u/FearlessAir1570

Leo woke up to the sound of a guard rapping his baton along the bars of his cell. He rose groggily and saw his bunkmate Tom do the same, descending from the top bunk. They didn’t exchange any words; Leo had given up on trying to initiate conversations with the man some time ago. He didn’t know why – Tom seemed perfectly happy to talk to other prisoners in the yard or the commissary – but for some reason the older man seemed to want as little to do with him as physically possible. After the morning count was done they shambled towards the mess hall in a line spanning the entire cellblock, showing little enthusiasm for what was sure to be a breakfast of barely edible gunk.

The way the other prisoners chose to sit anywhere other than the table Leo sat at was nothing new, but still it  vexed and confused him. After all he wasn’t some crazed serial killer or rapist. Leo had been incarcerated for destruction of public property, drunk and disorderly and a fist fight he had embarrassingly lost. You could still see the ridge on his nose where it had broken against the pavement.

For the first few days in prison there had been a few people walking up to Leo, seeming as if they intended to start a conversation, yet after looking him in the eyes they all turned heel and left without saying a single word to him. Still, he mused, it was better to be left alone than to be too popular among the other inmates, many of whom hadn’t so much as seen a woman in years, so he just dug into the slop on his plate and washed it down with a cup of stale water.

The morning turned out rather tranquil, with not a single fight among prisoners that would invite the overzealous guards to make use of the savage batons they so readily used on their charges. After finishing his work detail, taking a solitary lunch and yet another few ours of monotonous labor, the tolling of  bells signaled it was finally time for the few hours of leisure time the prisoners were permitted.

Walking out into the prison yard Leo realized with equal amounts of wonder and worry that he hadn’t said a single word all day. There weren’t many opportunities to talk when all your begrudging cohabitants avoided you like the plague. Yet an opportunity to speak would soon present itself.

When it was almost time to head back inside for what could not in good conscience be called “dinner”, a tall, heavyset man approached Leo. It was clear that he wanted to be seen as much by Leo as by all the remaining men in the yard – he stepped slowly and purposefully and Leo was sure he was trying to make himself seem as big and imposing as humanly possible. The resulting gait would have been comical, had not Leo known the man. He was called Brick, for the implement he had used to show his first cellmate – a known pedophile – just how little he thought of him. That was the last time the man was allowed to work as part of the construction crew.

It seemed like the whole yard held its breath when Leo and Brick finally stood face to face. Noone heard the few words that were exchanged, but a wild roar arose from many throats when Brick drew back his enormous Fist with obvious grave intention.

Brick was quick – but Leo was quicker

Leo had suspected that he might be confronted with violence at some point during his incarceration. Whether they had a reason or not, he knew the other inmates hadn’t been avoiding him because of his bad breath – they obviously despised him. So as a contingency he had filed his plastic toothbrush against the floor of his cell every night, until he had made himself a passible shiv. Though the quality of his breath had further suffered, the present situation proved his precaution a wise one.

His fist still drawn back, Brick let out a startling cry as the toothbrush slid squelching into the thick of his belly once, twice, then a third time. His cry didn’t sound pained as much as surprised, or even offended. It seemed a cry more suited to someone whose parking spot was just snatched right in front of them on a busy day at the mall than someone who had just been viciously stabbed.

It took but a few moments for the yard to be overflowing with guards, the air thick with shouts of fury and pain and the shrill whine of whistles. It was the “innocent” bystanders rather than Leo who got the brunt of the nonlethal violence, because as soon as he saw the imminent threat of Brick as subdued, he knelt on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. If his fellow inmates hadn’t hated him before, the fact that no less than seventeen of them were beaten to varying degrees of bloody pulp because of his transgression was sure to change that.

 

 

 

After the whole mess had been sorted out, one of the guards informed Leo that Brick would survive. His shiv had luckily missed any of the man’s major organs on all three of his stabs. Maybe the layer of belly fat the man had curated was just too thick to be overcome by his crude, short tool, Leo thought. Just how someone could grow so obese as Brick on what passed as food in this place, Leo couldn’t understand. But still, just as well,  he mused. Because Brick made it through, Leo’s stint in solitary confinement was to be for a term of seven months, rather than several years had he died, after which he would be transferred to a higher security prison, his sentence extended by an additional six years.

He knew that people were known to lose their mind in solitary, for want of human interaction or overwhelming boredom or a combination of both. Leo wasn’t scared though. For one thing, if a lack of human contact were enough to drive him insane, it probably would have happened some time ago, the way he had been shunned up until his fateful encounter with Brick. For another, the boredom couldn’t be much worse in the hole than in general prison.

The first day of this new ordeal passed slowly, like molasses going through a sieve.  Leo found that he would eat his thoughts about the boredom being akin to what he was used to. He paced his tiny cell, did pushups and the like, but when he was finally brought dinner it felt as though his whole seven months must have passed, and he began to fear for the first time.

Being of the opinion that the fewer hours he spent in this cell awake, the better, he tried to fall asleep early. Tossing and turning he thought he could again hear the sickening sound of his shiv slipping into the fat man’s belly, along with a constant, low crackling that gave him pause, and that pursued him into stifling, manic dreams.

Leo awoke with a start, torn from his sleep by a crashing sound like a glass bottle shattering. His unfocused gaze followed the walls of his almost pitch black cell. Only the tiniest sliver of light coming from the slit under the door made it possible to distinguish the details of the tiny room. As he had expected, there was nothing to see – until there was. At the very foot of his bed  he thought he could see what light there was being reflected by a small pair of eyes suspended in the darkness – floating at about the height his own eyes would be were he to sit on the side of his bed . But the light didn’t seem to be reflected as much as emanating from the childlike eyes, with an inconsistency he associated with naked flames. A fire seemed to burn in those eyes.

He immediately let go a primal scream that was thrown back at him thousandfold by the surrounding walls. “Help, help! There’s somebody in here! Please! I swear I’m not alone in here!” But as soon as the sound of his voice slashed through the eerie silence of night, the eyes vanished. Still, he jumped up from his bed and started pounding his fist against the door the way Brick had intended to pound his against Leo’s face.

After a few seconds he could make out the sounds of a guard approaching his cell. The slit in the door was opened and Leo jumped at the sight of the eyes that peered through it. It was just the guard. “Holy hell, get the fuck back to sleep, inmate!  You almost gave me a damn heart attack!”. All his protests were in vain, the guard turned to leave as soon as he could tell there was no medical emergency or anything of the like. Sobbing into his hands Leo could hear the guard’s now muffled voice mumbling “God damn. On the first fucking night? That’s gotta be some sort of record”. The sound of the man’s footsteps grew more faint as he left Leo terrified and alone in the dark – solitary.

Unsurprisingly, Leo would not get any more sleep that night. He just cowered in the corner of his cell, his hands wrapped around his knees like a child, his stare snapping anxiously from one end of the tiny room to the other, then back. All the while he could hear the blood rushing through his ears, his heart still pumping blood into his body as if he was running from something. Yet underneath that sound, there it was still: the faint, arrhythmic crackling.

There was no telling how long he remained in this position until even a semblance of calm returned to his body – in tandem with the sun’s first rays coming into his cell through the small, narrow window that sat high on the wall. The following day he tried again to alarm the guards of his plight, but his efforts would remain fruitless. Far from believing his crazed pleadings, they stopped even coming to his cell door after a while.

As the day grew long, the sun creeping farther past its zenith and its light thusly waning, the dread Leo was experiencing gained an almost physical quality. He could feel it like a stone in his gut, like a chill in his bones and an ache in his throat. He realized there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could pass the seven months in the hole without falling asleep, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

He got through the first night by periodically and viciously pinching the skin on his arm and – when that method lost its effectiveness – literally banging his head against the wall. Throughout the night, the crackling seemed to gain in volume, until finally waning again when the sun mercifully climbed high enough to illuminate the cell that was by now rank with smells of sweat and fear.

During the second night however, the weight of exhaustion would prove to be too much to bear.

There was no telling when, but at some point Leo’s eyelids began to flutter and then fell shut completely. With the crackling always in the background, he started to dream of the day leading up to his arrest:

Fired. After years of sneakily getting drunk at his desk, his boss had finally discovered the bottles that littered his locker. How dare he?! True, Leo couldn’t get through the day without getting a nice little buzz on, but had his work suffered? No! He was the most damn integral worker in the company, wasn’t he? At least he had been.

The events that followed flashed ever faster before Leo’s inner eye

Screaming at his boss, who had the gall to call security. Security! On him!

Going to his watering hole of choice, getting proper shitfaced until he was “asked” to leave.

Picking up another bottle of the good stuff and stumbling through the night. Night already? Damn.

Ending up at his boss’s house as though by coincidence. Soaking a rag in the strong liquor and affixing it to the bottle neck. Grabbing the lighter. The flame was pretty, dancing in the wind. Holding it to the rag until it caught fire.

Letting the bottle fly

The crash of broken glass, followed almost instantly by the roaring of flames.

He didn’t know. HE DIDN’T KNOW! Didn’t know that the window he had hit led to a little girl’s bedroom. That his boss’s daughter was peacefully sleeping, alone at home since her daddy was out working late.

After fleeing from the scene, Leo stumbled drunkenly along the roads, until a stranger had bid him to stop. Angry words led to flying fists, and Leo awoke in the drunk tank of a police station. They couldn’t prove it was him who threw the bottle, so they slapped him with the maximum sentence for what they could prove. And Leo would go to prison.

Leo woke up with a start, drawing in huge gulps of air. The crackling in his mind was now a roar, the voice of unrestrained fire. He could see them. The eyes hanging in the dark, now definitely smoldering, giving of the inconsistent light of a campfire.

“I’m so s-sorry. I s-swear I didn’t know. I would never – never hurt a child”

“But you did hurt me. And  you’re not sorry. Not yet anyway”  it came as a whisper out of the darkness. The flippant voice of a little girl, yet heavy with menace that should be far beyond any child’s ability to muster

Leo could feel the flames. Invisible, yet definitely real, he could feel them lapping at his feet. Climbing up his body. He could feel his fat tissue emulsifying, becoming more fuel for the infernal fire; could feel his teeth cracking, his eyes popping in the impossible Heat. And Leo screamed, oh how he screamed.

 

 

At first the guard was slow to respond to the cries coming from the cell, seeing as the inmate had been making a ruckus ever since he’d been transferred to solitary confinement. But it was his job, so he just groaned and got up from his chair. As he came closer to the cell door he paused – something was off. It was as if he could hear two voices screaming in tandem. One belonging to a grown man, the other – disturbingly – to a little girl. As he started to comprehend the shouted words he almost grew sick. The voices were screaming:

“Help, Daddy! Daddy where are you? It hurts Daddy, it hurts so bad”

After opening the door, stepping back from the inexplicable wave of heat that rushed out to greet him, the guard would be witness to a curious scene: The body was completely charred, the bones and teeth black as coal, yet nothing else seemed to have been touched by the fire that had undoubtedly raged in here, not even the highly flammable mattress.

The ensuing investigation would reveal very little. Many prisoners would be interviewed, for somebody must have laid the fire. Somehow, none of the inmates seemed surprised by Leo’s fate. Concerning the reason the dead man had been so universally shunned and despised, they would all say the same thing:

“It was his eyes. There was a fire burning in his eyes. It was as if… as if he was already burning in hell”

 

 

 

 

 

Leo woke up to the sound of a guard rapping his baton along the bars of his cell. He rose groggily and saw his bunkmate Tom do the same, descending from the top bunk. They didn’t exchange any words; Leo had given up on trying to initiate conversations with the man some time ago. He didn’t know why – Tom seemed perfectly happy to talk to other prisoners in the yard or the commissary – but for some reason the older man seemed to want as little to do with him as physically possible. After the morning count was done they shambled towards the mess hall in a line spanning the entire cellblock, showing little enthusiasm for what was sure to be a breakfast of barely edible gunk.

The way the other prisoners chose to sit anywhere other than the table Leo sat at was nothing new, but still it  vexed and confused him. After all he wasn’t some crazed serial killer or rapist. Leo had been incarcerated for destruction of public property, drunk and disorderly and a fist fight he had embarrassingly lost. You could still see the ridge on his nose where it had broken against the pavement.

For the first few days in prison there had been a few people walking up to Leo, seeming as if they intended to start a conversation, yet after looking him in the eyes they all turned heel and left without saying a single word to him. Still, he mused, it was better to be left alone than to be too popular among the other inmates, many of whom hadn’t so much as seen a woman in years, so he just dug into the slop on his plate and washed it down with a cup of stale water.

The morning turned out rather tranquil, with not a single fight among prisoners that would invite the overzealous guards to make use of the savage batons they so readily used on their charges. After finishing his work detail, taking a solitary lunch and yet another few ours of monotonous labor, the tolling of  bells signaled it was finally time for the few hours of leisure time the prisoners were permitted.

Walking out into the prison yard Leo realized with equal amounts of wonder and worry that he hadn’t said a single word all day. There weren’t many opportunities to talk when all your begrudging cohabitants avoided you like the plague. Yet an opportunity to speak would soon present itself.

When it was almost time to head back inside for what could not in good conscience be called “dinner”, a tall, heavyset man approached Leo. It was clear that he wanted to be seen as much by Leo as by all the remaining men in the yard – he stepped slowly and purposefully and Leo was sure he was trying to make himself seem as big and imposing as humanly possible. The resulting gait would have been comical, had not Leo known the man. He was called Brick, for the implement he had used to show his first cellmate – a known pedophile – just how little he thought of him. That was the last time the man was allowed to work as part of the construction crew.

It seemed like the whole yard held its breath when Leo and Brick finally stood face to face. Noone heard the few words that were exchanged, but a wild roar arose from many throats when Brick drew back his enormous Fist with obvious grave intention.

Brick was quick – but Leo was quicker

Leo had suspected that he might be confronted with violence at some point during his incarceration. Whether they had a reason or not, he knew the other inmates hadn’t been avoiding him because of his bad breath – they obviously despised him. So as a contingency he had filed his plastic toothbrush against the floor of his cell every night, until he had made himself a passible shiv. Though the quality of his breath had further suffered, the present situation proved his precaution a wise one.

His fist still drawn back, Brick let out a startling cry as the toothbrush slid squelching into the thick of his belly once, twice, then a third time. His cry didn’t sound pained as much as surprised, or even offended. It seemed a cry more suited to someone whose parking spot was just snatched right in front of them on a busy day at the mall than someone who had just been viciously stabbed.

It took but a few moments for the yard to be overflowing with guards, the air thick with shouts of fury and pain and the shrill whine of whistles. It was the “innocent” bystanders rather than Leo who got the brunt of the nonlethal violence, because as soon as he saw the imminent threat of Brick as subdued, he knelt on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. If his fellow inmates hadn’t hated him before, the fact that no less than seventeen of them were beaten to varying degrees of bloody pulp because of his transgression was sure to change that.

 

 

 

After the whole mess had been sorted out, one of the guards informed Leo that Brick would survive. His shiv had luckily missed any of the man’s major organs on all three of his stabs. Maybe the layer of belly fat the man had curated was just too thick to be overcome by his crude, short tool, Leo thought. Just how someone could grow so obese as Brick on what passed as food in this place, Leo couldn’t understand. But still, just as well,  he mused. Because Brick made it through, Leo’s stint in solitary confinement was to be for a term of seven months, rather than several years had he died, after which he would be transferred to a higher security prison, his sentence extended by an additional six years.

He knew that people were known to lose their mind in solitary, for want of human interaction or overwhelming boredom or a combination of both. Leo wasn’t scared though. For one thing, if a lack of human contact were enough to drive him insane, it probably would have happened some time ago, the way he had been shunned up until his fateful encounter with Brick. For another, the boredom couldn’t be much worse in the hole than in general prison.

The first day of this new ordeal passed slowly, like molasses going through a sieve.  Leo found that he would eat his thoughts about the boredom being akin to what he was used to. He paced his tiny cell, did pushups and the like, but when he was finally brought dinner it felt as though his whole seven months must have passed, and he began to fear for the first time.

Being of the opinion that the fewer hours he spent in this cell awake, the better, he tried to fall asleep early. Tossing and turning he thought he could again hear the sickening sound of his shiv slipping into the fat man’s belly, along with a constant, low crackling that gave him pause, and that pursued him into stifling, manic dreams.

Leo awoke with a start, torn from his sleep by a crashing sound like a glass bottle shattering. His unfocused gaze followed the walls of his almost pitch black cell. Only the tiniest sliver of light coming from the slit under the door made it possible to distinguish the details of the tiny room. As he had expected, there was nothing to see – until there was. At the very foot of his bed  he thought he could see what light there was being reflected by a small pair of eyes suspended in the darkness – floating at about the height his own eyes would be were he to sit on the side of his bed . But the light didn’t seem to be reflected as much as emanating from the childlike eyes, with an inconsistency he associated with naked flames. A fire seemed to burn in those eyes.

He immediately let go a primal scream that was thrown back at him thousandfold by the surrounding walls. “Help, help! There’s somebody in here! Please! I swear I’m not alone in here!” But as soon as the sound of his voice slashed through the eerie silence of night, the eyes vanished. Still, he jumped up from his bed and started pounding his fist against the door the way Brick had intended to pound his against Leo’s face.

After a few seconds he could make out the sounds of a guard approaching his cell. The slit in the door was opened and Leo jumped at the sight of the eyes that peered through it. It was just the guard. “Holy hell, get the fuck back to sleep, inmate!  You almost gave me a damn heart attack!”. All his protests were in vain, the guard turned to leave as soon as he could tell there was no medical emergency or anything of the like. Sobbing into his hands Leo could hear the guard’s now muffled voice mumbling “God damn. On the first fucking night? That’s gotta be some sort of record”. The sound of the man’s footsteps grew more faint as he left Leo terrified and alone in the dark – solitary.

Unsurprisingly, Leo would not get any more sleep that night. He just cowered in the corner of his cell, his hands wrapped around his knees like a child, his stare snapping anxiously from one end of the tiny room to the other, then back. All the while he could hear the blood rushing through his ears, his heart still pumping blood into his body as if he was running from something. Yet underneath that sound, there it was still: the faint, arrhythmic crackling.

There was no telling how long he remained in this position until even a semblance of calm returned to his body – in tandem with the sun’s first rays coming into his cell through the small, narrow window that sat high on the wall. The following day he tried again to alarm the guards of his plight, but his efforts would remain fruitless. Far from believing his crazed pleadings, they stopped even coming to his cell door after a while.

As the day grew long, the sun creeping farther past its zenith and its light thusly waning, the dread Leo was experiencing gained an almost physical quality. He could feel it like a stone in his gut, like a chill in his bones and an ache in his throat. He realized there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could pass the seven months in the hole without falling asleep, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

He got through the first night by periodically and viciously pinching the skin on his arm and – when that method lost its effectiveness – literally banging his head against the wall. Throughout the night, the crackling seemed to gain in volume, until finally waning again when the sun mercifully climbed high enough to illuminate the cell that was by now rank with smells of sweat and fear.

During the second night however, the weight of exhaustion would prove to be too much to bear.

There was no telling when, but at some point Leo’s eyelids began to flutter and then fell shut completely. With the crackling always in the background, he started to dream of the day leading up to his arrest:

Fired. After years of sneakily getting drunk at his desk, his boss had finally discovered the bottles that littered his locker. How dare he?! True, Leo couldn’t get through the day without getting a nice little buzz on, but had his work suffered? No! He was the most damn integral worker in the company, wasn’t he? At least he had been.

The events that followed flashed ever faster before Leo’s inner eye

Screaming at his boss, who had the gall to call security. Security! On him!

Going to his watering hole of choice, getting proper shitfaced until he was “asked” to leave.

Picking up another bottle of the good stuff and stumbling through the night. Night already? Damn.

Ending up at his boss’s house as though by coincidence. Soaking a rag in the strong liquor and affixing it to the bottle neck. Grabbing the lighter. The flame was pretty, dancing in the wind. Holding it to the rag until it caught fire.

Letting the bottle fly

The crash of broken glass, followed almost instantly by the roaring of flames.

He didn’t know. HE DIDN’T KNOW! Didn’t know that the window he had hit led to a little girl’s bedroom. That his boss’s daughter was peacefully sleeping, alone at home since her daddy was out working late.

After fleeing from the scene, Leo stumbled drunkenly along the roads, until a stranger had bid him to stop. Angry words led to flying fists, and Leo awoke in the drunk tank of a police station. They couldn’t prove it was him who threw the bottle, so they slapped him with the maximum sentence for what they could prove. And Leo would go to prison.

Leo woke up with a start, drawing in huge gulps of air. The crackling in his mind was now a roar, the voice of unrestrained fire. He could see them. The eyes hanging in the dark, now definitely smoldering, giving of the inconsistent light of a campfire.

“I’m so s-sorry. I s-swear I didn’t know. I would never – never hurt a child”

“But you did hurt me. And  you’re not sorry. Not yet anyway”  it came as a whisper out of the darkness. The flippant voice of a little girl, yet heavy with menace that should be far beyond any child’s ability to muster

Leo could feel the flames. Invisible, yet definitely real, he could feel them lapping at his feet. Climbing up his body. He could feel his fat tissue emulsifying, becoming more fuel for the infernal fire; could feel his teeth cracking, his eyes popping in the impossible Heat. And Leo screamed, oh how he screamed.

 

 

At first the guard was slow to respond to the cries coming from the cell, seeing as the inmate had been making a ruckus ever since he’d been transferred to solitary confinement. But it was his job, so he just groaned and got up from his chair. As he came closer to the cell door he paused – something was off. It was as if he could hear two voices screaming in tandem. One belonging to a grown man, the other – disturbingly – to a little girl. As he started to comprehend the shouted words he almost grew sick. The voices were screaming:

“Help, Daddy! Daddy where are you? It hurts Daddy, it hurts so bad”

After opening the door, stepping back from the inexplicable wave of heat that rushed out to greet him, the guard would be witness to a curious scene: The body was completely charred, the bones and teeth black as coal, yet nothing else seemed to have been touched by the fire that had undoubtedly raged in here, not even the highly flammable mattress.

The ensuing investigation would reveal very little. Many prisoners would be interviewed, for somebody must have laid the fire. Somehow, none of the inmates seemed surprised by Leo’s fate. Concerning the reason the dead man had been so universally shunned and despised, they would all say the same thing:

“It was his eyes. There was a fire burning in his eyes. It was as if… as if he was already burning in hell”

 

 

 

 

 

Leo woke up to the sound of a guard rapping his baton along the bars of his cell. He rose groggily and saw his bunkmate Tom do the same, descending from the top bunk. They didn’t exchange any words; Leo had given up on trying to initiate conversations with the man some time ago. He didn’t know why – Tom seemed perfectly happy to talk to other prisoners in the yard or the commissary – but for some reason the older man seemed to want as little to do with him as physically possible. After the morning count was done they shambled towards the mess hall in a line spanning the entire cellblock, showing little enthusiasm for what was sure to be a breakfast of barely edible gunk.

The way the other prisoners chose to sit anywhere other than the table Leo sat at was nothing new, but still it  vexed and confused him. After all he wasn’t some crazed serial killer or rapist. Leo had been incarcerated for destruction of public property, drunk and disorderly and a fist fight he had embarrassingly lost. You could still see the ridge on his nose where it had broken against the pavement.

For the first few days in prison there had been a few people walking up to Leo, seeming as if they intended to start a conversation, yet after looking him in the eyes they all turned heel and left without saying a single word to him. Still, he mused, it was better to be left alone than to be too popular among the other inmates, many of whom hadn’t so much as seen a woman in years, so he just dug into the slop on his plate and washed it down with a cup of stale water.

The morning turned out rather tranquil, with not a single fight among prisoners that would invite the overzealous guards to make use of the savage batons they so readily used on their charges. After finishing his work detail, taking a solitary lunch and yet another few ours of monotonous labor, the tolling of  bells signaled it was finally time for the few hours of leisure time the prisoners were permitted.

Walking out into the prison yard Leo realized with equal amounts of wonder and worry that he hadn’t said a single word all day. There weren’t many opportunities to talk when all your begrudging cohabitants avoided you like the plague. Yet an opportunity to speak would soon present itself.

When it was almost time to head back inside for what could not in good conscience be called “dinner”, a tall, heavyset man approached Leo. It was clear that he wanted to be seen as much by Leo as by all the remaining men in the yard – he stepped slowly and purposefully and Leo was sure he was trying to make himself seem as big and imposing as humanly possible. The resulting gait would have been comical, had not Leo known the man. He was called Brick, for the implement he had used to show his first cellmate – a known pedophile – just how little he thought of him. That was the last time the man was allowed to work as part of the construction crew.

It seemed like the whole yard held its breath when Leo and Brick finally stood face to face. Noone heard the few words that were exchanged, but a wild roar arose from many throats when Brick drew back his enormous Fist with obvious grave intention.

Brick was quick – but Leo was quicker

Leo had suspected that he might be confronted with violence at some point during his incarceration. Whether they had a reason or not, he knew the other inmates hadn’t been avoiding him because of his bad breath – they obviously despised him. So as a contingency he had filed his plastic toothbrush against the floor of his cell every night, until he had made himself a passible shiv. Though the quality of his breath had further suffered, the present situation proved his precaution a wise one.

His fist still drawn back, Brick let out a startling cry as the toothbrush slid squelching into the thick of his belly once, twice, then a third time. His cry didn’t sound pained as much as surprised, or even offended. It seemed a cry more suited to someone whose parking spot was just snatched right in front of them on a busy day at the mall than someone who had just been viciously stabbed.

It took but a few moments for the yard to be overflowing with guards, the air thick with shouts of fury and pain and the shrill whine of whistles. It was the “innocent” bystanders rather than Leo who got the brunt of the nonlethal violence, because as soon as he saw the imminent threat of Brick as subdued, he knelt on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. If his fellow inmates hadn’t hated him before, the fact that no less than seventeen of them were beaten to varying degrees of bloody pulp because of his transgression was sure to change that.

 

 

 

After the whole mess had been sorted out, one of the guards informed Leo that Brick would survive. His shiv had luckily missed any of the man’s major organs on all three of his stabs. Maybe the layer of belly fat the man had curated was just too thick to be overcome by his crude, short tool, Leo thought. Just how someone could grow so obese as Brick on what passed as food in this place, Leo couldn’t understand. But still, just as well,  he mused. Because Brick made it through, Leo’s stint in solitary confinement was to be for a term of seven months, rather than several years had he died, after which he would be transferred to a higher security prison, his sentence extended by an additional six years.

He knew that people were known to lose their mind in solitary, for want of human interaction or overwhelming boredom or a combination of both. Leo wasn’t scared though. For one thing, if a lack of human contact were enough to drive him insane, it probably would have happened some time ago, the way he had been shunned up until his fateful encounter with Brick. For another, the boredom couldn’t be much worse in the hole than in general prison.

The first day of this new ordeal passed slowly, like molasses going through a sieve.  Leo found that he would eat his thoughts about the boredom being akin to what he was used to. He paced his tiny cell, did pushups and the like, but when he was finally brought dinner it felt as though his whole seven months must have passed, and he began to fear for the first time.

Being of the opinion that the fewer hours he spent in this cell awake, the better, he tried to fall asleep early. Tossing and turning he thought he could again hear the sickening sound of his shiv slipping into the fat man’s belly, along with a constant, low crackling that gave him pause, and that pursued him into stifling, manic dreams.

Leo awoke with a start, torn from his sleep by a crashing sound like a glass bottle shattering. His unfocused gaze followed the walls of his almost pitch black cell. Only the tiniest sliver of light coming from the slit under the door made it possible to distinguish the details of the tiny room. As he had expected, there was nothing to see – until there was. At the very foot of his bed  he thought he could see what light there was being reflected by a small pair of eyes suspended in the darkness – floating at about the height his own eyes would be were he to sit on the side of his bed . But the light didn’t seem to be reflected as much as emanating from the childlike eyes, with an inconsistency he associated with naked flames. A fire seemed to burn in those eyes.

He immediately let go a primal scream that was thrown back at him thousandfold by the surrounding walls. “Help, help! There’s somebody in here! Please! I swear I’m not alone in here!” But as soon as the sound of his voice slashed through the eerie silence of night, the eyes vanished. Still, he jumped up from his bed and started pounding his fist against the door the way Brick had intended to pound his against Leo’s face.

After a few seconds he could make out the sounds of a guard approaching his cell. The slit in the door was opened and Leo jumped at the sight of the eyes that peered through it. It was just the guard. “Holy hell, get the fuck back to sleep, inmate!  You almost gave me a damn heart attack!”. All his protests were in vain, the guard turned to leave as soon as he could tell there was no medical emergency or anything of the like. Sobbing into his hands Leo could hear the guard’s now muffled voice mumbling “God damn. On the first fucking night? That’s gotta be some sort of record”. The sound of the man’s footsteps grew more faint as he left Leo terrified and alone in the dark – solitary.

Unsurprisingly, Leo would not get any more sleep that night. He just cowered in the corner of his cell, his hands wrapped around his knees like a child, his stare snapping anxiously from one end of the tiny room to the other, then back. All the while he could hear the blood rushing through his ears, his heart still pumping blood into his body as if he was running from something. Yet underneath that sound, there it was still: the faint, arrhythmic crackling.

There was no telling how long he remained in this position until even a semblance of calm returned to his body – in tandem with the sun’s first rays coming into his cell through the small, narrow window that sat high on the wall. The following day he tried again to alarm the guards of his plight, but his efforts would remain fruitless. Far from believing his crazed pleadings, they stopped even coming to his cell door after a while.

As the day grew long, the sun creeping farther past its zenith and its light thusly waning, the dread Leo was experiencing gained an almost physical quality. He could feel it like a stone in his gut, like a chill in his bones and an ache in his throat. He realized there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could pass the seven months in the hole without falling asleep, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

He got through the first night by periodically and viciously pinching the skin on his arm and – when that method lost its effectiveness – literally banging his head against the wall. Throughout the night, the crackling seemed to gain in volume, until finally waning again when the sun mercifully climbed high enough to illuminate the cell that was by now rank with smells of sweat and fear.

During the second night however, the weight of exhaustion would prove to be too much to bear.

There was no telling when, but at some point Leo’s eyelids began to flutter and then fell shut completely. With the crackling always in the background, he started to dream of the day leading up to his arrest:

Fired. After years of sneakily getting drunk at his desk, his boss had finally discovered the bottles that littered his locker. How dare he?! True, Leo couldn’t get through the day without getting a nice little buzz on, but had his work suffered? No! He was the most damn integral worker in the company, wasn’t he? At least he had been.

The events that followed flashed ever faster before Leo’s inner eye

Screaming at his boss, who had the gall to call security. Security! On him!

Going to his watering hole of choice, getting proper shitfaced until he was “asked” to leave.

Picking up another bottle of the good stuff and stumbling through the night. Night already? Damn.

Ending up at his boss’s house as though by coincidence. Soaking a rag in the strong liquor and affixing it to the bottle neck. Grabbing the lighter. The flame was pretty, dancing in the wind. Holding it to the rag until it caught fire.

Letting the bottle fly

The crash of broken glass, followed almost instantly by the roaring of flames.

He didn’t know. HE DIDN’T KNOW! Didn’t know that the window he had hit led to a little girl’s bedroom. That his boss’s daughter was peacefully sleeping, alone at home since her daddy was out working late.

After fleeing from the scene, Leo stumbled drunkenly along the roads, until a stranger had bid him to stop. Angry words led to flying fists, and Leo awoke in the drunk tank of a police station. They couldn’t prove it was him who threw the bottle, so they slapped him with the maximum sentence for what they could prove. And Leo would go to prison.

Leo woke up with a start, drawing in huge gulps of air. The crackling in his mind was now a roar, the voice of unrestrained fire. He could see them. The eyes hanging in the dark, now definitely smoldering, giving of the inconsistent light of a campfire.

“I’m so s-sorry. I s-swear I didn’t know. I would never – never hurt a child”

“But you did hurt me. And  you’re not sorry. Not yet anyway”  it came as a whisper out of the darkness. The flippant voice of a little girl, yet heavy with menace that should be far beyond any child’s ability to muster

Leo could feel the flames. Invisible, yet definitely real, he could feel them lapping at his feet. Climbing up his body. He could feel his fat tissue emulsifying, becoming more fuel for the infernal fire; could feel his teeth cracking, his eyes popping in the impossible Heat. And Leo screamed, oh how he screamed.

 

 

At first the guard was slow to respond to the cries coming from the cell, seeing as the inmate had been making a ruckus ever since he’d been transferred to solitary confinement. But it was his job, so he just groaned and got up from his chair. As he came closer to the cell door he paused – something was off. It was as if he could hear two voices screaming in tandem. One belonging to a grown man, the other – disturbingly – to a little girl. As he started to comprehend the shouted words he almost grew sick. The voices were screaming:

“Help, Daddy! Daddy where are you? It hurts Daddy, it hurts so bad”

After opening the door, stepping back from the inexplicable wave of heat that rushed out to greet him, the guard would be witness to a curious scene: The body was completely charred, the bones and teeth black as coal, yet nothing else seemed to have been touched by the fire that had undoubtedly raged in here, not even the highly flammable mattress.

The ensuing investigation would reveal very little. Many prisoners would be interviewed, for somebody must have laid the fire. Somehow, none of the inmates seemed surprised by Leo’s fate. Concerning the reason the dead man had been so universally shunned and despised, they would all say the same thing:

“It was his eyes. There was a fire burning in his eyes. It was as if… as if he was already burning in hell”

 

 

 

 

 

Leo woke up to the sound of a guard rapping his baton along the bars of his cell. He rose groggily and saw his bunkmate Tom do the same, descending from the top bunk. They didn’t exchange any words; Leo had given up on trying to initiate conversations with the man some time ago. He didn’t know why – Tom seemed perfectly happy to talk to other prisoners in the yard or the commissary – but for some reason the older man seemed to want as little to do with him as physically possible. After the morning count was done they shambled towards the mess hall in a line spanning the entire cellblock, showing little enthusiasm for what was sure to be a breakfast of barely edible gunk.

The way the other prisoners chose to sit anywhere other than the table Leo sat at was nothing new, but still it  vexed and confused him. After all he wasn’t some crazed serial killer or rapist. Leo had been incarcerated for destruction of public property, drunk and disorderly and a fist fight he had embarrassingly lost. You could still see the ridge on his nose where it had broken against the pavement.

For the first few days in prison there had been a few people walking up to Leo, seeming as if they intended to start a conversation, yet after looking him in the eyes they all turned heel and left without saying a single word to him. Still, he mused, it was better to be left alone than to be too popular among the other inmates, many of whom hadn’t so much as seen a woman in years, so he just dug into the slop on his plate and washed it down with a cup of stale water.

The morning turned out rather tranquil, with not a single fight among prisoners that would invite the overzealous guards to make use of the savage batons they so readily used on their charges. After finishing his work detail, taking a solitary lunch and yet another few ours of monotonous labor, the tolling of  bells signaled it was finally time for the few hours of leisure time the prisoners were permitted.

Walking out into the prison yard Leo realized with equal amounts of wonder and worry that he hadn’t said a single word all day. There weren’t many opportunities to talk when all your begrudging cohabitants avoided you like the plague. Yet an opportunity to speak would soon present itself.

When it was almost time to head back inside for what could not in good conscience be called “dinner”, a tall, heavyset man approached Leo. It was clear that he wanted to be seen as much by Leo as by all the remaining men in the yard – he stepped slowly and purposefully and Leo was sure he was trying to make himself seem as big and imposing as humanly possible. The resulting gait would have been comical, had not Leo known the man. He was called Brick, for the implement he had used to show his first cellmate – a known pedophile – just how little he thought of him. That was the last time the man was allowed to work as part of the construction crew.

It seemed like the whole yard held its breath when Leo and Brick finally stood face to face. Noone heard the few words that were exchanged, but a wild roar arose from many throats when Brick drew back his enormous Fist with obvious grave intention.

Brick was quick – but Leo was quicker

Leo had suspected that he might be confronted with violence at some point during his incarceration. Whether they had a reason or not, he knew the other inmates hadn’t been avoiding him because of his bad breath – they obviously despised him. So as a contingency he had filed his plastic toothbrush against the floor of his cell every night, until he had made himself a passible shiv. Though the quality of his breath had further suffered, the present situation proved his precaution a wise one.

His fist still drawn back, Brick let out a startling cry as the toothbrush slid squelching into the thick of his belly once, twice, then a third time. His cry didn’t sound pained as much as surprised, or even offended. It seemed a cry more suited to someone whose parking spot was just snatched right in front of them on a busy day at the mall than someone who had just been viciously stabbed.

It took but a few moments for the yard to be overflowing with guards, the air thick with shouts of fury and pain and the shrill whine of whistles. It was the “innocent” bystanders rather than Leo who got the brunt of the nonlethal violence, because as soon as he saw the imminent threat of Brick as subdued, he knelt on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. If his fellow inmates hadn’t hated him before, the fact that no less than seventeen of them were beaten to varying degrees of bloody pulp because of his transgression was sure to change that.

 

 

 

After the whole mess had been sorted out, one of the guards informed Leo that Brick would survive. His shiv had luckily missed any of the man’s major organs on all three of his stabs. Maybe the layer of belly fat the man had curated was just too thick to be overcome by his crude, short tool, Leo thought. Just how someone could grow so obese as Brick on what passed as food in this place, Leo couldn’t understand. But still, just as well,  he mused. Because Brick made it through, Leo’s stint in solitary confinement was to be for a term of seven months, rather than several years had he died, after which he would be transferred to a higher security prison, his sentence extended by an additional six years.

He knew that people were known to lose their mind in solitary, for want of human interaction or overwhelming boredom or a combination of both. Leo wasn’t scared though. For one thing, if a lack of human contact were enough to drive him insane, it probably would have happened some time ago, the way he had been shunned up until his fateful encounter with Brick. For another, the boredom couldn’t be much worse in the hole than in general prison.

The first day of this new ordeal passed slowly, like molasses going through a sieve.  Leo found that he would eat his thoughts about the boredom being akin to what he was used to. He paced his tiny cell, did pushups and the like, but when he was finally brought dinner it felt as though his whole seven months must have passed, and he began to fear for the first time.

Being of the opinion that the fewer hours he spent in this cell awake, the better, he tried to fall asleep early. Tossing and turning he thought he could again hear the sickening sound of his shiv slipping into the fat man’s belly, along with a constant, low crackling that gave him pause, and that pursued him into stifling, manic dreams.

Leo awoke with a start, torn from his sleep by a crashing sound like a glass bottle shattering. His unfocused gaze followed the walls of his almost pitch black cell. Only the tiniest sliver of light coming from the slit under the door made it possible to distinguish the details of the tiny room. As he had expected, there was nothing to see – until there was. At the very foot of his bed  he thought he could see what light there was being reflected by a small pair of eyes suspended in the darkness – floating at about the height his own eyes would be were he to sit on the side of his bed . But the light didn’t seem to be reflected as much as emanating from the childlike eyes, with an inconsistency he associated with naked flames. A fire seemed to burn in those eyes.

He immediately let go a primal scream that was thrown back at him thousandfold by the surrounding walls. “Help, help! There’s somebody in here! Please! I swear I’m not alone in here!” But as soon as the sound of his voice slashed through the eerie silence of night, the eyes vanished. Still, he jumped up from his bed and started pounding his fist against the door the way Brick had intended to pound his against Leo’s face.

After a few seconds he could make out the sounds of a guard approaching his cell. The slit in the door was opened and Leo jumped at the sight of the eyes that peered through it. It was just the guard. “Holy hell, get the fuck back to sleep, inmate!  You almost gave me a damn heart attack!”. All his protests were in vain, the guard turned to leave as soon as he could tell there was no medical emergency or anything of the like. Sobbing into his hands Leo could hear the guard’s now muffled voice mumbling “God damn. On the first fucking night? That’s gotta be some sort of record”. The sound of the man’s footsteps grew more faint as he left Leo terrified and alone in the dark – solitary.

Unsurprisingly, Leo would not get any more sleep that night. He just cowered in the corner of his cell, his hands wrapped around his knees like a child, his stare snapping anxiously from one end of the tiny room to the other, then back. All the while he could hear the blood rushing through his ears, his heart still pumping blood into his body as if he was running from something. Yet underneath that sound, there it was still: the faint, arrhythmic crackling.

There was no telling how long he remained in this position until even a semblance of calm returned to his body – in tandem with the sun’s first rays coming into his cell through the small, narrow window that sat high on the wall. The following day he tried again to alarm the guards of his plight, but his efforts would remain fruitless. Far from believing his crazed pleadings, they stopped even coming to his cell door after a while.

As the day grew long, the sun creeping farther past its zenith and its light thusly waning, the dread Leo was experiencing gained an almost physical quality. He could feel it like a stone in his gut, like a chill in his bones and an ache in his throat. He realized there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could pass the seven months in the hole without falling asleep, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

He got through the first night by periodically and viciously pinching the skin on his arm and – when that method lost its effectiveness – literally banging his head against the wall. Throughout the night, the crackling seemed to gain in volume, until finally waning again when the sun mercifully climbed high enough to illuminate the cell that was by now rank with smells of sweat and fear.

During the second night however, the weight of exhaustion would prove to be too much to bear.

There was no telling when, but at some point Leo’s eyelids began to flutter and then fell shut completely. With the crackling always in the background, he started to dream of the day leading up to his arrest:

Fired. After years of sneakily getting drunk at his desk, his boss had finally discovered the bottles that littered his locker. How dare he?! True, Leo couldn’t get through the day without getting a nice little buzz on, but had his work suffered? No! He was the most damn integral worker in the company, wasn’t he? At least he had been.

The events that followed flashed ever faster before Leo’s inner eye

Screaming at his boss, who had the gall to call security. Security! On him!

Going to his watering hole of choice, getting proper shitfaced until he was “asked” to leave.

Picking up another bottle of the good stuff and stumbling through the night. Night already? Damn.

Ending up at his boss’s house as though by coincidence. Soaking a rag in the strong liquor and affixing it to the bottle neck. Grabbing the lighter. The flame was pretty, dancing in the wind. Holding it to the rag until it caught fire.

Letting the bottle fly

The crash of broken glass, followed almost instantly by the roaring of flames.

He didn’t know. HE DIDN’T KNOW! Didn’t know that the window he had hit led to a little girl’s bedroom. That his boss’s daughter was peacefully sleeping, alone at home since her daddy was out working late.

After fleeing from the scene, Leo stumbled drunkenly along the roads, until a stranger had bid him to stop. Angry words led to flying fists, and Leo awoke in the drunk tank of a police station. They couldn’t prove it was him who threw the bottle, so they slapped him with the maximum sentence for what they could prove. And Leo would go to prison.

Leo woke up with a start, drawing in huge gulps of air. The crackling in his mind was now a roar, the voice of unrestrained fire. He could see them. The eyes hanging in the dark, now definitely smoldering, giving of the inconsistent light of a campfire.

“I’m so s-sorry. I s-swear I didn’t know. I would never – never hurt a child”

“But you did hurt me. And  you’re not sorry. Not yet anyway”  it came as a whisper out of the darkness. The flippant voice of a little girl, yet heavy with menace that should be far beyond any child’s ability to muster

Leo could feel the flames. Invisible, yet definitely real, he could feel them lapping at his feet. Climbing up his body. He could feel his fat tissue emulsifying, becoming more fuel for the infernal fire; could feel his teeth cracking, his eyes popping in the impossible Heat. And Leo screamed, oh how he screamed.

 

 

At first the guard was slow to respond to the cries coming from the cell, seeing as the inmate had been making a ruckus ever since he’d been transferred to solitary confinement. But it was his job, so he just groaned and got up from his chair. As he came closer to the cell door he paused – something was off. It was as if he could hear two voices screaming in tandem. One belonging to a grown man, the other – disturbingly – to a little girl. As he started to comprehend the shouted words he almost grew sick. The voices were screaming:

“Help, Daddy! Daddy where are you? It hurts Daddy, it hurts so bad”

After opening the door, stepping back from the inexplicable wave of heat that rushed out to greet him, the guard would be witness to a curious scene: The body was completely charred, the bones and teeth black as coal, yet nothing else seemed to have been touched by the fire that had undoubtedly raged in here, not even the highly flammable mattress.

The ensuing investigation would reveal very little. Many prisoners would be interviewed, for somebody must have laid the fire. Somehow, none of the inmates seemed surprised by Leo’s fate. Concerning the reason the dead man had been so universally shunned and despised, they would all say the same thing:

“It was his eyes. There was a fire burning in his eyes. It was as if… as if he was already burning in hell”

 All that could be heard on the ship was the soft creaking of wood slightly expanding and contracting under the pressure of the waves. A calming sound, and yet it was a constant reminder of the unknowable vastness and incredible forces of a calm sea that could be quick to anger. On deck, only the steersman bore witness to the star laden sky. He was deeply familiar with it, having used it to plot a safe course across the oceans more times than he could count. All the more curious he found it that there was tonight a constellation of stars he couldn’t quite place; a pattern in the sky not so much made out of the twinkling lights it contained, but of the pitch black void in between.

The monotonous washing of the waves against the ship gave way to complete silence. The befuddled steersman looked around feverishly; not once in all of his years at sea did he remember all the familiar sounds of a ship on the ocean just… vanishing. Before he had ample time to ponder, the silence was broken by a deafening crash, along with the splintering of wood and the shouting of terrified sailors. “We’ve hit something! By god and all that’s holy, we’ve hit someth…”. Soon after, the silence had returned, followed shortly by the returning sounds of waves and wind. Of all the souls onboard the ship only a single one had been dubiously preserved.

I awoke to the merciless burning of the sun on my back, clinging to a flimsy piece of driftwood. My memory was hazy and I could only feel the uncomfortable itching of the salt crust on my skin, as well as the burning in my bone dry throat. I looked in all directions anxiously, desperate to glimpse the outlines of a ship on the horizon, or better yet: land. I was sorely disappointed on both fronts. When I rummaged through my clothing in search of anything useful, all I could find were my pocket watch, a pen and the now thoroughly drenched notebook I had scribbled in so studiously for years. Though I knew it to be pointless, I shouted for rescue, only stopping when my throat started to hurt unbearably. I was completely at odds as to what I should do; should I pick a direction at random and start treading water or should I entrust myself fully to the currents, hoping they would deliver me to salvation? I hesitantly chose the latter and focused on the problem that was in the forefront of my mind: How could I stay alive long enough to be rescued or washed ashore? I came up with no solution safe to hope for rain and keep watch for sea turtles and fish. But the thought of fish brought up a darker thought as well. In my mind’s eye I could  see myself being torn apart by sharks and the like, becoming a source of nourishment to the very ocean whose mysteries I had sought to unravel.

I must have fallen asleep for a good deal of time, for when I again regained consciousness the sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon, giving way to the moon’s pale light, along with the glowing of stars big and small. I was laying on my back, trying to resist the urge of sating my thirst with seawater. Maybe I could just take one little sip, just enough to moisten my throat and already cracking lips. I filled my cupped hands with water from the ocean, brought them to my lips and… rejoiced! This water was sweet as water from a forest spring! Before I could wonder at the sheer impossibility of it all I eagerly started to drink my fill. Afterwards I submerged myself in the sweet water of salvation and washed the salt off my battered body. Returning to the relative safety of the piece of driftwood, I laughed maniacally and thanked the stars for this gift of water. The rest of the night I spent laying on my back, gazing up at a constellation of stars I did not know, yet was deeply familiar with. Only when the sun began to rise once more did my euphoria die down and I became bewildered and terrified of this stroke of luck I knew to be utterly impossible.

This pattern persisted for seven days and seven nights; all day I suffered beneath the cruel sun and felt precious moisture dissipate with every bead of sweat that rolled down my  body. Then, when the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the moon and stars shone up above, the salty water of the ocean was without fail replaced by that sweet,  pure liquid that was my salvation. Each night I drank greedily until I could drink no more, the blinking stars and pale moon the only witnesses to this wondrous banquet.

Thinking back on my ordeal, I’m not sure when I first noticed the complete absence of wind and waves when the constellation stood high in the sky, when the ocean was replaced by that surreal endless lake that I found myself in each night. Yet during those nights, everything always seemed to make perfect sense to me. During the daylight hours I craved and yet feared the pale light of that foreign constellation that seemed ever closer to me with each passing night. That fear however was soon to be eclipsed by a hunger the like of which I had never felt before.

I had found no success in catching anything that might sustain me, and with each day my strength waned further, until I could do no more than lay idly on that piece of driftwood, only moving when it was time to consume the sweet nectar of the nocturnal lake.

On the eighth day the hunger became unbearable to the point where I tried to eat the rancid leather of my shoes, my stomach grumbling like an angry beast that yearned to be unchained. After fruitlessly chewing on the tanned hide for hours, trying to grind it thoroughly enough to make it go down my throat, I abandoned this desperate effort and threw the shoe away in tired frustration. If I could not find a source of food soon, the stars, or what lay between them, could provide me with all the water in this world and beyond, yet it would not save me.

Hours later I watched the sun sink lower and lower on the horizon, being at this point too exhausted to feel either elation or terror at the prospect of submerging myself once more in the impossible lake of stars that I did not doubt would soon replace the salty ocean. Sure enough, that uncanny constellation that I now knew so well soon made its appearance, signifying to me that it was time to sate my thirst. I hung my head into the water and began to drink lethargically. After I had finished, I felt sudden pang of curiosity, and lowered my head once more into the water, this time with open eyes. I could discern nothing in the absolute darkness that reigned beneath the calm surface. An urge began to take hold of me; an urge to let myself drift into the liquid void of that inconceivable lake, to sink ever lower into its lightless depth, never to be pained by the sun’s cruel rays again. As I slipped fully into the water as though slipping into unconsciousness, I felt nothing save a profound curiosity about how far I would sink before the light of life would leave me, hoping for some reason that I might reach the bottom of this cosmic lake ere I drowned.

I was engulfed by a darkness that was more than just the absence of light. Even If I changed my mind now and tried to reach the surface, I could not tell which way was up or down. Then suddenly, a short distance away from me a light source appeared. More than one in fact. They were globes of orange and red, and what they illuminated made me wish I was dead already.

I realized with horror that they were eyes the size of my torso. Though their light did not reach far, what I could discern of the behemoth from which the light emanated  was more than enough. The eyes sat on what I recognized as its tongue, nestled inside monstrous jaws that could devour entire galleys whole. The jaws were lined unevenly with yellow teeth of varying shapes and sizes, and I could see no end to its throat. The bodies of countless unlucky sailors floated aimlessly within its bulk, their bodies untouched by time and their faces frozen in a state of abject terror. Paralyzed by fear I could do nothing as it approached me. A thought crossed my mind and I was sure it was to be my last: The legends… they were true. Azabeth, the everlasting void, hunger made manifest dwells in the waters still.

 That infernal constellation, that darkest void between the stars that had transported me night for night into this nightmare realm and saved me from my thirst; it was his sign. I was to be confronted with the very fairytale I had sought to disprove ever since my father before me had vanished out at sea. Maybe that was the reason his sign had seemed so familiar. The space between the stars, it had consumed my father, and now I was doomed to suffer the same fate – maybe I always had been.

No. I refused. I would not yield to this monstrosity, I would not give myself willingly to the bottomless pit that was its gullet. To be forever surrounded by the dead bodies of men who had been too weak resist, ever drifting around its tongue lined with merciless eyes as if in an endless dance of suffering. I would persevere, I would survive, no matter the cost. I felt conviction well up within me, awarding me strength out of emptiness, and the fear was gone. Where it had been, only hunger remained.

Though my lungs already felt like they would burst at any second, I relinquished some of the air they still contained, and followed the air bubbles in a mad dash for the surface. The jaws of Azabeth started to close, and I saw a twinkling in its cruel eyes – a gesture reminiscent of cold, calculated satisfaction – before its maw was completely shut and I was shielded from the light of the glowing orbs it contained.

After my head broke the water and I took in gulps of air that soothed my screaming lungs, I struggled back onto my piece of driftwood, not able to tear my gaze from the bottomless abyssal lake and the horror I now knew it contained. I must have fallen asleep in that position, because the next thing I remember is the light of the accursed sun tearing me from marvelous dreams. But something was different: Though the sun was standing high in the sky, glowing in a deep red that reminded me of gore, it was dwarfed by Azabeth’s constellation, still looming and larger than it had ever been before. A taste of the saltless water confirmed my suspicion: I was still in Azabeth’s realm. And like the constellation, my hunger was still there. Somehow it fueled me rather than paralyze me; gave me strength and bitter purpose.

I felt no fear as I saw the glowing orbs beneath me in the water, telling me that Azabeth had once again opened its humongous maw, and with it, the gate to a graveyard of legions devoured. Around me, the bodies of men started to float towards the surface. Men I recognized as the other crewmen of my ill-fated voyage.

Finally, I could sate my hunger.

The cracking of bones and the tearing of flesh were music to my ears as I gorged myself on the bodies of my fellow men. And yet, the hunger remained.

I don’t know when the sun lost its viscera red sheen, don’t know when I was transported back to the saltwater of the sea, alive with the wind that is its breath. I know only that at some point, I was.  No longer was I perturbed by the sun and its brutal shining; a lake cool chill seemed to have settled in my very bones. Time itself seemed to lose all meaning, until I spied on the horizon the sails of a ship. Somehow I knew, I just knew, that I would be collected by its crew. I say collected and not rescued, for I am beyond rescue. Beyond terror and salvation. All I am now, is hungry.

That very hunger, the gift of dread Azabeth, I would unleash on the world of man, until such time as his constellation again hangs high over the entire world. For I am his priest, and I know without doubt that the spheres of gods and men are not destined to stay separate for much longer. One day soon the sun will turn red again, and all salt will be purged from the sea, and there will be no stars in the sky safe for the signs of Azabeth and his brethren.

Only then will my hunger be sated

 All that could be heard on the ship was the soft creaking of wood slightly expanding and contracting under the pressure of the waves. A calming sound, and yet it was a constant reminder of the unknowable vastness and incredible forces of a calm sea that could be quick to anger. On deck, only the steersman bore witness to the star laden sky. He was deeply familiar with it, having used it to plot a safe course across the oceans more times than he could count. All the more curious he found it that there was tonight a constellation of stars he couldn’t quite place; a pattern in the sky not so much made out of the twinkling lights it contained, but of the pitch black void in between.

The monotonous washing of the waves against the ship gave way to complete silence. The befuddled steersman looked around feverishly; not once in all of his years at sea did he remember all the familiar sounds of a ship on the ocean just… vanishing. Before he had ample time to ponder, the silence was broken by a deafening crash, along with the splintering of wood and the shouting of terrified sailors. “We’ve hit something! By god and all that’s holy, we’ve hit someth…”. Soon after, the silence had returned, followed shortly by the returning sounds of waves and wind. Of all the souls onboard the ship only a single one had been dubiously preserved.

I awoke to the merciless burning of the sun on my back, clinging to a flimsy piece of driftwood. My memory was hazy and I could only feel the uncomfortable itching of the salt crust on my skin, as well as the burning in my bone dry throat. I looked in all directions anxiously, desperate to glimpse the outlines of a ship on the horizon, or better yet: land. I was sorely disappointed on both fronts. When I rummaged through my clothing in search of anything useful, all I could find were my pocket watch, a pen and the now thoroughly drenched notebook I had scribbled in so studiously for years. Though I knew it to be pointless, I shouted for rescue, only stopping when my throat started to hurt unbearably. I was completely at odds as to what I should do; should I pick a direction at random and start treading water or should I entrust myself fully to the currents, hoping they would deliver me to salvation? I hesitantly chose the latter and focused on the problem that was in the forefront of my mind: How could I stay alive long enough to be rescued or washed ashore? I came up with no solution safe to hope for rain and keep watch for sea turtles and fish. But the thought of fish brought up a darker thought as well. In my mind’s eye I could  see myself being torn apart by sharks and the like, becoming a source of nourishment to the very ocean whose mysteries I had sought to unravel.

I must have fallen asleep for a good deal of time, for when I again regained consciousness the sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon, giving way to the moon’s pale light, along with the glowing of stars big and small. I was laying on my back, trying to resist the urge of sating my thirst with seawater. Maybe I could just take one little sip, just enough to moisten my throat and already cracking lips. I filled my cupped hands with water from the ocean, brought them to my lips and… rejoiced! This water was sweet as water from a forest spring! Before I could wonder at the sheer impossibility of it all I eagerly started to drink my fill. Afterwards I submerged myself in the sweet water of salvation and washed the salt off my battered body. Returning to the relative safety of the piece of driftwood, I laughed maniacally and thanked the stars for this gift of water. The rest of the night I spent laying on my back, gazing up at a constellation of stars I did not know, yet was deeply familiar with. Only when the sun began to rise once more did my euphoria die down and I became bewildered and terrified of this stroke of luck I knew to be utterly impossible.

This pattern persisted for seven days and seven nights; all day I suffered beneath the cruel sun and felt precious moisture dissipate with every bead of sweat that rolled down my  body. Then, when the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the moon and stars shone up above, the salty water of the ocean was without fail replaced by that sweet,  pure liquid that was my salvation. Each night I drank greedily until I could drink no more, the blinking stars and pale moon the only witnesses to this wondrous banquet.

Thinking back on my ordeal, I’m not sure when I first noticed the complete absence of wind and waves when the constellation stood high in the sky, when the ocean was replaced by that surreal endless lake that I found myself in each night. Yet during those nights, everything always seemed to make perfect sense to me. During the daylight hours I craved and yet feared the pale light of that foreign constellation that seemed ever closer to me with each passing night. That fear however was soon to be eclipsed by a hunger the like of which I had never felt before.

I had found no success in catching anything that might sustain me, and with each day my strength waned further, until I could do no more than lay idly on that piece of driftwood, only moving when it was time to consume the sweet nectar of the nocturnal lake.

On the eighth day the hunger became unbearable to the point where I tried to eat the rancid leather of my shoes, my stomach grumbling like an angry beast that yearned to be unchained. After fruitlessly chewing on the tanned hide for hours, trying to grind it thoroughly enough to make it go down my throat, I abandoned this desperate effort and threw the shoe away in tired frustration. If I could not find a source of food soon, the stars, or what lay between them, could provide me with all the water in this world and beyond, yet it would not save me.

Hours later I watched the sun sink lower and lower on the horizon, being at this point too exhausted to feel either elation or terror at the prospect of submerging myself once more in the impossible lake of stars that I did not doubt would soon replace the salty ocean. Sure enough, that uncanny constellation that I now knew so well soon made its appearance, signifying to me that it was time to sate my thirst. I hung my head into the water and began to drink lethargically. After I had finished, I felt sudden pang of curiosity, and lowered my head once more into the water, this time with open eyes. I could discern nothing in the absolute darkness that reigned beneath the calm surface. An urge began to take hold of me; an urge to let myself drift into the liquid void of that inconceivable lake, to sink ever lower into its lightless depth, never to be pained by the sun’s cruel rays again. As I slipped fully into the water as though slipping into unconsciousness, I felt nothing save a profound curiosity about how far I would sink before the light of life would leave me, hoping for some reason that I might reach the bottom of this cosmic lake ere I drowned.

I was engulfed by a darkness that was more than just the absence of light. Even If I changed my mind now and tried to reach the surface, I could not tell which way was up or down. Then suddenly, a short distance away from me a light source appeared. More than one in fact. They were globes of orange and red, and what they illuminated made me wish I was dead already.

I realized with horror that they were eyes the size of my torso. Though their light did not reach far, what I could discern of the behemoth from which the light emanated  was more than enough. The eyes sat on what I recognized as its tongue, nestled inside monstrous jaws that could devour entire galleys whole. The jaws were lined unevenly with yellow teeth of varying shapes and sizes, and I could see no end to its throat. The bodies of countless unlucky sailors floated aimlessly within its bulk, their bodies untouched by time and their faces frozen in a state of abject terror. Paralyzed by fear I could do nothing as it approached me. A thought crossed my mind and I was sure it was to be my last: The legends… they were true. Azabeth, the everlasting void, hunger made manifest dwells in the waters still.

 That infernal constellation, that darkest void between the stars that had transported me night for night into this nightmare realm and saved me from my thirst; it was his sign. I was to be confronted with the very fairytale I had sought to disprove ever since my father before me had vanished out at sea. Maybe that was the reason his sign had seemed so familiar. The space between the stars, it had consumed my father, and now I was doomed to suffer the same fate – maybe I always had been.

No. I refused. I would not yield to this monstrosity, I would not give myself willingly to the bottomless pit that was its gullet. To be forever surrounded by the dead bodies of men who had been too weak resist, ever drifting around its tongue lined with merciless eyes as if in an endless dance of suffering. I would persevere, I would survive, no matter the cost. I felt conviction well up within me, awarding me strength out of emptiness, and the fear was gone. Where it had been, only hunger remained.

Though my lungs already felt like they would burst at any second, I relinquished some of the air they still contained, and followed the air bubbles in a mad dash for the surface. The jaws of Azabeth started to close, and I saw a twinkling in its cruel eyes – a gesture reminiscent of cold, calculated satisfaction – before its maw was completely shut and I was shielded from the light of the glowing orbs it contained.

After my head broke the water and I took in gulps of air that soothed my screaming lungs, I struggled back onto my piece of driftwood, not able to tear my gaze from the bottomless abyssal lake and the horror I now knew it contained. I must have fallen asleep in that position, because the next thing I remember is the light of the accursed sun tearing me from marvelous dreams. But something was different: Though the sun was standing high in the sky, glowing in a deep red that reminded me of gore, it was dwarfed by Azabeth’s constellation, still looming and larger than it had ever been before. A taste of the saltless water confirmed my suspicion: I was still in Azabeth’s realm. And like the constellation, my hunger was still there. Somehow it fueled me rather than paralyze me; gave me strength and bitter purpose.

I felt no fear as I saw the glowing orbs beneath me in the water, telling me that Azabeth had once again opened its humongous maw, and with it, the gate to a graveyard of legions devoured. Around me, the bodies of men started to float towards the surface. Men I recognized as the other crewmen of my ill-fated voyage.

Finally, I could sate my hunger.

The cracking of bones and the tearing of flesh were music to my ears as I gorged myself on the bodies of my fellow men. And yet, the hunger remained.

I don’t know when the sun lost its viscera red sheen, don’t know when I was transported back to the saltwater of the sea, alive with the wind that is its breath. I know only that at some point, I was.  No longer was I perturbed by the sun and its brutal shining; a lake cool chill seemed to have settled in my very bones. Time itself seemed to lose all meaning, until I spied on the horizon the sails of a ship. Somehow I knew, I just knew, that I would be collected by its crew. I say collected and not rescued, for I am beyond rescue. Beyond terror and salvation. All I am now, is hungry.

That very hunger, the gift of dread Azabeth, I would unleash on the world of man, until such time as his constellation again hangs high over the entire world. For I am his priest, and I know without doubt that the spheres of gods and men are not destined to stay separate for much longer. One day soon the sun will turn red again, and all salt will be purged from the sea, and there will be no stars in the sky safe for the signs of Azabeth and his brethren.

Only then will my hunger be sated

 All that could be heard on the ship was the soft creaking of wood slightly expanding and contracting under the pressure of the waves. A calming sound, and yet it was a constant reminder of the unknowable vastness and incredible forces of a calm sea that could be quick to anger. On deck, only the steersman bore witness to the star laden sky. He was deeply familiar with it, having used it to plot a safe course across the oceans more times than he could count. All the more curious he found it that there was tonight a constellation of stars he couldn’t quite place; a pattern in the sky not so much made out of the twinkling lights it contained, but of the pitch black void in between.

The monotonous washing of the waves against the ship gave way to complete silence. The befuddled steersman looked around feverishly; not once in all of his years at sea did he remember all the familiar sounds of a ship on the ocean just… vanishing. Before he had ample time to ponder, the silence was broken by a deafening crash, along with the splintering of wood and the shouting of terrified sailors. “We’ve hit something! By god and all that’s holy, we’ve hit someth…”. Soon after, the silence had returned, followed shortly by the returning sounds of waves and wind. Of all the souls onboard the ship only a single one had been dubiously preserved.

I awoke to the merciless burning of the sun on my back, clinging to a flimsy piece of driftwood. My memory was hazy and I could only feel the uncomfortable itching of the salt crust on my skin, as well as the burning in my bone dry throat. I looked in all directions anxiously, desperate to glimpse the outlines of a ship on the horizon, or better yet: land. I was sorely disappointed on both fronts. When I rummaged through my clothing in search of anything useful, all I could find were my pocket watch, a pen and the now thoroughly drenched notebook I had scribbled in so studiously for years. Though I knew it to be pointless, I shouted for rescue, only stopping when my throat started to hurt unbearably. I was completely at odds as to what I should do; should I pick a direction at random and start treading water or should I entrust myself fully to the currents, hoping they would deliver me to salvation? I hesitantly chose the latter and focused on the problem that was in the forefront of my mind: How could I stay alive long enough to be rescued or washed ashore? I came up with no solution safe to hope for rain and keep watch for sea turtles and fish. But the thought of fish brought up a darker thought as well. In my mind’s eye I could  see myself being torn apart by sharks and the like, becoming a source of nourishment to the very ocean whose mysteries I had sought to unravel.

I must have fallen asleep for a good deal of time, for when I again regained consciousness the sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon, giving way to the moon’s pale light, along with the glowing of stars big and small. I was laying on my back, trying to resist the urge of sating my thirst with seawater. Maybe I could just take one little sip, just enough to moisten my throat and already cracking lips. I filled my cupped hands with water from the ocean, brought them to my lips and… rejoiced! This water was sweet as water from a forest spring! Before I could wonder at the sheer impossibility of it all I eagerly started to drink my fill. Afterwards I submerged myself in the sweet water of salvation and washed the salt off my battered body. Returning to the relative safety of the piece of driftwood, I laughed maniacally and thanked the stars for this gift of water. The rest of the night I spent laying on my back, gazing up at a constellation of stars I did not know, yet was deeply familiar with. Only when the sun began to rise once more did my euphoria die down and I became bewildered and terrified of this stroke of luck I knew to be utterly impossible.

This pattern persisted for seven days and seven nights; all day I suffered beneath the cruel sun and felt precious moisture dissipate with every bead of sweat that rolled down my  body. Then, when the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the moon and stars shone up above, the salty water of the ocean was without fail replaced by that sweet,  pure liquid that was my salvation. Each night I drank greedily until I could drink no more, the blinking stars and pale moon the only witnesses to this wondrous banquet.

Thinking back on my ordeal, I’m not sure when I first noticed the complete absence of wind and waves when the constellation stood high in the sky, when the ocean was replaced by that surreal endless lake that I found myself in each night. Yet during those nights, everything always seemed to make perfect sense to me. During the daylight hours I craved and yet feared the pale light of that foreign constellation that seemed ever closer to me with each passing night. That fear however was soon to be eclipsed by a hunger the like of which I had never felt before.

I had found no success in catching anything that might sustain me, and with each day my strength waned further, until I could do no more than lay idly on that piece of driftwood, only moving when it was time to consume the sweet nectar of the nocturnal lake.

On the eighth day the hunger became unbearable to the point where I tried to eat the rancid leather of my shoes, my stomach grumbling like an angry beast that yearned to be unchained. After fruitlessly chewing on the tanned hide for hours, trying to grind it thoroughly enough to make it go down my throat, I abandoned this desperate effort and threw the shoe away in tired frustration. If I could not find a source of food soon, the stars, or what lay between them, could provide me with all the water in this world and beyond, yet it would not save me.

Hours later I watched the sun sink lower and lower on the horizon, being at this point too exhausted to feel either elation or terror at the prospect of submerging myself once more in the impossible lake of stars that I did not doubt would soon replace the salty ocean. Sure enough, that uncanny constellation that I now knew so well soon made its appearance, signifying to me that it was time to sate my thirst. I hung my head into the water and began to drink lethargically. After I had finished, I felt sudden pang of curiosity, and lowered my head once more into the water, this time with open eyes. I could discern nothing in the absolute darkness that reigned beneath the calm surface. An urge began to take hold of me; an urge to let myself drift into the liquid void of that inconceivable lake, to sink ever lower into its lightless depth, never to be pained by the sun’s cruel rays again. As I slipped fully into the water as though slipping into unconsciousness, I felt nothing save a profound curiosity about how far I would sink before the light of life would leave me, hoping for some reason that I might reach the bottom of this cosmic lake ere I drowned.

I was engulfed by a darkness that was more than just the absence of light. Even If I changed my mind now and tried to reach the surface, I could not tell which way was up or down. Then suddenly, a short distance away from me a light source appeared. More than one in fact. They were globes of orange and red, and what they illuminated made me wish I was dead already.

I realized with horror that they were eyes the size of my torso. Though their light did not reach far, what I could discern of the behemoth from which the light emanated  was more than enough. The eyes sat on what I recognized as its tongue, nestled inside monstrous jaws that could devour entire galleys whole. The jaws were lined unevenly with yellow teeth of varying shapes and sizes, and I could see no end to its throat. The bodies of countless unlucky sailors floated aimlessly within its bulk, their bodies untouched by time and their faces frozen in a state of abject terror. Paralyzed by fear I could do nothing as it approached me. A thought crossed my mind and I was sure it was to be my last: The legends… they were true. Azabeth, the everlasting void, hunger made manifest dwells in the waters still.

 That infernal constellation, that darkest void between the stars that had transported me night for night into this nightmare realm and saved me from my thirst; it was his sign. I was to be confronted with the very fairytale I had sought to disprove ever since my father before me had vanished out at sea. Maybe that was the reason his sign had seemed so familiar. The space between the stars, it had consumed my father, and now I was doomed to suffer the same fate – maybe I always had been.

No. I refused. I would not yield to this monstrosity, I would not give myself willingly to the bottomless pit that was its gullet. To be forever surrounded by the dead bodies of men who had been too weak resist, ever drifting around its tongue lined with merciless eyes as if in an endless dance of suffering. I would persevere, I would survive, no matter the cost. I felt conviction well up within me, awarding me strength out of emptiness, and the fear was gone. Where it had been, only hunger remained.

Though my lungs already felt like they would burst at any second, I relinquished some of the air they still contained, and followed the air bubbles in a mad dash for the surface. The jaws of Azabeth started to close, and I saw a twinkling in its cruel eyes – a gesture reminiscent of cold, calculated satisfaction – before its maw was completely shut and I was shielded from the light of the glowing orbs it contained.

After my head broke the water and I took in gulps of air that soothed my screaming lungs, I struggled back onto my piece of driftwood, not able to tear my gaze from the bottomless abyssal lake and the horror I now knew it contained. I must have fallen asleep in that position, because the next thing I remember is the light of the accursed sun tearing me from marvelous dreams. But something was different: Though the sun was standing high in the sky, glowing in a deep red that reminded me of gore, it was dwarfed by Azabeth’s constellation, still looming and larger than it had ever been before. A taste of the saltless water confirmed my suspicion: I was still in Azabeth’s realm. And like the constellation, my hunger was still there. Somehow it fueled me rather than paralyze me; gave me strength and bitter purpose.

I felt no fear as I saw the glowing orbs beneath me in the water, telling me that Azabeth had once again opened its humongous maw, and with it, the gate to a graveyard of legions devoured. Around me, the bodies of men started to float towards the surface. Men I recognized as the other crewmen of my ill-fated voyage.

Finally, I could sate my hunger.

The cracking of bones and the tearing of flesh were music to my ears as I gorged myself on the bodies of my fellow men. And yet, the hunger remained.

I don’t know when the sun lost its viscera red sheen, don’t know when I was transported back to the saltwater of the sea, alive with the wind that is its breath. I know only that at some point, I was.  No longer was I perturbed by the sun and its brutal shining; a lake cool chill seemed to have settled in my very bones. Time itself seemed to lose all meaning, until I spied on the horizon the sails of a ship. Somehow I knew, I just knew, that I would be collected by its crew. I say collected and not rescued, for I am beyond rescue. Beyond terror and salvation. All I am now, is hungry.

That very hunger, the gift of dread Azabeth, I would unleash on the world of man, until such time as his constellation again hangs high over the entire world. For I am his priest, and I know without doubt that the spheres of gods and men are not destined to stay separate for much longer. One day soon the sun will turn red again, and all salt will be purged from the sea, and there will be no stars in the sky safe for the signs of Azabeth and his brethren.

Only then will my hunger be sated

 All that could be heard on the ship was the soft creaking of wood slightly expanding and contracting under the pressure of the waves. A calming sound, and yet it was a constant reminder of the unknowable vastness and incredible forces of a calm sea that could be quick to anger. On deck, only the steersman bore witness to the star laden sky. He was deeply familiar with it, having used it to plot a safe course across the oceans more times than he could count. All the more curious he found it that there was tonight a constellation of stars he couldn’t quite place; a pattern in the sky not so much made out of the twinkling lights it contained, but of the pitch black void in between.

The monotonous washing of the waves against the ship gave way to complete silence. The befuddled steersman looked around feverishly; not once in all of his years at sea did he remember all the familiar sounds of a ship on the ocean just… vanishing. Before he had ample time to ponder, the silence was broken by a deafening crash, along with the splintering of wood and the shouting of terrified sailors. “We’ve hit something! By god and all that’s holy, we’ve hit someth…”. Soon after, the silence had returned, followed shortly by the returning sounds of waves and wind. Of all the souls onboard the ship only a single one had been dubiously preserved.

I awoke to the merciless burning of the sun on my back, clinging to a flimsy piece of driftwood. My memory was hazy and I could only feel the uncomfortable itching of the salt crust on my skin, as well as the burning in my bone dry throat. I looked in all directions anxiously, desperate to glimpse the outlines of a ship on the horizon, or better yet: land. I was sorely disappointed on both fronts. When I rummaged through my clothing in search of anything useful, all I could find were my pocket watch, a pen and the now thoroughly drenched notebook I had scribbled in so studiously for years. Though I knew it to be pointless, I shouted for rescue, only stopping when my throat started to hurt unbearably. I was completely at odds as to what I should do; should I pick a direction at random and start treading water or should I entrust myself fully to the currents, hoping they would deliver me to salvation? I hesitantly chose the latter and focused on the problem that was in the forefront of my mind: How could I stay alive long enough to be rescued or washed ashore? I came up with no solution safe to hope for rain and keep watch for sea turtles and fish. But the thought of fish brought up a darker thought as well. In my mind’s eye I could  see myself being torn apart by sharks and the like, becoming a source of nourishment to the very ocean whose mysteries I had sought to unravel.

I must have fallen asleep for a good deal of time, for when I again regained consciousness the sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon, giving way to the moon’s pale light, along with the glowing of stars big and small. I was laying on my back, trying to resist the urge of sating my thirst with seawater. Maybe I could just take one little sip, just enough to moisten my throat and already cracking lips. I filled my cupped hands with water from the ocean, brought them to my lips and… rejoiced! This water was sweet as water from a forest spring! Before I could wonder at the sheer impossibility of it all I eagerly started to drink my fill. Afterwards I submerged myself in the sweet water of salvation and washed the salt off my battered body. Returning to the relative safety of the piece of driftwood, I laughed maniacally and thanked the stars for this gift of water. The rest of the night I spent laying on my back, gazing up at a constellation of stars I did not know, yet was deeply familiar with. Only when the sun began to rise once more did my euphoria die down and I became bewildered and terrified of this stroke of luck I knew to be utterly impossible.

This pattern persisted for seven days and seven nights; all day I suffered beneath the cruel sun and felt precious moisture dissipate with every bead of sweat that rolled down my  body. Then, when the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the moon and stars shone up above, the salty water of the ocean was without fail replaced by that sweet,  pure liquid that was my salvation. Each night I drank greedily until I could drink no more, the blinking stars and pale moon the only witnesses to this wondrous banquet.

Thinking back on my ordeal, I’m not sure when I first noticed the complete absence of wind and waves when the constellation stood high in the sky, when the ocean was replaced by that surreal endless lake that I found myself in each night. Yet during those nights, everything always seemed to make perfect sense to me. During the daylight hours I craved and yet feared the pale light of that foreign constellation that seemed ever closer to me with each passing night. That fear however was soon to be eclipsed by a hunger the like of which I had never felt before.

I had found no success in catching anything that might sustain me, and with each day my strength waned further, until I could do no more than lay idly on that piece of driftwood, only moving when it was time to consume the sweet nectar of the nocturnal lake.

On the eighth day the hunger became unbearable to the point where I tried to eat the rancid leather of my shoes, my stomach grumbling like an angry beast that yearned to be unchained. After fruitlessly chewing on the tanned hide for hours, trying to grind it thoroughly enough to make it go down my throat, I abandoned this desperate effort and threw the shoe away in tired frustration. If I could not find a source of food soon, the stars, or what lay between them, could provide me with all the water in this world and beyond, yet it would not save me.

Hours later I watched the sun sink lower and lower on the horizon, being at this point too exhausted to feel either elation or terror at the prospect of submerging myself once more in the impossible lake of stars that I did not doubt would soon replace the salty ocean. Sure enough, that uncanny constellation that I now knew so well soon made its appearance, signifying to me that it was time to sate my thirst. I hung my head into the water and began to drink lethargically. After I had finished, I felt sudden pang of curiosity, and lowered my head once more into the water, this time with open eyes. I could discern nothing in the absolute darkness that reigned beneath the calm surface. An urge began to take hold of me; an urge to let myself drift into the liquid void of that inconceivable lake, to sink ever lower into its lightless depth, never to be pained by the sun’s cruel rays again. As I slipped fully into the water as though slipping into unconsciousness, I felt nothing save a profound curiosity about how far I would sink before the light of life would leave me, hoping for some reason that I might reach the bottom of this cosmic lake ere I drowned.

I was engulfed by a darkness that was more than just the absence of light. Even If I changed my mind now and tried to reach the surface, I could not tell which way was up or down. Then suddenly, a short distance away from me a light source appeared. More than one in fact. They were globes of orange and red, and what they illuminated made me wish I was dead already.

I realized with horror that they were eyes the size of my torso. Though their light did not reach far, what I could discern of the behemoth from which the light emanated  was more than enough. The eyes sat on what I recognized as its tongue, nestled inside monstrous jaws that could devour entire galleys whole. The jaws were lined unevenly with yellow teeth of varying shapes and sizes, and I could see no end to its throat. The bodies of countless unlucky sailors floated aimlessly within its bulk, their bodies untouched by time and their faces frozen in a state of abject terror. Paralyzed by fear I could do nothing as it approached me. A thought crossed my mind and I was sure it was to be my last: The legends… they were true. Azabeth, the everlasting void, hunger made manifest dwells in the waters still.

 That infernal constellation, that darkest void between the stars that had transported me night for night into this nightmare realm and saved me from my thirst; it was his sign. I was to be confronted with the very fairytale I had sought to disprove ever since my father before me had vanished out at sea. Maybe that was the reason his sign had seemed so familiar. The space between the stars, it had consumed my father, and now I was doomed to suffer the same fate – maybe I always had been.

No. I refused. I would not yield to this monstrosity, I would not give myself willingly to the bottomless pit that was its gullet. To be forever surrounded by the dead bodies of men who had been too weak resist, ever drifting around its tongue lined with merciless eyes as if in an endless dance of suffering. I would persevere, I would survive, no matter the cost. I felt conviction well up within me, awarding me strength out of emptiness, and the fear was gone. Where it had been, only hunger remained.

Though my lungs already felt like they would burst at any second, I relinquished some of the air they still contained, and followed the air bubbles in a mad dash for the surface. The jaws of Azabeth started to close, and I saw a twinkling in its cruel eyes – a gesture reminiscent of cold, calculated satisfaction – before its maw was completely shut and I was shielded from the light of the glowing orbs it contained.

After my head broke the water and I took in gulps of air that soothed my screaming lungs, I struggled back onto my piece of driftwood, not able to tear my gaze from the bottomless abyssal lake and the horror I now knew it contained. I must have fallen asleep in that position, because the next thing I remember is the light of the accursed sun tearing me from marvelous dreams. But something was different: Though the sun was standing high in the sky, glowing in a deep red that reminded me of gore, it was dwarfed by Azabeth’s constellation, still looming and larger than it had ever been before. A taste of the saltless water confirmed my suspicion: I was still in Azabeth’s realm. And like the constellation, my hunger was still there. Somehow it fueled me rather than paralyze me; gave me strength and bitter purpose.

I felt no fear as I saw the glowing orbs beneath me in the water, telling me that Azabeth had once again opened its humongous maw, and with it, the gate to a graveyard of legions devoured. Around me, the bodies of men started to float towards the surface. Men I recognized as the other crewmen of my ill-fated voyage.

Finally, I could sate my hunger.

The cracking of bones and the tearing of flesh were music to my ears as I gorged myself on the bodies of my fellow men. And yet, the hunger remained.

I don’t know when the sun lost its viscera red sheen, don’t know when I was transported back to the saltwater of the sea, alive with the wind that is its breath. I know only that at some point, I was.  No longer was I perturbed by the sun and its brutal shining; a lake cool chill seemed to have settled in my very bones. Time itself seemed to lose all meaning, until I spied on the horizon the sails of a ship. Somehow I knew, I just knew, that I would be collected by its crew. I say collected and not rescued, for I am beyond rescue. Beyond terror and salvation. All I am now, is hungry.

That very hunger, the gift of dread Azabeth, I would unleash on the world of man, until such time as his constellation again hangs high over the entire world. For I am his priest, and I know without doubt that the spheres of gods and men are not destined to stay separate for much longer. One day soon the sun will turn red again, and all salt will be purged from the sea, and there will be no stars in the sky safe for the signs of Azabeth and his brethren.

Only then will my hunger be sated

 All that could be heard on the ship was the soft creaking of wood slightly expanding and contracting under the pressure of the waves. A calming sound, and yet it was a constant reminder of the unknowable vastness and incredible forces of a calm sea that could be quick to anger. On deck, only the steersman bore witness to the star laden sky. He was deeply familiar with it, having used it to plot a safe course across the oceans more times than he could count. All the more curious he found it that there was tonight a constellation of stars he couldn’t quite place; a pattern in the sky not so much made out of the twinkling lights it contained, but of the pitch black void in between.

The monotonous washing of the waves against the ship gave way to complete silence. The befuddled steersman looked around feverishly; not once in all of his years at sea did he remember all the familiar sounds of a ship on the ocean just… vanishing. Before he had ample time to ponder, the silence was broken by a deafening crash, along with the splintering of wood and the shouting of terrified sailors. “We’ve hit something! By god and all that’s holy, we’ve hit someth…”. Soon after, the silence had returned, followed shortly by the returning sounds of waves and wind. Of all the souls onboard the ship only a single one had been dubiously preserved.

I awoke to the merciless burning of the sun on my back, clinging to a flimsy piece of driftwood. My memory was hazy and I could only feel the uncomfortable itching of the salt crust on my skin, as well as the burning in my bone dry throat. I looked in all directions anxiously, desperate to glimpse the outlines of a ship on the horizon, or better yet: land. I was sorely disappointed on both fronts. When I rummaged through my clothing in search of anything useful, all I could find were my pocket watch, a pen and the now thoroughly drenched notebook I had scribbled in so studiously for years. Though I knew it to be pointless, I shouted for rescue, only stopping when my throat started to hurt unbearably. I was completely at odds as to what I should do; should I pick a direction at random and start treading water or should I entrust myself fully to the currents, hoping they would deliver me to salvation? I hesitantly chose the latter and focused on the problem that was in the forefront of my mind: How could I stay alive long enough to be rescued or washed ashore? I came up with no solution safe to hope for rain and keep watch for sea turtles and fish. But the thought of fish brought up a darker thought as well. In my mind’s eye I could  see myself being torn apart by sharks and the like, becoming a source of nourishment to the very ocean whose mysteries I had sought to unravel.

I must have fallen asleep for a good deal of time, for when I again regained consciousness the sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon, giving way to the moon’s pale light, along with the glowing of stars big and small. I was laying on my back, trying to resist the urge of sating my thirst with seawater. Maybe I could just take one little sip, just enough to moisten my throat and already cracking lips. I filled my cupped hands with water from the ocean, brought them to my lips and… rejoiced! This water was sweet as water from a forest spring! Before I could wonder at the sheer impossibility of it all I eagerly started to drink my fill. Afterwards I submerged myself in the sweet water of salvation and washed the salt off my battered body. Returning to the relative safety of the piece of driftwood, I laughed maniacally and thanked the stars for this gift of water. The rest of the night I spent laying on my back, gazing up at a constellation of stars I did not know, yet was deeply familiar with. Only when the sun began to rise once more did my euphoria die down and I became bewildered and terrified of this stroke of luck I knew to be utterly impossible.

This pattern persisted for seven days and seven nights; all day I suffered beneath the cruel sun and felt precious moisture dissipate with every bead of sweat that rolled down my  body. Then, when the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the moon and stars shone up above, the salty water of the ocean was without fail replaced by that sweet,  pure liquid that was my salvation. Each night I drank greedily until I could drink no more, the blinking stars and pale moon the only witnesses to this wondrous banquet.

Thinking back on my ordeal, I’m not sure when I first noticed the complete absence of wind and waves when the constellation stood high in the sky, when the ocean was replaced by that surreal endless lake that I found myself in each night. Yet during those nights, everything always seemed to make perfect sense to me. During the daylight hours I craved and yet feared the pale light of that foreign constellation that seemed ever closer to me with each passing night. That fear however was soon to be eclipsed by a hunger the like of which I had never felt before.

I had found no success in catching anything that might sustain me, and with each day my strength waned further, until I could do no more than lay idly on that piece of driftwood, only moving when it was time to consume the sweet nectar of the nocturnal lake.

On the eighth day the hunger became unbearable to the point where I tried to eat the rancid leather of my shoes, my stomach grumbling like an angry beast that yearned to be unchained. After fruitlessly chewing on the tanned hide for hours, trying to grind it thoroughly enough to make it go down my throat, I abandoned this desperate effort and threw the shoe away in tired frustration. If I could not find a source of food soon, the stars, or what lay between them, could provide me with all the water in this world and beyond, yet it would not save me.

Hours later I watched the sun sink lower and lower on the horizon, being at this point too exhausted to feel either elation or terror at the prospect of submerging myself once more in the impossible lake of stars that I did not doubt would soon replace the salty ocean. Sure enough, that uncanny constellation that I now knew so well soon made its appearance, signifying to me that it was time to sate my thirst. I hung my head into the water and began to drink lethargically. After I had finished, I felt sudden pang of curiosity, and lowered my head once more into the water, this time with open eyes. I could discern nothing in the absolute darkness that reigned beneath the calm surface. An urge began to take hold of me; an urge to let myself drift into the liquid void of that inconceivable lake, to sink ever lower into its lightless depth, never to be pained by the sun’s cruel rays again. As I slipped fully into the water as though slipping into unconsciousness, I felt nothing save a profound curiosity about how far I would sink before the light of life would leave me, hoping for some reason that I might reach the bottom of this cosmic lake ere I drowned.

I was engulfed by a darkness that was more than just the absence of light. Even If I changed my mind now and tried to reach the surface, I could not tell which way was up or down. Then suddenly, a short distance away from me a light source appeared. More than one in fact. They were globes of orange and red, and what they illuminated made me wish I was dead already.

I realized with horror that they were eyes the size of my torso. Though their light did not reach far, what I could discern of the behemoth from which the light emanated  was more than enough. The eyes sat on what I recognized as its tongue, nestled inside monstrous jaws that could devour entire galleys whole. The jaws were lined unevenly with yellow teeth of varying shapes and sizes, and I could see no end to its throat. The bodies of countless unlucky sailors floated aimlessly within its bulk, their bodies untouched by time and their faces frozen in a state of abject terror. Paralyzed by fear I could do nothing as it approached me. A thought crossed my mind and I was sure it was to be my last: The legends… they were true. Azabeth, the everlasting void, hunger made manifest dwells in the waters still.

 That infernal constellation, that darkest void between the stars that had transported me night for night into this nightmare realm and saved me from my thirst; it was his sign. I was to be confronted with the very fairytale I had sought to disprove ever since my father before me had vanished out at sea. Maybe that was the reason his sign had seemed so familiar. The space between the stars, it had consumed my father, and now I was doomed to suffer the same fate – maybe I always had been.

No. I refused. I would not yield to this monstrosity, I would not give myself willingly to the bottomless pit that was its gullet. To be forever surrounded by the dead bodies of men who had been too weak resist, ever drifting around its tongue lined with merciless eyes as if in an endless dance of suffering. I would persevere, I would survive, no matter the cost. I felt conviction well up within me, awarding me strength out of emptiness, and the fear was gone. Where it had been, only hunger remained.

Though my lungs already felt like they would burst at any second, I relinquished some of the air they still contained, and followed the air bubbles in a mad dash for the surface. The jaws of Azabeth started to close, and I saw a twinkling in its cruel eyes – a gesture reminiscent of cold, calculated satisfaction – before its maw was completely shut and I was shielded from the light of the glowing orbs it contained.

After my head broke the water and I took in gulps of air that soothed my screaming lungs, I struggled back onto my piece of driftwood, not able to tear my gaze from the bottomless abyssal lake and the horror I now knew it contained. I must have fallen asleep in that position, because the next thing I remember is the light of the accursed sun tearing me from marvelous dreams. But something was different: Though the sun was standing high in the sky, glowing in a deep red that reminded me of gore, it was dwarfed by Azabeth’s constellation, still looming and larger than it had ever been before. A taste of the saltless water confirmed my suspicion: I was still in Azabeth’s realm. And like the constellation, my hunger was still there. Somehow it fueled me rather than paralyze me; gave me strength and bitter purpose.

I felt no fear as I saw the glowing orbs beneath me in the water, telling me that Azabeth had once again opened its humongous maw, and with it, the gate to a graveyard of legions devoured. Around me, the bodies of men started to float towards the surface. Men I recognized as the other crewmen of my ill-fated voyage.

Finally, I thought, I could sate my hunger.

The cracking of bones and the tearing of flesh were music to my ears as I gorged myself on the bodies of my fellow men. And yet, the hunger remained.

I don’t know when the sun lost its viscera red sheen, don’t know when I was transported back to the saltwater of the sea, alive with the wind that is its breath. I know only that at some point, I was.  No longer was I perturbed by the sun and its brutal shining; a lake cool chill seemed to have settled in my very bones. Time itself seemed to lose all meaning, until I spied on the horizon the sails of a ship. Somehow I knew, I just knew, that I would be collected by its crew. I say collected and not rescued, for I am beyond rescue. Beyond terror and salvation. All I am now, is hungry.

That very hunger, the gift of dread Azabeth, I would unleash on the world of man, until such time as his constellation again hangs high over the entire world. For I am his priest, and I know without doubt that the spheres of gods and men are not destined to stay separate for much longer. One day soon the sun will turn red again, and all salt will be purged from the sea, and there will be no stars in the sky safe for the signs of Azabeth and his brethren.

Only then will my hunger be sated

My name is irrelevant, as are most things about me. I’m writing this down more as a way to cope with what has transpired than as a warning, for I doubt that anyone would believe the ramblings of a self-admitted junky and lunatic. I doubt I would believe any of what I am about to write either, had I not the marks to prove my story to myself.

I’ve been addicted to heroin for most of my life now, with it taking up a bigger and bigger part of it as time went on. I’ll not bore you with my life’s history here; suffice it to say it has not been a happy one. But though my existence has been revolving ever more about the sweet relief of unthinking bliss, my sober hours dedicated solely to securing my next fix, the dullness and sameness of my every waking hour has lately been broken by terror and revulsion, like a sharp rock  piercing the surface of a muddy lake. How I long now for the unfeeling apathy which had been encompassing me for years; a warm coat against the cruel cold of life.

I noticed it for the first time a few a weeks back. I say noticed, because I cannot be certain that it hasn’t been there earlier, its presence lost to my intoxicated mind. Perhaps it has been there all along, like a speck floating in my eye, disappearing as soon as I might take notice.

I was laying on the filthy floor of a filthy apartment, reveling in the heroin I had been struggling all day to secure. Though there were other people like me laying all around me, I might have just as well been the only person in the room - or in the world for that matter. As my unfocused gaze drifted along the walls and ceiling, focusing on nothing in particular, a corner of the room seemed suddenly darker in nature than the rest of it. I did not pay attention to it at first, nor to the fact that this corner seemed somehow colder than the rest of the room. Not that I could feel a shift in temperature as I would feel a cool breeze on my skin. I felt the coldness of the corner only  when looking upon it; feeling like something within it was actively  leeching on my bodies warmth,  leaving me shivering as if from within.

When I found back to myself after the last of the heroin had dissipated, I did not really pay mind to the feeling of hopelessness and lingering despair  I was experiencing, as it was only marginally greater than I was used to. Though I felt a subtle relief finding myself sober again (something I found a lot stranger since this had not happened in a long time), my mind quickly went back to the familiar problem of having used up my supplies. As a last shiver shook me, I was already  contemplating the possibilities of procuring more, quickly forgetting the deep feeling of unease that had come from a dark, cold corner.

The next few days are a hazy mess, a mixture of begging on the streets, getting high whenever I could, the corner slowly increasing in size and intensity. A feeling of predation crept into my hours of bliss, only slowly subsiding when I went without the  substance for longer than I would like. I became more irritable during that time, constantly looking over my shoulder, not knowing why. Not knowing that that which I was subconsciously looking for would not follow me into the waking hours.

I do not know how long was this period of uncertain dread, yet I remember this next part clearly.

I was lying in a back alley that night, since I could not find a more comfortable place for my highly anticipated high. The dark corner was between two buildings and the floor this time. Though there was a rather dim lamp hanging directly above it, no ray of light could permeate its darkness, which had now taken on an almost physical quality. Lethargically I dragged my body to the far end of the back alley until I could feel the bending metal of a trash can against my back, its stench adding a lair of revulsion to the twisting dread I was starting to experience. A dread that was rapidly growing when I noticed the steady hum of the lantern  becoming interspersed by periods of silence. The light flickered a few more times, and then it was gone.  

The only way I could distinguish the corner from the intense darkness of night now was by the gruesome cold I felt when looking into it. My body refused when I tried to crawl away, something deep within me not allowing me to break the stare. Then suddenly something darker still seemed to break out of the corner as the distance between me and it perversely diminished in length from before, as if the entire back alley had contracted at the end. I saw it take form as a thin appendage, a decrepit six fingered hand at the end. It reached out to my ankle and the pain when it grabbed me was inconceivable. It felt like a thousand bitter cold needles biting into my skin, ripping and tearing and never relenting. It pulled on my leg and dragged more of itself out of the corner. I could see a grotesque head and shoulders emerge and still I could not move nor scream. At some point it seemed like the thing had met some form of resistance, not managing to pull free any more itself. Its head bent unnaturally then, I think it looked up at me. In this position we remained for what must have been hours, the pain never subsiding. Finally, there seemed to be some light returning to my reality, and the thing slowly became less distinguishable from the background. With the light came a semblance of warmth, and then I passed out, not realizing I had pissed myself.

I woke up in a hospital and stayed there for a week with the doctors telling me I had been found unconscious in a back alley, a bloody syringe lying next to me and my leg horribly mangled. They told me I must have done it to myself. I don’t believe them. In the ruined tissue of my leg I could clearly see the six fingered handprint.

I’ve been out of the hospital for a few days now, put up in a wayward house. I’m squirming in a chair, my skin crawling and mind racing. I have in my bag a syringe,  a spoon and a lighter with some stuff ready to go, and am trying with all my might to resist. I look spastically around the room. I hope I am only imagining one of the corners to be darker than the others.

 I pray I stay strong, for I cannot withstand such pain once more.

 

Hey guys! I just got into writing short horror stories (mainly because of creepcast), and this is my first finished one. I'd appreciate any feedback, there will be more stories to come. Hope you like it, but don't hesitate to criticise

The Elevator

I remember the first time I stepped foot into the elevator. It was a day as normal as it was boring. I rose from my bed and descended the stairs from my room to the rest of the flat below. Toiletry, breakfast, and out the door I went. It was the first day at my new profession; a ways away in a basically abandoned office building. When I entered the ground floor I strode without urgency to the elevator, knowing from the application that my office was on the thirteenth floor. Clutching my hot cup of coffee I entered the elevator, settling in the far right corner. The ride went on for a lot longer than I had expected, rumbling precariously all the way. Suddenly, it  came to an abrupt halt with a loud ding announcing my arrival. It was such an abrupt halt that I spilled most of my coffee, some of it landing painfully and embarrassingly right on my shirt with the rest dripping onto the floor. A curse escaped me as I left the elevator to step foot into my new office premises. I was only slightly surprised to notice that I was the only person on the entire floor, having made sure that I had arrived on the right one. After all the advertisement had mentioned that they employed only a miniscule workforce at the location, so as to not lose their lease.

In fact the only thing my employer had asked of me was to stay at the office for eight hours each day, replying to emails and calls, reassuring writers and callers alike that their requests were already being processed. I didn’t even know which products or services were being provided by the company; the great pay along with the opportunity to work alone and unsupervised making it easy not to ask too many questions about my dubious work assignment.

After eight hours had crawled by with painful slowness and I prepared to leave for home, I did not feel a great urge to step into the elevator, instead taking the numerous flights of stairs that would take me to the lobby. Only at that point did I wonder at me not having seen a single human being the entire day since entering the building in the morning. I explained it away by telling myself that the company I was working for must be the only one not to have moved on to other premises.

Thinking only about what I would have for dinner I made most of my way home, until I came to the subway station. My lust for physical activity having  subsided, I took the elevator instead of the stairs to the platform. I experienced a mild surprise when I noticed it being of a very similar make and model as the one I had taken at the beginning of my shift; with a strange and sudden feeling of  unsettling familiarity as I saw a brown stain at the far right corner, a stain which smelled faintly of coffee. Not knowing why, I stepped onto the subway station more hastily than usual, being glad to escape the confinement of the contraption.

After having arrived at my home I fell almost instantly into my bed, feeling unusually drained although my “workday” had been anything but taxing.

The next morning I felt an unnatural apprehension towards stepping into any confined space, with me first noticing a distinct aversion to stay in my bathroom long enough to brush my teeth. Naturally I neglected the elevator at both the subway station and my place of work, feeling an almost primal relief after having passed by the latter.

As the day passed I felt and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, until about an hour before I would get to leave for home once more. That last hour of my shift I felt unfamiliarly jittery at the thought of even encountering the elevator once more. I chided myself as silly, for I knew that for one, a fear of elevators was as unfounded as it was new to me, and second, avoiding that metal box was as easy as turning left instead of right at a street corner. Or at least it should have been.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the entrance to the staircase having been chained shut, without me having heard so much as a single sound apart from the ringing phone all damn day. After circling the whole floor twice, all the while calling out to anyone who might hear me, I stopped in front of the chained door. Despite common sense telling me it would be in vain, I tried forcing the door open - to no avail. And though I might have expected this outcome, I was shocked to discover that I could not even push down the doorhandle. It was as if the door was completely fixed in its current position. Stepping back I realized how strange was the chain in and of itself: the metal was pitch  black and engraved with strange letters, and when I touched it I instantly jumped back in shock; it was ice cold to the touch. A nervous chuckle escaped me as I pondered the absurdity of my situation. Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to entrust myself to the elevator once more.

It was with great hesitancy that I pushed the button. The doors slid open, reminding me of the jaws of some unholy predator; It took great effort to make myself step into its belly. Another press of a button made the contraption start its descent, rumbling loudly, creeping unbearably slowly towards the ground floor. Then it stopped. I must have almost had a heart attack when I heard the snap of the cable that held the thing in place. I screamed and screamed as I felt the oversized coffin accelerate mercilessly towards the ground, awful sounds of metal scraping on metal filling my ears. Words cannot describe the thoughts that raced through my mind then, knowing that every passing moment brought me closer to the unyielding ground, and with it, my brutal demise.

I don’t know how long it took, but at some point the thought struck me that I should have hit the bottom by now. I remembered having read somewhere that time can seem to slow down in moments of extreme peril, but it could not possibly be to this extent; the fall must be taking minutes by now. I was beginning to fear for my mind as well as my life, at times being wholly certain that I had simply gone insane.

What must have been hours later, I was still falling, cowering in the middle of the elevator, head in hands, not understanding what the hell was going on. Then I perched my ears: What was that? It was not a sound that had startled me, but rather the complete absence of it. The gruesome rumbling had completely ceased. I couldn’t hear a single thing, except for my own heavy breathing and the rapid beating of my strained heart. Neither could I feel any more acceleration pulling uncomfortably at my guts. I stood up then, entirely unsure as to what I should do. The sheer impossibility, the profound weirdness of my situation sent shivers down my spine, practically paralyzing me with absolute terror. Finally I came to a decision: if I wanted to escape this nightmare, I had to first open the doors of that hellish, ravenous elevator. With great effort I managed to squeeze my fingers in between the doors. I cursed as I felt a metal edge biting deep into the skin of my hand, making me bleed profusely. But I did not relent to the sharp pain surging through me. I kept pulling with all my might and with all my weight until I could feel the doors shift open, inch by arduous inch.

A terrible odor assailed me as sudden and unwelcome as a slap to the face. It smelled like the repugnant sweetness of rotting flesh; like mold and death and decay. I wretched and vomited onto the floor, my throat now burning as well as my eyes. Next I took notice of the complete and utter darkness that engulfed me, the only source of light being the elevator’s own orange-yellow lightbulb. I couldn’t for the life of me tell how vast was the space around me; it could have been leagues in each direction or it could have been no wider than the elevator shaft. Struck by a sudden, horrifying thought I took a pen out of my breast pocket and let it tumble down into the abyss, once again perching my ears, listening attentively for its impact so as to gauge how high up the accursed elevator was suspended. The impact never came. I shuddered, only now acknowledging the intense cold of this place.

There was no way forward, no way back, no way out of this hellhole. It was then that I collapsed onto the floor, mercifully missing the puddle of my own vomit, and huddled into a quivering, crying mess, consumed by hopelessness and dread.

I do not know how much time I spent on that carpeted floor, my sobs dying away after a while, unlike the constant shivering that robbed me of what little energy I had left. All I can say is that it felt like days, although I never grew hungry nor thirsty, and the blood on my hand never dried. Why was I being tormented this way? How could anything of the sort be happening at all? The feeling of unfairness, of rejection and of pure and utter contempt for this whole situation finally culminated in an intense rage. I straggled to my feet, stepped to the edge of the elevator and screamed into the void. I challenged heaven and earth to come and face me, or else to free me of this insanity and release me back into the known, using all the swearwords that I knew, inventing some new ones for good measure.

What answered me was not of this earth, and it most certainly was not of heaven either.

It was a deep guttural sound, best described as a perverse and terrifying imitation of a whales ‘ call mixed with the piping of some grotesque flute, coming from everywhere all at once. My entire being seemed to vibrate with the sheer intensity of it. At the same time that terrible stench of death intensified, taking on an almost physical presence the way it pushed against me. I instantly regretted my decision to rebel against whatever was ensuing. Hastily I retreated to the wall farthest from the now open maw of the elevator, my injured hand marking it with a bloody handprint. Still that terrible sound was filling the air, getting louder and louder as its source grew near.

I take no pleasure in describing what came next, and no words could ever do it justice, but I will try to do so anyway. The creature that appeared in front of the elevator was so immense, the puny source of light didn’t even come close to illuminating it in its entirety. A mass of writhing tentacles lined unevenly with hooks and claws flowed through the void, following a nonsensical rhythm I couldn’t  even begin to understand. They were so numerous I couldn’t make out what lay behind them, or if there was at all something resembling a body being concealed by the wall of writhing flesh. Suddenly, the thing opened its eyes. All of them. There were thirteen in number, I am sure of it; enormous globes of burning orange and red, varying in size and distributed unevenly across its enormous bulk, glaring at me and through me from behind those monstrous swaying appendages. As its gaze found me a burning pain unlike anything I had ever felt engulfed my whole body. Somehow I knew that this thing did not mean to kill me, that it had some sort of terrible purpose for me to fulfill. Then, before my mind’s eye, words started to form in a language I doubt was ever spoken by beings even remotely human. Yet, I understood them. There were so many I couldn’t decipher the majority of them, and they shifted and swirled dizzyingly, making it impossible to make out whole sentences. The ones that I did manage to understand read:

Soon. Shackles. Broken. Worship. Return. Yog-Sothoth. Soon.

With those horrible phrases etched into my mind, I collapsed to the floor once more, this time unconscious.

I awoke to the ding of the elevator arriving at its destination; the ground floor of the office building. I tried to convince myself that this whole experience must have been a grotesque hallucination, despite the puddle of vomit on the floor, the bloody handprint on the wall, and – most disturbing of all – the horrible stench of death that clung to my clothes. I stumblingly made my way to the subway station, trying not even to look at the elevator there. As I passed by its doors, I heard the loathsome ding, followed by the smell of my own vomit wafting through the air and a child’s voice that said “Look, there’s blood on the wall!”

When I finally arrived in my own apartment, I went straight to the bathroom, threw my clothes in the bin and took the longest shower of my life. Afterwards I made my way up the stairs to my bedroom, collapsed onto the bed and fell into an uneasy sleep, plagued by nightmares of broken shackles and unleashed monstrosities, with burning orange eyes always watching.

Once more I awoke to the ding of the elevator, at first believing it to be a cruel joke of my own imagination. When I looked around the room I felt again a terror that would have been unimaginable just a few days prior. The door that should have led to a small staircase was now replaced with the open maw of that hellish metal beast, the lightbulb inside glowing threateningly orange and red. Again there seems to be no escape; the room’s window won’t shatter no matter what I might throw against it, the only point of egress apart from what I now know to be a portal to spheres of something older than time and horribly malignant. Gods above, I can feel it calling to me. As I prepare myself for another descent into hell that will surely follow, I see again before my eyes those horrible words:

Soon. Shackles. Broken. Worship. Return. Azathoth. Soon.