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Post by alepotep on Dec 2, 2010 18:45:55 GMT -6
That's most interesting; as I have been Dreaming much about Shubb-Niggurath; amongst other Sanguine Vampryc activities. I hope that you may keep me updated?
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Post by pyramidhead333 on Dec 3, 2010 16:59:05 GMT -6
Sure
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Post by pyramidhead333 on Dec 7, 2010 18:58:37 GMT -6
For aeons, people tried to disguise the true name of the Black Goat of the Woods with A Thousand Young. Baphomet, Lilith, and Kali were some of Her more popular names. They were all thought to be separate entities, or sometimes parables. In the end, however, they all turned out to be one literal being known as Shub-Niggurath.
It began one night when I was walking downtown. Suddenly, out of the corner, I heard screaming and gunshots. Looking up, I saw what nightmares are undoubtedly made of: a jet-black cloudy mass with holes that looked like mouths oozing green slime, flailing tentacles protruding from its “body.” The slime dripping onto the ground formed large, terrifying entities with hooves like a goat, a body like a tree trunk, writing tentacles, and a mouth in the middle of its body.
As the things picked everyone off, I hid in the alleyways, hoping that I would remain unseen. I could still see the carnage from there, the cloudy mass wrapping around people with its tentacles and devouring them alive. Those creatures it spawned would do mostly the same thing, except some people, they’d just crush under their hooves. Not even all the guns blazing seemed to stop the creatures or the thing in the sky. Fires were burning out of control, spreading to every building within the area.
Someone, or something, was in the alley with me. I could hear a loud stomping that I must not describe. All I’ll say is that it sound vaguely human, but more like the hooves of an animal, accompanied by a hideous hissing sound.
“S-s-s-s-s-s …” the sound whispered ominously.
A fresh bloody corpse lay in front of me, eviscerated, partially eaten, and impaled. In his chewed-up hand lay a six-shooter revolver, which only had a couple bullets left. Fearing the unknown being in the alley with me, I grabbed the gun, aiming it towards the brick wall. The stomping got louder and louder, the hissing getting closer at the same time.
That’s when the thing in the alley revealed itself. It was a black goat, the size of a human, claws in place of hands, tentacles all over its body whipping left and right, making that hissing sound, and finally, it opened its mouth to show several rows of sharp teeth.
Fast as I could, I pulled the hammer back, shooting the monster right through the forehead. The bullet ripped through, but the flesh just regenerated itself within only seconds after the bullet’s penetration. Guess it wasn’t even flesh.
Dropping the gun in horror, I opened my mouth to speak.
“What … the fuck … are you?”
“I am an Outsider,” the goat-thing replied, “formerly a human like yourself, I was remade in the image of my goddess when She returned to this world.”
“Your … goddess?” I asked, “That cloud-thing up in the sky killing everyone?”
“Not killing. Cleansing. Cleansing our world of its current inhabitants. And you shall join them now.”
The demonic Outsider charged at me, horns ready to skewer. Out of nowhere, its “goddess” hovered above us, snaring the Outsider with one of her tentacles. “She” spoke in a tongue that I failed to recognize as human, so thus could not understand what “She” was saying. I took this as my cue to get the hell out.
Running back to the streets, I tried to remain undetected by the tentacle-tree monsters as they demolished everything in their path. Humans, cars, buildings, literally everything. I started to make my way back uptown in hope that the nightmarish images would be gone there. That’s what I thought it would all turn out to have been - just a nightmare.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. The “goddess” and her legion had apparently been through uptown, as mostly every building and car was smashed, human and animal corpses littered the streets. Internal organs decorated the street lamps, and most strangely of all, a goat’s severed head was impaled on a sharpened stick in front of a cathedral, or what looked like a cathedral. Really tough to tell with no crosses or anything. Painted on the double doors in yellow was a five-pointed star shaped like a tree branch.
What could that mean? I wondered.
Slowly and cautiously, I opened the doors. They made a loud creaking sound as they opened. Inside was not a pretty sight. Priests were scattered across the room, some beheaded, some mutilated and disemboweled, some torn to shreds. A bloodstained confessional was open, the one to the right of it closed. I tried to open the closed door, but it was either locked or jammed. Reluctantly, I walked into the open one, hearing mumbling from the other side.
With a look through the booth window, I could see someone on the other side. Judging from the sound of the voice, the person was female.
“... pulpit … book … pages … answer …” she mumbled.
“Huh?” I replied, “ma’am, what are you talking about?”
No reply. But then it hit me to check the pulpit. Rather than a Bible, there were torn out pages of various religious and occult texts. Looking over them, I noticed names circled. Names such as Lilith, Kali, and Baphomet. Among the pages were some illustrations, most depicting women with something very strange about them.
One illustration depicted a nude woman with a serpent wrapping around her body, another depicting a woman with four arms, a necklace made of human heads, standing on someone else. The final picture showed a winged goat with a pair of breasts and, between its legs, a rod with two serpents curling around on either side. On the forehead of the goat was a pentagram.
Unable to decipher the meaning behind these words and images, I lay down on a pew, tired and exhausted. My eyes shut and I was asleep in minutes.
I awoke an hour later in darkness, except for two black candles sitting on an a table. With a closer look, I saw that the table was an altar, with a cloth, a bloody knife, a goat skull, and a big, hardcover book bound in black leather entitled Necronomicon lay between the two candles. Above the altar was an inverted pentagram with the face of a goat, whose horns, chin, and ears were inside each of the five sides of the star. I picked up the Necronomicon and opened it. Some fear tried to stop me from even opening the front cover, but it subsided and I opened it.
A cool breeze blew in, flipping the pages until it got to a section entitled, “Shub-Niggurath.” It spoke of a black, cloud-like entity, whose description very much matched that of the thing downtown. The book proceeded to talk about Her “Dark Young,” which I assumed were those things destroying everything in sight. Clearly, I assumed right, because the way the Necronomicon described them was also an exact match to those creatures.
Footsteps echoed in the distance, and I turned around to see a red-haired woman, naked from head to toe. Her eyes glowed red through the dark. While I did feel somewhat … aroused by the beauty of not just her body, but her youthful appearance, there was something not quite right about her. I was unsure of what it was, but she just gave me a bad feeling. Maybe it was the unnatural arousal I felt? No. There was something else.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am none other than the first wife of Adam, exiled from Eden.” she replied, “My name is Lilith, mother of all demons.”
Simply hearing her name sent a chill down my spine. Lilith. And “mother of all demons?” What was that about?
Lilith embraced me before I could ask her anything, her soft breasts pressing up against my chest. She moved her lips toward mine as if to kiss me, but when she opened her mouth, it revealed a bunch of sharp fangs in place of teeth. The demon mother knocked me to the ground and changed into a demon-like entity. She began to raise her claws to rip my heart out.
Just then, I found myself back in the pew I’d been sleeping in. Had it all been just a dream? Or was it something more? I stared around the cathedral, staring at the mess that had taken place, taking notice that the confessional booth door was open now. When I went to investigate, nobody was there.
This gave me an urge to go search for sane survivors. I exited the cathedral and went to search around uptown, when a newspaper caught my eye. The headline read:
“APOCALYPTIC DISASTER! BLACK CLOUD KILLS BILLIONS!”
Could this have all just happened overnight? If so, how did Shub-Niggurath get everywhere so fast? Not that it mattered now or anything.
After wandering the city for hours, I gave up. Nobody could have survived the massacre, anyway, I told myself as I headed back. As I was only a mile away from the cathedral, I saw someone. He was wearing a black hooded robe, wandering the desolate streets, mumbling to himself. The closer I got, the more I could hear what he was saying. The words he spoke seemed to be in some alien language, similar to that which Shub-Niggurath used when speaking to the Outsider the night before.
“Excuse me … sir?” I called out. I felt somewhat suspicious, but not quite afraid. The robed man stopped in his tracks, just standing as I approached him. Just as I began to reach out to him, he shouted.
“Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Great Black Goat of the Woods with A Thousand Young!”
The man charged at me madly as I jumped back, dagger raised, screaming. I began to run away to find a weapon in all the rubble. Eventually, I ran across a dead fireman, conveniently holding a fire axe in his hand. Quickly, I took the axe and swung it at the madman, decapitating him.
For a few seconds, his corpse ran around, blood spurting out of his neck. He dropped something as he fell to the ground, dead. It was another hardcover, leather bound black book, only it didn’t say Necronomicon. Instead, it just showed the symbol from above the altar and, below it, words that were probably the same language I just heard a second time.
The book from the inside resembled a grimoire, containing seals and sigils, and more of that arcane alphabet from the front cover. As I looked through it, I found a piece of paper in English. It read:
Dear Mr. Pickman,
It is almost time. Time for Her to return. The stars are soon to align. Ia! Shub-Niggurath! She shall liberate us from our human forms, remold us to outlive and overpower the mortal race. Your duty is to find and slay anyone who survives Her wrath, for then you shall gain Her unholy gift.
Blessings of the Black Mother,
Annette
I knew immediately what the letter meant - there was some cult out there devoted to Shub-Niggurath who were picking off surviving humans, and they were the ones responsible for Her return. Putting down the letter, I opened up the grimoire again in hopes of finding something else of interest. Nothing.
A thought then popped into my head: was that “Outsider” I met in the alleyway one of the cultists? That’s what the letter seemed to imply. If that was so, then I knew I may have to be extra-careful. I took Mr. Pickman’s robe and adorned myself with it, and then proceeded to take the dagger and book. Knowing that if a cultists found the body, I’d be in deep shit, I took Pickman’s head, too.
Ready at last to go back to the cathedral, I started walking back when I heard hideous sounds all around me. Sounds I didn’t dare investigate. Voices speaking in that alien language echoed all around me. I crumpled like a piece of paper to my knees, my head pounding. Head, grimoire, and dagger all fell from my grasp. The sky had turned blacker than the night itself before my eyes.
Terrified, I picked up the stuff I had and ran for my life to the cathedral. Back at last, I slammed the door behind me as I rushed in. I collapsed on the floor, attempting to catch my breath.
Despite having seen it three times, I still wasn’t used to the grisly sight inside. It just gave me the feeling that whatever ripped its way through hear would sometime come back and swallow me whole. What bugged me more, though, was the thought that there had to be some other living soul out there who was on my side.
Looking around the cathedral made me wonder the age-old question that everyone in a state of hopelessness and despair has asked: “Where is your god now?” I had once been a religious man myself, but seeing how even those who worshiped a supposedly all-loving, merciful deity ended up brutally slaughtered in a supposedly holy place was enough of a sign to me that there is no god. Or at least, no Christian god. Certainly, Shub-Niggurath existed, and probably some others like Her, seeing that the Necronomicon was a huge book.
This nightmare was making me feel so tired. I just wanted to wake up and find out that I’ve been dreaming this whole time, but this was just far too real for a dream. Going to sleep and waking up wouldn’t save me from this new world. Her world. Regardless, I went to bed again on one of the pews, later awakening in the same abyss as before.
I went straight to the altar and inspected the Necronomicon for what other gods there are out there. It was quite simple finding out, thanks to the table of contents. A whole list was there:
Azathoth
Yog-Sothoth
Nyarlathotep
Shub-Niggurath
Tsathoggua
Dagon
Cthulhu
Each page described the purpose of these entities, known as the Great Old Ones. For example, Azathoth was the creator of the universe, blind idiot god, Demon Sultan, All-In-One-One-In-All. Yog-Sothoth was the Gate. Nyarlathotep was the soul and messenger of Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth, the Crawling Chaos, the Black Man of A Thousand Forms.
The rest of the Great Old Ones’ roles were vague, and the rest of the book just talked about places only discovered by and traveled to by the author, Abdul Alhazred, spells, and rites to bring the Old Ones back When The Stars Are Right. However, it said absolutely nothing about the abyss I found myself in. If it wasn’t in the book, then what could its importance be?
Someone was coming, yet I just stood hypnotized by the altar. A pair of blue hands grabbed me on the shoulders and turned me around. I was facing a blue-skinned woman with a necklace made of severed human heads. Unlike Lilith, she was clothed. Like Lilith, her eyes glowed red. She had four arms rather than just two, one hand holding a bloody sword.
“I am Kali, mother of death,” the blue lady introduced herself, “long ago, I was banished by the gods for a merciless rampage against humans. I can assure you, we’ve met before.”
Hm … met before. What could that mean? Before I could ask, Kali swung her sword towards me. I swore I saw the face of Lilith appear as I dodged the blade, which answered my question.
“Wait, soy, you’re Lilith?”
“Yes, in a way. Lilith is one of the names given to me by the men who feared to say my true name.”
Kali transformed into a still-naked Lilith. Seeing her nude body always filled me with extreme lust, but I knew better from my last visit not to approach her, or even let her approach me.
Before she could even get near me, she changed again, this time into a winged goat with breasts and a penis.
“The Knights Templar called me Baphomet. I have many other names, but I could go on all day. What matters is that you must stop the Cult of the Black Mother, or your entire world will be completely diminished. Look beneath Christ, and you’ll find them.”
Within the very next second, the floor opened up below me, and I fell through. I did not shriek, but all the formless demons of the night shrieked for me. There was a light below me, and with a closer look, I saw it was the interior of the cathedral.
I woke up not in the pew, but standing before the statue of Christ, noticing a trapdoor below it. Look beneath Christ, and you’ll find them. On the trapdoor was the same goat-head pentagram I saw twice earlier. In a cathedral … ?
The tunnels below seemed to stretch on eternally in darkness, except for the torches on each side guiding me. A rotting stench permeated the air further downward, flooding my senses. Bones and fragments of bones decorated the hallway as I got closer to the door in the midst. I could see a trail of blood smeared underneath the door, leading to the other side.
An overwhelming sense of dread replaced the stench of rotten flesh by simply looking at the smeared blood. Cautiously, I opened the door to find a group of black-robed people in goat masks, holding dagger above a nude young woman tied down to a stone sacrificial altar. She was struggling in vain to break the ropes binding her hands and feet.
The robed people seemed happy to see me, chanting, “The Messenger has arrived! The Messenger lives! Ia! Shub-Niggurath!” Cultists. Damn. But what was this “Messenger” business about? Obviously, me, but what was my significance? Humans never had any point in this world. This world belonged to the Old Ones.
“Messenger,” the cultist in the middle said, “sacrifice the soul of this virgin. She is one of the last of the pure. Her death shall mark the end of the human world, and the rebirth of the era of the Black Mother. Do not fear, as this is not the end of the world, but the beginning.”
I was silent for a moment, unsure of what to do. Should I sacrifice the blood of the virgin and save the world, or should I try to kill them all, save her, yet most likely risk my life and leave them to kill her anyways?
Preferring to give in to my dark urges and live rather than stay in the light and pointlessly let my own life be taken, I approached the altar. The woman was begging for her life as I raised my dagger.
“Please … no!” she begged. But I didn’t listen. If I could trust Lilith, Kali, Baphomet, or whoever it was in that abyss, I needed to kill the virgin to save mankind from these delusional cultists.
As she squirmed, I ran my had through her smooth, blond hair, and rubbed her bared chest. When I was done defiling her, I plunged my knife into the center of her chest and slashed downward.
Suddenly, a red beam shot up onto the ceiling, opening a hole in the roof. Down came a red-eyed, horned black goat with several pairs of breasts and tentacles. My heart pounded with fear. Shub-Niggurath.
“Great work, mortal,” she announced, “You were so easy to fool into giving me dominion over the earth again. Not for one second did you expect that I was the one visiting you in your dreams. Usually, manipulation is a job for Nyarlathotep, but that does not matter. What matters is that you have succeeded greatly by falling down to my will. And for helping me, I shall grant you a throne next to me. But first, you must be stripped of your human form.”
What that meant exactly, I didn’t know, nor did I want to. The Black Mother shifted into her true, terrible form, and then I knew what I had to do.
Accepting my fate, I leaped into one of Her mouths, screaming in excruciating pain as I was devoured. Then, darkness. Total and utter darkness for all eternity. Or so I thought.
Shub-Niggurath spit me back out, only I didn’t really physically feel like myself. My skin was jet-black, I had hooves and claws instead of arms and legs, and could feel a pair of sharp horns sticking out of my head, which now felt more like a goat’s head. Tentacles writhed all over my body.
This was my purpose. To restore the world into chaos and terror, like it was aeons ago. She had opened my eyes after so many years. All the cultists trembled before my new form, bowing down to me. She ruled the earth again.
THE END
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Post by K'zin Z'tari on Dec 11, 2010 11:53:44 GMT -6
This is a masterpiece,my friend,well written and good story,dark and slimy he he Keep on writing like this and I look forward to your next story
Awake
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Post by Inha Delgado Ot Anth Paz jeem on Dec 11, 2010 13:17:09 GMT -6
wow, looky here the next great H.P Lovecraft, great story i love it
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Post by pyramidhead333 on Dec 11, 2010 15:17:06 GMT -6
Thank you guys!
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Post by Ny'obstaresh on Dec 12, 2010 17:22:38 GMT -6
Not bad, not bad. You're improving. A few small pieces of advice I would offer though are: Watch out for repetition of certain words. For example, "abyss" is used multiple times to describe the cathedral scene. Try mixing it up a bit. How about "charnel pit" or "necropolis"? The thesaurus is your friend Also, try to build the story a bit more before the action, rather than leaping straight into the death and violence. Perhaps there have been people going missing for several weeks before the coming of Shub-Niggurath? However you do it, it makes for a more solid story if you set the scene a little more first. And one thing I was somewhat confused about, was if Shub-Niggurath was eating people and spawning her Young at the beginning of the story, then why did She need you to sacrifice the virgin? What is the significance of the sacrifice, and why is the storyteller so special? Information about these kinds of things would improve the story greatly. Things like this are where details ARE needed. Those things aside though, it is a good story and your writing is improving. But please consider my suggestions. I believe they will aid you Ia! Ia!
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Post by pyramidhead333 on Dec 14, 2010 19:30:28 GMT -6
I'm starting to revise my story with your suggestions. And thank you! Glad you like it
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Post by Lilith on Dec 15, 2010 10:18:49 GMT -6
That was amazing... do you write often? I would love to see more of these..
Hail Cthulhu!
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Post by pyramidhead333 on Dec 15, 2010 15:10:36 GMT -6
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Post by pyramidhead333 on Dec 18, 2010 12:13:19 GMT -6
New version:
For aeons, people tried to disguise the true name of the Black Goat of the Woods with A Thousand Young. Baphomet, Lilith, and Kali were some of Her more popular names. They were all thought to be separate entities, or sometimes parables. In the end, however, they all turned out to be one literal being known as Shub-Niggurath.
It began one night when I was walking downtown. In the alleyway, I saw a man wearing a long, black robe. He held out his hand and beckoned to me. What could he want? And it seemed a little strange that he was wearing a robe like that, just standing there in the dark. Nervously, I approached him anyway, taking a step at a time.
“The stars are almost right, brother,” he said, “it’s time that you’ve turned away from the light. Liberate yourself from flesh. She is coming.”
“She?” I questioned.
“Yes, She who is the Black Mother. Spare yourself the pain that you may receive shall you deny yourself.”
My head began to throb. I fell down against the cold pavement, and my vision blurred, but I quickly recovered, and the man was gone. But once I got up, images began flashing in my head. Images of my past ancestors worshiping a black cloudy mass with tentacles and mouths, performing profane rites to it. Then I began to remember my past.
I remember that there was a big book on what they worshiped, including some of the rituals they did for it, the spells, and some scripture. Every copy of the book was burned, though, my ancestors with them during the Inquisition. As a result, I could never find out anything about their cult.
For weeks, I was plagued by nightmares unimaginable. Nightmares of everything coming to an end in the most horrific way that I must not explain. Every morning, even before then, when I went to get the paper, the front page would speak of a missing person. The first person to go missing was my neighbor, Larry Tillinghast. Just one day, I never saw him leave his house, which is strange because he always does, at least once a day. Then the next day, I find his name in the paper.
Things would go on this way for a while. Soon, I could no longer sleep at night. My nightmares were that unbearable. I began to see in them - the missing people - being devoured by unspeakable monstrosities in my dreams. My mind was almost in ruins. I felt so tired, but I knew I could never go back to sleep.
I doubted that a shrink would be able to help me at all. The least a shrink could do is give me a medication, or confine me in an asylum, neither of which I wanted. I knew I wasn’t crazy. There really was something out there. Meeting that strange apparent religious fanatic in the alley definitely started this. What was the “Black Mother” he spoke of, though? Sounded like something that had come from the pits of Hell to cleanse the world.
Whatever it is, I thought, I’ll probably find out soon.
One night, I sat down to watch the news. My spine tingled as the reporter said in a panicked tone that it was an emergency broadcast. He announced that there were a bunch of horrible creatures demolishing and slaughtering everything in their path. Humans, animals, buildings, cars, everything. I could see that he was right about everything being destroyed, seeing a bunch of human and animal corpses around him, and the rest of the place looked like it had seen a huge natural disaster. Fire was spreading to every structure it found. And then, I recognized the place … it was my city.
The reporter was cut off when a creature resembling a tree with tentacles, hooves, and a mouth picked him up. I also recognized the creature. It was one of those monsters from my dreams. Without another thought, I ran from my house as fast as I could, not looking behind once. I got in my car and drove to look around town, looking to see if I could find any place that wasn’t damaged.
After a bit of search, I thought it would be a good idea to get some weapons. My first thought was the fire station, where perhaps I could get a nice axe. Thankfully, I had a loaded six-shooter revolver in my glove compartment as well. However, I doubted that either a gun or an axe would take down one of those tentacle-tree monsters. But who knew what else was out there? I continued my drive to the fire station.
Just as I suspected, firemen lay dead all over the station, which was painted red with their blood. A fire truck was facing out of the driveway. Whoever was in it was probably starting to go put out some of the fires around town. I went to search around the truck for an axe, and found one just on the outside.
Concluding my search, I got back in my car and drove to the church. Although I was at a point of questioning after all the nightmares and now would most likely be the end of the world, I didn’t figure that there would be anything that would go through the house of God. The church no longer looked like a holy place when I got there. No crosses were to be found anywhere, and the head of a white goat was impaled on a sharpened stick into the ground. Painted on the church door in bright yellow was a five-pointed star resembling a tree branch. What it meant, I didn’t know, but seeing it relieved me of the horrific things I’d witnessed.
Slowly and cautiously, I opened the church door, which made a loud creak. I looked back to see if anyone or anything heard it. To my relief, there was nothing coming for me … yet. Inside the church was a grisly sight: priests and congregation were scattered all over the sanctuary, mutilated, disemboweled, impaled, beheaded, and torn to shreds. My stomach turned at the very image. Now my faith in God was diminished. Why would a merciful, all-loving deity let something like this happen to his followers? As I pondered this, I saw a confessional. The door on the left was ajar, but the second door was closed shut. I pried open the left door with a little effort, and found blood splattered all over. A headless priest was sitting on the bench.
Freaked out, I left the booth and tried to open the one on the right. It was locked. A soft, mumbling sound was emanating from the other side. Judging by the voice, it was a woman. I went back into the bloodstained booth and looked through the window.
“Ma’am.” I started
“p-p-p-pages … pulpit … a-a-a-answer …” she mumbled.
“What’s that, miss? I don’t quite understand what you mean.”
No reply. But it then occurred to me to go check the pulpit, and I did. There was no Bible there, but a bunch of occult and religious texts and illustrations. Among the texts were circled names. Names such as Lilith, Baphomet, and Kali. The first illustration showed a goat with breasts and, between its legs, a rod with two serpents curling around it, the second a redheaded, nude woman with a couple serpents wrapping around her body, and the third and final, a blue woman with four arms, one holding a sword. She was partly naked, and standing on someone.
Exhausted and unable to decipher what anything on that pulpit meant, I fell asleep on one of the pews. When I awoke, I found myself inside a black charnel pit, faces of tortured souls floating about, crying out for help. There was no other source of light there, except for two black candles sitting on a table.
A closer look at the table revealed it was an altar, with a cloth laying below a goat skull, the candles, a bloody knife, and a big, hardcover book bound in black leather. Above the altar was an inverted pentagram with a goat’s disembodied head inside, its horns, snout, and ears at each point of the star. I picked up the book, seeing the title. Necronomicon.
I started to open the Necronomicon, feeling a certain dread that seemed to stop me from going to the front page. The dread disappeared as quickly as it arrived, and I opened the front cover. A cool breeze blew in, flipping the pages until it landed upon a page entitled “Shub-Niggurath.”
The section described a black, cloudy mass with mouths with fangs that drip green slime and tentacles that protrude from its body. It referred to this being as Shub-Niggurath, speaking of it as if it were female. One of her names was the Black Goat of the Woods with A Thousand Young, since the slime that dripped from her mouths spawned endless numbers of Her “Dark Young,” creatures whose description matched that of the thing that attacked the reporter on the news.
Someone was coming. I could hear footsteps off in the distance. Whatever it was, it wasn’t far away. A young, red-haired woman walked out of the dark, completely naked. Her presence brought an unnatural feeling of sexual arousal. But something wasn’t right about her. Was it the feeling of unnatural arousal? No. It was something more than just that.
“I am Lilith.” her voice was somewhat soothing, yet unnerving at the same time. “Former wife of Adam, exiled from Eden for defying his god. I am the mother of all demons.”
Lilith. The very name made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. And “mother of all demons?” What was that about?
Before I could ask, Lilith approached me and embraced me. Her soft, bare breasts pressed up against my chest. She moved her head towards mine, ready to kiss me, and as her lips connected to mine, I felt a sharp pain. Blood began pouring out of my lips. Lilith smiled at me, with blood - my blood - dripping off her fangs.
I found myself back in the church the next minute, still around the gruesome remains of priests and congregation. One thought went through my head as I looked around. The thought that many in a state of despair and hopelessness have probably asked: Where is your god now? Like I said, I was once religious, but seeing these poor souls torn to shreds in an apparently holy place was enough proof for me that there is no god. Or at least, not the Christian god. Certainly, Shub-Niggurath existed, but what else was out there? The Necronomicon in my dream was a pretty large book, so there had to be more than just her out there.
That’s when I just remembered the strange man in the alleyway. Could Shub-Niggurath be the Black Mother he spoke of? If that was so, then where was She now? I looked back at the confessional, finding the previously locked door smashed open, and went to find the woman I spoke with earlier.
When I walked into the booth, there was no one there. Just the same book from my dream: the Necronomicon. I opened it up and went to find what other malevolent gods there were out there. It wasn’t too hard to find Them, thanks to the table of contents. A whole list was there:
Azathoth Yog-Sothoth Nyarlathotep Shub-Niggurath Tsathoggua Yig Dagon Cthulhu.
Each page described the purpose of these entities, known as the Great Old Ones. For example, Azathoth was the creator of the universe, blind idiot god, Demon Sultan, All-In-One-One-In-All. Yog-Sothoth was the Gate. Nyarlathotep was the soul and and messenger of Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth, the Crawling Chaos, the Black Man of A Thousand Forms.
The rest of the Great Old Ones’ roles were vague, and the rest of the book just talked about places only discovered by and traveled to by the author, Abdul Alhazred, spells, and rites to bring the Old Ones back When The Stars Are Right. However, it said absolutely nothing about the abyss that I found in my sleep. If it wasn’t in the book, then what could its importance possibly be?
Seeing the booth empty made me desperate to go search for sane survivors of this rampage. I exited the church and went to search the town, when a newspaper caught my eye. The headline read:
“APOCALYPTIC DISASTER! BLACK CLOUD KILLS BILLIONS!”
Could this have all just happened overnight? If so, how did Shub-Niggurath get everywhere so fast? Not that it mattered now. I took the axe and revolver from my car and headed out.
After wandering the city for hours, I gave up. Nobody could have survived the massacre, anyway, I told myself as I headed back. As I was only a mile away from the church, I saw someone. He was wearing a black hooded robe, wandering the desolate streets, mumbling to himself. The closer I got, the more I could hear what he was saying. His spoken words seemed to be in a strange alien language.
“Excuse me … sir?” I called out. I felt somewhat suspicious, but not quite afraid.
I started to reach out to him, but was interrupted by his shouting.
“Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Great Black Goat of the Woods with A Thousand Young!”
He charged at me madly, dagger in hand, screaming. As he got close to me, I swung the fire axe at his neck, decapitating him in a single blow. Blood spurted out of his neck, and he ran around for a little while before slumping to the ground, dead. I searched his body for something that may be useful, first taking his dagger. Laying beside his left hand was another black leather-bound book, except it didn’t say Necronomicon on the cover. Instead, it showed that same symbol from my dream, with words in what I guess were that same alien language that the man was speaking. From my assumptions, it was a grimoire, what with all the seals and sigils inside. Of course, being in that language, I couldn’t read it. However, there was a letter written in English inside.
Dear Mr. Pickman,
It is almost time. Time for Her to return. The stars are soon to align. Ia! Shub-Niggurath! She shall liberate us from our human forms, remold us to outlive and overpower the mortal race. Your duty is to find and slay anyone who survives Her wrath, for then shall you gain Her unholy gift.
Blessings of the Black Mother,
Joseph
I knew immediately what the letter meant - the cult devoted to Shub-Niggurath formed by my ancestors was alive and well, picking off surviving humans, and were responsible for Her return. Was the book a surviving copy of the cult’s bible? Putting down the letter, I searched through the grimoire again in hopes of finding something else of interest. Nothing.
Knowing that I’d be in deep shit if I didn’t do something with the cultist’s body, I took the robe and adorned myself with it. I then went to take the axe and chop the body into pieces. Finally, I took Pickman’s dismembered parts and threw them into one of the burning buildings.
Ready at last to go back to the cathedral, I started walking back when I heard hideous sounds all around me. Sounds I didn’t dare investigate. Voices speaking in that arcane language echoed in every direction. I crumpled like a piece of paper to my knees, my head throbbing again. Everything I picked up fell from my grasp, and when I looked up, I saw the terrible, black cloudy mass known as Shub-Niggurath hovering above me.
Terrified, I picked up the stuff I had and ran for my fucking life to the church. Back at last, I slammed the door behind me as I rushed in. I collapsed on the floor while attempting to catch my breath.
I fell back into that necropolis, confronted by a blue lady with four arms, a necklace made of human heads, holding a sword in one of her hands. Blood was dripping from her mouth, reminding me of my encounter with Lilith. What was this thing?
“I am Kali,” the blue lady introduced herself, “mother of death. I was exiled by the gods long ago, but now I have returned. We have met before in this same place. Of that, I can assure you.”
Kali stood there for a moment, then swung her sword at me. As I dodged out of the way, I saw the face of Lilith flash across hers.
“Wait a minute … so, you’re Lilith, too?” I asked.
“Yes, in a way. Lilith is a name given to me by the mortal men who so feared my true name, which you shall not discover yet.”
The Formless Woman transformed again. This time, she was a winged goat with a pair of breasts and a penis. I wondered just what it was she wanted from me.
“I was known by the Knights Templar as Baphomet, the Sabbatic Goat. I have many different forms and names, but I could go on forever. What matters is that you must stop the Cult of the Black Mother if you wish to save mankind from extinction. Look beneath Christ, and you shall find them.”
Within the next second, the floor opened up below me, and I fell through. I did not shriek, but all the formless demons of the night shrieked for me. There was a light far below me, and with a closer look, I saw it was the interior of the church.
I woke up, this time not where I collapsed, but standing before the statue of Christ, noticing a trapdoor below it. Look beneath Christ, and you shall find them. On the trapdoor was the same goat-head pentagram I saw twice earlier. In a cathedral … ?
The tunnels below seemed to stretch on eternally in darkness, except for torches on each side guiding me. A rotting stench permeated the air further downward, flooding my senses. Bones and fragments of bones decorated the hallway as I got closer to the door in the midst. I could see a trail of blood smeared underneath the door, leading to the other side.
An overwhelming sense of fear replaced the stench of rotten flesh by simply looking at the smeared blood. Cautiously, I opened the door to find a group of black-robed people in goat masks, holding daggers above a nude young woman tied down to a stone sacrificial altar. She was struggling in vain to break the ropes biding her hands and feet.
To my surprise, the robed people seemed happy to see me, chanting, “The Messenger has arrived! The Messenger lives! Ia! Shub-Niggurath!” Cultists. Damn. But what was this “Messenger” business about? Obviously, they were referring to me, but what was my significance? Humans never had any point in this world. This world belonged to the Old Ones.
“Messenger,” the cultist in the middle said, “sacrifice the soul of this virgin. She has never been defiled before, or defiled herself, and so she is pure. If she isn’t sacrificed, then she could reverse the new age. Join us. Continue your ancestors’ tradition. Become one with the Black Mother.”
I pulled out my gun, and fired it at the cultist. The bullet ripped through his flesh like a hot knife through butter, but the wound regenerated just seconds after the shot. Without a thought, I shot him again and again until the revolver clicked when I pulled the trigger. Once again, the holes just regenerated.
“Come now,” he laughed, “do you honestly think that a revolver will stop me? I am no longer composed of flesh, unlike you. Now, you can join us and become immortal, or you can let yourself become another corpse decaying in the other rooms.”
Dropping the gun, I approached the altar. I didn’t know what to do here. Should I kill her and save the world from this delusional cult that my past ancestors belonged to? Or should I try to save her and risk my life?
I decided I should trust the Formless Lady, and sacrifice the virgin. As I raised my dagger, she begged for her life.
“Please … no!” she pleaded.
Too late. I drove the blade deep into her chest and slashed downward, gutting her. A red beam shot up to the ceiling, which opened up. Down came a jet-black goat with several eyes and a pair of breasts. Shub-Niggurath.
“Well done, human!” she announced. “Not for a second did you expect that Kali, Lilith, and Baphomet. Deceit is usually a task that is usually for Nyarlathotep, but as you can see, I’ve mastered it as well. Great work once again! For your help, I shall reward you with eternal life. But first, you must be stripped of your human form.”
Whatever she meant by being stripped of my human form, I didn’t know, nor did I want to. Shub-Niggurath changed into her true form - that horrifying, black cloudy mass with tentacles and mouths. Then I knew what I had to do. Accepting my fate, I dived into one of her mouths, screaming in excruciating pain as I was devoured. Then, darkness. Total and utter darkness for all eternity. Or so I thought.
Shub-Niggurath spit me back out, only I didn’t really physically feel like myself. My skin was jet-black, I had hooves and claws instead of arms and legs, and I could feel a pair of sharp horns sticking out of my head, which now felt more like a goat’s head. Tentacles writhed all over my body.
This was my purpose. To restore the world into chaos and terror, like it was aeons ago. She had opened my eyes after so many years. All the cultists trembled before my new form, bowing down to me. She ruled the earth again.
THE END
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