, waiting for me to enter. And enter I do.
I step up the metal bar and into the craft and seat myself. The seat seems to be built with a mixture of luxury and fortification, with the latter prioritized. I buckle myself and place my hands on my lap, trying to look official and all that jazz. After I am secured, Keslosio boards. With how his body is shaped, he can't sit down on the same chairs that I can. Instead, he pulls down some harnesses from the ceiling of the craft and attaches himself to it, and then does the same for his bottom half and the floor. Once the final click permeates the air, he brings up a tablet and clicks a few buttons.
“Officer 26 is secure, Officer Jonothan Brown in transit.” He says to the tablet. Frak, that's the name of the old officer. I paid some damn good money and a few secrets of the cabals to get The Federation database hacked and changed. Maybe it has changed… Maybe Keslosio hasn't realized so yet…
I take the risk.
“Jonothan Brown?” I say. “I think you are mistaken, private, my name is William Adima.”
Keslosio looks at me for a few seconds, before shifting one of his eyes to observe his tablet as he clicks and clacks its screen. I shift in my seat uneasily, I may have gotten too cocky.
“Well, by the Lords of S’hemnia, you’re right. I am so sorry sir, this won’t happen again.” Keslosio says, to my relief.
Keslosio continues his chatter through an earpiece connected to what I assume is his auditory organ, however I can no longer hear him over the thunderous sound of wind outside. Despite the roar of the air, I began to doze off. Usually I try to stay alert at all times… But I'm sure a few minutes wouldn't hurt… I am… oh so tired…
A jolt courses through my body, and I shoot straight back up from my slumped posture. I see we have landed, right at the base of the SFS Magna Carta.
I begin to unbuckle my seatbelt, but before I can, I hear the distinctive click of a bullet being loaded into the chamber of a service pistol. I freeze like a deer caught in headlights, before slowly turning my head towards Keslosio.
There, Keslosio stands with a pistol pointed towards my cranium.
“Private, may I ask what you are doing?” I say to him, calmly.
“Officer William Adima? There is no Officer William Adima anywhere in the officer logs. However, I did find a different log on a Human of the same name.” Keslosio harshly clears his throat before continuing.
“William Pike Adima, wanted by the Federal Earth Intelligence Center for the following: theft, grand theft, grand theft auto, every kind of karking larceny, assault, ties to the cabal, intimidation, forgery, impersonation, and conspiracy against The Star Federation. DId I get that right?” Keslosio dryly utters. The shy, polite, and docile private he was a few minutes ago has become replaced by an avatar of Star Federation authority. Shit, I misread him.
I try to think how I'm going to get myself out of this. I always get myself out of stuff like this. I begin calculating every possible action I can take, every single experience with my years of being a renowned con artist being sifted through for relevance to my situation in mere seconds. Yet, I find nothing. I think… I think I've failed.
Unless...
“Nuh uh” I reply to him. He tilts his disk shaped head in utter confusion. Before he can reply, my locked harness comes off in a click. Its over engineered lock picked apart in but a few seconds. Even after hundreds of years of advancements, Master Lock designed locks are still shit.
I quickly bolt out of the Hovercopter, jumping off its side. My hand makes contact with the metal ground before it pushes my body up. I begin sprinting away, towards the shuttle meant to take Officers to the Magna Carta. The guards near the gate look on in confusion as they see a man dressed in the uniform of an Officer running from a short Yueliosan private. Judging from the sheer bewilderment on the guards' faces, Keslosio hadn't yet informed anyone else of my imposter activities. Despite this, the guards step between me and the shuttle, quickly signaling for it to take off without me.
I watch in despair as the large shuttlecraft flies into the air and towards the Magna Carta. The feeling of this despair is so great that I even fall to my knees. I was so close… I continue to stare as the shuttlecraft flies further and further away… And I continue to stare as a beam of light as bright as a star of perpetual spark shoots down from the sky and completely, utterly vaporizes the craft, leaving nothing but dust. Temporarily blinded from the flash of light, I recoil and cover my eyes in pain. Through the agony I can hear guards yelling, ships taking flight, defensive fire, and the horrific sound of the raid sirens beginning their song.
Finally, after a minute or so, I open my eyes and blink away the last remnants of my blindness. I see the guards in front of me have lost all focus on me, and are instead staring straight into the air. I follow their eyes and stare too, I wish I hadn't.
Now, I've seen a lot of things in my twenty year long life. I've seen people murdered, rioters rip apart a police officer, refugees taken advantage of in every way, rival cabals shooting each other while using children as meat shields, I've even seen Purenti raid fleets attack Earth and Luna. But if I were to take the terror I felt from every single one of these experiences, combined them, and cubed them, it would not equal one one billionth of the absolute gut-tearing terror and dread I felt in this very moment.
The sky had gone dark, not with clouds, but with ships. Massive, gargantuan ships blotted out the very sky. They were so leviathan in size that even the SFS Magna Carta looked like a joke compared to them. From what I could infer from the ground, the ships were long and spiked, seeming to twist in their construction. Despite this being all I can see, I can tell that this ship is not Purenti, nor is it one of those dark blobs that is a Void Bird, nor an ornate Okenaw mothership, this ship didn't even belong to the incomprehensible horrors that inhabit the Orion-Perseus expanse. These ships… were unrecognizable.
Before I could stare mindlessly at the destruction before me any longer, the deafening bang of falling debris snapped me out of my trance. I looked behind me and saw Keslosio had been struck by a chunk of hull, it completely covered him. I would have believed he was dead if his twitching claw wasn't exposed.
I stand still, completely and utterly incapable of coming up with a decision of what to do, because what could I do? There is nothing to do but burn. That was, until the sound of a hovercraft began its song.
Like an angel, the large machine descended down, landing on the ground before me. Out of it came soldiers, mostly Human, but with some reptilian Skarians mixed in the ranks. The Human soldiers are donned in black and gray armor, their faces covered by a smooth black plate. The Skarians are clad in similar armor, only with adjustments for their different, but very similar, biology from the Humans. They swarm out of the ship, towards me.
“ARE YOU TWENTY-SIXTH OFFICER WILLIAM ADIMA?” One yells with a distorted voice.
Finding myself completely incapable of speaking, I can only feebly nod. They then grab me by my arm and begin dragging me aboard the hovercraft.
“W-Wait!” I cry out, tugging away. To my surprise, they immediately stop, listening to me clearly.
“T-... There's a Yueliosan… underneath that rubble” I point to where Keslosio’s body is. What in the frakking hell am I thinking? That private knows my secret! God, I'm such an idiot, what the hell is wrong with me?
The soldiers nod and a small force of them break away to retrieve the injured alien, the rest of the armed men grab me and drag me aboard the craft. As they sit me down and strap me in, I begin to wonder. They called me William Adima… The database change must have just happened… What frakking timing.
As the final soldiers, with the mangled body of Keslosio board, the craft begins its takeoff sequence. The machine's thrusters point to the ground, begin emmeting bright blue light, then finally push off the ground.
The ship glides through the air, dodging burning debri and AA fire. My eyes are glued to the scene out my window, utter nuclear holocaust. Cloud-touching towers collapsing, explosions in the distance from nukes slipping by the AA defense, strange ships descending from the skies, and Star Federation ships ascending into the sky, either fighting or fleeing.
As all this unfolds, the soldiers chatter away into their radio.
“Archangel is secure” The man next to me says.
“Return to Magna Carta, load refugees, escape” cackles form his handheld radio.
“Affirmative” He says.
The next few minutes pass by rather quickly, time flies by when you’re scared beyond reason I guess.
Finally, our flying machine escapes the chaos as we enter one of the Magna Carta’s many hangers. Our ship docks, and I'm escorted off the ship by at least twenty soldiers. They guide me out of the massive– grand hanger, and through the extensive halls. I pass by the scrambling crew and scared civilians being corralled into holding areas. I see injured people torn apart from their sobbing loved ones to be sent to medbays. I see hell on Earth.
Eventually, the civilian presence form the halls is all but gone as we near our destination. The soldiers in front of me stand to the side and salute, I walk by them and through an opening door, leading me to an expansive CIC room. Various crew scramble about, doing various tasks with extreme haste.
“COMMANDER ON DECK” A voice from behind me yells, probably a soldier, and the entire CIC population drops everything and salutes… me… Holy shit, they're saluting me.
One of the (nearly all Human) crewmembers run up to me and present a badge before bowing their head… To me. Wow.
“Officer Adima, every single captain and officer above you has been killed, you’re the commanding officer now” She quickly spouts. She then raises her head and fixes the badge to my uniform. Holy. Fracking. Shit. I'm the commander.
“ALL CIVILIANS ON BOARD, BEGINNING TAKEOFF PROCEDURES!” The ship begins to shake, and people fall as the grand machine pitches upwards as it lifts off the ground.
“INCOMING INCOMING. MULTIPLE MISSILE CONTACTS. FIRING COUNTERMEASURES.” More troopers guide me to a centered chair and strap me in.
“CONTACTS DESTROYED! SETTING COURSE FOR MAIN FLEE-” The voice abruptly cuts off, before continuing again.
“FTL DRIVE IS SPOOLING UP I REPEAT, FTL DRIVE IS SPOOLING UP. PREPARE FOR UNEXPECTED JUMP!” Before I can even process his words, everything fissiles to red, then rematerializes. We just jumped. The question is… to where?
The entire CIC becomes silent as the external monitors activate, showing us the view of the outside space. Earth is nowhere to be found, however, I can recognize the planet of Jupiter.
“WARNING, FTL DRIVE IS… ITS SPOOLING UP AGAIN!?” The voice yells. What the hell? FTL drives need 33 minutes minimum before activating jump again. This is impossible. Then again, it wont be the craziest thing thats happened today.
Everything fizzles to red again. The announcer voice begins to try and speak again. However, before he can, all fade to red again, and again, and again. The time between each impossible jump shortens from seconds to milliseconds. Until finally, it stops. The entire CIC is silent once more, and remains so, the announcer is silent.
I unbuckle myself and stand from my chair and walk towards the main CIC table.
“W-... Where… Are we?” a meek voice says, that voice being me.
“Sir I-. I don't know. Navigation systems seem to be offline… Damaged from the attack and that… jump chain.” A Human beside me says. He then continues.
“Though, judging by the position of the stars on the external monitors, we’re outside of Star Federation space, maybe even out of Orion Arm space. But… That would mea-” He’s interrupted as a short Skarian female runs up to me and quickly secures my attention with her raspy yapping.
“All strike craft accounted for sir! Crew member count is at ten thousand, civilian count is at twice that sir! Food and water reserves are at 80%, five out of six antimatter reactors are online sir! Navs offline, sublights offline. The FTL drive has been disabled, we had to hit it with hammers to get it to stop.” The reptilian, seemingly satisfied with her report, stops talking and stands at attention. Judging by her orange suit with gold tints, she is the chief engineer.
“Kelsia, I was talking you little shi-” The Human beside me, who I have deduced is the new second officer, begins to voice before I interrupt him.
“Thank you madam. I appreciate your report. Now, will you do me a favor?” She looks up inquisitively upon hearing my words. I slightly lean into her and continue in a whisper.
“I need every single scrap of information on this ship, and every guide on captaining it. That will be all.” I state in a low voice.
“Yes sir!” She yells, making me reel away at the surprise of her loudness, contrasting with my quiet speech. Usually when greeted with whispers, people whisper back. The Skarian then shoots away.
“Sir” The second officer says. I turn to him and quickly read his badge. Colonel Tian Gao, it reads. Judging by the fact that the name is of chinese origin, Tian is his last name, and Gao is his first. Though its probably a safer bet to just refer to him aa Tian Gao
“Yes?” I respond, using every ounce of willpower in my body to maintain composure.
“What… Do we do?”
His question stabs fear into me, then I think on it for a few seconds. What can I say that will cement my place here as their commander? What will give them hope… Ah, I have it. Man, I am so back.
“Now…” I say, turning to face and speak to the entire CIC.
“We tend to the wounded. We repair our ship. We find out where the hell we are.” I pause for a few seconds for dramatic effect.
“Then, we find our world, our birthplace, our home. We find Earth.” I deliver these words to the CIC, doing my best to raise their hopes. They seem to straighten up, I can feel the spirits raising. Maybe… Maybe I really can do this.
Then I proceed to vomit all over the floor.

Steven was on the beach, it was six in the morning and he was about to surf. The waves were perfect for it, it wasn't too hot outside. So it was the right time for a little morning surfing. Greg and Rose weren't up yet. So it was just him out on the water and a few people who also came to the beach. The boy saw a wave coming up. he paddled out to it, popped up on the board and he surfed that wave.
"Woah! Look at that little guy go!" A man said, sitting on his board. Watching Steven. Some other people joined in on the fun, Steven wanted to put on some music, but a guy on the beach put his iPhone into the dock of his iHome and he turned on some rock music. 'What I've Done' by 'LINKIN PARK' played on full volume.
Rose walked out and leaned on the railing of the wooden balcony, watching her son. (since Steven was the smallest one there) Then the door opened to the house. Her husband walked out and put an arm around her waist. Greg went on his tippy toes and kissed her on the cheek.
"Is Steven in the water?" Greg asked after a few minutes of silence. Rose nodded and pointed, Greg recognized the figure as their son, and he went back inside. She was confused at first, but then she saw that her husband was dressed in blue swim trunks that had a white palm tree pattern, he was shirtless and was carrying his surfboard under his arm.
Rose smiles and watches her husband go down the steps and get into the water to surf.
She went to go change into a pair of shorts and a tank top. She also walked down the wooden steps and sat by the water, some surfboards were sticking out in the sand and some people were talking or sitting on beach towels. She took out her phone and took a picture to send to her friend, Ameythest. She had forgot a few times that they were three hours behind them since her team lived in California.
Rose watched as her son and husband were out on the beach having fun. A woman walked to her and sat in the sand. "Hello," Rose said, waving toward her.
"Hi." the woman said. She is wearing a dark green bikini with triangle cups and ties that fasten around her neck and back. The bottoms tie at the sides and feature a minimal coverage design. The woman has a medium skin tone and long, dark brown hair styled in loose waves. She is smiling and facing her. "Hi, I'm Allison." She said.
"Hello, Allison, I'm Rose." she smiled, a chunk of her pink hair falling off her shoulder.
"You are pretty."
Rose smiled. at her. Blushing; "I get that a lot."
"Oh?" Rose nods. "Multiple people tell me that I'm pretty."
"Well, you are. Are you a model?"
"No, I was a commander," she said casually.
"A commander? Like for the US Army?"
"Mmmmm, something like that. Have you watched Transformers?" Rose asked. Allison nodded.
"It's like that, but I command a rebellion against my kind." Allison wanted to believe that that wasn't true or that she was making it up, but half of her told her that she was not joking.
"So you lead a rebellion?" she nods again, Then Greg walks out, holding his surfboard, Steven is next to him. He wore a pair of pink swim shorts, Allison saw something… Different about him, He had a pink gem where his navel should be. and he was tiny. Maybe she thought he was about five years old.
"Aww, who's this little guy?" Alison asked.
Rose smiled as her son sat next to her on the sand. "This is my son, Steven," she told her. Allison wondered, and wanted to ask her.
"If you don't mind me asking, how old is he?"
"I'm seven," he said.
"Wow." She said with a smile on her face. "He looks so cute."
"Thank you," he said, smiling at her. Greg smiled and put a hand on his son's shoulder. Steven looks up at his father.
"Alright, let's go inside and have breakfast, then after we can go back to the beach," Greg said, Rose and Steven agreed with that and they went to the beach house for breakfast.
Two boys stepped out of a 2008 Ford Mustang with their mother. They were both wearing bathing suits.
The first boy appears to have short brown hair, a cheerful smile, and bright eyes. He is wearing a plain white t-shirt and standing in the sand. He is in a happy mood, radiating positivity and warmth through his expression. He has brown hair. The combination of his smile and bright eyes could indicate a sense of joy or contentment, adding a sense of innocence and youthfulness to his overall appearance.
The other boy has a joyful expression on his face. He has curly hair and is dressed in a black T-shirt. The t-shirt features a graphic design with multiple white panels, which may contain comic strips and a large white swoosh logo. The overall atmosphere of the photo is festive and cheerful, with a greenish background and sparkling white stars adding to the lively ambiance. The young boy in the image has a joyful expression on his face. He has curly hair and is dressed in a black t-shirt and red swim shorts, The t-shirt features a graphic design with multiple white panels, which may contain comic strips and a large white swoosh logo.
"Lance, Mikey." A woman told the two seven-year-old boys.
"Yeah, mom?" Lance said, walking up toward his mother. His mother was a tall woman, not as tall as Rose. She stood at six foot seven. She has a light complexion and long blonde hair that is casually styled, flowing around her face and shoulders. She is wearing a dark top, with short shorts with a bikini underneath her clothes. Lance and Mikey both helped their mom with items, such as towels and an umbrella.
Steven sat at the table with his mother, as his father made breakfast. Rose saw two boys and one woman walk up the stairs through the glass leading outside to the house. They heard a knock on the door, Steven opened it and saw his friends standing there with their mother, Luisa.
"Guys! You're here!" Steven hugs both of his friends.
"Hey, Steven!" Kyle said.
"Hey, man!" Lance said, giving him a high five. Steven gave both of his friends hugs and they walked in with their mother.
"Hi, Greg, hi Rose." Luisa greeted them.
"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Universe!" Lance and Kyle said.
"Hi guys, how are you?" Rose asked. Rose now wore another one-piece swimsuit. Like the last one, her gem was exposed. And, her pink hair was tied back in a ponytail, they were about to go back out again to surf. Greg, Rose, and Steven were almost finished eating breakfast and they were going back onto the beach.
"Do you want breakfast guys, Mom made French toast." Steven said, standing up and putting his plate in the kitchen.
"No thanks, we just ate back at the house," Mikey said, Lance nodded. Steven went back outside with his friends. Their surfboards were leaning on the side of the house, Steven grabbed his that was by his dad's and went down the wooden steps.
Steven, Lance, and Mikey all went down to the beach and they were now playing together. Greg and Rose then came outside with their surfboards and they were now out on the water.
Steven was now in his room, playing GameCube with his friends Lance and Mikey, who wanted to sleep over. Rose said yes, and now, Rose was making popcorn for the boys for a movie that they were going to watch in the living room. The movie was set on the silver VHS/DVD player they had sitting inside the large TV.
"Boys! Popcorn is ready!" Steven's mother called out. Steven, Lance, and Mikey raced downstairs and all sat in the living room. "What movie is this mom?" Steven asked, sandwiched in between his bigger seven-year-old friends.
"Lilo & Stitch," Rose said, Steven's eyes lit up into the shapes of stars.
"I love that movie!" he said, Rose chuckled. "I know you do, Steven."
"Your dad should be back with the pizza." She said as she saw a pair of headlights in the distance.
"That must be him!" Steven said excitedly. Rose chuckled at her son's enthusiasm. Running to the door, Steven opened for him, letting the summer air come in as well as the smell of the sand and the ocean Greg was walking up the stairs and smiled when he saw his son holding the door for him.
"Thanks, Schu-Ball," Greg said, ruffling up his curly black hair, Steven closed the door and locked it. He set the box down on the table so the boys could eat. Steven opened the box and gasped, stars in his eyes. "Pepperoni!" he said, he and his friends grabbed a slice then ate some pizza and watched the movie.
"OH, YOUR TOUCHING ME!"
"Not touching."
"TOUCHING ME!"
"It's free air!"
Steven licked Lance. "EW!" Mikey laughed as he ate his popcorn.
"That's funny."
"No, it's not!" Lance said, going into the kitchen and washing his face.
"Did your parents go to bed, Steven?"
"No, there outside on the porch," he said, looking at the wrap-around porch through the window, the lights were on and Greg was strumming his acoustic guitar.
"Okay guys, let's play Shadow The Hedgehog!" Steven said, opening his TV and handing Lance and Mikey two controllers.
"I'll be the original Shadow."
"I'll be gold Shadow!"
"I'll go next after you guys!" Steven said, putting his Sony TV to the right input as they played the game.
"Hey, Steven. Is there any water or something?" Lance said, getting up from the floor.
"Yeah, they should be in the fridge," he said. Lance went to the fridge and saw a whole case of water bottles, he grabbed one and went back upstairs to his bedroom.
"Hey, Steven. why don't you have any walls and a door?"
"My parents thought that it was cool like this, and I agree with them," Steven said, playing the game.
Lance nodded and they went back to playing.
The next day, Lance, Mikey, Steven, and Greg were playing volleyball on the beach, and Rose was surfing.
"Steven! it's your serve!" Lance said, Steven threw the volleyball into the air and tried to serve it, but he was too small to reach over the net, so the ball went under it instead.
"Ugh! I'm too short for this game!" he said in frustration. Then, Greg walked to the other side of the net and knelt to his level.
"Steven, you can do anything you set your mind to," Greg said, touching his shoulder. Steven didn't believe that.
"Dad! Just admit it, I'm a joke. An excuse, I wish I… I was more human, like Kyle, Lance, and Lucas. And all of the kids at school! I HATE the way I look." Tears welled up in his eyes and are now streaming down his cheeks. Greg listened to his son vent.
"Every day at school I was called a baby because I look like I'm in the first grade still! I would get made fun of by COUNTLESS KIDS CONSTANTLY! The coaches would not put me on a team with kids when we would play basketball because I'm 'too short' or I have some kind of 'growth problem' You know how AWFUL THAT IS! Why do I always get the short end of the stick, why am I always discriminated against because I was born differently maybe… Maybe I shouldn't been born at all!" Seven finished his rant, balling up his fists and glaring at the sand beneath his feet.
Greg felt his heart shatter into a million tiny pieces. No seven-year-old should think like this. He put a hand on his shoulder. "Steven. What made you think like this, dude?"
"Remember that kid I told you and Mom about last year, the boy who I think got held back a year or so and was in Miss. Philips class with me and Lucas?"
"Yeah."
"Well he called me all kinds of names, and the one that stuck with me the most was 'baby' he told me to go back to kindergarten!" Greg didn't say anything but took him and hugged his son.
"You know." he started. "I don't understand this gem stuff, but your mom and I both love you, Steven. Don't talk like that about yourself again, understand?" Steve nods. Greg smiled kissed his hair and stood up. Steven looked at the ocean, the sound of the waves, the sand, and the salty air hitting his nose.
Steven was at the mall with his friends and his mom in Delaware. Steven was on his mother's shoulders. "What do you want to do first guys?" Rose asked.
"Mom, can I get a new hat?" Steven asked.
"Sure," she said, walking into a Spencer's. Steven picked out a Sonic The Hedgehog beanie. Rose smiled and examined it.
It was a beanie hat with a vibrant blue and black pattern. The pattern includes stylized text that is artistically designed, making it somewhat abstract and challenging to read. Notably, there is an embroidered patch of Sonic the Hedgehog, a popular video game character, displayed on the fold of the beanie. Sonic is depicted in his classic running pose, colored in blue with details in white, red, and flesh tones for his face and arms.
Steven's eyes had stars in them and wanted to try it on, Rose smiled and helped him slip it on his curly head of hair. Rose's eyes lit up and smiled, admiring how adorable he was! "You look so handsome!" Rose said, his friends nodded in agreement. Steven went to the mirror and looked at himself.
"I'll take it, Mom!" he said, excitement in his voice.
Rose smiled and got one for herself too, she looked in the mirror and gasped at how cute she looked in it!
It displayed the pink beanie on her head, adorned with an embroidered design depicting a cartoon-style character on the front. The character exudes a playful and mischievous vibe, characterized by its large eyes and expressive features atop of her naturally pink hair.
"You look so good, mom! We should get one for Dad too. What do you think he will like?" Steven asked.
"Isn't his favorite character Tails?"
"Yeah, but maybe we can get both, Or we can get Vector The Crocodile., 'cause Dad likes music. And vector is a DJ." Rose liked that idea
"Alright, Vector it is then!" she said, reaching up for it and grabbing it. "Wow…. I still can't believe that I have an eight-foot-tall mom." Steven said, with stars in his eyes as he looked at his mother in amazement.
Rose giggled and ruffled her son's hair.
They stepped out of Spencer's and now decided to eat at the food court. Lance and Mikey got something, they got two Sonic shirts. Steven wore his beanie and Rose wore hers also. Steven was holding his mother's hand as they walked through the mall.
Steven held the Spencer's bag as they went to the food court.
"Can we get Burger King, Mrs. Universe?" Lance asked. Rose smiled "Yes you guys can, Steven. do you want Birger King also?"
"Can I have Taco Bell?" he asked.
"Ohh, that sounds wonderful. I'll maybe have that myself." Rose said. She knelt and pulled out ten dollars for Lance and Mikey.
"You know where it is, do you?" she said, handing Lance the bill.
They both nod and walk to the Burger King.
Steven, Rose, Lance, and Mikey all sat down and ate their food. "Thanks for this, Mrs. Universe," Mijey said, dipping his chicken nuggets in barbecue sauce.
"No problem guys."
"Raise your hands if you think Mrs. Universe is the best!" Mikey said, dipping a fry in the sauce. Lance, Mikey, and Steven all raised their hands. Rose laughed and smiled.
"I think you guys are pretty great also." she smiled at them, Steven hugged her from the side, and Rose hugged him back.
"Rose was driving her husband's van back to Dewey Beach. Steven was sitting in the front and looking out the window. The radio was playing Sum 41. Rose drummed her hands on the steering wheel and Steven drummed his fingers on the window.
Steven took off his beanie and set it on his lap. He saw that the beach was coming up and Rose stopped the van and they got out Steven grabbed the bag and they went upstairs, Steven giggled at the door handle.
"Hey, mom! it's locked! I think Dad's not in the house."
"I have a key, Steven." she smiled and opened the door to the beach house. Just then, a 2008 Ford Mustang pulled up next to their MR. UNIVERSE van then step out. "Boys, your mother is here. Get your stuff." Rose said. Lance and Mikey went inside and grabbed their stuff.
"Bye, Steven. See you tomorrow or something." Lance said.
"Bye, guys!" Steven waved as they went down the steps and to their mother's car.
"Steven, If you want to go into town, you can. You remember how to get back, right?" Rose asked. Steven nods and hugs his mother.
"Thanks, mom." Steven ran down the steps, Rose was leaning on the porch, watching her son leave. Steven was walking around the boardwalk, he saw some people as he was looking around.
Steven came back home a few hours later. Rose was reading on her phone at the minibar.
"Hey, Steven how was your walk?" Rose asked.
"Hey, mom. It was good, thanks for asking," he said, walking up the stairs.
Rose, Greg, and Steven were now dressed. It was later in the evening, Steven was wearing a blue polo shirt, jeans, and a pair of red Converse high tops. Also, to complete his look. He was wearing his Sonic The Hedgehog benie Rose wore a white button-down shirt with pink jeans and a pair of white Adidas. Greg wore a long-sleeved shirt with blue jeans and a pair of white Converse with his Vector The Crocodile beanie. They were going to a party in Washington tonight at Christopher's and Jasmine's house.
Steven grabbed something from his room, he grabbed his Nintendo DS with a copy of Super Mario Bros inside. Steven, Greg, and Rose all walked downstairs. Greg opened the door to his van and sat inside. He put the key in the ignition and left Dewey Beach.
Steven, Rose, and Greg saw a large home come up.
A charming two-story suburban house with a striking brick facade and numerous large windows. The design of the house is symmetrical, with a central entrance that is flanked by two evenly spaced windows on either side. Above the entrance, there is a large arched window, adding to the architectural symmetry of the building.
The roof of the house is multi-gabled, suggesting the presence of additional space on the second floor or in an attic. A concrete driveway leads up to an attached two-car garage, located on the right-hand side of the house and seamlessly integrated into the main structure.
The landscaping surrounding the house is meticulously maintained, featuring manicured grass, various shrubs, and a few young trees. This attention to detail enhances the overall aesthetic appeal and creates a tidy and welcoming atmosphere. The clear sky in the background indicates that it is dark, with the house lights on.
Greg parked on the driveway and killed the engine. Rose and Steven both went up to the house and knocked.
A woman opened the door with a joyful expression, looking directly at the couple. She has long, straight black hair and is adorned with a blue top. Her makeup is subtly applied, naturally enhancing her features, with a bright, engaging smile on her face.
"Greg, Rose!" Jasmine said, shaking both their hands. She looked at Steven and knelt at his level. "And little Steven!" she said with a large smile.
"Hello, Jasmine," he said. Jasmine smiled.
"Come in, Steven. Lucas is in the living room with everybody." Steven nodded and walked into the house. He walked into the living room and saw Lucas and everyone playing Guitar Hero on the Nintendo WII.
"Lucas!" he smiled and saw him on the couch with their five other friends around the same age range as both boys. Steven sat on the couch and watched three of his friends, Joey, Ryan, and Andrew all in front of the TV. Steven saw the song list, Andrew selected a song, and Steven's eyes widened.
"Wait! Go up!" he said. Andrew went up and the song displayed the name 'Comet' Mr. Universe, 1984.
"Can you play that one? It's my dad's song!" Steven told them, stars in his eyes.
"Woah! Cool. We can play it!" Andrew said as he pressed the green button and they got into the game, "Wait, pause it. I'll be back!" Steven said, running into the kitchen where the adults were. Greg had a can of soda in his hand as his other arm was wrapped around Rose's waist.
"Dad! you gotta come into the living room!" Steven said, grabbing his bicep.
"Woah! Where's the fire, buddy?" Greg asked, letting go of Rose and kneeling to his level.
"Dad! come into the living room, mom can come too!" he exclaimed, running towards his friends Greg and Rose both walked into the living room and Andrew unpaused it, they were playing the song.
Some... say I have no direction, that I'm a light-speed distraction, that's a knee-jerk reaction.
Still, this is the final frontier, everything is so clear, to my destiny I steer
This life in the stars is all I've ever known,
Stars and stardust in infinite space is my only home
Greg and Rose both smiled and watched the kids play.
But the moment that I hit the stage, thousands of voices are calling my name
And I know in my heart it's been worth it all of the while
And as my albums fly off of the shelves, handing out autographed pics of myself,
This life I chose isn't easy but sure is one heck of a ride
"Do you remember that we met two decades ago, I was watching you play and the rest was history."
Greg smiled. "You know I do, babe," he said. They both listened to the rest of the song.
At the moment that I hit the stage, I hear the universe calling my name
And I know deep down in my heart I have nothing to fear
And as the solar wind blows through my hair, knowing I have so much more left to share
A wandering spirit who's tearing its way through the cold atmosphere
I'll fly like a comet
Soar like a comet
Crash like a comet
I'm just a comet
Greg and Rose looked into each other's eyes, Rose had stars in her eyes, and being reminded of how they met holds a special place in their hearts. They both leaned in for a passionate kiss.
Steven and his friends were by the pool. It was a luxurious and modern backyard setting with a swimming pool as the focal point. The pool area is elegantly designed with a neatly paved deck surrounding a sleek, rectangular swimming pool. On the right-hand side, there is a dining area under a large parasol, complete with a contemporary table and chairs, perfect for outdoor dining experiences. Next to the dining area, there is a cozy seating space featuring a wooden bench, providing a comfortable spot for relaxation.
The architecture of the house is modern and stylish, characterized by large glass doors and a minimalist design aesthetic. The garden surrounding the house is beautifully landscaped, with lush green lawns and a variety of ornamental grasses and flowering plants adding to the overall charm of the space. The combination of the swimming pool, outdoor dining area, seating space, and well-maintained garden creates a tranquil and inviting atmosphere in this backyard setting.
"Chris, aren't you waiting for the delivery driver to get here with the sushi?" Jasmine asked, Chris nodded.
"He will be here with the platter, Jasmine. And Steven, I did order you avocado and cucumber, I know that you don't eat fish." Steven smiled and nodded.
"Thank you, Jasmine," he said, smiling. Jasmine smiled back at him.
"Sushi is here," Christopher said, that Steven, Lucas, Joey, Ryan, and Andrew were all talking about their favorite cartoons.
"Hey, Steven. Have you seen this show called Chowder? It's so funny!" Andrew said. Steven nods. "Heck yeah! Have you seen Teen Titans?" he asked.
"It's a shame that the director canceled it," Joey said.
"How about The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy?" Ryan asked.
"YES!" Steven said. "I loved that show, my favorite character was Fred FredBurger, Uh. Joudge, joudge!" Steven said.
"The nachos made my poopoo really stinky!" Rose cut in, the boys burst out laughing at that.
"I love that show," Rose said, stars in her eyes.
"Awesome! But.. You're an adult."
"So, I like cartoons too. When I came to Earth, years later like. Thousands of years later after I met Greg, the first movie we watched together was Transformers The Movie."
"Wait, how old are you?" Joey asked.
"She's over a thousand years old," Steven said. Joey choked on his water.
"Wait, what?!" he asked, as he coughed. Steven nodded and looked at his mother.
Joey looks at Rose. "She looks like she's in her early twenties."
"I know," Steven said.
"Wait, I remember the first time we met, I asked your mom that if you had a growth defency, no offense."
Steven knows that he doesn't mean that but, all the years of him getting talked down to and bullied by other kids in his grade made it impossible for him.
"I think I do because I'm almost eight and I still look like I'm four." Steven tried to keep his anger inside, but his parents told him to not keep your feelings inside. Steven looked up at his mother, Rose looked down at him and knelt to his level.
"Steven, are you okay?" Steven shook his head. Rose looks at her husband, Greg nods and removes his keys from his pocket.
"No, I don't want to go home. I… I need some time." he said, Greg knelt to his level.
"Are you sure, Schu-Ball? We can take you home." Greg said, concern in his voice.
"I'm fine Dad." Greg nods and then puts his keys back into his pocket. Joey looked down on the floor and Greg walked to him.
"I know it wasn't your fault, Joey. But next time, be careful what you say next time." he had a warm smile on his face saying 'Hey, I'm not mad at you, just don't do it again' Joey nods. "Steven had a lot of trouble from other kids for his height," Greg said. Joey nodded sadly and looked at Steven.
"Sorry, Steven."
"It's okay, I know you didn't mean it," he said, hugging him.
The Universe family drove back to Dewey Beach, Steven fell asleep in the back of the van. Greg was driving, Rose was looking out the window, and LINKIN PARK was playing softly on the radio. It was a comfortable silence.
Rose reached for his hand, Greg smiled and intertwined his fingers in between hers.
"I sometimes can't imagine mine or Steven's lives without you, Rose," Greg said, breaking the silence. Rose smiled and looked at him, Greg stopped at a red light and they both kissed. Then they broke the kiss.
"I love you, Mr. Universe," Rose told him softly. Greg smiled.
"I love you too, Mrs. Universe," Greg said, then. He had another name. "Or, should I say Mrs. Quartz Universe?" Rose giggles. "I like it…"
They drove back to the beach house and put Steven to bed. Then they went to bed themselves.
A/N: Hi guys, Hopefully you guys are enjoying this story so far as much as I am. Now for some questions.
Q: This was amazing! It was so wholesome and cute! I wonder whether we'll see more of the Crystal Gems adapting to modern life on Earth?
A: Yes, you will see them in the story. But I don't know what chapter.
Hopefully, you guys are liking the story, Making it is a little bit of a struggle. But hopefully, I get to keep writing this fanfic for you guys. If you have any suggestions My Tumblr is; steven1123x

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a Reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 2,190,000+ words long! For more information, check out the link below:
What is the Cryopod to Hell?
Join the Cryoverse Discord server!
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...................................
(Previous Part)
(Part 001)
Seven days after the Great Debate, Immigration Centers open up around Tarus II. Four of them in total, with one at each side of the city: North, east, west, and south. These centers provide a huge building for people to go and place their preferred future residence following the Great Debate, so everyone will be able to quickly and efficiently organize their future living accommodations.
Several high profile individuals staff the posts at each Immigration Center. For the western center, which allows people to migrate to Sharmur, a handful of demons and humans take the lead, including Emperor Kiari. For the northern center, which allows people to migrate to Maiura, Neil's personal assistant Debra takes the lead. As for the southern and eastern centers, these are for transferring to Pixiv and for either staying on Tarus II or migrating to folded spaces under the control of Jason Hiro.
While Jason does not immediately open up the possibility of humans living inside Chrona, he certainly does for the folded spaces within the Cube. Unbeknownst to almost every Sentient in the Milky Way, Jason begins aggressively expanding Camael's Cube's internal space. He creates multiple different spaces, with some of them the size of Tarus II and others that are bigger or smaller, depending on the needs. Most interestingly, he experiments by changing the time-flow between different spaces, with some accelerating time five-fold while others accelerate fifty-fold.
With the help of Blinker's fairy friends, such as Princess Melia, Jason also establishes gates that can travel around inside the Cube, allowing people to smoothly travel between higher and lower dilation zones. In this way, he can see what the effects of high and low TDR are on humans over time.
But on the surface of Tarus II, most of the attention goes to the Immigration Centers. Millions of humans and tens of millions of their allied demon and monster comrades have to make hard decisions on where they will go, following the conclusion of the Great Debate a week earlier.
On this day, Hope Hiro joins Debra at the Northern Center, helping her with the workload of a large number of people who want to migrate to Maiura. He sits inside an isolated tent-area with a short line of thirty or so people extending outside, while not far away, Debra's much larger tent has fifty times the number of people in line and she requires half a dozen helpers to keep it moving along at a reasonable pace.
"I don't get it," A married pair of Troopers say as they sit in Hope's tent and talk to him directly. "What's the difference between coming under you or Neil? Aren't you close friends? Isn't the Commander your superior officer?"
Hope nods at the woman who asked the question. "We're friends, yes. But Neil and I are going to be leading different branches of humanity's military. In the ancient times, when Earth was still around, we had divisions such as the Army, the Navy, the Coast Guard, and so on. Many nations organized their militaries differently, but that's beside the point."
He continues. "As I'm sure you two are aware, Neil is a... traditionalist. He wants boots on the ground. He wants you to pick up your guns and fight that good fight against the demons. But what I'm offering is different."
The male troopers glances to the side, where he sees a large white panel explaining all the benefits of joining Hope's Parahuman Corps. Several diagrams describe the benefits being offered along with the gains they will surely reap.
"Well, from what I've heard, this whole arrangement feels a bit... culty." The male trooper says, his voice sounding slightly nervous. "Look, I like you a lot, Commander Hope. You fought hard for us when we needed to expand. You ended up captured and tortured by that piece of shit Gressil, but you rebounded and you came back better than ever. I admire that about you. But this... this whole 'submitting to Jepthath' thing sounds really weird, sir."
Hope smiles weakly. "I get it. I do. But that's the thing. Neil is offering for you to do what you've always done. You wear an exosuit, you shoot demons and xenos dead. Nothing wrong with that. But I'm offering for you to join on the ground floor of humanity's future strongest military force."
Hope's voice becomes more excited as he continues to explain. "See, by submitting to Jepthath, you will become a part of something bigger. Better. Greater! Humans united in mind, body, and soul. You will become physically stronger by a factor of ten, maybe even a hundred. Don't you hate feeling like the demons are more powerful than you? Don't you hate having to make up the difference with these flimsy suits when any Emperor can still rip you apart?"
"The transformation isn't a problem." The female trooper says. "Obviously, becoming far stronger is a huge benefit. But Jason Hiro said we're going to become slaves if we join you! He said we would lose all control and Jepthath would turn us into his pawns!"
Hope's expression crinkles into a look of disgust. "Jason? You really think Jason gave you the full story? Look, I get it. Up there, on that stage, it probably looked like I was out of my element or like I didn't have any good explanations. It probably seems like he cornered me."
He waggles a finger chidingly. "But that's exactly what Jason wanted! He talks a big talk about uniting together and all that crap, but in the end it was Jason who decided to split humanity apart. He had his wife take the fall for that stupidly unpopular Unification Plan, and when the time came, he felt the changing winds and flip-flopped! But I've been consistent right from the beginning. Humans need to stick together!"
Still sensing the uncertainty from the troopers, Hope waves his hand dismissively. "Jepthath isn't going to control you and turn you into sex-puppets or some weird crap. Look, you two are religious, right? Haven't you ever heard of turning your body over to the Will of God in your moment of weakness?"
Both troopers nod slowly. "Well, yeah." The man says. "Who hasn't?"
"It's exactly like that." Hope explains. "Let's say a demon invasion occurs. You become scared. You try to move, but your legs freeze up. When a demon hits you, you die. But not with Jepthath around! He can take control and give you the strength to stand up and save yourself! He can put all that strength you've gained to good use! And now imagine you're fighting in a platoon of soldiers who've been surrounded by the enemy. Wouldn't you like it if you could get a shot of liquid courage injected into your mind by the strongest member of the team? With Jepthath's power, all of us become as strong as our strongest link!"
Seeing that his words have finally made an impact, Hope smiles.
"Besides. You're already in my tent, right? Do you really want to go out and walk to the back of Debra's line? You'll be waiting for hours. Seems like such a hassle, doesn't it?"
The woman glances outside and grimaces when she sees a line nearly a thousand people deep.
She and her husband lean together and whisper for a few moments, then they sigh and turn back to Hope.
"...We'll join you, Commander Hope."
"I sure appreciate the enthusiasm." Hope jokes. He slides a digital pad over to them. "Just put your names here, check this box, and..."
A few minutes later, they leave the tent, and Hope sighs. "Finally. Another one. Shit, I was hoping for ten times as many people, if not a hundred. Jason really smeared me good... next!"
He calls out to the line outside the tent, and the flap flips open to allow a single man to walk inside.
Hope's eyes light up. "Hey, Henry! Henry, my guy! You came to me first?!"
The young man with bags under his eyes, Henry Cliff, smiles at Hope. "Commander. This felt the most fitting place for me to come, sir. You know, since most people can't stand me, since I sort of... betrayed Commander Neil, and all that."
Hope shakes Henry's hand, and the two of them sit down. Hope smiles at the young man, but notices a look of melancholy on his face.
"You have any questions?" Hope asks. "Anything that you need convincing about?"
"Oh, it's nothing like that." Henry says, shrugging his shoulders and sighing softly. "I would have come to your side no matter what. You are one of the few people who's shown me any kindness, sir. I know I screwed up. I just want to make a difference."
Hope nods. "Do you know what you're getting yourself into? Do you understand what Jepthath is all about?"
"I get it, sir." Henry answers. "If I can fight the good fight, I'll do anything, sir. Honestly, I thought I'd never be able to join the military again. My only worry now is that you'll tell me 'no' and I'll be stuck making deliveries for the rest of eternity."
"Haha, no worries, Henry. No worries." Hope says, his smile widening. "Everyone deserves a second chance. It's a shame Jason can't understand that, but you know how he is. More importantly, after today I'll expect you to stop calling me 'sir'. We're better friends than that!"
"We're friends?" Henry asks, his body slightly jolting in surprise. "I... I didn't know you saw me that way."
"You know we're practically the same age, right?" Hope asks, reaching across the table to lightly slap Henry's shoulder. "C'mon, you've gotta lighten up a little bit. Anyone who joins my Parahuman Corps will become a Hero, like me, capable of punching the average Demon Duke into the dirt and easily bringing the fight to Emperors. You were the best goddamn sniper we had, so we'll put your enhanced sensitivity and reaction speeds to good use on the battlefield."
"That would be amazing, Hope." Henry says, his smile becoming gentler. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I won't let you down."
"I know you won't." Hope says. "I sense a great will to do good hiding inside you. Over time, I think we'll be able to awaken it, to humanity's benefit."
...
A few hours later, after Hope has signed up those who will come, and as night descends, he steps out of the tent, only to see an equally-long line still stretching out in front of Debra's tent.
"...damn." Hope mutters. "And I thought I had a pretty good yield. It's barely a drop in the bucket."
His expression falls. He glances at the immigration sheet in his hands, discovering he only managed to sign a few hundred people today.
"It's less than yesterday, too." Hope mutters. "I've barely signed two thousand, total. Jepthath's power works better with more and more people linked together, though. Fucking Jason. He really screwed me this time."
As Hope curses to himself, a trooper walks over to him and deactivates her helmet, revealing the face of an older woman Hope recognizes.
"Hm?" Hope grunts, looking at her. "Linda! Good to see you."
"Hey, Hope." Linda says. "Neil told me to ask you to pay him a visit once you were done. You mind?"
Hope blinks. "Sure, sure. Not a problem at all. I'll pop over right now."
After saying goodbye, Hope utters a Word of Power and teleports directly outside Neil's office, slightly startling a few people nearby, but they quickly recover when they see who arrived.
Hope knocks on the door, then enters after Neil tells him he can come in.
"Neil." Hope says, nodding respectfully. "What's up?"
"Are things going well for you?" Neil asks, looking up from a mountain of paperwork on his desk. He stands up and walks over to shake Hope's hand. "I hear you haven't gotten many immigration requests."
The corner of Hope's eye twitches at Neil's statement. "Y-yeah. Well, you know I'm looking for quality over quantity, haha..."
He shakes Neil's hand, then the two of them sit down with the desk between them.
"You don't have to lie to me." Neil says, shaking his head. "Jason pulled a dirty trick on you, Hope. I see real value in your Parahuman Corps. I want to... try and divert some people your way."
"Oh yeah? You do?" Hope asks, his eyes narrowing. "And what's this little favor gonna cost me?"
For a brief moment, silence follows.
Neil looks at Hope intently. He rests his elbows on the table, and his chin atop his folded hands.
"Hope. Are you aware of the... conversation I held with Diablo a little over a week ago?"
Hope's eye twitches again. "I am. You turned him down."
"So you were listening." Neil says quietly. "I thought you might be. No doubt Jason was listening, too. As I'm sure you are aware, I hold quite a strong hatred for the demons. Some detractors have even called my hatred 'irrational.'"
He lifts his head up and sits back in his chair.
"We are at a crossroads, Hope. I have built my current existence on hating demons. I cannot alter that identity without paying a price. But if you think Diablo's offer did not move me, you were not paying attention."
A half-breath of silence follows.
"Hope." Neil says, after a pause. "I want you to take Diablo's offer."
"What?!" Hope exclaims. "The fuck are you talking about??"
"Don't act surprised." Neil says calmly. "The demons are only able to turn Emperors into Cosmics. They have, at most, a hundred Emperors. That's a hundred worlds they can take back permanently from the Plague. But there are tens of billions of planets and star systems in our galaxy. The demons are nowhere close to stalling the war against the Plague, let alone winning it."
He continues. "Even if Diablo can uplift ten thousand new Emperors, which I strongly doubt he can, that's still nothing at all in the grand scheme of things. We humans need real practical experience in battle against these 'Kolvaxians.' We need to know what they are capable of. We need to know how they fight, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and so on. If we engage the Plague in battle alone, our soldiers will die miserable deaths."
"I see..." Hope says. "So, since Diablo has a 100% success rate against the Kolvaxians so far, you think we should help him conquer worlds in order to test our troops."
"That's right." Neil says. "But it won't do if you only bring your Parahuman Troops to battle. First off, the reception hasn't been particularly enthusiastic toward them, and secondly, we need to train our troops en-masse. I want tens or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers forging real practical experience on the battlefield. The problem is, I cannot give this order with my identity as it stands now. Only you can."
"Jason could too." Hope points out. "He'd love to have soldiers fight beside the demons."
"That's exactly what I want to avoid." Neil quickly retorts. "If Jason takes command, he'll make it seem like we humans are buddy-buddying up with our former enemies and becoming closer. If you do it, you can frame this as a simple military exercise. Nothing more, nothing less. An exchange of benefits."
"There is a problem." Hope says slowly. "You can say our men and women are getting 'combat experience' but the demons will still reap the ultimate rewards. They clear out the Plague, they place a Cosmic in command, and they ultimately gain a new world rich in resources."
Neil's nose twitches. "I know. In an ideal scenario, we would simply elevate one of our humans to the rank of Cosmic. Force Diablo to make it work. But I'm guessing that's infeasible."
Hope nods. "Completely. I have observed Diablo a few times from afar. The process of forging a new Cosmic requires a body to become overwhelmed with the energy of a star. Human bodies are more frail than Demon Lords, let alone Barons, Dukes, and Emperors. Any human who tried to become a Cosmic through Diablo's method would explode. At least it would be a quick death."
"A sturdy body is required?" Neil asks. "Then... what about a body empowered through Jepthath?"
Hope pauses for a moment to think about this. He massages his chin, then communicates with Jepthath through the Dominion Rod.
"...Jepthath says it might be possible, but only a human who was sufficiently powerful could do so. An ancient Hero like Arthur might have been able to pull it off. Jepthath himself probably couldn't have. Hercules, the ancient Titan, would have likely been able to."
He shakes his head. "This is all assuming Diablo's method isn't limited to demons. More likely, it is. Even if it isn't, he won't reveal that fact. Uplifting humans stands counter to his long term goals."
"I would rather not use a demon's ascension ability to empower our people." Neil says mildly. "So let's strike that option from the list."
Neil reaches over to grab a cup of coffee. He takes a few sips, then sets it back down.
"Here is what you're going to do, Hope. You are going to declare that you are building an anti-Kolvaxian task force. You'll say that killing the Plague takes precedent for now, and that you strong-armed me into this position. I will remain silent and allow you to take full credit for any future victories you make, all in order to train our soldiers well."
Hope nods. "I might get all the credit, but I'll take all the blame if something goes wrong."
"Every reward requires one to pay an equivalent price. Humanity needs this, Hope, and I cannot give it to them. I'm going to focus on building up Maiura in the coming weeks and months, but you need to be leading our troops into battle to give them the experience they so desperately need."
"Alright. I agree with that proposal." Hope says, as he stands up. "We'll talk later, Neil."
He turns to leave, but before he can reach the door, Neil speaks up.
"Hope. One last thing."
Hope pauses. He turns to look at Neil.
"...Yeah?"
"Do you know what humanity's biggest advantage is?" Neil asks. "Or perhaps instead, what demonkind's biggest disadvantage is?"
The Wordsmith thinks for a moment. "Our... willpower?"
"Perhaps. But I am referring to our capacity for growth." Neil says slowly. "The demons are stagnant, Hope. This method of ascending to Cosmic is pathetic, if you truly think about it. They anchor their lives to a single planet, give up their freedom, and in exchange only obtain a one-time power-up."
Neil lifts his chin to peer down the bridge of his nose at Hope. "In that manner, the Volgrim are quite similar. They have long plateaued when it comes to their technological progress. They make minor, incremental changes over long periods of time, but their creativity is much duller than ours. Their Psions are the same as they were millions of years ago."
"So you think humans are different?" Hope asks.
"I know we are." Neil says slowly. "We possess something neither the demons nor the Volgrim do. We have science, we have technology, and we have magic. If we can obtain just a bit of breathing room, we can rapidly develop our strengths. We can steal Volgrim technology, reverse engineer it, and make it our own. We can create new Heroes capable of harnessing incredible magical power. Then, we can combine the two to create warriors unstoppable among our rivals."
Neil lifts a finger and points it at Hope.
"But we need time, Hope. We need time. There is a race for galactic supremacy underway. Our rivals started millions of years before us, and their headstart is, to say the least, considerable. We can only catch up to them if we tap into the true power lurking within our genes."
Hope listens silently while Neil speaks, absorbing his mentor's words.
"You have to take this assignment seriously, Hope." Neil says, his words solemn. "All it will take is one mistake, one moment of inattentiveness, and our species will go extinct in an instant. We are not strong enough to resist the forces opposing us, not right now. But given time, I believe humanity will rise up and crush these interlopers."
Hope nods. "I understand, Neil."
"Good. I pray you do." Neil says, closing his eyes heavily. "Now get out there and make some magic happen. Don't just rely on Jepthath either. Use the full force of your Wordsmithing to empower our boys and girls. Make our soldiers a force to be reckoned with."
Hope and Neil exchange one last look. They nod at each other, then the Wordsmith exits the room, closing the door behind himself as he departs.
Neil remains quiet for a moment.
"I'll play your game for now, Diablo. But it won't be long before my species stops being mere pieces you can shove around the board."
"Underestimate humanity at your peril."
Next Part

Seven days after the Great Debate, Immigration Centers open up around Tarus II. Four of them in total, with one at each side of the city: North, east, west, and south. These centers provide a huge building for people to go and place their preferred future residence following the Great Debate, so everyone will be able to quickly and efficiently organize their future living accommodations.
Several high profile individuals staff the posts at each Immigration Center. For the western center, which allows people to migrate to Sharmur, a handful of demons and humans take the lead, including Emperor Kiari. For the northern center, which allows people to migrate to Maiura, Neil's personal assistant Debra takes the lead. As for the southern and eastern centers, these are for transferring to Pixiv and for either staying on Tarus II or migrating to folded spaces under the control of Jason Hiro.
While Jason does not immediately open up the possibility of humans living inside Chrona, he certainly does for the folded spaces within the Cube. Unbeknownst to almost every Sentient in the Milky Way, Jason begins aggressively expanding Camael's Cube's internal space. He creates multiple different spaces, with some of them the size of Tarus II and others that are bigger or smaller, depending on the needs. Most interestingly, he experiments by changing the time-flow between different spaces, with some accelerating time five-fold while others accelerate fifty-fold.
With the help of Blinker's fairy friends, such as Princess Melia, Jason also establishes gates that can travel around inside the Cube, allowing people to smoothly travel between higher and lower dilation zones. In this way, he can see what the effects of high and low TDR are on humans over time.
But on the surface of Tarus II, most of the attention goes to the Immigration Centers. Millions of humans and tens of millions of their allied demon and monster comrades have to make hard decisions on where they will go, following the conclusion of the Great Debate a week earlier.
On this day, Hope Hiro joins Debra at the Northern Center, helping her with the workload of a large number of people who want to migrate to Maiura. He sits inside an isolated tent-area with a short line of thirty or so people extending outside, while not far away, Debra's much larger tent has fifty times the number of people in line and she requires half a dozen helpers to keep it moving along at a reasonable pace.
"I don't get it," A married pair of Troopers say as they sit in Hope's tent and talk to him directly. "What's the difference between coming under you or Neil? Aren't you close friends? Isn't the Commander your superior officer?"
Hope nods at the woman who asked the question. "We're friends, yes. But Neil and I are going to be leading different branches of humanity's military. In the ancient times, when Earth was still around, we had divisions such as the Army, the Navy, the Coast Guard, and so on. Many nations organized their militaries differently, but that's beside the point."
He continues. "As I'm sure you two are aware, Neil is a... traditionalist. He wants boots on the ground. He wants you to pick up your guns and fight that good fight against the demons. But what I'm offering is different."
The male troopers glances to the side, where he sees a large white panel explaining all the benefits of joining Hope's Parahuman Corps. Several diagrams describe the benefits being offered along with the gains they will surely reap.
"Well, from what I've heard, this whole arrangement feels a bit... culty." The male trooper says, his voice sounding slightly nervous. "Look, I like you a lot, Commander Hope. You fought hard for us when we needed to expand. You ended up captured and tortured by that piece of shit Gressil, but you rebounded and you came back better than ever. I admire that about you. But this... this whole 'submitting to Jepthath' thing sounds really weird, sir."
Hope smiles weakly. "I get it. I do. But that's the thing. Neil is offering for you to do what you've always done. You wear an exosuit, you shoot demons and xenos dead. Nothing wrong with that. But I'm offering for you to join on the ground floor of humanity's future strongest military force."
Hope's voice becomes more excited as he continues to explain. "See, by submitting to Jepthath, you will become a part of something bigger. Better. Greater! Humans united in mind, body, and soul. You will become physically stronger by a factor of ten, maybe even a hundred. Don't you hate feeling like the demons are more powerful than you? Don't you hate having to make up the difference with these flimsy suits when any Emperor can still rip you apart?"
"The transformation isn't a problem." The female trooper says. "Obviously, becoming far stronger is a huge benefit. But Jason Hiro said we're going to become slaves if we join you! He said we would lose all control and Jepthath would turn us into his pawns!"
Hope's expression crinkles into a look of disgust. "Jason? You really think Jason gave you the full story? Look, I get it. Up there, on that stage, it probably looked like I was out of my element or like I didn't have any good explanations. It probably seems like he cornered me."
He waggles a finger chidingly. "But that's exactly what Jason wanted! He talks a big talk about uniting together and all that crap, but in the end it was Jason who decided to split humanity apart. He had his wife take the fall for that stupidly unpopular Unification Plan, and when the time came, he felt the changing winds and flip-flopped! But I've been consistent right from the beginning. Humans need to stick together!"
Still sensing the uncertainty from the troopers, Hope waves his hand dismissively. "Jepthath isn't going to control you and turn you into sex-puppets or some weird crap. Look, you two are religious, right? Haven't you ever heard of turning your body over to the Will of God in your moment of weakness?"
Both troopers nod slowly. "Well, yeah." The man says. "Who hasn't?"
"It's exactly like that." Hope explains. "Let's say a demon invasion occurs. You become scared. You try to move, but your legs freeze up. When a demon hits you, you die. But not with Jepthath around! He can take control and give you the strength to stand up and save yourself! He can put all that strength you've gained to good use! And now imagine you're fighting in a platoon of soldiers who've been surrounded by the enemy. Wouldn't you like it if you could get a shot of liquid courage injected into your mind by the strongest member of the team? With Jepthath's power, all of us become as strong as our strongest link!"
Seeing that his words have finally made an impact, Hope smiles.
"Besides. You're already in my tent, right? Do you really want to go out and walk to the back of Debra's line? You'll be waiting for hours. Seems like such a hassle, doesn't it?"
The woman glances outside and grimaces when she sees a line nearly a thousand people deep.
She and her husband lean together and whisper for a few moments, then they sigh and turn back to Hope.
"...We'll join you, Commander Hope."
"I sure appreciate the enthusiasm." Hope jokes. He slides a digital pad over to them. "Just put your names here, check this box, and..."
A few minutes later, they leave the tent, and Hope sighs. "Finally. Another one. Shit, I was hoping for ten times as many people, if not a hundred. Jason really smeared me good... next!"
He calls out to the line outside the tent, and the flap flips open to allow a single man to walk inside.
Hope's eyes light up. "Hey, Henry! Henry, my guy! You came to me first?!"
The young man with bags under his eyes, Henry Cliff, smiles at Hope. "Commander. This felt the most fitting place for me to come, sir. You know, since most people can't stand me, since I sort of... betrayed Commander Neil, and all that."
Hope shakes Henry's hand, and the two of them sit down. Hope smiles at the young man, but notices a look of melancholy on his face.
"You have any questions?" Hope asks. "Anything that you need convincing about?"
"Oh, it's nothing like that." Henry says, shrugging his shoulders and sighing softly. "I would have come to your side no matter what. You are one of the few people who's shown me any kindness, sir. I know I screwed up. I just want to make a difference."
Hope nods. "Do you know what you're getting yourself into? Do you understand what Jepthath is all about?"
"I get it, sir." Henry answers. "If I can fight the good fight, I'll do anything, sir. Honestly, I thought I'd never be able to join the military again. My only worry now is that you'll tell me 'no' and I'll be stuck making deliveries for the rest of eternity."
"Haha, no worries, Henry. No worries." Hope says, his smile widening. "Everyone deserves a second chance. It's a shame Jason can't understand that, but you know how he is. More importantly, after today I'll expect you to stop calling me 'sir'. We're better friends than that!"
"We're friends?" Henry asks, his body slightly jolting in surprise. "I... I didn't know you saw me that way."
"You know we're practically the same age, right?" Hope asks, reaching across the table to lightly slap Henry's shoulder. "C'mon, you've gotta lighten up a little bit. Anyone who joins my Parahuman Corps will become a Hero, like me, capable of punching the average Demon Duke into the dirt and easily bringing the fight to Emperors. You were the best goddamn sniper we had, so we'll put your enhanced sensitivity and reaction speeds to good use on the battlefield."
"That would be amazing, Hope." Henry says, his smile becoming gentler. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I won't let you down."
"I know you won't." Hope says. "I sense a great will to do good hiding inside you. Over time, I think we'll be able to awaken it, to humanity's benefit."
...
A few hours later, after Hope has signed up those who will come, and as night descends, he steps out of the tent, only to see an equally-long line still stretching out in front of Debra's tent.
"...damn." Hope mutters. "And I thought I had a pretty good yield. It's barely a drop in the bucket."
His expression falls. He glances at the immigration sheet in his hands, discovering he only managed to sign a few hundred people today.
"It's less than yesterday, too." Hope mutters. "I've barely signed two thousand, total. Jepthath's power works better with more and more people linked together, though. Fucking Jason. He really screwed me this time."
As Hope curses to himself, a trooper walks over to him and deactivates her helmet, revealing the face of an older woman Hope recognizes.
"Hm?" Hope grunts, looking at her. "Linda! Good to see you."
"Hey, Hope." Linda says. "Neil told me to ask you to pay him a visit once you were done. You mind?"
Hope blinks. "Sure, sure. Not a problem at all. I'll pop over right now."
After saying goodbye, Hope utters a Word of Power and teleports directly outside Neil's office, slightly startling a few people nearby, but they quickly recover when they see who arrived.
Hope knocks on the door, then enters after Neil tells him he can come in.
"Neil." Hope says, nodding respectfully. "What's up?"
"Are things going well for you?" Neil asks, looking up from a mountain of paperwork on his desk. He stands up and walks over to shake Hope's hand. "I hear you haven't gotten many immigration requests."
The corner of Hope's eye twitches at Neil's statement. "Y-yeah. Well, you know I'm looking for quality over quantity, haha..."
He shakes Neil's hand, then the two of them sit down with the desk between them.
"You don't have to lie to me." Neil says, shaking his head. "Jason pulled a dirty trick on you, Hope. I see real value in your Parahuman Corps. I want to... try and divert some people your way."
"Oh yeah? You do?" Hope asks, his eyes narrowing. "And what's this little favor gonna cost me?"
For a brief moment, silence follows.
Neil looks at Hope intently. He rests his elbows on the table, and his chin atop his folded hands.
"Hope. Are you aware of the... conversation I held with Diablo a little over a week ago?"
Hope's eye twitches again. "I am. You turned him down."
"So you were listening." Neil says quietly. "I thought you might be. No doubt Jason was listening, too. As I'm sure you are aware, I hold quite a strong hatred for the demons. Some detractors have even called my hatred 'irrational.'"
He lifts his head up and sits back in his chair.
"We are at a crossroads, Hope. I have built my current existence on hating demons. I cannot alter that identity without paying a price. But if you think Diablo's offer did not move me, you were not paying attention."
A half-breath of silence follows.
"Hope." Neil says, after a pause. "I want you to take Diablo's offer."
"What?!" Hope exclaims. "The fuck are you talking about??"
"Don't act surprised." Neil says calmly. "The demons are only able to turn Emperors into Cosmics. They have, at most, a hundred Emperors. That's a hundred worlds they can take back permanently from the Plague. But there are tens of billions of planets and star systems in our galaxy. The demons are nowhere close to stalling the war against the Plague, let alone winning it."
He continues. "Even if Diablo can uplift ten thousand new Emperors, which I strongly doubt he can, that's still nothing at all in the grand scheme of things. We humans need real practical experience in battle against these 'Kolvaxians.' We need to know what they are capable of. We need to know how they fight, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and so on. If we engage the Plague in battle alone, our soldiers will die miserable deaths."
"I see..." Hope says. "So, since Diablo has a 100% success rate against the Kolvaxians so far, you think we should help him conquer worlds in order to test our troops."
"That's right." Neil says. "But it won't do if you only bring your Parahuman Troops to battle. First off, the reception hasn't been particularly enthusiastic toward them, and secondly, we need to train our troops en-masse. I want tens or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers forging real practical experience on the battlefield. The problem is, I cannot give this order with my identity as it stands now. Only you can."
"Jason could too." Hope points out. "He'd love to have soldiers fight beside the demons."
"That's exactly what I want to avoid." Neil quickly retorts. "If Jason takes command, he'll make it seem like we humans are buddy-buddying up with our former enemies and becoming closer. If you do it, you can frame this as a simple military exercise. Nothing more, nothing less. An exchange of benefits."
"There is a problem." Hope says slowly. "You can say our men and women are getting 'combat experience' but the demons will still reap the ultimate rewards. They clear out the Plague, they place a Cosmic in command, and they ultimately gain a new world rich in resources."
Neil's nose twitches. "I know. In an ideal scenario, we would simply elevate one of our humans to the rank of Cosmic. Force Diablo to make it work. But I'm guessing that's infeasible."
Hope nods. "Completely. I have observed Diablo a few times from afar. The process of forging a new Cosmic requires a body to become overwhelmed with the energy of a star. Human bodies are more frail than Demon Lords, let alone Barons, Dukes, and Emperors. Any human who tried to become a Cosmic through Diablo's method would explode. At least it would be a quick death."
"A sturdy body is required?" Neil asks. "Then... what about a body empowered through Jepthath?"
Hope pauses for a moment to think about this. He massages his chin, then communicates with Jepthath through the Dominion Rod.
"...Jepthath says it might be possible, but only a human who was sufficiently powerful could do so. An ancient Hero like Arthur might have been able to pull it off. Jepthath himself probably couldn't have. Hercules, the ancient Titan, would have likely been able to."
He shakes his head. "This is all assuming Diablo's method isn't limited to demons. More likely, it is. Even if it isn't, he won't reveal that fact. Uplifting humans stands counter to his long term goals."
"I would rather not use a demon's ascension ability to empower our people." Neil says mildly. "So let's strike that option from the list."
Neil reaches over to grab a cup of coffee. He takes a few sips, then sets it back down.
"Here is what you're going to do, Hope. You are going to declare that you are building an anti-Kolvaxian task force. You'll say that killing the Plague takes precedent for now, and that you strong-armed me into this position. I will remain silent and allow you to take full credit for any future victories you make, all in order to train our soldiers well."
Hope nods. "I might get all the credit, but I'll take all the blame if something goes wrong."
"Every reward requires one to pay an equivalent price. Humanity needs this, Hope, and I cannot give it to them. I'm going to focus on building up Maiura in the coming weeks and months, but you need to be leading our troops into battle to give them the experience they so desperately need."
"Alright. I agree with that proposal." Hope says, as he stands up. "We'll talk later, Neil."
He turns to leave, but before he can reach the door, Neil speaks up.
"Hope. One last thing."
Hope pauses. He turns to look at Neil.
"...Yeah?"
"Do you know what humanity's biggest advantage is?" Neil asks. "Or perhaps instead, what demonkind's biggest disadvantage is?"
The Wordsmith thinks for a moment. "Our... willpower?"
"Perhaps. But I am referring to our capacity for growth." Neil says slowly. "The demons are stagnant, Hope. This method of ascending to Cosmic is pathetic, if you truly think about it. They anchor their lives to a single planet, give up their freedom, and in exchange only obtain a one-time power-up."
Neil lifts his chin to peer down the bridge of his nose at Hope. "In that manner, the Volgrim are quite similar. They have long plateaued when it comes to their technological progress. They make minor, incremental changes over long periods of time, but their creativity is much duller than ours. Their Psions are the same as they were millions of years ago."
"So you think humans are different?" Hope asks.
"I know we are." Neil says slowly. "We possess something neither the demons nor the Volgrim do. We have science, we have technology, and we have magic. If we can obtain just a bit of breathing room, we can rapidly develop our strengths. We can steal Volgrim technology, reverse engineer it, and make it our own. We can create new Heroes capable of harnessing incredible magical power. Then, we can combine the two to create warriors unstoppable among our rivals."
Neil lifts a finger and points it at Hope.
"But we need time, Hope. We need time. There is a race for galactic supremacy underway. Our rivals started millions of years before us, and their headstart is, to say the least, considerable. We can only catch up to them if we tap into the true power lurking within our genes."
Hope listens silently while Neil speaks, absorbing his mentor's words.
"You have to take this assignment seriously, Hope." Neil says, his words solemn. "All it will take is one mistake, one moment of inattentiveness, and our species will go extinct in an instant. We are not strong enough to resist the forces opposing us, not right now. But given time, I believe humanity will rise up and crush these interlopers."
Hope nods. "I understand, Neil."
"Good. I pray you do." Neil says, closing his eyes heavily. "Now get out there and make some magic happen. Don't just rely on Jepthath either. Use the full force of your Wordsmithing to empower our boys and girls. Make our soldiers a force to be reckoned with."
Hope and Neil exchange one last look. They nod at each other, then the Wordsmith exits the room, closing the door behind himself as he departs.
Neil remains quiet for a moment.
"I'll play your game for now, Diablo. But it won't be long before my species stops being mere pieces you can shove around the board."
"Underestimate humanity at your peril."

I hope this post is okay, I’ve removed the affiliate links, but left the attribution because I don’t feel right otherwise.
tl/dr not a baker, tried the included recipe, crust came out super hard and overcooked, and the inside was still raw. Don’t know if I overworked the dough with the stand-mixer, made the dough ball too big, or one of a hundred other mistakes I don’t even know of.
I am a fair cook, and tomorrow I’m making my Irish Stew for my gaming group. I love to have Irish soda bread with my stew, but outside of saint patrick’s day, it is virtually impossible to find. So I looked up a recipe, and chose the following.
I measured out all of my ingredients, and started by hand whisking the buttermilk and egg. I mixed the flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar. I did not have any of the tools the recipe mention, when I searched the internet I read that it should be okay to use my stand mixer. I added the cold cube butter and began mixing with the coated flat beater. I added the wet mix to the flour mix, and switched out to the dough hook, and added the raisins.
I removed the dough, kneeded it for 30 seconds, formed it into a ball, and x’ed the top. I used a buttered cake pan, and see it in the oven. At 45 minutes I checked on it, and the crust was very thick and hard. The center was still uncooked. This was my first attempt which I assumed wouldn’t work out, so I cut of the edges to taste test, and besides the overdone crust it was extremely tasty.
So I’ve been wracking my brain and I could only think of two mistakes I made, though to a seasoned baker there’s probably a lot more.
The stand mixture may have overworked the dough.
I made the dough ball too thick, which didn’t let it cook more evenly.
I’m planning on attempt number two tomorrow, any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Grandma’s Irish Soda Bread

5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star4.8 from 451 reviews

• Author: Sally
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 45 minutes
• Total Time: 55 minutes
• Yield: 1 loaf

Irish Soda Bread is a quick bread that does not require any yeast. Instead, all of its leavening comes from baking soda and buttermilk. This Irish Soda Bread recipe is my grandmother’s and has been cherished in my family for years. It’s dense, yet soft and has the most incredible crusty exterior.

Ingredients

• 1 and 3/4 cups (420ml) buttermilk\*
• 1 large egg (optional, see note)
• 4 and 1/4 cups (531g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for your hands and counter
• 3 Tablespoons (38g) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 Tablespoons (71g) unsalted butter, cold and cubed*
• optional: 1 cup (150g) raisins

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

1. Preheat oven & pan options: Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). There are options for the baking pan. Use a regular baking sheet and line with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (bread spreads a bit more on a baking sheet), or use a seasoned 10-12 inch cast iron skillet (no need to preheat the cast iron unless you want to), or grease a 9-10 inch cake pan or pie dish. You can also use a 5 quart (or higher) dutch oven. Grease or line with parchment paper. If using a dutch oven, bake the bread with the lid off.
2. Whisk the buttermilk and egg together. Set aside. Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter, a fork, or your fingers. Mixture is very heavy on the flour, but do your best to cut in the butter until the butter is pea-sized crumbs. Stir in the raisins. Pour in the buttermilk/egg mixture. Gently fold the dough together until dough it is too stiff to stir. Pour crumbly dough onto a lightly floured work surface. With floured hands, work the dough into a ball as best you can, then knead for about 30 seconds or until all the flour is moistened. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour.
3. Transfer the dough to the prepared skillet/pan. Using a very sharp knife or bread lame, score the dough with a slash or X about 1/2 inch deep. (“Score” = shallow cut.)
4. Bake until the bread is golden brown and center appears cooked through, about 45-55 minutes. Loosely tent the bread with aluminum foil if you notice heavy browning on top. For a more accurate test, the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer reads the center of the loaf as 195°F (90°C).
5. Remove from the oven and allow bread to cool for 10 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm, at room temperature, or toasted with desired toppings/spreads.
6. Cover and store leftover bread at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. We usually wrap it tightly in aluminum foil for storing.

Notes

1. Freezing Instructions: Baked and cooled bread freezes well up to 3 months. Freeze the whole loaf or individual slices. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then reheat as desired.
2. Special Tools (affiliate links): removed affiliate links
3. Baking Pan: There are options for the baking pan (see Special Tools Note above). You can use a lined large baking sheet (with or without a rim), a seasoned 10-12 inch cast iron skillet, or a greased or lined 9-10 inch cake pan or pie dish. I don’t recommend a loaf pan because the loaf may not bake evenly inside. This dough is best as a flatter loaf.
4. Buttermilk: Using cold buttermilk is best. Buttermilk is key to the bread’s flavor, texture, and rise. The bread will not rise without it. If you don’t have any buttermilk on hand, you can make a homemade “DIY” version. Whole milk or 2% milk is best, though lower fat or nondairy milks work in a pinch. Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to a liquid measuring cup. Add enough cold milk to make 1 and 3/4 cups. Whisk together, then let sit for 5 minutes before using in the recipe.
5. Egg: 1 egg adds richness and density. Feel free to skip it to make a slightly lighter loaf. No other changes necessary, simply leave out the egg.
6. Cold Butter: The colder the butter, the less sticky the dough will be. Make sure it’s very cold, even frozen cubed butter is great.
7. Smaller Loaves: You can divide this dough up to make smaller loaves. The bake time will be shorter, depending how large the loaves are. An instant read thermometer will be especially helpful. Bake the loaves until an instant-read thermometer reads the center of the loaf as 195°F (90°C).

Find it online: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/grandmas-irish-soda-bread/Grandma’s Irish Soda Bread

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned him in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned him in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned him in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned him in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.