Rescue

“May the Dragon Seal bless you.” A passing man greeted him and Arc found a deep irrational hate rise up from within his gullet like bitter bile. No, it was no irrational hate. It was only too rational.
Arc nodded and turned away, trying to curb his anger. There was no point in getting angry. No point at all.
Then Arc felt the lancing pain shriek through his head again and he gripped the table with both hands in an effort to keep himself steady. The pain was accompanied by screaming howls of agony, begging for release, begging for succour, begging for help even as she herself was helpless, helplessly trapped in that cursed form that could not be called life, that cursed existence and Arc fought hard against the torrents of emotions and hurt to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer power behind the wave.
Then the pain eased as suddenly as it had began and he could hear the world again.
This was no life.
Guilt rushed through Arc at the thought. Who was he to complain about life? He had no right to do so, not when she was still trapped. But he couldn't help her. Nobody could and Arc wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. For the sake of the world whose blind adulation did nothing to soothe her pain? They knew nothing of her burden, they knew nothing of what she had done for them!
Arc stumbled away from the table like a drunkard, unsteady steps hoping to find solidity in the ground beneath. Then cold hands grabbed his and guided him back slowly to his seat. Arc looked up to see Cora's pale skinned visage. Her small and dainty nose twitched in concern mirrored within the soulful depths of her eyes. She really did look like a mother at times.
Arc forced himself to focus.
“Are you okay, Arc?” She asked, her soft voice barely carrying across the round table as she took her seat opposite him.
“Barely. Thank you, Cora.”
“You called and I answered.” She leaned forward. “What do you need me for?”
“I.. It..” Arc took a deep breath to gather himself. “When was the last time you've eaten?”
Cora tried to hide her surprise, but failed miserably. “Eaten? You mean a person, of course?” Arc nodded. “Two days ago.” Cora paused. “I've been trying not to!” She added defensively. “I can control myself for a few days at a time now. But why?”
“I need to know your instincts are still sharp,” Arc said urgently. “Are they?”
“Yes. What is this all about, Arc?” She asked impatiently.
“It's about the Great Dragon.”
“The Great Dragon? But she's the Dragon Seal-”
“Yes! I know! That's why! We have to free her, Cora. She's suffering.” Arc pleaded.
“Arc, don't you remember those years? When we fought so hard to restore the Seal? When she offered herself up to be the Seal? Don't you remember the horrors that came in?”
“Damn it, Cora, I don't give a damn anymore! Let the world burn! They don't give a damn about her but she's suffering in there! She may look like just a statue now, but I can feel her, Cora, I can feel her screaming in there, I can feel what she's going through and I can't even stand a few seconds of it. She's been enduring it for twelve years, Cora, twelve long years and I can't bear to see her endure it any longer. We have to free her!”
Cora held his manic gaze steadily, before closing her eyes.
A deep, long silence separated them, a distant gulf from which Arc tried to reach across. It was an ocean of tears, memories pulled up by the waves like so much wreckage, the remaining debris of experiences past, shared trauma between the two.
Cora opened her eyes and Arc did his best to suppress a shiver, even as his lips formed a grin. He recognised that glint in her eyes.
“What hid in you could not hide from me,” Arc whispered, “Because it hid in me too.”
“You're crazy, Arc.” Cora murmured amazedly, her lips barely moving. “You know I'll follow you to Hell and back. Again.”
“Yes. What you were, I am. What I am, you are. I'm glad you've regained yourself.”
“Many would say I've lost myself.” Cora began giggling inanely.
“I would sa-” Arc collapsed forward onto the table, sheer agony coursing through his body, deafening screams resounding in his eardrums, almost as if his ears were going to burst and he could almost imagine the blood flowing out, thick, red, hateful, carrying liquid pain, oozing out because his body, no body could hold that much pain, Pain with a capital 'P', Pain personified, Pain alive, Pain all-consuming, Pain, Pain, Pain-
Then it passed. He heaved several deep breaths; the pain had been too great to allow him to scream, even to breathe and his lungs were aching, starved of air though the ache was nothing compared to what he had just experienced.
“Arc, are you okay?”
“She.. We need to get her out. We need to save her. Damn the world, damn the Seal. She doesn't deserve this.” Arc hissed. “Nobody does.”
Cora's cold body wrapped itself around Arc. “Let's get you out of here first.” She tugged him away. “Go on. We can't help her until we help you.”
“I'm.. fine..” He gritted his teeth and stood up with some effort. “Let's go.”

Orange, muted light struggled through the stained glass of the windows. Autumnal shades dappled the room, dying and fading, a precursor of the cold death of winter. Arc sat in an antique armchair, brooding like a bitter hen with eggs cursed never to hatch.
Cora had insisted they planned, much to Arc's surprise. So, she hadn't properly returned to her old self, Arc mused. Perhaps this strange in-between state of mind for her would prove useful yet. But planning had taken time and Arc was still plagued by the visions and tortured by the pain of her Burden.
It was going too slowly. Arc's grip on the armchair tightened, wishing he could be reunited with her.
“Arc?”
Cora's voice sent a strange tremor through his body. Cora was his friend. Cora was his ally. Cora was his helper. She was also..
He suppressed the uncomfortable ice within. He had no right to judge, not when he himself was getting closer and closer to the brink. Besides, he liked her. She reminded him much of his mother. But his mother had never torn infants apart from limb to limb-
Stop it, he told himself. You're not any better.
“Yeah?”
-bathing in their blood-
“Do you think we should call in others?”
“Who?”
-blood pouring into her open mouth-
“Vill, of course.” Cora frowned. “You still don't like him? After all these years?”
Arc shook his head, as much a negative as to clear his mind.
-sweet, succulent baby-flesh-
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine!” Arc growled, one hand to his head, batting her away with the other.
Cora stood impassive as he gritted his teeth and animalistic growls sounded from deep within his throat like a challenge to an unknown predator.
“You're getting worse, Arc.”
“Who are you to say?” He snapped. “I'm becoming more like you!”
“Mm hm.” Cora smiled, suddenly joyous. “You're right, we don't need others.”
“I-”
Then the Burden struck him again and this time, Arc screamed.

Panting deeply, but with a feral grin on her crimson-stained lips, Cora leapt forward and deftly decapitated the guard with her dagger, its blade finding the weak spot between helmet and armour. Holding up her trophy and grinning at it, she kissed it briefly and tossed it down at the other guards as she continued running up the steps. Cries of dismay sounded amongst the guard and Cora laughed in delight at their despair. She expected them to be made of firmer stuff, but oh, how gratifying it was to be wrong!
Her light steps brought her quickly beside Arc, who had just bisected a man horizontally, bastard sword swinging around for another blow. She ducked and threw a dagger at a spearman, even as she drew another pair from her leather leggings to rearm herself.
“Arc, Arc, why don't you cut me a fine figure and be a dashing hero!” Cora cackled in a singsong voice, even as Arc cleaved a man brutally, easily slicing through muscle and bone. With a deep roar, Arc charged forward into the mass of guards and began sweeping a whirling howl-storm of death.
“A hit, a palpable hit!” Cora cried out exultantly as she used her twin blades to cut open a man's chest and then placed her lips against the wound, drinking out his lifeblood, tearing at the flesh with her incisors. The blood covered her eyes, blinding her, but it hardly hindered her as she heard the whistling sound of metal soaring in an arc towards her and she nimbly dodged the blow. Clearing the red from her vision, she saw a young- what fine features he had!- man crying aloud and rushing her with a broadsword raised high for a killing blow.
She sprang forward, a move he had not expected and she wrapped her lanky arms around him in a deadly embrace, twin daggers piercing him from behind even as she laid her lips upon his and began savagely ripping out flesh.
“Sweet, sweet meat!” Cora crowed gleefully as she pushed him down the steps and continued running upwards. They were so close, only a flight or two more, then they would reach her, the Great Dragon herself..
As if her thoughts had summoned it, a fearsome roar sounded, far louder and far more bestial than any human vocal chord could produce and a dragon slammed down from above in front of Arc. Its scales a brilliant, striking red- how like blood!- tinged with a metallic gloss, the dragon directed its baleful gaze down at Arc who was no taller than perhaps the dragon's head was long.
“Arc!” Cora called out. “Go ahead and free her! Let me deal with this lizard!”
The bloodlust and fervour of battle still shone brightly in Arc's eyes, but then a measure of reason reasserted itself and Arc nodded his thanks. Feinting a forward blow that would have left him open, Arc leapt backwards several steps down as the dragon took the bait and snapped its jaws where Arc was a few moments ago. The maneuver gave Arc time to run forward and past the dragon, who would have tried to claw him with its talons or bludgeon him with its tail had Cora not plunged both blades into the serpentine beast's nostrils. Its cry of pain was horrific but Cora did not stop there even as it thrashed about in abject agony. Arms akimbo, Cora gouged both thumbs into the maleficent eyes of the dragon, laughing insanely as she felt the vitreous jelly burst out and the dragon's cries became screams. Blind and unable to smell, the dragon charged forward in a haze of agony, no longer able to differentiate friend from foe and the guards rushing up the stairs were caught like leaves in a hurricane.
Cora saluted the dragon, licking her lips hungrily, then turned her attention to Arc. She was so intent on watching him commence the ritual that she did not even feel the sword piercing into her heart until she saw it protruding from her chest, impaling her from behind.

Chanting arcane words with a desperate urgency, knowing that every second was another infinity of torture for her, Arc passed his hands through the arcane motions, unwilling to succumb to the pain that grew with the proximity. That he could even stand it and still focus enough to recall the ritual astounded him, but if she could withstand it for so many years, he could endure it for a while more. Reciting the mystical litany, his voice grew to a crescendo as the incantation climaxed and the immense stone statue of the Great Dragon became scored through with cracks. Finally falling to his knees with the immensity of his torment, he looked up just in time to see the blinding explosion of her prison. The last thing he heard as the sky became blotted out by an enormous silhouette was the crazed roar of an ancient dragon maddened by an eternity of torture.
Arc smiled.
She was free.
Then the silhouette dropped down and the claw crushed him.

-End-

A/N: Hi! Yes! No! I mean, yes, I actually updated! But, no, I don't think I'll be updating regularly. See, nowadays when I type me stories, they tend to try and be longish. Read: novel-imitation. So, yeah, I can't exactly post my drafts up, I'm too insecure for that and you people should know by now that I'm not really the kind of person to post in chapters. I can't segment my writing very well, I'm afraid.
Aaaanyway, this little story was based off the Wikipedia entry of Drakkengard 1 and 2. PS2 games, I used to play Drakkengard 1 a long time ago. Fascinating, really. And so, I decided to write based on that.
Oh, perhaps it's obvious, perhaps it's not, but this was written in two parts. I wrote the first half a long long time ago, but then looking through my writing folders, I suddenly decided to finish up this one and so here it is!
Do comment, constructively would be the preferred adjective! Feel free to criticise too!
-agoraoptera.HomoLudenS

Project Tabora: C/1/

Chapter 1.

The stage is set.

Vast mountains rose from the mist, like immense monuments of frost and ice sculpted by the hands of giants. Gabriel Maroque was filled with a heady sense of awe at the sight as he gazed up at the impossibly enormous glacier-mountains. For a moment, he wondered how something so gigantic could have been hidden for so long.
“Incredible.” Serena whispered.
The breathtaking sight similarly affected his colleague, Gabriel saw, and he could only nod in agreement.
The sky-liner Astartes was still quite a distance away from the majestic mountains, yet the entire viewing-bay was already filled with the sight. He could hardly imagine what a human would look like upon the great Taborean Range, so small, so minute, so insignificant. It was absolutely amazing, how the natural skyscrapers of blue and white towered over the entire landscape, allowing no other consideration to come into mind save itself. Gabriel spotted clouds hovering about it barely above the halfway mark: a testament to the height that this sheer wall of ice possessed.
“It's so huge..” He found himself murmuring. “And we're still a day or two away..”
His communicator buzzed, jolting him from his reverie. As Gabriel began to take it out, he saw that Serena was doing the same.
“Huh. We'd best get going then.” Serena said, reading the message quickly once more to be certain.
“A possible location to start from? I wonder what the sensors picked up.”

“.. we're looking at approximately twenty minutes travel time from where the Astartes will land. My lady Astartes here cannot locate any suitable location within the moutains, henceforth designated the Taborean Range, to land. We'll be landing at the edge of the whole Tabora Plateau itself, right here at the northern end. Then you archaeologists will take what equipment you need for a forward camp and head here,” The gruff Captain jabbed at a spot on the holo-screen just ourside the white patch indicating uncharted territory, “which will be a permanent spot for any further expeditions. We won't be establishing base camp, because it's just too dangerous, this is unknown territory, ladies and gentlemen. We know precisely nothing about the Taborean Range.”
“Congratulations. You archaeologists will be the first to ever set foot on that big block of ice. I don't care about it, one way or another. However, I am in-charge of your safety and administration. Your team will travel on the hoverbikes, because I don't see any other way of getting up there. Three-dee.” He instructed the computer. The holographic display on the screen flipped horizontally and large formations began projecting upwards. With another instruction, the display scaled down in size, reducing the size of the Range to be just above the heads of the members of the expedition.
“I don't have to tell you people that the Range is enormous. Its size is far beyond anything we've ever seen and the scanners can't even find the end of it.” The Captain cleared his throat before expanding a section of the mountains. What originally seemed like a single enormous block was now thick vertical pillars conjoined around the middle. Further enlargement focused on a natural basin surrounded by sheer mountain-faces that left only three openings.
“Your team enters through the southern valley and the forward camp will be set up right in this basin. There doesn't appear to be any streams running through- all frozen obviously- so any supplies you need will have to be taken from the Astartes. The basin itself is about twelve odd klicks in radius, situated nineteen and a half klicks above sea level. Temperature range is negative one in the day and can fall to negative ten past sundown. Any questions?”
“Captain Torrasky, why exactly was this location selected?” A thin, bespectacled man asked. “While I understand the need for proximity to this dismal ship,” The Captain stiffened at the insult. “I cannot comprehend the reasons for your choice.”
“Mr Karkasky, your concern is.. noted.” A slight tone of anger coloured the Captain's raspy voice. “However, there is good reason for this location.”
Captain Torrasky selected the north-western mountain face and the projection enlarged once more.
“Scanners indicated artificial formations of metals upon the face of this peak. The Acies Array acquired visuals of an entrance.”
An image appeared on the screen. A distinct entrance, the archway formed of some smooth grey rock, the passageway half-smothered in the pristine white snow. It was a doorway carved into the mountain, clearly a sign of a civilisation that made its home within the bones of the planet.
A ripple of amazement went through the ten members as they observed the image.
“Clearly,” The Captain continued, “You will want to explore it and that, Mr Karkasky, is the reason for my choice.”
Sinder Karkasky nodded. “Captain, do we have a frame of reference for this structure? To put it dumbly, how large is it?”
“I understand your lingo perfectly.” The Captain snapped. “The Acies Array puts the width of it at twenty metres, the height is about thirty-two.”
“That's enormous!” Arnold Winfried gasped.
“The Golden Ratio, huh? More proof that it's artificial.” Karkasky commented.
“Captain, does the Acies have any visuals of the interior?” Serena asked.
“No, Miss Hartmann. The Acies Array cannot penetrate the interior. In fact, this visual was the closest the Array could go. Any further and the image becomes so much static.”
“I see. Thank you, Captain.” She subsided into thoughtful silence.
“Any other questions?”
“There aren't... there's no sign of life at the entrance, is there?” A wispy, nervous male asked.
“Not that we have discovered, Mr Winfried. No electronic signatures, except ambient ghostings from the material itself. As I said, the Acies cannot probe further. If there's nothing else, then go and get all your equipment ready. The Astartes touches virgin ice in twenty hours.”
Each downloading a copy of the information gathered, the archaeologists broke off into groups as they departed the briefing room.
Gabriel walked with the polemical Sinder Karkasky and a quiet, soft-spoken professor of geology by the name of Dorian Painter.
“What do you expect to find in there, Gabriel? Ancient ruins, just like the speculations of popular pulp fiction. I honestly didn't expect Horske to have a good reason for such a location, convenient though it may be.” Karkasky snorted.
“Sinder, at least try to be polite to the Captain. After just now, he probably wants your skin if he didn't before.” Gabriel sighed. “Horske Torrasky is quite the able Captain and we're lucky that we have him and not some unlearned bigot as Captain.”
“Yes, well, it doesn't matter. What matters is what we're going to find. I can just imagine the headlines: 'Ancient civilisation discovered in mysterious mountains' or maybe something like 'Tabora Plateau greater mystery than ever'. We'll be famous, my friend!” Karkasky spread his arms dramatically.
“The headlines will be filled with the same issues as usual.” Dorian commented. “'Tensions peak after failed peace talks'. Have the papers even reported 'news' for the past few months?”
“Truth in that, Dorian. Anyway, Sinder, what makes you think it'll be an ancient civilisation? For all we know, it might be some strange alien artifact.”
Karkasky shrugged, a smirk filling his expression. “I don't know. Whatever it is, what do you two intend to bring down there?”
“You have it easy, don't you? You just need your recorder, don't you?”
“Perhaps a handy note-taker too. You'll never know when the inspiration for description hits you. Both of you, on the other hand..” Sinder laughed mockingly. “I bet you two'll be lugging so much equipment along, you'll be dead tired when we just make camp.”
“Knock it off, Sinder. Being the linguist-cum-documentarist doesn't give you the right to be an ass.” Gabriel said irritably.
“You're just sore. A little premature, I think, to be sore. Now don't,” Sinder lifted a hand to stop Gabriel's retort, “get so worked up, go ahead and prepare. I shall retire to those minute quarters that we call rooms.”
Karkasky left with a last parting smirk and Gabriel could feel his choler rising at the abrasive man.
“Relax, Maroque.” Dorian put a hand on his shoulder. “We have work to do.”
Gabriel nodded, slowly turning away from Sinder's diminishing figure. “Right. According to this, we'll need to clear out the snow first for the camp. That's not a problem. If this mountain is like anything we've seen before, the next layer will be the- what are you laughing at?”
“Maroque, you're concentrating on a camp when everyone is thinking about that entrance?” Dorian chuckled softly.
“Well, yeah, I mean, it's not like we have any information on that entrance. The Acies didn't get anything after all, I'm just working with what I have.” Gabriel retorted defensively.
“Regardless of what Karkasky said, I am curious about that structure.”
“Who isn't?”
“I mean, just look at the thing.” Dorian called up the image onto his datapad, filling the holographic display with the mysterious archway. “There isn't any buildup of snow at all within the entrance. Right outside, the ground is clear for a metre or so before snow starts piling up. Someone or something's clearing the snow. From surrounding images, it's quite clear that precipitate is quite.. abundant.”
“Remember, the Captain said there were no electronic signatures. Maybe the snow just doesn't fall there.” Gabriel remarked, sounding unconvinced himself.
“Maybe.” Dorian said dubiously. “I'm going to consult the Acies.”
“Then we'd better hurry, I bet some of the others have the same idea as you.”
As they quickened their pace, Dorian continued expounding upon his theory.
“.. so whatever this is, it's definitely far more advanced than anything we've ever known. Neither of us are experts in this field, so we'll have to check with-”
“Woah woah woah, slow down there, I've never seen you this excited. You might want to calm down a little there.”
Dorian placed his palm against the blank square plate embedded beside the door. The panel lit up bright blue and within a moment, the gunmetal grey door slid open with a hiss.
The Acies Array was, strictly speaking, not entirely mechanical in nature. What was mechanical about it were the multiple display screens, where paragraphs of data scrolled through continuously and the holographic projection of the observed image as well as the thick and dull cables which seemed to cover all the walls and floor. Several cables, most prominently, were attached to the displays on one end and into the rear of the helmets.
The helmets were vaguely reminiscent of those purportedly used by ancient mariners: they had large and singular portholes rendered opaque by some strange misting upon the lens. The face of the Acies was, thus, unknowable.
The core of the Acies was organic. Three people stood in a triangular formation, each facing outwards. They wore the grey helmets, the portholes glowing with a fey light that made Gabriel shiver. They were garbed in form-fitting black suits with obsidian bands embedded in the psychoactive material about their limbs and neck. The backs of the three were arched backwards, their spines so curved that Gabriel could almost hear them breaking. Protruding at regular intervals from the stressed spines were what looked like rounded spikes about ten centimetres long and three centimetres in radius. The strange garb gave Gabriel the impression that they were humans no longer, but were some strange, mutated deviant harnessed and enslaved. These three people were not normal; their minds were enhanced by virtue of a genetic roulette and their psychic capabilities were harnessed for the Array. Whispers filled the room, vague whispers with contents just frustratingly out of reach of comprehension.
Dorian stood before the three; the trio did not respond in any way whatsoever to his presence.
Clearing his throat, he announced, “Recall last vision.”
What sounded like a faint whisper interspersed with a moan flitted through the room, causing Gabriel's hair to stand on end. He had never liked the Acies Array and found it quite disturbing.
The holographic tank flickered and the image of the stone archway formed.
“Zoom out.”
The archway became smaller and Gabriel saw that the snow built up to a prodigious height around the structure, but only after a certain distance. For that distance, the snow was simply missing and bare ice was exposed.
“It can't have been melted away then..” Dorian muttered.
A pneumatic hiss sounded once more and a ebony-skinned woman stepped in, accompanied by the comparatively pale form of Serena Hartmann. As always, Gabriel felt himself inhale sharply in Serena's presence.
“Well, Carmen, it seems that others have the same idea as we do.” Serena smiled and Gabriel couldn't help but smile in response.
“Hartmann, Santiago.” Dorian nodded in greeting. “I suppose that we all have the same purpose. We may as well settle all our queries in one viewing. If there's anything else you want to view, feel free to say so.”
Carmen Santiago was bald, not through any fault of her genes, but through her own choice. Her smooth brown pate was covered by a cap and the lack of hair facilitated her connection to the logic banks containing her memories. She was a documentarist, as Karkasky was, but she dealt more with images and videos. Nobody had said it, but when Gabriel found out that she was psychic, he knew that she was also there as their emergency communicator, in case mechanical means failed. That in itself was astounding, because psychics were expensive these days thanks to the Anglo-Sino conflicts and because the Taborean expedition wasn't particularly well-funded. As it was, their budget had limited them to this small team of ten and while the Astartes was quite grand, this was to be its final voyage before being decommissioned. He wondered vaguely what would happen to the Acies Array when the ship would be decommissioned..
“.. Maroque? Maroque?”
Gabriel blinked as Dorian waved a hand in front of him.
“Yeah?”
“You zoned out there for a moment. Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“As I was saying, the Array cannot detail the composition of the arch. It's not any material I can think of, can you?”
Gabriel watched the screen for a moment before shaking his head. “No. We'll need to go right to it. Serena, you're the geo-chemist here, what do you think?”
“I'm sorry, but I've got no idea as well. The first thing that came to my mind was that perhaps there's a high concentration of chromic acid within the rock, but that wouldn't make sense, considering that the Acies can access it from any direction and wouldn't be stopped. Also, remember that the Acies is first and foremost psychic. For the Acies to be unable to function, the rock likely has a disruptive electromagnetic field coupled with psi-infused crystals. Unless it's simply warded..” Serena trailed off and looked meaningfully at Carmen.
“No, the psychic imprints I'm picking up from the Acies is nothing like wards. It just.. is. It doesn't seem.. I can't put it very well, I'm sorry. It's just natural.”
“Natural? That's clearly artificial.” Dorian remarked.
“No, no, not in that sense. Natural, like it's meant to be there.”
Gabriel shared a look of disbelief with Dorian: neither of them were as yet wholly comfortable with the idea of psychics. Back at the University, he had never had any contact whatsoever with these mind-reading, thought-transmitting freaks.
“Well, if that's all, then I don't suppose there is anything more to see. Shall we leave, Maroque?” Dorian turned to the door.
Gabriel followed in suit, head turning to catch one final glimpse of Serena. As the door hissed shut behind them, Dorian chuckled.
“Turn your head any more and you'll snap your neck.”
Face blushing rubicund, Gabriel retorted, “You're very loquacious today, aren't you? You weren't quite as talkative as when Sinder was here. He would have made a great conversationalist with you.”
“Karkasky is a caustic upstart with no sense of decorum. He has no respect whatsoever.” Dorian remarked irritably. “Don't compare me and him.”
Gabriel kept silent, noting with surprise his friend's hostile reaction to the linguist. He hadn't realised Dorian disliked him with such vitriol.

The Power Plant

Is it really so strange that I shiver when people talk about a newly built power plant? I have had strange experiences which you can judge for yourself as to whether or not they justify my reactions to such stimuli. I shall accede to your threat, but this story may yet cause you to beg me to stay silent about it forever until infinity ends and the world has broken in darkness, you who blackmail me.

No doubt, you have heard of that infamous nuclear disaster- accident, they call it! But no mere accident could have wrought such a horror, may I never lay my sight on such a thing ever again! God! Even as the image in my mind blurs with the thankful erasure of memory's weakness, I still shudder to think of it. For what happened there, in that distant Oriental land of Japan, that accursed place, Tomioka of Futaba district in Fukushima, what happened there in that forsaken nuclear reactor should never have been, should never have existed!
No, it was not that one you speak of, not that. That was too well-publicised. I refer to the other plant, number two, eleven and a half kilometres south of the nuclear plant which you speak of, the number one. I tell this to you with great reluctance, for fear that I might be reported to a madhouse. Yet, even a madhouse would perhaps be a more pleasant avenue. I wish, I hope, I pray that what I had seen was just a mere figment of my madness, but how could even the most warped and twisted depths of my mind spawn such hallucinations?
It all began with that dreadful earthquake on that day of 11th March in the eleventh year of the second millenium. March.. Did it not bring back certain memories? Had I not discovered such a similar date of significance in that bewildering manuscript my old grandfather, Francis Wayland Thurston, left behind amongst his papers after his as-of-yet unaccountable death? Woe betide that day that I had found those papers! That hideous bas-relief sculpture, whose form was thankfully only captured in photographs and yet cursed that it should ever have been captured in physical shape! I still see it now at times, in my dreams and even in my waking hours, that haunting image of a pulp-like head adorned with tentacles over the mouths that looked as if they would begin writhing about like sibilant, horrifying, unnatural snakes! That misproportioned and grotesque body, covered with scales and fitted with a pair of rudimentary wings, a caricature of an octopus, a dragon and a human all at once.
11th March. That date, were it not for my curious delvings into my grandfather's personal effects, would have meant nothing to me. But that I have is the reality, if reality I can still trust, and 11th March was a date of great significance. In my grandfather's records, on the night of 22nd March in the year 1925, that blackest city that was drowned and should never have been raised but for a freak of nature, though I cannot help but wonder how much of it could have been an accident, the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh arose from the depths of the unknown ocean floors. The days prior to it, according to my grandfather, were choked full with cases of hysteria, wild dreams of great Cyclopean cities by sensitive individuals, the sky-flung monoliths dripping with green ooze and slime of foulest compositions, of which that bas-relief sculpture was based upon. Those dreams, my grandfather says, were the calls of sleeping, dreaming Cthulhu. On that day of 22nd March, the visions and madness peaked into an orgiastic climax of crazed violence, where gibbering nonsense words of self-proclaimed prophets filled the streets and suicide cults rose from nowhere, as if as a mimic of R'lyeh! But after that day, nothing more of that nature was to be seen.
We were lucky. We, the human race, were lucky that Cthulhu had not been able to escape his prison-throne and was forced back into his millienia-long slumber.
So I thought, after reading my grandfather's shaky words. That was the case closed. Though I had been shaken, there was nothing more to be done, I imagined fancifully, as if such horrors can ever be successfully staved off.
For twenty days before that day, 11th March, newspapers screamed at me what I was slow to grasp, or perhaps, guessing at its nature, did not want to acknowledge. “Mass Suicide Cults gathering strength in Auckland!”, “Is your stress giving you nightmares?”, “World Sculptor's Asssociations & Societies reject strange art as 'disturbed'” and so forth. That pattern had reformed itself, so horrific were its implications that I had denied it utterly, pretending that I knew nothing about it. With every passing day that I denied it, the headlines leaped out at me with such boldness that I was tempted to simply stop reading the papers.
Then it happened. The earthquake, originating off the coast of that Asian country and I knew, without having to name it, that R'lyeh had moved, that the undersea currents had dragged it there, or perhaps, God forbid, the tides of the sea had been commanded to move so.
God above! For now I must recount to you what had shook and still shakes me so. I, a graduate of the acclaimed, and oftentimes fabled, Miskatonic University, was employed on such a mundane teaching capacity that I had pleaded futilely to be posted to another job more befitting one of my academical learning. If only my pleas now stemmed from that source of indignation as it had then.
I took meagre comfort in the fact that this demeaning position would bring me on a tour of places that, while inherently dull in their ends, were extraordinary in their means. I speak of nothing other than the curved cylindrical shapes which powers vast nations with harnessed lightning, smoke pouring out in thick, languid clouds of venomous black.
I arrived at dreary Tomioka on the eve of that fateful day, which was to prove so horrendous in ways nobody sane can never imagine. I set my foot onto that wet ground, noticing instantly the foetor carried by the noxious wind. Had I ever been put off by the sea-breeze in any seaside village? But no, this was different, this wind bore no relation to any fresh sea-spray-ridden gale I ever breathed. The pungent odour cut my olfactory organs viciously and I cringed in disgust, my scholarly pursuits conditioning me to a state of piteous delicacy.
A first glance at the people inspired nothing but disgust, disgust with no apparent cause. Something in the angles of their odd, narrow heads and that hideous shambling agitated distaste in me. They walked as if unstable, shaking from side to side like a spiteful drunkard roaming the night, arms slack and loose about their side, bringing to mind an image of what an artist I once knew had dubbed “Devolution”. Anthropoid, as opposed to human, these inhabitants seemed. Their bulgy eyes that seemed to stare without blinking and their flat noses were completely unlike other Japanese as I knew them and it seemed to me that these people might not be related at all to the Japanese gene-stock.
I entered the plant without much ado, introducing myself in the indigenious tongue to the chief engineer. His appearance was that of a normal Oriental and I permitted myself a vague sigh of relief, vague owing to not knowing what or why that relief had come about. I found, after brief conversation, that he was from neighbouring Naraha. He was greatly pleased at my appearance, both in the action and the description, he too disliked and abhorred the swarthy appearance of the inhabitants and preferred to deal with them as little as possible.
I spent many long hours talking to him that day, and what he had to say about the history of this town that I was contracted to teach in at its junior and elementary schools was disturbing and uneasily laughed away. His words were more of myth and legend than concrete fact, yet I could not help but connect his words to my deceased forebear's manuscript.
I shall now endeavour to repeat to you part of his speech into our English though I shudder in foul remembrance of anything connected to those days in that accursed region.
“When I was a young boy, my grandmother would warn me to stay away from any stranger, particularly those of Tomioka. There was, she claimed, bad blood in them and bad blood between them and us. I saw little of people from Tomioka, but I vividly remember the one time when I met one on the streets. Even in those years, the Tomioka folk had already gained that inhuman appearance of regression... Yes, even then.. It gave me nightmares for a long time. My grandmother told me that they were not believers of Shinto, our Japanese religion, but worshipped some evil spirit of the sea. She told me that their religion brought with them great riches- have you seen the strange trinkets they sell to tourists? Those images and its material components are not of this world- but at the cost of sacrifices.. Human sacrifices, she told me.. I listened to my grandmother's stories with great attentiveness, because they were usually interesting but this one was just macabre.”
“Her stories about this always began with dire warnings about how many young children disappear in the area of Tomioka and she would then carry on describing just how these adolescents were said to have been laid on altars made of a stone that could not be found anywhere on land and then slit from navel to throat, baring their innards to the cold, wintry air and letting the blood drip down the altar whilst invoking nameless dark demons of the deeps.. The air, I remember, has always been like this, ever since I was young. She would tell me about how her sisters told her about eerie witch-lights on the top of the hill towards the north were seen at definite times of the year... No, my grandmother was not the only one who told me such tales, other people too, but I thought it was just a legend.. What made me decide to work here? The nuclear plant, nothing more. I have no other reason to be here except for my work.. Yes, my friends and family tried to dissuade me from coming here and I can partly see why they would do so. The air is unwholesome, as you have said, the people are queer and belligerent.. It is hard to get anything out of them except passive acknowledgement...”
“I don't like this town, but my job is here and I am used to it. What troubles me is the rate of disappearance in the town. If you look at the older areas, you'll find many buildings that look as if they have been abandoned, boarded up with planks, but sometimes at night, you can hear people talking inside, many many people... This town is ancient.. It is only your first day here, but you will notice weird rituals taking place.. Recently, the rituals have been increasing in frequency. They are anticipating something.. Something.. Oh, have you noticed how very sub-human they behave? They don't speak properly, they don't walk properly.. It isn't natural. Once, just before my grandmother died, she told me that the people here weren't completely human. Inter-breeding with something.. She never explained, or she didn't have time to explain, because she died days later.. My grandmother? A remarkable woman, I loved her very much. Cause of death? A kitchen accident, she slipped and fell onto a knife. Very strange, she was ever nimble in the kitchen... I don't believe she died so simply.”
“The nuclear plant? I don't know why it was constructed here, except that there's a lot of seawater if we ever need it for any problem, though seawater will ruin the plant.. Fish are abundant here, more so than anywhere else in Japan.. More than four thousand megawatts produced by the plant.. The religion here? We in Naraha call them 'cultists'.. I don't know if they have a name for it, but whatever it is, it is unnatural. I have seen some of their religious images, disgusting part-humanoid things with an octopus head, small wings on the back, a great bulk covered with green scales.. Are you okay? Your face is extremely pale. Are you sure? I'm not sure, I don't recall a name given to it.. Maybe if I had a starting sound to help.. Yes.. I do believe that was the sound. Cthulh- Mr Thurston! Mr Thurston, are you okay? You are not well, not at all.. I'll take you home.. The power plant can do without me for the night..”
It was that incredible description that tore apart my veils of self-evasion, that horrid sculpture of that monstrous thing, that which I must not name or face insanity in remembrance of everything. As I rested at home and he took his leave of me, my mind was racing as my heart thundered without pause. If the folk of Tomioka were indeed what my new friend's grandmother claimed to be, then this was no place for me. Sheer terror almost brought me to running down the immaculate, pungent streets and leave the town immediately with nervous energy but my rational mind- Rational, ha!- stopped me from doing so, and I reassured myself with meaningless words that such fantasies belonged to ages past, that phantasms of my grandfather's past did not exist, that in this enlightened age of ours, no such monster could exist. Curse the day I ever read the Necronomicon! Curse the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred! Yes, I have laid my eyes on that tome of monstrous formulae and many more! I have delved into the cursed Unaussprechlichen Kulten, the fragmented but still diabolical Book of Eibon! The Pnakotic Manuscripts I have gorged my eyes upon, the King in Yellow horrifically analysed and deconstructed!
I apologise for my outburst.. I am still touchy about this, but I have promised to tell you what I found and I shall do so now. Perhaps all my words were but a digression in vain hope that I might leave without naming what will soon be named..
That night, the wretched all-seeing eye of Polaris grinned down at me. It is thankful that I know not fully what it saw that made it laugh with that twinkling light from the cosmos. Suddenly, I heard strange cries in the night and I looked out of the window. As my friend had said, devilish witch lights shone from the hilltop in the distance. But what caught my attention was not that.
Under flickering street lamps, the hideous folk of Tomioka were shambling through the streets indolently, their shifty eyes staring into sheer emptiness as they held strange candles with soul-searing symbols and blasphemous images inscribed into the wax. Their mouths opened, tongue lolling; it was they who emitted that awful noise, that terrible cries of words that I beheld in some formulae of the Necronomicon. A single sentence, if sentence that horrible jumble of syllables and consonants was, repeated itself over and over through the frightful cacophony of unholy sounds.
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!”
God above, God of this earth, that demented shouting nearly drove me to my knees and I could scarce bare the sight of the cultists, so many of them, so numerous as they marched away. Only when the last of them passed my window did I see just where they were headed.
The nuclear plant was their destination. The first thing that came to my mind, astonishingly, was not to flee the town and never look back or even inquire as to the nature of their rites. You might say that I am embellishing my story to make myself look like an unlikely hero, for unlikely it is. But I say, it is in the unlikeliest situations that men do things that on hindsight are foolish and inconsistent with their thoughts.
My first thought was to warn my friend. I had to get to him somehow at the plant and perhaps help him away. I do not know what I wanted to do, all I knew was that I had to get to him.
The means were simpler than expected, for in Japan, nobody expects to steal anything and so I helped myself to a motorcycle by the side, keys still in the ignition. I drove as quickly as I could, skirting around the discordant sources of the continued ritualistic yells.
How long it took me to get there, I do not know, for as I entered the plant, there began the start of my nightmare.
Inside I found my friend, trembling and cursing in a corner. He was as incoherent as my mind must have been, his visage was a mask of fright, pale, shaky, eyes wide, lips unable to keep together firmly. I tried to tell him about what I had seen, but my own tongue was unable to form the proper vocalisations. I tried to pull him, but he pushed me away with a force that only desperate souls have, people who have witnessed things that should not have been and wish to see nothing in the world any more.
I'a! The cries of the cultists had grown louder and louder; they had now entered the building and my friend was abruptly and frantically spurred into action at the sight of them. I ran after him, even as the front cultists spotted us and gave a horrific shriek that no human's vocal cords can ever reproduce, it chilled me to the bone and yet spurred me on.
I'a! The accursed cultists chased after us with that heretical speech churning about their tongues and pouring in unspeakable foulness from their lips as I ran and followed him. No thought of where we were heading entered my mind, for all thoughts were crowded out by an infinite horror. Only now in the aftermath, months later, the questions come to me: What did they want there? I shall never know, and I am grateful.
We ran, our legs pounding against the floor in such desperation that I fancy that the entire plant shook with our strides. But truly, it was a race between life and insanity or eternal death. No doubt, that was the fate the cultists must have had for us, to be their sacrifices on that infernal altar described in such menacing detail by my friend. Oh, what I would have given to never have been there!
But perhaps it is thankful, not to me, that I was present, for mayhap without my presence and actions, our world would be clad in doom.
The reactor room! I'a, i'a, what I saw there can never be unseen! Even now, I cannot lie to myself, I cannot say that it was a dream, surreal though it felt, impossible though it was, I cannot bring myself to say that it was not!
Let me calm down for a moment before I continue.
The reactor room had a clear window, its view directed to the majestic producer of electricity, that which smashes and crushes atoms together. An erect pile, pierced through with numerous rods like a voodoo fetish of barbaric, primitive tribes, a modern totem pole.
The lights were on, but, heavens above! If only it were lightless, that I would not behold what I saw! That great pile was covered in some kind of viscous, thick, slimy, black thing that drooled down to the floor in a slimy pile, but that was not the worst, it only drew your attention to that which was what would have tortured a stronger mind and utterly destroyed a weaker consciousness.
I'a! It cannot be unseen, not now, not ever, not even with that opiate joy with which you have obtained this horrid confession by blackmail! I say loudly, here and now, that I should have gone to jail, for my story was never intended to be made, never intended for human ears! Lock me behind bars!
But I gave my word.
I.. Yes.. The pile. A large, gaping black hole with faint spots of toxic green appearing and disappearing, a gaping maw, a hungry abyss had been burned through in the floor by the pile. That hole was as large as the pile, if not larger and the edges gave the impression of the biting effects of acid. I thought the hole was empty, but.. The slime dripped down and did not fall into the abyss. It landed on the hole.
It wasn't a hole! God help us all, that black gap was not a hole! Or rather, it was a hole, occupied! A closer look told me what I should not have sought. The blackness was bubbling, yes, bubbling! Small onyx bubbles formed and burst and- I'a! I can see it, I can see the eyes! Those eyes, forming and bursting in that gigantic amorphous blob of supreme idiotic malice! It had no form, no solid shape, but was just slime and it kept changing! It grew limbs and organs and eyes and tongues and tentacles but nothing of it held solid for more than a single moment, bursting and spraying droplets of itself all over the floor! Where it touched the floor, there were sizzles of smoke. That hideous, iridescent blackness, a shapeless mass of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly luminous and with the myriads of temporary eyes and organs forming and un-forming, bursting and spewing pustules of sick greenish light in a display over the room.Dread, disbelief and terror overcame me all at once, as it still overcomes me now! I lost consciousness there and then, before my mind could contemplate that sheer impossibility and my soul could flay itself into futile attempts at escape.
Have you read the Necronomicon? Have you? If you had, you would have recognised my description. I will never be able to look at a power plant, nuclear or no, ever again. If that thing, the shoggoth could lie there, under the plant, feeding on its power and growing larger and larger until one day, some day, it would burst out, large enough to consume and fall upon houses, when it would be larger than any subway train or train station, when it and the rest of its kind would sweep over the world and clean the land evilly of anything organic.
As I have said, I lost consciousness there, and my knowledge of what happened during my lapse of awareness is limited to my conjecture based upon what I saw when I woke. Perhaps I only fainted for a minute or two, for when I awoke, I was in a corner of the room. My friend must have hid me under the panels of bright buttons and flashing alarms, rest his soul. I saw a cultist, adorned with strange jewellery of a kind I have never seen before, the same jewellery my friend had mentioned, saying, “Those images and its material components are not of this world”. The cultist stood over my friend with a curved knife in his hand, stylised like his ornaments and radiating a hateful aura. You may laugh at me when I use such words, but there are no other words to describe it. Looking at that knife, I could feel the sheer weight of its wrath and I knew, I know, that knife has been used on many an altar. Do not ask me how, it is something that you can only realise on your own. A scream sounded and the cultist turned towards me, something like a startled expression forming on his own distorted visage, with those unblinking, wide, fish-like glassy orbs. I must have screamed, but I was still disoriented then and my friend took the chance to knock the cultist to the ground. My friend's expression was bestial at that moment when he attempted to wrest the knife from the cultist's grasp, horrifyingly bestial. It makes me wonder just what exactly humans were, aeons ago..
I ran forward and pushed their hands into the cultist's heart; oh God, the knife was radiating heat as it slid into his chest like a blazing knife cutting soft, rancid, oozing, putrid butter. His flesh was such and his blood- no, he had no blood! That cultist did not have blood, he had ichor! The foul ichor stung like an acid, making me spasm uncontrollably for a moment in memory of the shoggoth. My friend breathed heavily beside me, gesturing wildly for a moment before articulating his actions.
“They.. They want to use the power here, they want to use the power here. Mr Thurston, I don't know what that wretched thing said, it didn't make sense, maybe you can understand it. There were strange sounds and it seemed as if he was saying that something was rising. What was that something? It sounded like 'R'lyeh' to me.. Mr Thurston! What is going on? He said something about using the power to open up a tomb and awaken some monstrous thing, I don't dare to repeat what it said. Yes, yes, the thing they mentioned was that name I told you about that they worshipped. Are they summoning a devil?”
I'a! A devil would have been a kinder end to these insidious means! I completely understood everything he told me. Do you hear me? Completely. The cult.. that nightmare-cult was not formed in that town without reason. They had contrived, in an eldritch plan spanning across the centuries, to release the Great Old One himself from R'lyeh when it next rose by their town. They had manipulated and schemed for the nuclear plant to be built there and- how could they ever have known of the existence of nuclear power years before its appearance?
This revelation only came to me in the form of unworded emotions of horror induced by those horrors which span the cosmos and bridge the past and future with such mindless ease.
The only thing that came to mind was to stop it, for if we did not stop it now, the entire earth would be enslaved in that darkness, those cultists would sell us all to an eternal torture of our souls and we would be devoured, being but mere slave-things for it to destroy and manipulate.
“Mr Thurston.. is it possible to.. destroy that thing?”
My friend had seen the shoggoth and kept his voice low, deliberately controlled. His spirit was made of a firmer stuff than mine, thank the stars. I know not how I would have thought of what he knew were he not there.
Yes indeed! I knew that it was possible to at the very least hurt the shoggoth, if not destroy, and simultaneously stop the cultists' foul plans! I told him what I intended, he nodded and began to work; I had not such a skill-set as his.
I gingerly peered at the pile, still producing electricity for the town to use, for the cultists to doom the world. It seemed as if only one cultist had broken away from the main group to pursue us and no other disturbed us.
The control rods were being removed from the pile, like gigantic needles being removed. I did not dare look further down the pile, lest I lose consciousness and all sanity.
I did not need to see the shoggoth to know what effect removing the control rods had: An ear-piercing shriek tore through the whole structure, repeating itself over and over again in acute agony. The shoggoth was crying out, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
That mad, shrill piping! Fiendish noise! Eldritch cry! It went on and on, “Tekeli-li!”
I don't know how long it took before the thing stopped its wailing, but my friend was the one who pulled me up and spurred me to run.
Never have I ran with such haste! The nuclear plant was to explode. With the control rods removed, the heat would be too great for the coolant and cause the whole facility to overheat. Thoughts of our own well-being did not cross our minds, but we realised it all too soon.
We ran out of town, all the way to the subway station where we took a train nervously, paranoid, unable to stop moving, pacing back and forth.
The lack of an explosion could only mean that the cultists had averted the disaster. But from later reports, the damage had been done. We parted ways when he stopped at Naraha, white-faced and swearing never to go back to Tomioka. It was not long after when the earthquake struck, but by then I was safe, on a flight back here, to New Zealand.
You know my whole story now, blackmailer. I feel a strange sense of release now that I have no more secrets to hide. Draw your own conclusions from this tale that seems like fantasy. Understand why I drug myself day after day, night after night with this opiate which without a doubt is killing me slowly. It does not matter. The cult of Tomioka yet lives and I have done too much to ruin their plans. I do not expect to-
Oh God, behind you! That thing!

[Story End]
A/N: Holy nuts, I managed a short story! It's just under 5k words. This is my tribute to H.P. Lovecraft. Written in that magnificent style, though I think I didn't do it quite well. Okay. If I have anybody reading this from Japan, I just want to say, no offense is intended to anyone of any race or religion. I only used the Fukushima incident as my setting because a) inspiration made me do it, b) the Lovecraft style involves terror in places closer than expected. If anyone from Tomioka, or anywhere at all is offended, I wish to apologise. Hope you had a good read, people!
-agoraoptera the Homo Ludens