In the midst of my experience, I recalled the following quote when once more met with a cosmic entity no more than a god in an astral plane:
"We are the miserable denizens of a wretched little flyspeck on the back door of a microscopic universe"
The quote made infinitely more sense than when I was sitting on the couch, reading the book a few years back. Oop, just realised that I'm spoiling future events—
Well anyway, I went through a lot of emotions in a short while and all of a sudden— nothing. The immaculate clarity; the silence and the calmness of my mind.
It was truly a weird phenomenon that occurred to me during this period of time being trapped in a world, seemingly, devoid of humans. It was as if it had prevented me from descending into madness.
I picked up the knife yet again and flipped it into a reverse grip and headed further down the staircase. At the ground level, inside my home still, was a room right besides the staircase for the power generator, light fuses and whatnot; I wore my shoes that are usually on the stairs that descend into the room.
I turn a small golden key inside of the lock on the grill, leading outside. And there I witnessed:
An amalgamation of flesh and on it, protoplasmic bubbles and green eyes forming and deforming. That was all I could comprehend back then.
The Thing was way up in the sky, about a quarter way through a…. Portal of the colour that I described not long back as 'Out of this world'. The sky had turned into an impure blend of purple and green with distorted patches of red and off-white.
Now, this is the part where I would be cussing at my luck and eventually move on and say: "It is what it is…".
Overcome by the throbbing pain in my head yet again, I once again, fell down to my knee. I reached for the pills in the back pocket of my jogger pants. It read:
"SOS—6 pills/1 time"
I didn't count exactly how many of those I consumed but it looked to be around twice as much than what I was supposed to consume.
As always, it had no effect on the headache. I suppose it was more of a placebo type of pill and I had little to no faith.
And there again, when I was on the verge of madness, the pain subsided and my mind was as calm as a stagnant lake.
As terrifying and confusing as it was, I ignored it and ran to the neighbours right in front of my house.
The multi-coloured sky, dead silence, empty streets, the eerie sound made by the portal in the sky, my mind filled with helpless thoughts and questions, all had a great impact on my mental barrier and thinking.
Now at this point, you really need to be impressed by my memory since I remembered this line of speech, left incomprehensible from back then, and much more:
Vroolgh ktharak phl'urlyth, zhroth zhn'kroth. Fth'ya nythg Khlûl-hloo tlaggon ph'shugg
"What…?!"
I, out of nowhere, threw up near the entrance of the neighbour's house and along with it, a few maggots that absolutely disgusted me. If there's anything in the world that I absolutely despise, it is squirming maggots and god-forsaken spiders. At the sight of those cretins, I was tempted to let out even more vomit.
Now, those words up there were just rough translations of a more complicated speech of elder cosmic entities. There may or may not be more of these unpolished translations in the coming texts.
With the wash basin right outside of the small entrance to their living room, I rinsed my mouth and with a long bamboo-looking stick, I crushed the maggots, however much it disgusted me. I then sat on the stair that led to the second and final floor of the dwelling, still not under any roof by the way, and I thought:
"How the hell and when in the world did I ever ingest maggot infested consumables?! Blegh…."
As relaxed as I seemed to be, I just couldn't be asked to express my distress to the maggots and that Thing up in the sky. I got up, went upstairs, knife in hand, looking like I was just about to commit an outrageously atrocious and heinous crime; complete with a grim expression, I gripped the knife hard.
I knock on the first door, "Anyone home?". I did the same for the second and likewise for the third. But at the third door, I heard a snarl. A creature broke through the door and tackled me, causing me to hit the railings; the only thing between me and a broken bone or two. It jumped back up and on its feet. My vision, although dizzy for a few seconds, finally glimpsed the creature.
It was completely jet black; It appeared to not have any features other than those you would expect a devil to have:
No eyes, ears or nose. Just a big mouth, wide open, grinning and displaying its hideous teeth. Two small horns, a flexible spear for a tail apparently. And lest I forget: a very human build of a malnourished teen.
It grabbed me with its feet; its claws piercing my flesh. And it would fly me through legions of black air and we'd reach a place of utter death. A place brimming with horrible towers of a dead city, piercing the sky with its pinnacles. And then it would drop me.
I, even now, don't know how to describe it fully so here's a vague observation from yours truly:
"It looked like a 2 dimensional body moving in 4 dimensions. This humanoid nightmare fuel remained me of a shrike"
Now, before we further delve into the character of this newly discovered monstrosity, allow me to prelude to you, the name of this… thing. You can call it a Night-Gaunt. Named by none other than HP Lovecraft, these creatures are those that would pick him up, in his dreams, and let him drop from heights ranging into the infinity, much like I mentioned before:
This Night-gaunt reminded me of the Shrike, a bird; or perhaps even a creature of science fiction, from a book.called Hyperion Cantos. If my memory serves me right.
Now, as I always do, I won't be going off-track and in-depth with this piece of information. The Shrike is basically a small bird that impales its victim onto thorns and similar structures and tear them apart, and consume their flesh. Although the Night-Gaunt doesn't seem to be too keen on consuming the flesh. Let's get back on track now-
--END OF CHAPTER 2--