Assimilate

"Hello? Anyone there? Can anyone hear me?"
Nothing stirred.
"Ugh.. Where am I?"
It was dark all around.
"Woah! Damn, I can't even see anything here."
He's awake.
"What in the world am I supposed to do or be doing here anyway?"
Not for long.
"It's so.. stuffy in here."
All of a sudden, a hand clamped around his throat and lifted him against a wall.
"Ah! What...*cough* Let *cough* go of me!"
Do it!
"Argh! What are *gasp* you doing to my stomach!"
Finish him.
The hand that grasped his stomach slammed forward and burst through his body.
"Ah! Son of *wheeze* a bitch.."
His spine!
I know.
The hand grabbed his spine and snapped it.
Quick, before he expires!
The last thing that he felt as an individual was some tentacles jabbing into him and absorbing his body, soul and mind into itself, nourishing the body of his assailant.

R'lyeh (Cont.)

All around them, they saw a room devoted to insanity. Ahead of them was a statue of the King In Yellow, a hunched figure clad in tattered, yellow rags, who wore a smooth and featureless mask. On the walls were symbols designed to drive people mad, cause people to lose their clarity and attack others. The entire room was non-Euclidean.
"I recognise that! That's Hast-"
"Idiot! Don't say his name! Have you forgotten what we have learned, Ilran?"
"Forgive me, Haythan. It was a moment of folly."
"One big moment! If Haythan didn't stop you from saying his name, we would be screwed, utterly and completely."
"At any rate Lianor, our companion has, as astutely as ever, identified He Who Must Not Be Named. And, I believe that drawing on the wall is the Feaster From Afar."
"Well, we ought to see what the puzzle is this time."
They spread out through the room, searching for any clues as to how to proceed to the next room. The room was strangely, dark. Very dark. In fact, the trio were wondering how they had managed to see anything at all in the first place in this pitch black darkness.
"Um, is it just me, or is anyone else's protective amulet getting hot?"
"Oh crap. I think this place is actually devoted to Zushakon."
They started to feel an itch at their eyes, slowly increasing in strength.
"Dark Silent One! We are devotees of your half-uncle Cthulhu! Half-brother of your progenitor, He Who Must Not Be Named!" Lianor shouted into the darkness, "We come to break the spell over R'lyeh and bring forth all the Great Old Ones! If you impede our progress, you are only destroying your chance for freedom! We thus beseech you, bring us forth into the next room, Old Night! The stars are right, Silent One!"
The itch on their eyes, which threatened to compel them to gouge their eyes out, lessened and stopped.
"That... was a helluva scary!"
"Yeah, lucky Lianor managed to keep her head clear."
"Thank you, but we should have expected something like this. Zushakon is the dark one and his progenitor was Ha- Uh, I mean He Who Must Not Be Named so Zushakon hiding under a facade of his progenitor, we should have expected that!"
As they were speaking, the darkness slowly lifted and as it vanished, they were in another room altogether.
"Well well well, what have we here this time, gentlemen?"

R'lyeh

"Okay, how about now?"
"No, no, no. Are you sure you're pushing the right buttons?"
"Aye. Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Dagon, Cthulhu, Dagon, Cthulhu. Let me try again..."
The third person, a woman, spoke up, "Are you even sure you translated the thing properly?"
Ilran replied, "Yes. As sure as Cthulhu fhtagn."
Haythan flinched. "I hate it, the amount of time we're taking. I rather read the Necronomicon."
Lianor replied, "Hey, don't remind what it took us just to get that damned book, yeah?"
Ilran moved around the carvings in the small and enclosed cavern. They had taken a long time just to get to this chamber in R'lyeh, or at least, what they assumed to be R'lyeh.
Ilran carefully went around the statue of the three deities. (Not actual deities, just powerful beings worshipped by the Esoteric Order Of Dagon, except for Shub-Niggurath)
"Okay, I'll try again."
"And hopefully we won't die of incredible hunger or massive sanity loss."
"That's why we have our food and amulets with us, Haythan."
"Alright, Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Dagon again.." So saying, Ilran pushed the buttons one by one.
Lianor went to the tablet at the side and started translating it.
"Damn, it still didn't work!"
"That's cause you translated it wrong, idiot. You completely botched it up. The sequence is Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, Cthulhu, Dagon, Cthulhu, Dagon. The eye indicates Cthulhu, not Dagon. How did you make such a mistake?"
"Huh. That's weird. I thought the eye looked like Dagon's symbol. They get confusing if you stare at them for too long."
"C'mon Lianor, it's a forgivable mistake. This is R'lyeh we're in, so I suppose Ilran did see it wrongly."
"Man, shouldn't we be protected from these stuff since we are devoted to Cthulhu? I won't say worship 'cause he's not actually a god."
"Well, Cthulhu drives anyone mad so it would make sense."
Meanwhile Lianor was pressing the buttons in the proper sequence. The door ahead of them creaked and groaned open.
"Finally! You know, with all these traps and puzzles, one would think Cthulhu doesn't want to be freed."
"It's to make sure whoever frees him is worthy."
"I'a Cthulhu."
They entered a room with an archway ahead of them against the wall.
"Oh, I know this one."
"Okay, let's see how you do, Haythan."
Haythan stepped forward and lifted up an amethyst pendant with a gold that was not quite gold around it but some kind of whitish gold.
"V'hu-ehn n'kgnath fha'gnu n'aem'nh. V'glyzz k'fungn cylth-a v'el cylth-Cthulhu k'fungn'i. I'a rygzengrho. I'a Shub Niggurath. I'a Dagon. I'a Cthulhu."
With a flash, the archway burst into light. A portal had opened.
"Well, we might as well get going. R'lyeh is rather huge."

Windmill

It was so peaceful up here, on the windmill island.
"Windmill, windmill for the land,
turn forever hand in hand,"
Life was short, people should just relax, instead of rushing around so much. Slow down.. But "there ain't no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good".

"Take it all in on your stride, it is sinking, falling down,
love forever, love is free let's turn forever you and me."
Live and let live, they say. No one could actually do that, they were all tied down by worries. Be carefree, like a bird flying through the blue sky..

"Windmill, windmill for the land,
is everybody in?"
No, no one relaxed anymore, not in this modern landscape. People only knew to work, work and work some more. Leisure was a thing of the past.

"Feel Good."

Mythos

As I pen down my account of how their civilisation ended, I question my own sanity. These things were never meant to be known by man. And yet, I somehow feel that we should know that which had created us, even though we were just a failed experiment to them....


The two beings were part of the Council. They stood atop a great icy plateau, overlooking the entire region. They did not speak in any language known to man. However, for the reader's sake, it shall be translated.
"We have to go some other place. This planet is cooling down, too much."
"Indeed. We will have to bring this up in the Council."

---

"You propose we bring what we can down to the bottom of the ocean?"
"It will not harm us as you well know. Our People can survive much."
A third spoke up, "You would have us forsake our entire civilisation?"
"Merely to protect our race. It would not be much of a trouble. The shoggoths are adept at such menial tasks as it were."
The second waved its five sets of tentacles in agitation, "I for one, do not trust the shoggoths! We may have agreed to let them do all the menial tasks but -"
"You have nought to worry about. They aren't sentient, we control them by hypnotic suggestion as you know."
"At any rate," the first interjected, "We are digressing. We should now vote, do we move undersea?"
The vote was 15 - 8, in favour of.

---

Years passed, the above world was warm once more. But the Elder Things had lost all interest in the surface, and was content to lead a life of indulgence. But many things can happen in a few millenia.

"I think, therefore I am" is a powerful statement, first coined by men. But little did they know, it could apply to other things. Such as the shoggoths.

The Council convened once more.
"We must crush the shoggoths, they have grown sentient and rebel against their rightful masters!"
"We all agree on this point but we need them. We have grown incredibly dependent on them for labour. I wish we could stop this dependency, but we know no other way."
"It is agreed then. That which created the shoggoths shall be their downfall."

---

They managed to crush the rebellion, but the cost was heavy. It was not just heavy, it was too heavy. The shoggoths were mostly eliminated but the remaining few fled away into the deeps where they now procreate their own kind. Without any form of help for labour, the society of the Elder Things slowly crumbled. It was not just the shoggoths, but also the Yithians, the star-spawn of dreaded, sleeping Cthulhu and the Mi-go who had contributed to their end. The shoggoths are still down there, in a city they have made, a dreadful and horrible parody of their former master's own city.

The fact that they are still down there and surviving sends shivers down my spine but it would be even worse if they ever found the flourishing surface of man of any interest. They are not the worse of these horrors that dwell on our planet. The Great Slumbering Cthulhu is another example of such terrors of the deep.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" is what they chant, the alien syllables mashing together to form blasphemous meanings. The spawn of Cthulhu survives on the land while the shoggoths have taken the charge of the sea from the Elder Things.

May these monsters of primal power never, ever come to the knowledge of the common man, lest our culture be driven mad by such utterings.

-A Page From The Diary Of Abdul Alhazred