March 9, 1923 - Egypt

603

It’s done.

The location where we moved the dig site was likely the most boring looking patch of land for miles around. There was sand. And some rocks. Not even interesting looking rocks. These rocks were the most boring rocks in the entire country. Were it not for our guide and the feelings drawing me to the spot, we’d have passed over it without stopping.

We had to deal with a lot of labor issues after we set up and began clearing the sand away. The deeper we dug, the more workers we had pack up their things and desert in the night. We had to keep raising their wages to make some of them stay, and even then, toward the end so many had run off that the professors were needed to join in with the grunt work as well. Productivity also wasn’t help by the fact that whenever I went over to check on the progress of the dig, several of the workers would slow down the pace so they could stare at me. A snarl would get them back on task, but as soon as I turned my back, they’d be staring again.

Finally, we found the tomb. One of the diggers hit something solid, and as we moved sand away, we unearthed smooth black stone.

“It doesn’t look like any rock which can be found in this area….” One of the professors said, before placing his hand on it. He instantly pulled the hand away, holding it in pain.

Richard laughed. “Careful there! Black stone, in the middle of the desert at the height of the day? It’s probably scorching to touch!”

The professor shook his head. “No, it’s… cool. Freezing cold.”

He was right. Touching that stone felt like touching ice.

We spend the rest of the day and the next uncovering it. It was a small pyramid, made entirely of that black stone. On what I’m assuming was the front, was a door twice the size of anyone at our camp, covered in symbols. Tried figuring out what they meant, but each time I looked at the door, the symbols seemed to change, shifting shape between every blink.

The workers who had been closest to the door when the last of the sand was moved away suddenly dropped their tools, screamed in terror, and ran off into the desert before anyone could stop them.

“Superstitious savages!” The mustached professor said while we sent others to retrieve the runaways. “It’s just a door.” He walked toward it, but when he was five feet away from the entrance, collapsed to the ground, frothing at the mouth, and had to be dragged away.

“Everyone stay the hell back!” I shouted, which all seemed eager to comply with. I walked toward the door, and as I got close, I felt a pressure pushing down on my head. Buzzing in my ears, twinges of pain running up and down my body, everything in me screaming that something was WRONG, and I had to get as far away from this place as I could. Kept walking forward. The intensity increased, with flashes going through my mind, not long enough for me to know what they were flashes of, only for my mind to feel the horrible, primal terror coming from them. Ignored it, kept walking forward, until I was standing right in front of the door. I placed my hand on the door, and with a rumble that shook the whole building, the door slid away.

“Wait!” Richard was walking forward. “You’re not planning to go in there alone, are you?” He stopped before he could reach me, clutching his head and convulsing, until he too was dragged away from the door, and calmed down.

“Yes. I am. Don’t worry; I’ll be fine.” I looked into the pitch darkness that was behind the door, and then back to Richard. “It’s probably for the best that you don’t tell anyone what you found here.” Then I stepped across the threshold, and the door slid shut behind me.

The darkness only lasted a moment before it was replaced by a dim, sickly green glow that came from gemstones embedded on the ceiling. Images had been carved into the walls, most showing humans in various states of torture or being devoured by indescribable monsters.

A huge set of stairs leading further in was before me, so I started walking down them. Can’t say how far down they went, except that it was really, really fucking far down. More images were carved onto the stairway’s walls, becoming increasingly elaborate in their depiction of the grotesque violence the deeper I got. At the bottom, it opened into a cavernous room. Black pillars, lit by the green jewels along their sides, went up toward a ceiling too high for me to see. More gems, glowing with every color imaginable, outlined a path leading to the center of the room where, raised atop a golden platform, was a solid black throne. And across that throne, cleaving it into two, was a crack made of nothing.

The feeling of being called was stronger in this room than anywhere else. When I moved, my body was not acting on my volition, but obeying this outside impulse. I walked up to the throne, and pulled back my left sleeve, showing the stump where my arm had been. I reached toward the crack with the stump, and when I reached the point where my arm, were it still there, would have passed through the crack, I felt a tingle run through my entire body.

Then shadows poured out of the crack and lunged at me. I screamed in surprise and tried jumping away, but they wrapped around my stump. And I saw… things. Everything. More than I could imagine flooded through my brain, knowledge beyond anything else, too much knowledge, more than my mind could take….

I saw a pharaoh, sitting on the black throne, majestic beyond all human reason. But then I wasn’t seeing the pharaoh, I was the pharaoh. Emissary of the gods, master of all that walked on Earth and through Dreams. My legions of worshippers bowed before me, the humans and the Great Old Ones alike, all in awe of the mandate I carried. Through my halls my Master’s music played, the pipes and the drums which were the heartbeat of the universe. My glory should have been eternal, my power lasting without end.

Then the faceless monster appeared, the monster which sought to supplant the gods, and I could feel my palace’s pillars crumble, my worshippers flee, my Master’s music was drowned in silence until all that remained was that terrible face without a face, consuming my every thought, pursuing me no matter where I fled, always hunting, never relenting, always there….

I forced my mind back to reality, thrusting the images away. The shadows were wrapped around my arm, trying to spread further. They’d already grown beyond the stump, and were starting to cover my elbow. I grabbed at them with my hand, trying to hold them back, mentally fighting off all the knowledge that was trying to flow into my head, pushing it away, locking it someplace deep in my mind.

I fought for control, until, gradually, the shadows slowed their movements, and settled into the shape of an arm. From my left elbow down, my arm was made of those shadows. The strain of the struggle had taken too much out of me, and I fell unconscious in that tomb.

Don’t know how much longer it was, but I woke up to the feeling of a liquid dripping on my face. Got up and looked around; everything looked the same, but I could feel something wrong with the place…. Another drop hit my face, and I brushed at it with my fingers to see what it was. Blood.

Looked up, and saw black plant roots spreading down a pillar I’d fallen by. Thin rivulets of blood were dripping from the roots, collecting in puddles at the pillar’s foot. Heard a rustling sound from behind the throne, and when I looked over there, I saw black branches reaching out from the shadows, growing toward me.

Ran like hell out of there. Why did the stairs feel longer going up? Didn’t bother looking back as I ran up them. Looking back tends to be a really, really bad idea.

Well… didn’t look back until I felt something new appearing behind me. Stopped and turned around, and I saw… power cords? Lying on the stairs behind me were several cords and cables. Inside an ancient Egyptian tomb…. The cords suddenly began to move, violently lashing at me. I raised my arms to defend myself, and they tore right through my shadow arm. Before I could react to the injury, the shadows reformed, healing the arm in moments.

There was a huge distortion in spacetime, and I found myself not looking down into the tomb, but at… someplace else. I saw metal, circuits, and smog, with the sound of hammers ringing to industrial rhythm behind it. And above it all was a tower of immense height, growing ever higher, impossibly immeasurably high, reaching into space….

Something was coming out of the tower, heading toward me. Took that as a sign to start running again. Up the stairs, fast as I could…not fast enough. I felt it gaining on me. Looked back, and I saw… I don’t know how to describe it. It was a beast of blood and steel, clockwork and bone, existing simultaneously in this universe but also trapped in the world of the tower…. And whatever it was, it was faster than me. Time to stand and fight. Spun around and swung a left hook at the thing. Shadow connected with metal, and I could feel reality screaming under the weight of the collision. The steel gave way, and the beast shattered. Ha! Take that, whatever you were!

Except that wasn’t the end. The beast was gone, and I no longer saw the tower. Instead, I could see down the stairway, where the Slender Man was slowly walking toward me, the bleeding black roots spreading behind it. As it passed under them, the glowing jewels would flicker and lose their light. It took another step closer, and I heard the ghosts of a thousand screams echoing through the tomb.

Back to running. Finally reached the top of the stairs, and ran to the door. The door that was sealed shut. Shit. How’d I get it open in the first place? I had put my hand on it, and then it slid away….

Well that wasn’t working this time. I could hear the sound of roots breaking through the stone floor, and feel the blood pooling at my feet… time for drastic measures.

Praying it would work, I swung my left fist at the door. And that fist smashed through the stone, bringing the door down.

Jumped right through the opening I’d made, out of the Tomb. No sign of the archeology camp out there… how long was I unconscious there? Looked behind me, and it didn’t seem like anything was following me out. Good. Now I just needed to-

Time changed. It wasn’t a distortion; I’ve felt those before. They’re just moments where the timelines get even more knotty and weird than usual. This was different. The timelines are usually arranged in an almost artistic chaos, constantly shifting and turning. Here… they straightened. The timelines all locked into straight lines, the only curves precise right angles, all of them falling into an exact pattern. It was… the most painful experience I have ever had.

Then the tower which I had seen before appeared once again. But this time, it wasn’t some distant vision. It was in front of me, in the real world, rising above the tomb. God, it… I don’t even fucking know. All the wrongness in time was centered around it. Glancing at it for even a moment made me vomit. A regular human may have been able to look at that tower, but I… fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

The Slender Man was standing at the base of the tower, its head cocked to the side as if the bastard was curiously regarding me. Then, something happened with the tower, and it… disassembled the Tomb. Don’t ask me how. I saw the Tomb ripped apart, brick by brick, and added to the tower’s structure. Once the Tomb had been completely assimilated, the Slender Man and the tower vanished, and time returned to normal.

I have no idea what happened back there. But I do know that this arm… this thing that’s attached itself to me… there’s power coursing through it. Power I’m not sure I understand. But if I can do the same things with this as what Future Bitch did with hers, then… then maybe I do have a chance to save Lisa.

Its appearance is monstrous. But I’m fine with that. This arm is a symbol of my resolve. If I need to become a monster, then I will do so gladly.

I’ve gotten myself a new suit, and a new trench coat. (Sorry David, but your costuming department’s going to need to make you another replacement.) Loaded up on ammunition. Restocked my safehouses.

Let’s do this.

I-330