As I took in my surroundings, I noticed many odd items. Strangely large doll houses, lanterns, cages, a large model ship, an abacus, etc; all items John's picked up on trips he'd gone on with his family.
While taking all of this in, I recognized the oddness of the room itself, excluding the unique items. The walls looked torn and worn down; as if they'd been unattended to for decades, centuries even. Putting my hand on the wall closest to me I rubbed my hand along the flakey, leaf-like wallpaper.
Without resistance, the wallpaper crumbled into dust.
As I pulled my hand away from the seemingly aged wall, I heard a quiet murmur behind me. Whirling around to see what caused the noise I felt my breath catch in my throat. While behind me were John's odd collection of souvenirs and knick-knacks, shrouded in light, in front of me… the area was dark, unsuspecting, harmless.
But, that couldn't be true, everything in my being was telling me that that wasn't true, telling me that this area of the attic was dangerous.
…What if that's where John is? I couldn't leave him there could I?
Taking in a deep breath, I trudged forward into the odd, dark expanse.
As I stepped into the darkness the temperature dropped; I could see my breath. I began getting chills, and to counteract the sudden drop in temperature I began rubbing my arms.
"Definitely unnatural."
As I continued through the darkness, calling out John's name, something suddenly occurred to me. Wasn't the other side of the attic's door right next to a wall? When I had come up here to find John I could've sworn that there was a wall directly to the left of me. As I stopped, shocked by the unnerving realization, I took a deep, shaky breath and turned around.
My heart stopped.
There was nothing there, only a wall.
The way I had just come from is gone.
Only then did I begin to truly take in my surroundings, everything looked the same….but it was different, darker. Everything was inverted to where it was when I… wasn't here. Along with that, everything, all of John's collections, were older looking, more rotted.
"Thawne…" an eerie, phantasmal voice whispered behind me.
Quickly turning, I looked behind me to see… nothing. Letting out a confused and unnerved breath I began to spin around looking for anyone.
"Hello?" I called out, voice quivering.
"Thawne…"
Turning once more, I could finally get a general direction for where they were coming from. So, I began to make my way towards the unnerving whispers. As I made my way further into the darkness, the whispers seemed to get louder and louder, along with sounding more polyphonic. Once I finally made it past the piles of souvenirs and knick-knacks, I came to a stop in front of the large model ship that blocked the circline window.
This was one of John's favorite items that he had fan-boyed to me about; he got it when he was on a vacation in Venezuela. He claims he made it, but I don't buy it. Its craftsmanship is far too… polished to have been done by him. Though it is an unnerving piece, especially this darker version. While the one that was situated on the… the other side of this place is your average-looking Spanish ship, the one right here in front of me is, just like everything else here, darker, more ominous.
Contrasting the more appealing ship, this one is black with tendril-like shapes along the side of its hull, and its sails were tattered and torn; as if they'd suffered through a great storm, and to amplify its creepiness the ship was highlighted with a red ligh-...
'...Red light?'
Lifting my head up, my eyes were captured by the window; as it was mostly hidden by the dark replica of John's favorite ship I hadn't really paid much attention to it until now. Finally, deciding to come around the ship, I stared at the window.
It was… unsettling, all… red.
From where I was standing it looked as if a bioluminescent blanket had been draped over the window from the outside.
I heard a groaning noise from right below my line of sight, right below the window. Thrusting my gaze down I saw John… kneeling in front of the window? I froze abruptly before rushing to his side. I knelt down beside him and took in his appearance. His skin was wrinkly and dry, as if he'd been in water for far too many hours than he should've. And his eyes… they looked so hollow, like there was no life left in them.
Shaking his shoulder in increasing worry, I was about to call out his name when my body was immediately filled with an overwhelming amount of dread. Slowly, turning my head towards the window, my whole body froze and my blood ran cold. Where before there was simply a palette of red without shape, now existed a being of grotesque proportions.
The being's shape was far too large to see what its body looked like from behind the window. But, its eye… it was so wrong. It was barely even an eye, merely a large, incredulously deep, swirling abyss of black and red.
It was so… evil.
Suddenly, the voices returned; however, they were no longer whispers but screams of pain and misery. They filled my head with rage and hate, with thoughts of malicious actions that were so morally wrong it'd be monstrous of me to even describe them. As the voices volume and number seemed to increase, filling my head with so much pain I thought my head would burst, a clear, deep voice cut through the cacophony of voices and spoke one word.
"Nyarlathotep." the mysterious voice said.
Then, suddenly, as if it were all an illusion, I came to, shrouded by the light of the sun. John's body was gone, and so too was the model ship. Feeling warmth under my nose I swiped my hand across my upper-lip and looked at my hand.
Blood.
My nose was dripping blood.
"Nyarlathotep." I whispered the phrase the horrific being had spoken.
A name. It was a name.
I don't know how I knew, but I did. And now that I know the name of the unearthly being that took my friend, I knew what was coming.
The Crawling Chaos will enter our plane of existence. It will bring with it servants, of whom are all nothing but mindless husks, and it will sow destruction amongst us. It will watch in joy as we kill ourselves without it ever having to lift a finger.
I think it's already here.
Nyarlathotep has come.