Hello reader, I am the Storyteller Spider, and today, we will gaze upon another story set in another universe.
It is known already that humanity always seeks to learn new things, whether it is from researching astronomy or attempting to explain existence through a deity. In the very past humans would try to explain why something happens with a random deity. If the sky is cloudy and stormy, maybe Zeus or Horus were in a bad mood, or if the harvest went bad they would say Demeter or Isis were mad at them. Either way, through history humanity has attempted to find logic in everything and when they couldn't find an explanation for something that ran beyond their understanding, they would blame deities. But is everything bad that happens the fault of something divine?
Today's story takes us to a universe, on an ancient earth where knights and princesses would exist on the old blue planet. Our protagonist is named Kyle Campbell, a royal knight in the lands of what today would be known as the United Kingdom country. Kyle unlike the others never believed in deities but he always had the feeling that something kept watching him and whispering abnormal words in the dark. Due to his hard and stressful work to protect the king and the castle, Kyle never had time to take care of his mental health and neither talked about his eldritch visions with anyone. The constant nightmares and visions with an entity that predated his very sanity would take his sleep every single night and yet to Kyle he was overcharged from work and nothing else. Those strange weird events started happening years ago after the death of his father.
Kyle's life was always messy and troubled, from his early life he had to be raised by an orphanage after losing his mother when he was just 5 years old. Till today, Kyle was never given a clear explanation of what happened with his mother and he only assumed she died in an accident since his father abandoned him at a very young age. From that day, Kyle decided that he wanted to become a knight and help people in everything they needed, never letting anything bad approach the ones he cared about.
Everything started when Kyle was surprised after arriving back home with a scroll from his father. The person who had abandoned him years ago was now writing again and attempting to contact him after years gone. Despite never cared enough to stay near his father, both still kept contact from time to time to visit his mother's tombstone. Mixed feelings of disgust and anger fluxed through his mind, he didn't know what to feel but despite the intense anger and feeling of sadness, Kyle decided to give it a try and opened the scroll to read the content on it. The scroll's content spoke about how his father felt sorry for everything bad he did to him and he desired to meet up with him again to make up peace, begging for his son to have mercy on him and to forgive him for being a horrible father to him. The letter seemed like his father was desperate to ask for his forgiveness, the reason however was not specified on the papyrus he sent to Kyle.
Thinking his father became probably crazy and insane, he discarded the papyrus on his fireplace and went to take a bath to relax from the tiring shift at the castle. Being the personal royal guard of the king, gave Kyle some benefits that other peasants did not have at that time so his life was considerably okay for the default lifestyle of that time.
Some days passed and Kyle was on a mission, leading his group of royal knights to investigate a village that was apparently attacked by something that didn't seem human, described by the locals as an "
When arriving at the place and getting off his horse, Kyle and his group inspected the village and the corpse to attempt to recognize who this insane man the locals were speaking about was. When approaching the corpse, Kyle would notice the man who people spoke about was his father. The condition of the body was disgusting, his eyes seemed like it was molten and dripped off their place. The expression of the man was that of someone insane, with a smile on.
It took Kyle some minutes to process what was happening before he snapped to realize his dead father was there lying on the ground, he did not want to believe it was him. The sudden shock would be soon dispelled as Kyle gathered himself back together and ordered his knights to take the corpse and put it in an old carriage to take the corpse to a proper place where the body would be analyzed by an experienced medic on the area.
While returning to the capital of the kingdom alongside the carriage that carried his father's corpse, thoughts about his father's last words began haunting his mind. Despite disliking him, Kyle could not fully afford to hate the old man even after what he did. He didn't understand what happened to his father but he was willing to investigate the case once arriving back in the capital. The trip took 2 hours before they finally arrived, the body of his father was soon sent for a medic to analyze and deduct what could have been the thing that led the man to obit.
The analysis conducted by doctor Elias revealed that the man died for unknown reasons, probably caused by the eyes situation but he could not manage to discover further reasons for the obit so it was concluded that the man died due to Insanity, a small known sickness that was becoming a bit popular on the region. Elias questioned if Kyle noticed anything else different in the place where he found his father which Kyle denied, saying he only found his father lying on the ground. Kyle also explained that his father killed some locals, survivors claimed that his father seemed to be possessed by the devil himself due to the insane laughing and shining purple eyes that were spotted by the locals. Upon finished explaining, Dr. Elias only suggested that Kyle needed to bury the corpse and take the case to the holy church due to being a case connected to something supernatural. At this point, the stress had reached its maximum level and Kyle could only do what Dr. Elias said while still pondering about what could have possibly led his father to act like it. Even those were things he couldn't afford to mind at the current moment.
It was on the same night when Kyle went to sleep that he began having nightmares with the corpse of his father standing in front of him, some meters away. The environment was an open field with only the dark starry night above them. It was when the corpse of his father self ripped itself, revealing a grotesque entity coming out of it with several tentacles.
Kyle froze in place, he had never seen something like this before, he could only watch the thing approaching him, with its tentacles almost touching his face. Whispering despite being in an unknown language could be heard muttering words at him, in which he could understand the words "Sotharath". It didn't take much before the entity opened his maws as all the tentacles began entering his body at the same time. The agony took control of his mind as he tried desperately to wake up due to feeling an intense feeling of suffocation, unfortunately, he did not have control over the situation. As the entity slowly entered Kyle and caused him a great feeling of pain by ripping him off, Kyle woke up from his bed, jumping frightened by the sudden nightmare he had. The first thing he did was check himself in the mirror for any trace of harm. To his surprise, there was nothing out of normal in him, making it understand that the events he experienced in that weird place seemed to have been just a bad dream. Feeling relieved from the shock, Kyle grabbed his lamb and settled it close to him before laying back on the bed.
From this very day, Kyle began to be tormented over and over again by this grotesque entity that kept appearing in his dreams. In the beginning, it was only dreams where it always involved people close to him dying, constantly overcharging his sanity and mental health. In 2 weeks he quickly acquired depression and anxiety from the constant nightmares. His condition kept getting worse in a way Kyle would no longer see the entity only in his dreams but now materialized when he was awake. Wherever he would go he would see time to time tentacles coming off from people or on dark corners and instantly fading away, this being somehow a severe hallucination process he was entering from being tormented by the thing that seemed to be feeding on his despair and suffering.
Kyle was never a religious person, to him gods didn't exist and whatever people claimed to be the devil, to him was just craziness and bullshit. However, upon being exposed to some kind of madness that was becoming already a critical hallucination case, Kyle began questioning himself if he was being haunted by some kind of evil creature or if he was just stressed and tired from both work and needing to deal with the death of his father. He never cared too much for his dad and the idea of caring for his death soon was discarded as he started to believe his condition could be a paranormal case instead.
And so Kyle decided to visit the holy church of the town where he lived, trying to explain his situation to the religious leader of the place, Father Daniel. Upon explaining what was happening to him and the nightmares and hallucinations he was going through, Father Daniel advised Kyle that this was a punishment from the divine trying to punish him for the many years he neglected the truth and the holy light. Father Daniel then blessed him with holy water and asked Kyle to just pray and have faith in his salvation before dismissing him away.
Despite not fully trusting Father Daniel's words, Kyle still tried to have a small faith and tried to make his first prayer as he walked back to his work on the castle. Despite going through this nightmare, he didn't have time to lose or care about it too much, he had work to do and money to earn to sustain himself and protect the king and everyone in the kingdom.
As the days passed, the peaks of insanity kept growing within Kyle's head, wherever he went, he would not only see the rotten corpse of his dead father smiling at him but also the faces of many people that he hurt throughout his life. Feeling close to losing his mind, Kyle decided to investigate his father's old house which was located in the east of the castle, with the hope of finding more answers to what was tormenting his head. Once he arrived, he began leafing through the many books his father had at home, trying to find any type of legend or myth that could be connected to his dreams and visions. It was when he found a book that was over the floor, entitled "Markus's Diary". Leafing through the diary, Kyle found a bit of information that spoke a bit about what was haunting him.
Greetings my name is Markus Wright, and if you are reading this I'm probably dead and he's already in someone else who was close to me, I'm so sorry if you're the poor soul being haunted right now but you need to listen closely to what I'm going to say here. The thing on your back that predates your dreams is not something from this world, it goes more than a simple freak, the ancients used to cult this creature as a cosmic horror beyond compression named Sotharath. He feeds on despair and enjoys toying with our emotions and weak conditions. This entity has not only the ability to drive anything to insanity through its corruption but also capabilities to wipe this entire universe, instead of destroying life, it chooses to toy with it like a kid playing with its toys. Now listen closely to this part because is extremely important, it is already inside your mind and spreading everywhere your body, depending on how far you are on the curse's stage you don't have much time before he drives your conscience to insanity. The only way to avoid Sotharath is...
Kyle's lecture was stopped when he realized the page was ripped in half, cutting the info below it. He desperately tried to leaf through the rest of the diary to find more but all he found were only empty white pages. Feeling enraged and furious for having lost the only piece of information from the entity, he tossed the book hard against the wall and kicked the table away with force while screaming in anger. He didn't have enough time before noticing purple ink falling from the ceiling. For the first time in his life, he was feeling scared and afraid, but despite the agony, he still tried to look up only to see thousands of corpses glued to the ceiling.
Kyle closed his eyes tight, rubbing his head and repeating to himself it was only a hallucination. He was gradually losing sense of what was real and what was fake, despite his internal fight and willpower to resist the madness of Sotharath, he was losing his mind to the insanity that was consuming him. Taking some breaths, Kyle tried to recompose himself as he got up and grabbed the book he tossed away to re-read back on the way home. Even if he didn't have the full answer of what to do, losing his head would not help him defeat the entity but only worsen his condition and accelerate his death process.
While walking back to the castle, he felt a sudden headache and a small difficulty breathing as his sight became a bit blurry. The insanity was slowly consuming his soul and mind. Despite the fuzziness, Kyle managed to keep focus for more time as he tried to sit over a rock to calm down. What seemed to be worse became even worse now, his sanity and mental health began increasing and causing him to have a breakdown while sitting. When did things suddenly become so chaotic and problematic to the point of going from bad dreams to an event that would certainly reap his life and end his fate there?
He couldn't lose control now, not now, he was so close to finding more answers to combat the thing that was consuming his sanity. It was when he remembered about the event that would happen tonight with the entire kingdom to celebrate Queen Amelia's birthday. This meant that Kyle being the general of the King, had to ensure the safety of everyone in the castle to make sure nothing bad would happen during the celebration.
The celebration and party began at 7 PM, with the entire kingdom present to celebrate together with the royalty the birthday of the queen, there were foods of many types in all the streets and everyone danced happily in homage to the queen. While everyone was having fun at the party, Kyle sat alone on a bench inside the castle's dungeon gathering the missing part with the full text from Markus. Right when he started trying to put both parts together, the headache returned making his sight blurry and causing him to almost drop the book.
When he thought nothing else could worse his situation, he felt yet again the malefic presence in the dungeon he was in, the whisperings once again spawned around his head, causing him to lose more of his insanity, but something was different this time, he could somehow understand the voices that were speaking on his head. This is when he manages to gather the two parts of the paper to read the full message.
The only way to avoid Sotharath is to avoid crowds and masses of people. The thing is that we can't run from insanity forever, and the best we can do is die alone in the dark and only hope to avoid letting people witness the real horror Sotharath brings when he infects us with madness.
The tentacles began spawning from the walls and opening them, slowly revealing a cosmic horror beyond compression with a purple "light" coming from it. Kyle knew that he was doomed, he never managed to even conclude or get rid of the entity for real, not even get to the castle in safety as he thought. It was when Kyle finally realized what happened with his father, why he was sent the papyrus with his father begging his forgiveness. The entity was already predating his life and as more his father tried to fight and investigate any possible solution to combat the entity, he ended up losing his life. In his last moments, he tried to do the right thing, begging the forgiveness of his son before he passed away.
Throughout all Kyle's life, he swore to protect people but even bad things sometimes happen to good people, but one thing was for sure, even if he went to pass away, there would always be someone with a kind heart willing to fulfill the role of hero and protector. Kyle was at peace and the only guilt he carried was not forgiving his father before passing away, he was ready to face the entity who tormented him all those weeks that passed. The tentacles would soon open the wall fully, revealing the form of Sotharath entirely, a purple gleam would shortly shine the prison entirely. Kyle would only spread his arms and smile.
Days passed and King William was in his room reading books about myths and the diary of Markus that was found in Kyle's pocket after he died in the throne room. The king spent days and days without sleeping, was barely eating, all he could think was how his queen was brutally murdered on his front and how many innocents lost their lives on that day. In a certain way, he felt guilty for having ignored the many reports of the locals from his kingdom about the stories of people going insane, he never thought something like this could be real. A flaming ignited corpse would be watching the King work while standing next to him, and as the mirror reflected over his face, it was visible how exhausted he was from spending days focused on studying the diary besides having now purplish eyes that were slightly glowing.
He wasn't gonna stop now, even if it killed him, he would bring justice for what happened and avenge his dead Queen.
He had to.
THE END.