PGL: "Why don't you begin, Henry?"
HGJ: "If you insist. *ahem* Most of my dreams are vague and disjointed, as most dreams are. Yet this felt different, more tangible. I suppose, more real. I found myself stood on stage at the New Regency, I could smell the greasepaint, the feel of the well-worn timber beneath me. I heard the floorboards creak as I shifted my weight uneasily. The lights were aimed directly at me, so bright I had to squint. I couldn't see the audience at all, they were lost in shadows. They were silent, but I knew they were there. I could feel the stare of a thousand eyes, looking right through me.
I coughed, nervously, just to break the discomforting quiet. I rocked on my heels, awkwardly fiddling with a copy of the night's playbill behind my back. I'd forgotten who I was supposed to be introducing! I looked towards the wings, hoping for a prompt like I was some nervous novice, but there was nobody there. My stagehands had deserted me, in this moment of embarrassment. Frantically, I looked at the playbill, but I'd managed to smudge the ink thanks to my sweaty palms. The audience were still silent, static, but I could feel the tension rising. Their patience was running out, and I knew if they lost interest, my very safety would be at risk.
In desperation, I stared back at the punters, past the dazzling spotlights and into the dark depths of the sinister shadows. Slowly, I grew accustomed to the dark, and details began to become clear. The thousand eyes glaring at me were unblinking, glistening orbs, like great big lumps of obsidian. They were all extremely tall, pushing seven feet. Their clothes were fashioned from scraps of cloth and grimy rags, all tattered and torn like the forlorn flotsam of a shipwreck. Their skin was too shiny, I realized. They were covered in scales, like a fish or reptile. The more I stared the more the details became unnaturally clear. Their heads were not human, looking more like huge burnt thumbs. The eyes were too far apart, nearly sitting at the sides of the head, again like a fish. Barnacles, coral growth and seaweed clung to the figures and their clothing. That's when it struck me, these were the same figures from Howie's drawing. My audience was full of frogmen.
I blinked in suprise, dropping the playbill as I did so. As I turned back to the army assembled before me, I saw I had been mistaken. The audience was not filled with hundreds of individuals, each of the eyes I could see were all facets of the same creature. One eye with a thousand surfaces, like the compound eye of a housefly, yet large enough to fill a theatre. I tried to comprehend a creature of such prolific proportions, but I could scarcely wrap my head around it. Then I realized the truth. Even this gigantic ocular insect was a trick of the mind. I was only seeing the shapes in between. Like one of those optical illusions, where at first you only see a vase, but then, suddenly, you spy two faces instead. The arrayed eyes before me were merely the absence of something. The true creature was the very shadow itself. It was the darkness, it occupied the empty spaces between all things. Its vastness dwarfed anything I'd ever even contemplated. That's when I was woken by the sounds of Howard in distress."
PGL: "Goodness me, what a tale!"
HGJ: "Go on then. You've had your fun, now it's your turn to spin a yarn."
PGL: "Very well. I don't have the same proclivity towards oration as yourself, but I shall endeavour to be as accurate in my recollection as possible.
In my dream, I was walking alone through the London fog, as dense as ever I've seen it. Visibility was down to mere inches, if not for the cobbled streets below me I'd have sworn I was wandering within a cloud. The streets were empty, or at least, I could hear nothing stirring beyond the mists. London is a thriving city, even at night, so the eerie calm was disconcerting. It was entirely possible any number of silent creatures were stalking me however, and I would not have seen them until they were upon me. I turned my collar up and kept striding briskly, but I couldn't dissuade myself of the notion that I was under surveillance. I told myself it was mere paranoia, that I was not even jumping at shadows, but the potential existence of shadows. But such thoughts breed fears that are difficult to control.
Lost in my thoughts and with no visual reference, I soon realised I'd lost my way. I didn't break my stride though, I kept waking, hoping to find something familiar. Besides, if I was being observed, I didn't wish to show weakness. Shortly, I found myself upon one of the bridges spanning the Thames. The fog was still thick around me but I could see into the water below. Thrashing around just beneath the surface, I saw a writhing mass of tentacles churning up the river's surface. One of these tendrils emerged, slowly uncoiling itself and reaching upwards. It was as thick as I was, with an olive green hue, speckled with a jet black, almost inky pigmentation. It's underside was studded with large pink and yellow protrusions, suckers with which to grip. It snaked toward me, seemingly seeing through some invisible sense.
I ran, as fast as my tired old legs could carry me, but no matter which path I took, there was another tentacle looming out of the fog to block my path. I realised with horror that each of these tentacles belonged to a single creature, easily the size of London itself. I imagined a giant amorphous being, cowering below the city, its fleshy appendages winding through the network of tunnels, sewers and other underground passageways. A maze of woven meat, suffocating the life above it. I imagined the people of London, going about their lives, unaware of this malevolent entity hiding just out of sight.
I continued to flee, but it was only prolonging the inevitable. As I began to tire, one of the tendrils reached out and enveloped me. Suddenly, I saw a mirror before me. I was standing alone, in my drawing room, gazing into a free standing mirror. The detailing was incredible, the reflection appeared almost more realistic than my surroundings. I looked at my hands, then at their reflection. In the image I could see wrinkles and lines which I couldn't see directly. Looking at my eyes, I could see tiny blood vessels and the intricate patterning of the iris that I've never noticed before. I felt like through the mirror, I could see the world as if with a magnifying lens. It was as if I was admiring the most realistic and detailed portrait I'd ever witnessed. But there was something wrong. Aside from the hyper-realism, it was the eyes that betrayed this tableu. There was no life in them, no soul. This representation of reality was like a painting alright. Painted by someone who has clinically studied his subject in minute detail, but in the process missed the heart of the subject. In desperation, I smashed the mirror with my fist, venting my frustration.
As the shards of glass fell away, they revealed a portal. A glowing black surface that crackled with a sinister energy. I didn't know why, but it felt wrong on every level. A throbbing pain in my skull, at this affront to reality that hummed before me. And then I saw it. The same creature you witnessed in your steam. The living shadow. The impossibly large beast, comprised of an abyssal absence, of negative space. I saw Nothing, the concept of emptiness made manifest. For a fraction, I grasped the concept of eternity, I saw the expanse of the Universe and it was insignificant compared to the Nothing that surrounded it. Planets are as atoms to a creature as incomprehensible as it. Then, the creature spoke to me, in some long dead and forgotten tongue. I didn't understand, and the voice was so loud, it was the sound of stars collapsing and tectonic plates shifting. It was a sound to large to be heard but such trifling beings as ourselves. Then I was awoken too, but as I slipped from the dream, I had one final glimpse of the stars behind the creature. I noticed a pattern, that spelled out Valgthoth."
HGJ: "By Jove! That's the name I couldn't remember. It was on the tip of my tongue all throughout my dream, Valgthoth, that was it. That's what was written on the playbill. So who's he when he's at home?"
PGL: "I don't yet know, but he seemed to have appeared in both our dreams tonight. And in the dreams of our young ward. Some of the gibberish he was exclaiming sounded a lot like Valgthoth to me."
HGJ: "Frogmen and impossible creatures stalking our dreams, how do we begin to investigate?"
PGL: "I have a colleague, well at least we share a mutual friend in Jene Bazemore. His name is Alistair Fenchurch, professor of Ancient History and Literature. It's a shot in the dark, but anything as old and powerful as our new friend Valgthoth seems to be is bound to have a historical record."
HGJ: "Certainly it can't hurt matters to inquire. Now, if you'll excuse me I've yet to grab much sleep tonight, so I'm going to try and get some."
PGL: "Pleasant dreams then, Jago. I hope so, for all our sakes."
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