I went on a two day writer’s retreat with a couple close friends of mine this past weekend and cannot recommend the experience enough! We ended up staying at a small family-run retreat ground with some well furnished yurts, wood burning stoves, and private hot tubs which honestly created the perfect winter atmosphere to shake off some of the post-holiday blues. Plus, there’s something about writing and bouncing ideas off of friends that makes for such a fun, relaxing time.
I decided to revisit an old short story I whipped up for a creative writing class last fall, since I wanted to seriously tackle smoothing out the rough edges. I’m a big fan of horror stories (though I’m very picky about them too), and ended up chasing an idea that was very Lovecraftian. Lovecraft was the first horror writer I ever read when I was younger and tackling a lot of the “classics,” so I have a fondness for his work (hence the title, though At the Mountains of Madness was a slog to get through).
She still needs some tweaks, but I’m very happy with the current state of affairs. I hope you love the twist at the end as much as I loved writing it!
I must tell them, I think feverishly, huddling in a small cavern in the dark.
Hiding from the lights.
Hiding from what I know the lights herald.
I wrap my arms around myself and shudder, my skin flushing hot and cold as I struggle to maintain what little composure I have left. They must believe me! I’m one of them. I’m just as worthy a scholar! They’re just… I’m not…
My thoughts thrash, caught in a net of panic. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go!
I’ve spent so many seasons on the periphery, ignored and dismissed by the consortium. I tried so hard to find my way into the inner circles only for my path to be barred, not because I lacked intelligence or diligence or experience. No. The way remained closed because I lacked pedigree. Because I’m not from one of the founding bloodlines. I was never going to be allowed into the hallowed halls of learning unless I did something bold! Something none of them had ever even attempted before!
I can see them in my mind’s eye; self-satisfied, lazy scholars and philosophers gorging on oysters and roe while at the edges of the world those things press in…
Memories rise in my mind, unbidden, filling me with waves of terror that threaten to pull me deeper and… No! I hold back a cry. If I let myself fall apart now, then I won’t be able to make the journey back. There will be no one to warn the world of what is coming.
…
The journey from the consortium’s territories had been long and arduous. I hadn’t told anyone of my plans, unable to bear the looks of pity and derision I was sure I’d attract; few in our history had ever returned from the eastern mountain ranges. Those that had had passed down stories of great grass plains and barren wastelands. Mountains of craggy rock that climbed higher and higher until they actually pierced the veil of the world, their peaks disappearing into that shimmering unknown. No one had ever ventured to see what lay beyond.
No one until me.
I had slithered through the grassy plains and darted across the wastelands, ignoring the hunger that grew by the day as neither held much in the way of food. Until finally I reached the base of the mountains.
Jagged rock sharp enough to tear flesh ascended in fits and starts, so I carefully picked my way up the slope, pulling myself over sudden rises and angled cliff faces for gods knows how long. Until, finally reaching the horizon, I gaped in awe at the infinite space beyond.
It was flush with colours I could never have imagined, filling my vision with a shimmering splendor such as I’d never seen before. It was worth it. My hearts leapt with elation, and the pleasure of victory drowned the doubts that had whispered in the back of my mind for weeks, much as I had tried to silence them. It was all worth it, just to see this.
Without consciously deciding, I reached up towards the barrier between known and unknown, until I realized what I was about to do and hesitated. My outstretched arm curled with uncertainty. But the voices of the consortium rose in my mind as they often did in such moments. Utter nonsense! How is this any different than the fanciful tales we get from every self-proclaimed explorer who crosses our shores? This isn’t a scholarly account, it’s a bedtime story! Their imagined disdain hardened my resolve, so I reached out again into that wide, strange space.
I cannot truly describe the feeling of what lies beyond.
As I reached out, a thin layer of water rolled back over my arm as if it couldn’t bear to exist in this other place. The thing that had cradled me all my life quickly dried up and was gone. I felt nothingness. There was only the lingering taste of salt that seemed to sink into my skin and linger, before even that was gone. I reached out with another arm, and another, and another, but still embraced only absence.
There wasn’t even a current in this place! Only stillness.
But as I reached, I gradually noticed that this was not quite right. There was no current, but there was something faintly like a current. It was nothing I could understand, but there was still a taste of… something. Acrid. Acidic. Alien. My limbs grew oddly heavy as adrenaline waned, and an irrational fear that they would soon begin to wither seeped into my hearts. I pulled myself back, mind racing with possibilities.
Consumed as I was by my own thoughts, I did not feel the vibrations in the current. I did not notice the taste of something else approaching me.
Not until it was far too late.
Suddenly, a light brighter than any I had ever seen blinded me. Something that was not sharp but held the promise of sharpness gripped my body, and I felt the sickening press of what must have been living flesh stretched over a rigid lattice, spurs extending at violent angles to form a crude cage around my torso. I couldn’t escape.
Water cascaded away as if in fear as the thing dragged me out of the world. A foreign heaviness pressed on me from all sides. I tried to wrench myself free, arms grasping wildly for purchase. They wrapped around whatever held me, and my mind revolted at the wrongness of it. Its skin tasted bitter and toxic. It was covered in thousands of tiny filaments. I almost retched thinking that they were hyphae; I had seen what happened to those taken by fungi. I thrashed harder still at the thought as I was pulled further into the expanse. With my frantic movements, I was then able to roll an eye upward and see the leviathan that held me.
I wish that I hadn’t. It would have been better to have died on my journey and been forgotten.
Its form was so alien, so unnatural and unlike anything I could have imagined, that to look at it strained the mind to breaking. It was angular, with grotesque proportions. Its movements were jointed and abrupt, though with a speed and dexterity that belied its size. I knew at that moment that I could struggle for hours, withering to a husk in this nothingness, and it would never tire. I was going to die in this place.
I still fought, keening wordlessly in fright, pushed past the point of coherency. A seam opened within the creature’s flesh, surrounded by long, dense hyphae that quivered at the movement… a mouth. A mouth filled with blunt teeth. How does it hunt? How does it eat?? Those baffled thoughts vanished at the sound that the creature made.
My panic spiked at the reverberations, so deeply pitched that I couldn’t truly hear them. But what sent me careening over the edge into hysteria… were the echoing calls that responded in the distance.
It was not alone.
I wrenched my gaze from its maw to look past its bulk, and with blurred vision saw them. Other creatures like the one that held me, each with their own strange light.
All waiting just beyond the shallows of the world. All now coming closer.
When I saw what lay beyond even them, any rational thought that I may have had left abandoned me. I must have lashed out at the creature. I must have hit it in some vital part. It cried out again; impossible to believe that that cry held anything but fury, but its grip loosened. I crashed violently into the waters of my own world.
I didn’t think. I simply fled.
…
I shiver in my cave alone, trying to gather the shreds of myself into some semblance of a person. No, they can’t ignore me this time. I can’t stop myself from breaking out into hysterical laughter and racking sobs.
Come nightfall, I emerge twitching out of my hiding place and gaze out into the darkness.
It should feel soothing. What octopus ever feared the dark? It should feel safe.
But I know that it is not, and I will never feel safe again.
I dart out into the waters, heedless of the dangers that lurk among the coral. They don’t matter now. All that matters is returning and telling everyone what I’ve seen, of the dangers that lurk beyond the waters. As I swim, I can see them still, burned into the backs of my eyes; harbingers of the horror that is sure to come.
Thousands upon thousands of lights, glittering in the darkness.
What do you think?
That’s all for me this week! Please like, comment, and share if you enjoyed what you’ve read.
As always, be kind to one another.
Love, Charlotte.
Blue Orchid 