Anatomy of an Overactive Imagination

Conundrum present.
Yes or no?
Left or right?
Nowhere to go.
Shifting sands
And morning sun.
Wake to dreaming.
Devils run.
Forever at a seamless loss.
The Watchers watch,
The Tossers toss.
Drifting into nightmares olde.
Surrealistic tempter's gold.
Visit cities made of gore,
As tomes tell of in ancient lore.
Buildings there of skin and bone,
Made from flesh not wood or stone.
It's there one will absorb the stench
Of rotting dreams in broken French.
Forever damned to breathe the air,
And drink the poisoned water there.

-Selador of Wordcraft

Sanglante de la neige: 1

Sanglante de la neige: 1

As the hooves of the three horses stomped down the snow the youngest of the three riders let out a scream. Lining the camp in a circle where the bodies of Russian Cossacks hanging from trees. The bodies were naked, and horribly mutilated. The throats were cut and the genitals cut off and shoved into there throats. The Maréchal slowed his horse to calm the boy. He spoke softly but still paternally, "Listen my boy, these Cossacks aren't men like you and me, they are monsters, throwbacks from before the enlightenment of humanity." The boy shivered as the three riders dismounted.
A voice from the darkness boomed, "Bienvenue, mon bon Maréchal!" And as the riders walked toward the fire Camille stood up. Beside him were two Moors decked in their traditional garb. Their names were Amin and Bashir. The two had come back with the French after the emperor had conquered Egypt. Amin slowly drew his dagger and stared at the riders. The Maréchal began with the same paternal inflection, "Are those corpses really necessary?" Camille retorted, "Oh my great and wonderful Maréchal these corpses are exactly why we are so safe. And besides I remember your words so clearly. So terror in the countryside, make the Russians think the demons in hell are fighting alongside then battalions of France."
A moment of crushing silence overtook the six men. It was finally broken by the warm laugh of the Maréchal, he laughed and then embraced Camille, "Oh my young brother you were always too thorough." Camille smiled at his brother "Isn't that why I am out here in the first place?" Amin returned his little dagger to his scabbard. And with this signal Bashir and Amin walked off to sit with the rest of Camille's men. The Maréchal began. "Camille, my dear brother, your men exceed even my high expectations of you. Our spies tell us that even now the Czar prays to his false god for deliverance. One even claimed to hear Alexander I claiming that Napoleon was the antichrist himself. It is all too splendid. But your band of cutthroats and ne'er-do-wells will not be needed for much longer."
Camille's slips pursed a gentle smile "Zut Alors! Do you mean to tell me Napoleon and Alexander have decided to stop acting like spoiled children and enter into negotiations?" The Maréchal snapped into a white hot rage, "Camille if you weren't my brother I would have you shot for such treasonous babble!" Then slowly calming down, "Our great and glorious emperor has another job for you. There have been rumors of ancient pagans in the dark forests of Lithuania. Our spies seem to think they have harnessed a dark and evil magic so powerful that their priests can live forever." Camille laughed answering incredulously to his brother, "Ah my good Maréchal, you mean rather than continue a rational guerilla and terror campaign against our enemy I am to run off to the woods in search of ancient pagan non-sense?" His laughter echoed brilliantly around the camp. Until the third rider took his hood off.
Standing before Camille was an ancient man. Scars adorned his wrinkled cheeks. The man looked almost a hundred, life worn completely down by worries and pain. And his eyes were as black as night. "I am a priest from Königsberg. Our monetary was founded during the crusades. The Prussian knights were slaughtering the Lithuanians with impunity, but we balked at this. A man of god wants the sheep to come to the fold not be fodder for the wolves. Our order began preaching to the villages, trying to make their lives a little more fulfilled. However the people thought the Prussians, all of us Germans to be monsters. they clung to their false gods, and we let the knights from all over Europe cut them down."
Camille laughed "Oh the kindness of Christianity!" The Maréchal stared at him "Finish your story old man." And the priest began again, "In a desperate attempt to hold off the crusaders the high priests made a pact with their pagan gods. In exchange for the strength to fight the Franks their souls would be forever cursed with a horrific disease. It mutilated their body and gave them an insatiable desire for human flesh. The high priests went mad with this curse, and retreated to the forests. They abandoned their people when they needed them the most."
Camille interjected again "It sounds like priests in general." The Maréchal slapped his brother, then smiled "Continue my friend." The old priest looked up at them "After the wretched pagans accepted our lord the knights set up a brutal dictatorship. Our order was merged with the Teutons. We joined them to hunt down heretics where ever they were. However in the deep dark pagan forests the priests still lived. They sustained themselves off of human sacrifice and the people prayed to the old gods for salvation from the Christians. We hunted these priests down. We killed them. The first time I laid eyes on one of them I was fifteen." Camille retorted "And it was 1193 right?"
One of Camille's men approached. His name was Alojzy. Alojzy smiled and began to speak, "We have heard of these demon priests in small towns in Poland they are used as bed time stories. You threaten little children. If they don't behave they will be fed to the old gods. It is mostly wives tales and non-sense, but..."
The Maréchal interjects, "Listen Camille your orders are to investigate these priests of the old gods. The emperor has special interest in immortality. This priest and the boy will accompany you. If you can pull this off you might earn yourself a pardon. In the meantime head for Lithuania, and take these maps from the middle ages. The priest should help you find one of the covenants. Now, I must make haste to meet up with the grand army it seems Kutuzov plans to meet us in an actual engagement.

Short-Term Eternity

                It didn’t occur to me to wonder where I was. Yet, I can describe its strange beauty. The stars in the sky that depicted unfamiliar constellations, the tree line in the distance that whispered promises of esoteric knowledge and not least of the marvels were the luminescent objects hovering silently above. The great watchers I called them, because they watched. I say again, it was not my setting that was relevant, nor my purpose… but my choices that mattered.

                I walked and the ground beneath my feet crunched with each step as if the green grass I walked on were dead. I passed pools of dark water. The sight of them triggered a thirst of which I had yet been unaware. It was intense. The thirst spoke to me as a vampire’s thirst for blood. All my craving focused into a single unwavering desire for a mouthful of water. I stooped next to the closest pond and began to drink. The pang of the cool liquid in my stomach was magical. I hadn’t realized how tired I’d become. The forest was still a daunting distance from where I sat and I considered sleeping there under the open sky and the gaze of the watchers.

                And I may have, had it not been for the sudden unbearable pain that saturated every fiber in my being. My stomach clenched and I heaved as warm salty liquid projected from my mouth. Blood. Soon, there was nothing left and I remained on all fours choking on the flesh of my own throat. I could barely breathe. My eyes bulged, and yet they would not stay still. I looked at the moon as it laughed, and at the grass that was not grass. The water beside me came to life with the writhing tentacles of some Lovecraftian horror. It rose from the unimaginable depths of what I had thought to be a pond, and the lights in the sky vanished. I couldn’t tell if the watchers fled, or were simply concealed by the gargantuan monstrosity.

                I swallowed hard, and stood to run. It was perhaps two or three steps before I fell again. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the thing. Its stare utterly engulfed me. It had numerous large black eyes and they drank in every bit of light from their surroundings like astronomical black holes. Tentacles fell from its body in asymmetrical patterns, and wings it should not have had spread wide from its back. I cannot explain how I knew, but it seemed to want to convey some sort of message. I only wanted to escape. To live.

Immortality.

Like a flash of light, the word hit my mind with the force of an epiphany. Only the origin of the thought was alien.

You drank.

Yes. The water. It was poison. I was dying.

Change.

Change from living to dead. I slithered away from the old priest as fast as I could. My legs felt like rubber. I could move them but they offered little strength. Glancing up at the forest in the distance, I felt utterly sad. I would never know the secrets it had to offer. My arms gave out, and when I looked down at my hands I discovered the feeling of true terror. My fingers we gone. My arms were growing long and thin. My legs were already almost fully transformed.

I collapsed. Unconscious. Black. Rest. Relief.

When I woke in the hospital, my family was there. I was told I’d suffered a seizure and was in a coma for four days.

I lived happily for months. I suffered no nightmares and no more seizures.

It happened on the seventh month after my release from the hospital. I was at the bank just making a withdrawal from my savings account for groceries when a man in a black mask walked in and shot three patrons to show he wasn’t “Fucking around”… I remember the first gunshot. I remember there were only three if us in the lobby. I remember dying.

And I had made my choice. I drank the water because I believed the thirst. I chose to forget my goal for temporary comfort. I chose the poison, I chose my eternity. Immortal. Changed. Forever the spawn of great Cthulhu, forced to wait dreaming at R’lyeh. Ia! Ia! 

-Selador of Wordcraft