Atop a Mountain

I stood against a brick wall, panting. My body felt heavy and I felt like just giving up… going to sleep… dying…

There was a pounding against my head, slamming against the inside of my skull. My brain felt three times its size… It felt like it was pressing against the inside of my head… like it was going to burst out.

Words etched themselves into my mind… Words of an incomprehensible language… A language unknown to man… scratches on a blackboard… 

I fell to my knees, panting, and feeling as if something was crawling up my stomach, trying to escape from the pits of my guts. My stomach contracted, but nothing came up. My body was trying to expel something it thought was there… trying to expel something’s presence.

There was a footstep. 

The sound of grass crushing under a footstep. It was on the other side of the wall. Its shadow crept through the holes in the wall, the thing looking out at nothing. I pushed myself off the ground, bracing myself lightly against the wall, my head pounding and something whispering to me.

The words… the words… those words...

They were complete gibberish, but I knew it was something that I shouldn’t be hearing… that I shouldn’t know. Something that whenever I heard it, it sent a chill up my back… that made me feel watched… that made me feel insignificant… that made me feel like an insect under a magnifying glass...

I stumbled, the few remains of floorboards creaking under my weight. The thing on the other side of the wall jerked its head toward me, groaning and moaning as it started moving around the wall, finding the entrance to the room I stood in.

I stumbled out of the room, into the outside, the words of whatever was “inside” of me repeating themselves over and over, every time making my body feel heavier, and my will to live to decrease.

I made my way out into the open, trees around the ruins of this building… walls collapsed, frames torn down, holes in the walls. I stumbled forward, standing on the edge of a cliff, a rope bridge to my right.

I knelt down at the edge of the cliff, closing my eyes and sighing. I just… wanted everything to end… the screams in my head and the scratched of this language to cease… I wanted to die... 

My stomach contracted more as those scratches at the back of my mind repeated themselves over and over again... they just wouldn't stop.

The groaning came from behind me. I quickly spun around, seeing the thing that was behind the wall limping toward me. 

More scratches against the back of my skull...

I collapsed backward, falling onto my rear and my hands gripping the side of the cliff, the sharp stones digging into my flesh. There was a loud, deep rumbling from the direction of the cliff. As I turned my head, the clouds overhead cleared, revealing the floated red orb in the sky in place of the moon. The world was cast in a red tint. 

Scratches... scratches...

In front of me, rising from the cliff was a horror I do not want to speak of. The thing was something no human could imagine. Something that upon a glimpse can inflict an indescribable feeling of horror upon someone. 

Its face was mangled and twisted, its mouth was hidden under a tangled mess of limbs that seemed like independent beings. Its eyes were cold and dark, yet had intention... 

It stared at me, its eyes looking into mine… its eyes looking into my soul, reading every thought I’ve ever had, reliving every moment of my life, understanding everything about me within seconds… 

Tears fell down my face as the visions flashed before me. I couldn't even bring myself to feel the pain of the words anymore. I just sat there on my knees, my stomach still contracting with every scratch of those word's enunciation.

It leaned closer to me, and new words etched themselves into my mind...