Phone signatures about life

I went through marijuana induced psychosis my junior year of high school. I am now 20. The psychosis lasted for about I think what was four months. I had auditory and visual hallucinations. I couldn’t look at my hands or look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t think that I was me. I just felt like the world was moving too fast if that makes sense to anybody else that has went through this. I can no longer smell weed or be around any kind of smoking without getting anxiety other than vaping which I’m fine with. I hated the feeling of eating because it felt like I could feel everything going through my body and the whole process of swallowing and processing the food, (which has now caused problems with how I eat today) at one point, I didn’t eat for an entire week and my delusions got worse I looked into my black phone screen and saw spiders crawling out of my eyes. It’s so frustrating trying to talk to people about how scary it was and not truly understanding. One part of me is making this post because I wanna know that there are other people out there who understand my pain and struggle every day, and another part of me is making this post because last night me and my boyfriend were drinking I had one shot and it hit me too quickly and it made me feel like how I did back when I was going through psychosis. Ever since my psychosis, my anxiety has been unbelievably bad and just my thoughts in general I’m not sure what to do how to cope I feel like I’m out of touch with reality constantly and just not here . This is definitely the scariest experience that I have went through in my entire life and I’ve went through some pretty scary shit.
If anybody has any coping mechanisms please let me know, every time I talk to a therapist about it they don’t know what it is so feel free to comment anything.

TLDR: I’m venting. Just lost and not sure what to do. There is a baby involved and spouse is unwilling to follow through with promises to even slow down the drinking.
We have been married almost 4 years, together 6. We have a year and a half old. I did not know he had a drinking problem when we first started dating years ago, ( I guess I should have, he had a breathalyzer in his personal truck but drove his company truck most of the time so I guess I just thought… I don’t even know) but about a year in- I realized how bad it was. We got into a massive fight. I refused to give him his keys to drive ( controlling? Yes…. But if he wanted to leave so bad he could walk and not harm anyone else, which he did and I dang sure let him. And it should have been a big fat sign for him when we had walking the 5 miles back to town and the bottom fell out on him. Not phone just pitch black dark in the pouring rain. But it wasn’t enough for him)
I found several empty bottles of liquor. A bottle of urine and a warmer pack. At the time I did not know this- but a bag of cocaine. I even opened it but I’d never seen any type of drug so yeah.. I’m an idiot but, I know what it looks like now. He was drinking before, during and after work while driving.
Fast forward through many fights, we now have what COULD be an amazing life. Literally a house on a hill with an amazing view, a beautiful baby boy, 6 dogs, 7 cats- most of them are rescues. And 30 birds running around, a huge garden. But, (I’m talking about other than the baby) all of that is material stuff. He lies about the absolute DUMBEST things. He’s now drinking 10-12 beers a night. He promised over and over to stop, to quit, to slow down, to not drink every day. And it’s just getting worse. I’ve left, he’s left, he just doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t want to do anything after 3pm outside of the house because he wants to be home and drink.
He never stops and thinks, what if there is an emergency with the baby? Or a family member. I used to drink occasionally, now not at all because SOMEONE has to be sober to drive if necessary and I am not putting anything extracurricular above our son. But he does, every single day. I have blamed myself, felt like I am not good enough. Begged, cried. Yelled, been nice about it. NOTHING changes. He claims he has changes but really looking at it…. The only thing that’s changed is 95% of the time he doesn’t leave the house, or yell. He also 100% stopped breaking things in the house.
The last time he left I strongly considered calling the law on him and letting him just sit in jail over it. But he would probably call his mom to bail him out like several years ago. However, we don’t have the money. I don’t work and we can’t afford childcare- if I did work it would only pay for the day care and I don’t trust anyone with my baby. I do have a very low hour and underpaid job technically as a care taker for a family member but it mainly just covers my gas.
I just don’t know what to do at this point… I had a great job before I got pregnant. (Which was mutually planned at a better time) but that job was a 12 hour a day- 7 days a week with one day off every 2 weeks kind of job and again, I have no where safe to take my child.
I am sad, deeply sad. Angry, frustrated. Exhausted. I’ve tried ignoring it but he acts like a jerk, and it’s also expensive. And he never seems to remember how he acts…

Long post but please help!
I was very close with my in-laws for 8 years, until I got accepted into grad school and got engaged to her son in 2021. My fiancé and I had to move 4 hours away from home, and he’s financially supporting us while Im in my doctoral program. I’m paying for school and things for the apartment but he’s paying for everything else. He’s known about me going to grad school for our entire relationship and been aware of costs that would come with us living together before I graduate. He makes enough to support us both and says he’s happy to help support me so we can finally be together and so I won’t have to take out loans just to live.
When the moving process begun, shit hit the fan. In his family group text, we mentioned we’re planning a trip to Mexico next spring so we can decide if that’s where we want to married. My MIL stated it’s ridiculous to spend extra $ by going twice, and just use the internet to decide. She proceeded to remind me that trips are not cheap & called me a BrideZilla (you guessed it, with a “Just kidding” at the end of it). I ignored the statement and reminded her that my fiancé, me, and my parents aren’t dropping 30k on event where we’ve never seen. This $ was arbitrary, as we’re not sure how much it will actually be. She and my fiancé began a separate text between each other, where my fiancé called her out for calling me a BrideZilla. She then said I am actually exhibiting BrideZilla behavior, have no clue how much things cost, Im entitled and always wanting to go on vaca’s, and force him to spend $ that he earns on me. This was the only time I’ve ever talked about wedding to his family, I’ve waited tables for past 8 years through undergrad, and 2/3 of our vaca’s that year were paid for by other family members. His mom proceeded to tell her sisters (a separate family group chat that I was not in) about the destination wedding decision and stated “oh wait, it’s his money not hers lol”. He called her out on how rude she was and left the group chat.
I was shocked at the texts she sent to him, as it was if she never really go to know who I am as a person or noticed how hard I’ve worked through school. She asked me if I was upset about the group chat BrideZilla comment, and I told her I was actually upset about the separate convo between my fiancé and her. She then proceeded to talk shit about my fiancé, her own son, saying that he started drama by showing me the texts and saying that those were supposed to be private. She said sorry my feelings were hurt but she’s financially concerned because I’m not earning any money while in school and I’ve never had a “big girl job”.
We eventually got over her untrue comments and we moved. Fast forward one year later, and we decided it was just too much to come down for Father's Day. I wasn't feeling well and my fiancé said he didn't want to waste his weekend driving roundtrip for 12 hours. My fiancé calls his mother and tells her that its just too much and although he committed to going, he decided he was going to stay here and take care of me. MIL blew up and hung up on him (keep in mind we've been here for almost 2 years now and not once has anyone in the immediate family attempted to come see us). About a week later, his MIL commented on my Facebook posts with nasty comments thinking my posts were directed towards her (they were just general quotes, I didn't even realize she had an issue with me at the time). I delete her comment and my fiancé texts her to keep her problems off social media. She eventually blows up my fiancé's phone for hours talking about how we are selfish, about how I have no life experience that "it's laughable", nobody in the family likes me, apparently “everyone in this family thinks the same of me” and that “at this point nobody is going to your f*cking wedding”. That night, she deleted both me and him off of Facebook, but the next day she told my fiancé that I went on his fb and deleted her (why would I do this after 8 years? lol)
I was so hurt after all the memories we made together over the past 8 years, that I deleted all of the pics we had together on my social media. I finally knew what she truly thought of me. Was it immature to delete all the pics? Probably. But I also knew I could never have the same relationship with them again after all the things they said about me. Note: deleting the pics were not to intentionally hurt her, but more of something I felt like I needed to do for me to be emotionally “done”. It felt like all the previous times together were just fake. Over text, FMIL and I got into it. She stated to my fiancé “I want all the money you owe me NOW” (she gets like this when she doesn’t get her way to manipulate others- constantly using things she has paid for in the past to make us feel bad) and I straight up told her “there you go again using money against your own son”. Well that set her off and she threatened to talk with my parents and let them know they won’t be at the wedding due to my “nasty words” towards her. Not once have I ever cussed at her or attacked her character (like she has to me). Once she did this over FB messenger, My parents ignored her and said they weren’t getting involved. We went no contact for about 4 months until she realized we weren't backing down. During that time, she had the audacity to cut off my fiancé’s phone service in the middle of a work day (he paid his own but stayed on family plan to save them money).
She eventually apologized to me over text, telling me how she was just upset that she didn't feel important to us and took it out on me. She claims she recently gone through menopause during all of this. But, she still insists on telling my fiancé that I am not as innocent as I seem and keeps bringing up the deleting on FB because she wont admit she did it (she was probably drinking). I told her that I forgive her but it would take a long time for me feel comfortable and move on.
A few months later, they came down to visit us. We took them downtown and showed them where I went to school, our favorite restaurant, and then our apartment. FMIL threw a fit about us being out too long and started crying, saying that “this was my opportunity to relax from work and I wanted to go to the beach… I didn’t even want to go to lunch but I did for yall!” Just drama and drinking the entire time. No fun for my fiancé or me. Of course his step dad tells my fiancé “just go apologize to her, so we can all move on”. Fiancé stood his ground and said no, I did nothing wrong. I was civil the entire time and was actually the only one to console her upstairs when her and my fiance got into it about no time at the beach.
A couple of weeks later, I posted some recent pics of the past few months as a life update on FB. I didn’t post any photos of the trip except for one of us doing a cheers with our drinks (no faces involved). Keep in mind she had been posting pics of all of us all weekend, so some pics I was tagged in were already on my page. Of course FMIL got pissed and texted a bunch of screenshots of my fb page saying that I’m “holding a grudge” and “obviously have no intention of moving forward”. I told my fiance to tell her that I simply made a post and did not have a lot of time to go searching for the pics way up in the family group chat, so that it wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. The truth is, I didn’t feel comfortable posting photos of her on my page after the things she has said about me. I thought she would understand this considering I told her it would take time to heal (just didn’t want to start drama especially when dealing with school at the time). FMIL did not buy the excuse and we ended up saying “it shouldn’t matter if I don’t post a picture of yall, it’s not a huge deal”. Why would I post pics of a trip that was mainly drama? Fiancé understands where I was coming from and respected that. FMIL texted fiancé saying “I’ll go ahead and take back the $ I offered to pay for your rehearsal dinner”. She then got to digging and eventually realized I had removed all of our pics (what I did months before this). Fiancé’s step dad got involved and to look at my FB page. She told him that I deleted all of the pics of them on my FB and was holding a grudge. He saw that and texted my fiancé saying he’s convinced I’m the problem and that “although your mom has said some things that she has apologized for, I’m convinced your fiance is the problem here and doesn’t want to forgive”. (If I didn’t forgive, I wouldn’t have spent time with them when they came to visit us…)
He then stated that “if we are not going to be in any photos or posted in any pics, you can go ahead and uninvite us from the wedding and we’ll relay to our side of the family that we don’t plan to attend”. Fiancé gave them exactly what they asked for and said “at this point I don’t want you there so you got it”. Fiancé has been no contact since last July. Did not come to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and did not wish his parents happy birthday. I have not received a happy birthday from the entire side of the family. They are also avoiding us on social media. Fiancé recently received a text from his grandma saying “you are evil for treating your own mother this way and none of us will be at your wedding if your own mother is not invited”. Basically, he found out that she had told everyone that we uninvited them all on our own. She’s saying that we “misunderstood them” when we clearly have the text with their request, and that they “of course want to be there for his special day”. Now our guest list is cut in half and he will have no family at the wedding~ not even his 22 y/o brother.
We are at a loss. It’s 6 months until wedding and nothing has happened besides her sending flying monkeys and my fiancé having to block even more of his family. She even texted his birth dad (they never speak) recently saying “I just want to share my side of the story”. He didn’t reply.
I understand I may have done some things out of pettiness (none as bad as the things she has said to us) but we believe them using OUR event against us/threatening to not be at the wedding because they may not be posted on my FB is terrible and extremely hurtful.

My Mum(F39) is a drug addict and severely mentally ill, since I(F17) was around 11 or 12 she was extremely psychologically abusive and refused to get a job despite us living in abject poverty. When I was 14 she decided to let an old friend, her boyfriend and their two kids live with us in our tiny 2 bedroom basement suite, I didn't feel comfortable with them living with us so I left to stay with my girlfriend at the time and then a friend. After that I had to leave home 3-4 more times due to her drug use making her have mental breakdowns every few months and getting committed to a psych ward, right before I turned 16 I moved in permanently with my Grandparents, and I've been living with them ever since.
I'm about to graduate now, I went through a youth hairstyling program which means I'm a certified Hairstylist and with my grandparents moving to another province I'm moving out in 2 months. I've been in minimal contact with my Mum since I moved out, mainly because my Grandma still feels like she's responsible for her, she's homeless now and still just as bad mentally as when I lived with her, if not worse. She isn't coming to my graduation, she doesn't have my new phone number and we haven't given her the address to my new apartment, my Grandparents feel like I should give her some sort of information but respect my decision not to, I honestly can't wait for her to just disappear out my life for good.

…extracted myself from the scene, the bastard that he is. The Scene is a man, a guy of my type, knowing full well where my weaknesses lie.
The Scene, this vice, I can sum up to be my “ideal” version of a man: strong, accomplished, seductive, magnetic. My standards being high, his being higher; he can drive any woman to her knees. He is the typical of what people ask for in this kind of place, but not in terms of looks: he can take care of a woman, he can pick up both her and the bill. He looks smart and well-read yet does not exude arrogance. I like thinking I am accomplished myself, yet he has accomplished far more, keeping me on my toes that I need to keep on and keep up, even if I am aware and he knows this is not for long.
I relapsed, and it feels like getting high for the first time for a second time. It’s the same high, but the high in your teens is different from the high as you get older. The high from the scene used to come from how a guy looks. He’s taller than me, he’s chinito, he has arms that can put me in a headlock, he has ab muscles the stuff of dreams. Over time the appearances matter less; what are looks but a façade, and I’ve never grown to trust a person who looks a little too physically presentable to be true.
The high from the scene now comes from how a guy treats me; so many would offer to meet halfway. Yet there is a type of man–you know the one–the one you would consider risking it all for, even if you only have him for a night. That man. That man, who would not let you lift a finger even if you could. That man, who would not only meet you halfway, but give you more than you asked for. Other guys would say, “you just know exactly what you want” or call me demanding, yet the rarer ones take things as it is and leave me with no choice but to follow their lead. Oh, that man. That man who I would get on my hands and knees for, who could make me say those magic words:

Where you will lead, I will follow.

I relapsed and I lied to my past self. She used to be the coach, saying “this is not the place if you are easily attached.” I thought myself to be strong willed and hard headed before the relapse; I swallowed my pride in the after. He left me stripped of whatever hardness I kept; he was brave enough to be raw and emotional, yet I kept myself under lock and key, quietly observing. Here in the days after, none of us talk. None of us message.
But every time I lift my phone, I wish it were his messages coming through. I know what this lifestyle entails; everyone is too busy to find love, or whatever fragment of it we can find. Modern dating has gotten to be a little too complicated to bother playing around anymore; too many assholes walking around in plain sight.
I know I struck gold with the relapse, knowing that the person who drove me to the beginning of recovery was a guy who could barely support himself to stay alive. The sheer difference is between the ceiling and the floor, me standing in between.
I relapsed and he hit me hard. Literally. I had gotten exactly what I asked for and underestimated that the darkest corners of my mind wears battle bruises with pride. My entire body has yet to recover, yet it does not flinch at his strength. He put his hands on me just as you may imagine it, just the way I like it. It is scary and troublesome to play with fire; under a different context, that experience would have been abuse. But I know what I want, and I know him to hold back.
I relapsed and he held me hard. Where my mind never calms, he calls out to me with open arms: come to me, lay next to me, sleep with me. When I ask how long he wants to have me, he says until tomorrow. I would give that to you and probably a few days more, but I know when a line is a line and when fantasy will never cross reality. His mere presence asserts dominance, he has so much to do out in the world. My dominance is not as strong as his is; I have yet a long way to go.
This is why I dislike aftercare. He has me fantasizing about a nonexistent future because real life sets in and we were never meant to cross paths. Yet how alluring the future would be if we built one together: fulfilling, high-stress careers in public, and keeping a dark secret in private. Let me be your dark secret. Use me until you can’t get enough of me. Use me until you embed me in your thoughts, into your dreams, use me until you see no end in sight.
And we play with fire, and we dance and pursue. Let me follow your lead until dark turns into light. I promise to be good.
I relapsed and the drug came back with a vengeance. I’m detoxing and detaching, and I know it will be harder the next time around. I want you around. This could have been any other vice, but my body chooses The Scene.
I’m now scared with what’s next, because these glasses have been tinted red.

If you're reading this, please refrain from posting it on any other social media platforms. This topic is very sensitive to me.
I don't want to disclose my age, but I'm an F. This will be the first time I'm doing this.
I need to vent about my parents, who are Christian ministers, never working or providing a good life for us, including my siblings. We barely finished school. My siblings had to take alternative exams to graduate high school because we kept changing schools or our parents couldn't afford the expenses. It's shocking that both sides of my parents' families are wealthy, yet we struggled immensely. Many supported them financially, including families and friends, but it was never enough because they didn't know how to manage it. My dad was fond of giving to "bless others," even when we had nothing left.
Actually, it's hard to share. I was told to always keep my emotions in. My dad was mentally abusive and manipulative. He even resorted to physical discipline, using spanking as punishment even when we didn't do anything wrong. He also "grounded" us, taking away something valuable as a form of discipline. It's like he took everything from us, including our rights and education.
I had to work at a young age to make ends meet by modeling even if it were against my parents' wishes because they were so strict. What's the point of their strictness if they can't even provide us with proper meals? Sometimes we'd go hungry, and we weren't allowed to complain. We were terrified of our dad. He would burst in anger and still we had to listen to him preach. They couldn't buy me new shoes when I needed them, and we almost never went for hospital check-ups. I almost died from food poisoning, and they just stood there and prayed. I also endured severe bullying at school and from neighbors because I looked like a foreigner. I couldn't even finish my education because I had to start working. Now, I'm struggling. I suffer from depression, and I've withdrawn from socializing because of the overwhelming shame and sadness I feel. My parents don't care at all. We rarely have meaningful conversations; they're always glued to their phones, even though they know there are bills to pay. But it's okay for them because "GOD WILL PROVIDE" is their belief. I can't understand how they justify their actions.
I had to help out even when there was hardly anything left for myself, just to put food on the table. I've been betrayed many times by my own parents, especially when I was a minor. I needed to let this out because I have severe trust issues, even stemming from my experiences in church.
P.S. Even though I want to get married, I don't feel like I can because I'm too ashamed of another family getting to know mine. This always breaks my heart. I also want to hear what any of you think about this? I honestly don't know what to do with my parents anymore.

Hi everyone. I’d love advice or perspective on how to cope with feelings that still are coming up months later about a friendship ending. They weren’t honest with me about how they were actually feeling about the friendship and ended up texting me at the start of the year that they didn’t really care to heal the relationship or maintain it effectively ending the friendship. I never even bothered to respond to that text but yet this person blocked me on almost everything. However, I unblocked them recently on one social platform that I had previously blocked them on first but recently noticed and that they went and blocked me once they saw they were unblocked (even though we weren’t even connected on socials in anyway). I’m now basically blocked on everything which I don’t understand why and it’s really hurtful. Once this person was a massive asshole and showed their true colors I never even responded to them ending the relationship. I just let it go. But why block someone who didn’t bother to blow up your phone? I was never gonna reach back out to this person ever. I’m honestly not sure why I unblocked them, I guess I was just curious to see if anything had changed on their profile. But I left it and forgot about it until I realized they disappeared again. I know how this probably sounds… but I’m just still so pissed sometimes. I feel so rejected over what, just being myself? Being someone that was going through a tough time? I made a previous post on here detailing the circumstances of everything that happened. I had relied heavily on this person while I was going through a very difficult life transition and was just starting therapy again. I was emotionally unstable and was in a crisis but doing everything in my power to keep it together. I thought they loved me and supported me even if I was going through a tough time and even if it was harder on them perhaps more than it had been in the past. Shit got hard, like it normally does in life, and they bailed. And then I’m the one who is blocked on everything as if I’m the bad guy.

I am in a relationship with the man of my dreams. He’s smart and funny and kind. He has a great family, a great career and he hot as hell. He treats me better than anyone has ever treated me before and I am head over heels in love it him.
The only problem in our relationship is that he has trust issues and has them for a very valid reason.
My boyfriend was married before he met me and his wife cheated on him with her older married boss. And he caught them in the act. He didn’t suspect a thing until he got an email Amazon with a picture confirming a package delivery that tipped him off that his wife’s car was home in the middle of the day. She didn’t answer her phone when he called so he went home to check and found them in their bed.
She apologized, begged him to forgive her but he just couldn’t get that image out of his head. He could never be with her again after seeing that.
He told me all of this rather early on in our relationship because he wanted to be open about the trust issues that he has. I was cocky at first. I said to myself that I am going to treat him so well that he isn’t going to be able to remember her name. But it’s been harder than I anticipated. He’s had trouble opening his heart up to me. It’s been very slow.
When I go out with my friends he’s on edge. He doesn’t say anything but he’s tense and distant before I go. I offer not to go but he insists that I live my life. He won’t put his issues on me and I love him for that. But I still decline invitations often and don’t tell him that I do.
Another issue is that his ex wife is constantly trying to get in touch with him even though he blocked her number. She fucked up, my boyfriend is a catch and she knows it. My boyfriend ignores her but every time she slips through he’s not right for the rest of the day.
I need some advice on how to manage this. He’s the one for me if he can just get over these issues. I’m not a cheater. I’ve never cheated on anyone I’ve ever been with and sure as hell would never cheat on someone I love. How can I make him see that? What can I do?
TLDR: My boyfriend has trust issues from being cheated on. How do I help him get over them?

Did you know any information about Google Home and features of home automation with it?
There’s a lot you can do with Google Home’s speakers and screens around your house. As soon as you have set up the hands-free speaker, and paired it to your smartphone, you can benefit from the futuristic features.
By commanding compatible devices around the house with only your voice, Google Home can make your life easier. All it takes is a simple “Okay Google” followed by any order that your device has learnt to recognize. Here are ten real life examples of how you can make the most of the features offered by Google Home.
The features of home automation with Google are:

1. Multiple Voice Commands
2. Controlling Smart Devices
3. Speed up Response Time
4. Google Nest Hello Video Doorbell
5. Google Keep: Sync your Notes and Lists
6. Keeping Track of your Phone and Keys
7. Broadcast to All your Devices
8. Daily Routines with Multiple Commands
9. Play Games with Google Home
10. Stories, podcasts and audiobooks

I am in a relationship with the man of my dreams. He’s smart and funny and kind. He has a great family, a great career and he hot as hell. He treats me better than anyone has ever treated me before and I am head over heels in love it him.
The only problem in our relationship is that he has trust issues and has them for a very valid reason.
My boyfriend was married before he met me and his wife cheated on him with her older married boss. And he caught them in the act. He didn’t suspect a thing until he got an email Amazon with a picture confirming a package delivery that tipped him off that his wife’s car was home in the middle of the day. She didn’t answer her phone when he called so he went home to check and found them in their bed.
She apologized, begged him to forgive her but he just couldn’t get that image out of his head. He could never be with her again after seeing that.
He told me all of this rather early on in our relationship because he wanted to be open about the trust issues that he has. I was cocky at first. I said to myself that I am going to treat him so well that he isn’t going to be able to remember her name. But it’s been harder than I anticipated. He’s had trouble opening his heart up to me. It’s been very slow.
When I go out with my friends he’s on edge. He doesn’t say anything but he’s tense and distant before I go. I offer not to go but he insists that I live my life. He won’t put his issues on me and I love him for that. But I still decline invitations often and don’t tell him that I do.
Another issue is that his ex wife is constantly trying to get in touch with him even though he blocked her number. She fucked up, my boyfriend is a catch and she knows it. My boyfriend ignores her but every time she slips through he’s not right for the rest of the day.
I need some advice on how to manage this. He’s the one for me if he can just get over these issues. I’m not a cheater. I’ve never cheated on anyone I’ve ever been with and sure as hell would never cheat on someone I love. How can I make him see that? What can I do?
TLDR: My boyfriend has trust issues from being cheated on. How do I help him get over them?

I did something today I didn't do in a long time. I took a long shower.
Growing up, one week out of the summer we'd visit my (Great) Aunt and Uncle. They'd rent out a beach house and me, my parents, and my cousin and aunt would all drive down. As the years went on, I started being more self conscious about my body. I started wearing shirts in the water. Afterwards we'd all go in and take showers. Mine would always take the longest towards those later years. I would just sit on the floor of the tub crying. Crying about my body, crying because I thought there'd never be hope for me to be me. This was a daily occurrence throughout those weeks. I don't really think I need to explain here, I'm sure most of you can relate. My family would always tease me about the long showers. I know what they thought I was doing. That of course didn't help at all. Fast forward to now, more than a decade later.
I recently went on HRT. My 3 month would have been this week. A few days into it.. I lost my car, in which had my license, my social security card, my birth certificate, all of my favorite clothes, my favorite backpack, and worst of all my life saving medication. I know I know.. how do you just lose a car. It wasn't stolen. I had been driving a while.. I needed a break. I pulled into a city, hopped out of the car, and went for a walk.
I have no idea how it happened.. but my keys.. my phone.. both just vanished. I had no idea where in the city I was. I had no idea where my car was. That night I slept on the stoop of some building, with only my leather jacket to keep me warm. I spent a few more nights wandering before giving up and tryin to make my way to the next city. A cop scooped me up on the interstate, brought me to the closest hotel, and got in touch with my father. So here I am.. 28. Living back with my parents. I came out to them before all this. My dad 5 years ago, and my mom about half a year before this happened. I'm stuck. This house is not conducive to a healthy mind. My mom has refused to use ANY name to refer to me, dead or chosen. She will actively avoid pronouns all together while I am a part of the conversation. My dad is trying, he uses my chosen name, and at least uses neutral pronouns. My dad's side of the family is aware too, and while "supportive" I can tell it comes from a place of pity. My mom's side doesn't know, or atleast I don't think they do. One of my aunts from her side reached out to me, but mom was adamant that I don't respond. Mom has also been actively lying to my grandparents telling them I'm not here. She claims its because she doesn't think they'll accept me. Such hollow words. Its so obvious that she is the non accepting one.
So here I am. Trapped. Trapped in this body I hate. Trapped in a house so filled with shit I can't take one step without tripping and knocking over ceiling high piles of garbage. Trapped in a family that doesn't truly see me. Unable to move forward. Unable to get a job as nothing within walkin distance is hiring, ontop of not having any actual valid forms of ID. Ontop of all the stress of having to go through that process of getting all that back. I was in a different state when I started HRT and I can't even get back on it in my current situation.
So yea.. today I took a long shower.

Since I was born, I have lived in a small town in the eastern bay area of California. It was a small but beautiful city. We were located within contra costa county which was home to many rolling hills and oak trees, I lived with my older brother who was 14 at the time and my parents. We resided in a large home with two stories on the top of a hill where we like often be greeted with the pleasant ocean breeze from the nearby San Francisco Bay. Sometimes, we were greeted with something else, something far less pleasant than ocean breeze. This is the story of the thing
When I was 12 years old, I’d always love to lay my eyes on the beautiful view from our home. I’d sometimes sit for hours just embracing everything I could see. Today was a beautiful day, the clouds were mild and soft, and the sky was bright and full of the signature breeze. As I woke up, I walked down to the kitchen to grab some breakfast where I was greeted by a wonderful sweet smell. “ Hi Matthew, “ my mother said sweetly as she’d always been,
“ come grab a waffle, they are delicious today. “
I was immediately excited as waffles were my favorite thing ever, so I dashed over to the large island to eat my breakfast.
“ Thanks mom! “ I said excitedly, immediately chowing down on my food.
“ Your brother is in the backyard mowing the lawn, sorry about the noise. “ I nodded my head and examined the room, suddenly my eyes were met with the calendar hanging on the wall. It was a pleasant day in May, however that’s not what caught my attention. What I saw was the date of the special day me and my friend would have. Every once in a while, we would ride our bikes to long distance to the Briones Regional Park, which was a beautiful expanse of rolling hills and trails. There we would hike all day long and play in the beautiful hills getting up to god knows what, and today was one of those days.
“ Mom, remember today? “
She looked confused for a moment until the calendar also caught her eyes.
“ Oh, I’ll have to call Lucas’s mother, “ she said, “ What time are you leaving? “
“ 1 o’clock. “
She grabbed her Nokia phone, which was the biggest new thing at the time, and dialed my best friends mothers phone number.
“ Hello, this is Alyssa, Matthew’s mom. “
As she talked on the phone, I saw my brother come in and head into his bedroom where he sneakily picked up my mother’s fashion magazine. I rolled my eyes as I knew what he was doing but ignored it, I went up to my room to text my buddy Lucas on my Nokia.
“ Hey bro, “ I texted awaiting a response. About 5 minutes later I got a response.
“ Hey, my mom says I’ll come to your house at 1 o’clock so we can ride to Briones. “ I told him that he was right and I’d see him at 1 o’clock.
When he arrived, he was all ready with his backpack and everything. “ Hey! “ I called out excitedly. Lucas was a 12 year old fair skinned boy on the cusp of puberty with medium length brown hair and green eyes. We got up to our usual shenanigans until we finally got ready to get on our bikes. Until we saw the thing upon leaving the house.
Every once in a while, flickering lights could be seen from the hills of Briones which were an odd blue color. They were clearly visible and had an off putting presence.
“ What’s that? “ Lucas asked me.
“ Oh, we just see those lights every now and then, we don’t really know what it is. “
This didn’t concern us at the time and after about an hour of riding we finally arrived at one of the trails. We got off of our bikes and started our hike.
“ It’s a nice day bro, “ I mentioned, “ not too hot or cold. “
“ Yeah, good thing we went today. “ Lucas added on.
We started our usual hike to one of our favorite spots in the park which had a big oak tree where we would eat all the usual snacks. However as we were hiking, a familiar voice shouted. “ Hey! “
It was my brother, what was he doing here? He got out of his Honda and ran to me.
“ You forgot your backpack, here. “ He handed it to me and drove off before I could say anything.
“ That was weird.. “ Lucas added.
“ At least we have my backpack now “
The hike was beautiful, we crossed a lot of unmarked trails as where we usually went was deep in the park.
After around 45 minutes of hiking and doing our usual banter, we made it to the oak tree and laid out a picnic blanket.
“ Okay, I brought some snacks and water. “ Lucas commented. As we took out all of our food from our backpacks, I noticed one more thing, my mother’s magazine.
“ What’s that? “ Lucas asked.
“ How did this get here? “ I asked myself puzzled.
“ What is it though? “ Lucas asked me.
“ It’s one of my mom’s women’s fashion magazines, I saw Dallas grab it and head into his room, he must have accidentally left it here. “
Lucas quickly grabbed the magazine and said “ damn “ under his breath. Now that I look back at it it was a pretty normal magazine, but we were 12 going on 13 on the cusp of puberty, how could we resist?
“ Should we take a look? “ Lucas suggested.
“ I-I don’t know bro, should we? “
“ Of course we should! “ Lucas exclaimed.
“ Aight then.. “
I hadn’t got my hands on any magazine as it was the late 1990s and they were hard to find. So obviously I was invested as we flipped through the page. Until I felt a presence, almost threatening.
“ I’ve got a stiffy now, bro. Your brother shouldn’t have put this in by accide- “
“ Do you feel that? “ I interrupted
“ Feel what? “ Lucas asked confused.
“ I don’t know, it just feels off. “
“ You’re just excited bro. “
“ No- well yes, but I feel something off. “
Before he could get a word out, I saw it. I saw the lights. They resembled a moth flying around a lamp. I felt like I was being punished almost, I had no idea why.
“ What the hell? “ Lucas said extremely shakily.
“ I think those were the lights! Let’s go come on! “
“ We are in the middle of this mag! Seriously Matthew? “
“ I don’t care about the hot chicks no more, come on! “
“ Fine! “
We got up and ran to the sight where the lights were seen. After about 10 minutes we saw a sign.
“ What the fuck? “
It was a tall sign that had the words “ Purificationem Statione praesmisit “ written on it. We had no idea what it meant.
“ What the hell does that mean? “ I said.
Before Lucas could say anything, I pointed out a weird industrial looking box building surrounded by electric fence.
“ What is that.. “
I started to feel uneasy again, I felt a terrible sense of dread. Right when we got to the small gate, I heard a whisper right by my ear.
“ You’ve brought something impure to the site, Matthew. “
I shut down in the moment and I felt the Magazine flying at me extremely fast. I blacked out, fading into unconsciousness.
TO BE CONTINUED

http://simpson.walraven.org/nbs-ojs.html
Dear O.J. I'd like to see you, to talk to you in person. But I know you can't do that. I've been attending these meetings to help me turn negatives into positives -- to help me turn get rid of my anger . . . . I've learned to "let things go" (the most powerful, helpful thing I've ever learned). I've learned that all things that upset & bother me are just a mirror of what's going on in me. I always knew that what was going on with us was about me -- I just wasn't sure why it was about me -- So I just blamed you. I'm the one who was controlling. I wanted you to be faithful and be a perfect father. I was not accepting to who you are. Because I didn't like myself anymore. I'm not sure exactly what went on with me these last few years. I know New Year's Eve started it. I sank into a depression that I couldn't control. I also agree with you now -- that I went through some sort of mid life crisis -- "that 30's thing," you called it, my own self esteem . . . ect. I know it was a combination of all of these things. But mostly, due to all of these things, I know I gave up. I gave up treating you like I loved you. We started taking each other for granted -- and I didn't know how to put it all back together. I never stopped loving you -- I stopped liking myself and lost total confidence in any relationship with you.
I really needed this time in my life -- It's allowed me to get to know and like myself (again). It's given me a chance to go from a non-person, (the past 3 years) to a whole person.
There's so much I want to say to you. It's very hard to express myself in this letter. I wish we could be taking a walk around the block like we used to. It would be so much easier to speak to you face to face.
I want to put our family back together! I want our kids to grow up with their parents. I thought I'd be happy raising Sydney & Justin by myself -- since we didn't see too much of you anyway. But, now, I [missing text].
I want to be with you! I want to love you and cherish you, and make you smile. I want to wake up with you in the mornings and hold you at night. I want to hug and kiss you everyday. I want us to be the way we used to be. There was no couple like us. I don't know what I went through . . . . I didn't believe you loved me anymore -- and I couldn't handle it. But for the past month I've been looking at our wedding tape and our family movies -- and I can see that we truly loved each other. A love I've never seen in any of our friends. Please look at the 2 tapes I'm sending over with this letter. Watch them along & with your phone turned off -- they're really fun to watch.
O.J., I want to come home -- I want us all to be together again -- We can move wherever you want -- we can stay here -- I just never want to leave your side again.
I've almost come home 20 times since I left -- but I was never totally sure about us until now. I know I love you and know I'm in love with you and know I want to [missing text] and be with you forever.
Please watch the tapes -- I know you have major anger against me -- but you owe it to your kids and to us. I had that same anger. . . I'd never let this happen to us again. Without this year, without this growth, I don't think we'd have had a chance together -- We let it die. And through death . . . something new always grows. I agree with what you said 6 or 8 months ago. The next time around will be the best. I totally feel that now. We want to come home -- we'd be there tomorrow if you'd let us. I'm not embarrassed about anything -- I don't give a hoot what anybody thinks. I only know I love you and our kids would be the happiest kids in the world.
If you're totally happy with your life now -- I'll understand -- especially if you're truly in love and know that's going to work. Then, I can't mess with that. If I don't hear from you soon -- then I'll assume that's the case and I'll never bother you or ask you to have [missing text] way to find out -- I had to ask.
O.J. You'll be my one and only "true love." I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you and I'm sorry we let it die. Please let us be a family again, and let me love you -- better than I ever have before.
I'll love you forever and always . . .
Me.
[Drawing of smiling face.]

Sorry for the long post. I'm in need of some guidance...
Split from abusive husband last June. Since then he has been having our 3 children sleep over 2 nights every week. Today I have seen on a shared email address a drafted letter from his solicitors to have 50/50 shared custody - obviously attempting to get out of paying maintenance!
So up until 6 weeks ago our children would sleep over with him 2 nights a week (eldest refused as he's 15 and can make his own mind up).. originally I had a voice note from our youngest whilst he was in his care (11years old, autistic with severe allergies). This vn displayed my son having an allergic reaction - wheezing, tight chest and sore throat! My husband refused to answer my 6 phone calls.. I then sent him a text 'answer your ******* phone... is *** OK?' To which he rung me back stating 'yes he's ok I'm lying in bed with him now.. he's just a bit wheezy and has an itchy throat (prime examples of anaphylaxis)' I said on the phone to him 'he is probably having a reaction.. do you know how to administor an epi pen!?' To which he replied 'no haven't got a clue'. This all happened whilst I had gone away for the weekend and had no way of getting back in time...
The following weekend my ex 'moved' into his new flat (he's renting a place for the boys but lives with his new piece).. all 3 boys were excited to stay over in dadi's new flat. Long behold I had the dreaded phonecall not only off my eldest (15) but also off the middle child (13) balling their eyes out to come home because; 1. There was water pouring through the ceilings! 2. Daddy wasn't there and that they'd been left with Nanny (paternal grandmother) who was not capable of looking after them due to her previously 'attempting' to commit suicide after WE (myself and husband) had called her out on leaving our then 4, 3 and 1 year old to fend for themselves all day out on the streets! 3. There was no fridge or beds for them all.. just a dart board without darts!
That night I had to go pick my children up.. to which my husband and his mother slagged me off to our children. The following day I allowed the youngest to stay with his dad - the eldest 2 refused to see him.
When the youngest got home to me the next day, he disclosed that he was left in the flat for hours by himself and didnt know where his father was. This is a highly functioning autistic child with severe allergies! My friend happened to drive past the ex's flat that evening and noticed my husbands friend standing outside. When I questioned my youngest about this, stating 'oh it must have been nice to see ***** yesterday!?' He replied with 'oh yeah, the door bell rang so I ran down stairs to answer it, and ***** was there asking where Dadi was. But I couldn't tell him because I hadn't seen Dadi for a few hours!'
That week I sent the father of my children a list of what I expect of him inordered for him to have the boys over night again; 1. Sort your life out (I'm under the impression that he's on drugs - he's racked up 26k of debt since leaving, but all debt collectors letters still come to the 'family' home) 2. He makes the flat safe for our children (damp and leak). 3. He doesn't go against my wishes with his mother looking after them. 4. Our youngest actually has a bed to sleep in - he's been on a blow up bed since last summer, eventhough I have provided a double bed for the children. 5. He puts our children 1st - He now acts dad of the Year to his latest supply and her 3 children constantly sending them money (bank statements Still come here). 6. Pays back the £600odd that he owes me (he told me to go ahead and order the boys trainers and clothes and he would pay me back his share the following day).. nope a month I've had to wait for it, eventhough he knew I didn't have food or electric in the house for the boys that week, but he could pay £20 for his 'secret' phone to talk to his new piece!
The youngest has spent 7/8hours with his dad every Sunday during the day since.. the eldest 2 still refuse to see him. The only thing I have stopped is over night visits due to the welfare and concerns I have surrounding our children - eldest 2 are in therapy because of his abuse and manipulation tactics!
The last 6 weeks have been nothing but hell..I'm a single mum on UC, caring for my mother, bringing up my 3 boys and paying all the bills including the mortgage (his name is still on it). I have put maintenance up to £200 a week based off his £800 a week main income - he is also working 2 nights on top of this a week (the 2 nights he should have his own children).
Today I saw a drafted letter on our shared email address from the solicitors of my husband. In this email, it states that I have been aggressive toward their client and I'm withholding the children having contact with their dad unless he pays maintenance. Their dad rings and texts them every day.. the only thing I have stopped is over night visits - its down to them if they want to reply or not.
The letter also states that I should include the ex on a family app so that he knows what's going on with the children.. why do I have to organise a calender for him when he's included on spond and WhatsApp groups for the boys sports?
I have tried my best to encourage my children to see their dad.. I am under womens aid for abusive and sexual violence.
That's all I want is for the children to have a healthy relationship with their dad.. but still he tries to manipulate and control me through the children.
I am monitoring all texts between my children and their dad - he still tries his best to make me out as the bad guy, eventhough the eldest 2 can finally see what he's like.
So my questions are.. can the courts force the children to see their dad? What can I do to stop him from having 50/50 access? Am I being unreasonable with my list of what I expect of him with the children's welfare?

I'm very well prepared to get downvoted into hell for sharing this. I'm even more prepared not to give a fuck.
I refuse to accept second best.
I refuse to accept simply receiving text messages, YouTube links, memes and funny GIFs because he doesn't want to put in the effort to picking up the phone and talk.
I refuse to accept being his emotional support animal because he's lost, miserable, with nothing of value to offer me, and he feels trapped or otherwise entangled in a relationship where his needs are not being met but will not leave.
I refuse to accept being his second choice, substitute, or placeholder because the woman he truly prefers is either unavailable or has rejected him for obvious reasons.
I refuse to beg, plead, cry, yell, shout, cause drama, act out, or misbehave just to get him to pay attention to me.
I refuse to place such low premium on my heart, being easily bought and sold, from d-pics and text messages that promise a good time because we truly have nothing in common and nothing to talk about.
I refuse to believe that the idea of dying alone, settling down with cats, and never being touched by another man for my remaining 87 years of my life just because I wouldn't give up my self-respect and values is considered "Plan B" and something to avoid out of fear.
I refuse to chase after the idea of a husband and placing undue pressure on myself to have his babies simply because I need to or that I should, therefore, making me indiscriminate about the men with whom I involve myself.
I refuse to make myself available to him on the condition to be happily cast aside or otherwise forgotten if he discovers someone better.
I was planning on commencing my "Men On Pause" on my 40th birthday next month, but after taking a lot of things into consideration, I'm actually going to initiate that earlier than planned. I'll take that as an early birthday gift to myself.
That is all.

Me (F20) and my boyfriend (M20) got into an argument over something I found on his phone. Things got pretty heated between us and he "restrained" me several times because he thought I was going to hit him. For reference, Im a very, very small girl. I weigh 90 pounds and he is almost twice my weight and taller than me. I've never hit him before, and even if I did there was no reason to restrain me as hard as he did. When he did that the first time, every time he got closer to me I did push and punch him away afterwards tho. He kept restraining me several times and he wouldn't let me leave. Finally after much screaming and restraining, he did. I went home and saw dark bruises on my arms. I could tell his intentions weren't to just restrain me but physically harm me without hitting me and that was his way of taking his anger out on me. The next day a red bruise like spot was also on my neck and the area around it hurt like a bruise, but it could be from the struggle of me trying to get away from him because I don't remember him putting his hands on my neck but everything was kind of a blur. He also did threaten to hit me that night but didn't actualy. He did apologize to me profusely the next day and cried at the sight of my injuries . He told me he's never done something like that before but he's never been that mad in his life. I've never seen him so angry and typically he reacts calmly when we get into fights. He swore up and down it would never get that out of hand again. Is this considered abusive? We’ve been together for 10 months and I’ve never seen him act like this. He has made threats though about killing me and stuff but I’ve figured he’s just talking out his ass and would never. Like I said he’s always been pretty chill when we’ve fought but this scared me. Am I overreacting/overthinking? I mean, he didn’t leave bruises my hitting me. Would you leave your significant other over this? For context, It was my birthday that day AND my mother just died the week before so it just seemed like a really inappropriate time to be doing that to me especially.

To begin with, I am self-aware and recognize that I have depression, which is messing with my head. Here's my situation: I had been friends with her for over 10 years before we started dating two years ago. Initially, I learned that she had mental health issues and didn't have a lot of friends, so I tried to help her. I believe she improved, and for about six months, everything was perfect. We talked late into the night, met often and related a lot
However, last December, I introduced her to my male friend, and they began talking a lot. At first, I was happy for her because she finally found a friend. But over the past few months, it feels like they talk to each other much more than she talks to me and they started meeting alone more often. She hides their chats when I glance at her phone, which is unusual since we don't typically hide our messages from each other.
When the three of us are together, I often feel like a third wheel. She seems happier and more talkative with him, and our late-night talks have stopped. We don’t talk as much as we used to, only about everyday things. A year ago she really enjoyed exploring, walking and doing outside activities with me, but now she says that she doesn't like that anymore and I feel like we're drifting apart. I feel like because of this I developed this depression. I've discussed my feelings with her, and she knows I'm struggling mentally, she said that she enjoys his company and that they are relating more. When I bring up that we are not texting as much she says that there isn't much to talk about and she prefers talking with me in person, but when we meet, we don't talk as much as before. She says that she loves me and we want to spend our lives together(we talk about this often to this day), and I believe her because we still talk for a bit and meet quite often, but there are days when for example she says she’s going to sleep but stays up chatting with him until 3 a.m. For now I think and hope they are only friends and I hope it stays that way, but from how she is acting you can imagine how it looks to me. I don't think this is the honeymoon period since we talked about it and we understood that we are past that a long time ago.
I'm not doing well mentally and i want to grow out of this because I've always been happy and I miss that. I’m hoping more mature and experienced people can help me figure this out since this is my first girlfriend and I don't have experience in this field. What can I do to bond with her more? Is this in my head and depression is just messing with my rational thinking? Why would she sometimes act so cold and uncaring? Shouldn’t your life partner be your best and number 1 friend? I want that to be the case, and it hurts to feel like I’m drifting apart with the person I want to spend my life with.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

hi everyone. this is my first time posting here and i'm not a person who frequents this sub so idk what to expect.
TLDR: i have a very close friend group of four years now (there are 8 of us) and i love them dearly. they are like my family and i adore every part of them. although i have no doubt that they value me, i struggle with feeling disappointment with them especially when they are consistently late/flakey/invalidating my feelings about it. i've expressed frustration before and yet it never changes. how do i get over it before it causes resentment?
okay here's the long version. my friends and i met in high school. we were all part of the same larger circles but it wasn't until covid that we created our group. during covid we talked constantly and met up safely outside, masked, and at a distance when cases in our area were low. it was important to us because a couple of us had immunocompromised parents. we were dedicated to each other and they changed my life. they were and still are my rocks.
another thing to note is that my own relationship with my family is not perfect and in general, we are not very close and do not spend a lot of time together. for the most part, this isn't true for my other friends and they get along quite well with their families. it makes me approach the friendship differently i think because they're kinda like my family and they don't really need a second family. i try not to let this cloud my judgement with them but sometimes it hurts extra hard when im stood up for their family.
as years have passed and we've all gone to school, things have changed in the group but i still consider myself close to the vast majority of them and we still see each other frequently (every break, have visited each other at school a couple times). however, i find myself growing more and more hurt and disappointed over things that were originally not a big deal.
most of my friends are chronically late. i am an extremely punctual person and it frustrates me when others are late because it feels disrespectful. i have told them individually about this and yet it continues to happen. sometimes its only 10 minutes and i just get mildly annoyed, other times its hours and im left stranded without a text or call. there are 2 that regularly are late in this way and i've told them about it and still it stays the same. in these moments i feel so hurt and disrespected yet it feels like i can't express this for fear of causing conflict or harping on stuff that we've already discussed. they just say "i know" and i'm expected to drop it.
other times they are extremely flakey. whether it's being hard to pin down which is just batted away with "im so busy!" or it's fully flaking on premade (and paid!) plans only minutes before, it's a consistent issue. when we all lived in the same place, it was okay because i knew i would see them again but now that we all live far away and dont see each other as much, plans are much more deliberate and when they flake, it hurts me a lot. a lot of the time they flake to spend time with family and while i know they have to split time, it can really hurt when we had plans and they decide to stay in instead especially since i can't just go to my parents and spend time with them like they always can.
the reason i'm writing this post is because today is my last day before i leave for 5 weeks and they flaked. this is our last summer before graduating college and therefore our last "free summer." we are all spread out around the country and will be back in our hometown at various points with some overlap but mostly we'll be doing our own thing. basically, it all feels very final. today my friends and i went swimming and hung out for 5 hours during the day. as we were saying goodbye, i asked if people would be around in the evening and if they wanted to hang out. i got a tepid affirmative from everyone and said we should text after dinner and maybe watch a movie and say a real goodbye before i leave tomorrow. its around 8pm and im waiting around for a text and no one is texting so finally i text. no one responds for an hour so i reach out separately to one friend to see if they're still having dinner and what time they would be free and they say they actually made plans with other friends but they'll swing by to say goodbye before. so i get a little upset but say goodbye to them. then i text one of the others and he says he isn't free anymore but he might say bye tomorrow which is a bit annoying because i told them i wouldn't really have time before the airport tomorrow because i need to get my phone fixed but i just text him to let me know his timing and i'll see if i can make it work. finally my other friend tells me she just woke up from an accidental nap and she's gonna eat and see if she's up for it. my other friends are unresponsive. basically, my night of fun before i leave and don't know when i'm going to see them again has turned into me alone, writing this and probably watching a movie. this isn't even the first time they've done this on my last day before leaving! it happened last summer and winter break the year before too. maybe im overreacting but this really hurts my feelings. i know we hang out a lot and we spent a lot of time together already today but it makes me really angry at them and makes me hold all of this resentment and i want advice on how not to get so angry or upset when things like this happen. is there anything i can do to just get over it? am i overreacting?

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Phil’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as if we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.