His friend, "Rath" - Chapter 1
This was going to be a one-shot story...but it sort of ran away from me.
This is supposed to be a dated, Cthulhu-ish story.
WARNING: POSSIBLY offensive. It is supposed to take place in the past.
It was in the cooling and darkening months of the Fall when my independent studies truly began to bear fruit. Fruit that truly represented
the ebb, flow, toil, and loss I have sacrificed in my studies. My independent, and "strange" as my fellow colleagues would name them, studies. Or as my husband would refer to them... 'eldritch studies'.
I dare not mention him, since I can no longer stand the teasing concerning his name. And now, my legal last name...'Chadrick'. Nor I about my own Nordic-born first name, heralding my own bloodline....Witedotter. 'Daughter of The White.' My husband's grandfather, a Sicilian man with all the features of the ancient Roman empire, and skin the color of a Hershey's chocolate, complete with thick and kinky black hair that almost seems "slick" or oiled in the light, even when it is dry, had took great pride in his bloodline. My grandfather-in-law bragged to us during the wedding of how he, his son, his grandson - now my husband - and that ever-so-impossible-not-to-come grandson that will soon use be in my womb, all herald from a Centurion of days long past. And it was that ancient man's OCD, Asperger's Syndrome, and.... lack-of-masculine-girth (thus the need to overcompensate in other ways?)...which was the weaknesses to give thanks for, since they were the driving reasons for his expertly preserving and finely maintained histories of his family, which so expertly and finely were passed down through the centuries...even into the 20th. And from his grandson, to that grandson's wife, me, a proud Nordic woman, who during the dominance of the Roman empire, was seen as no more than a semi-human beast, and the "missing link" between humanity...and the beasts of the field.
I laugh with irony as I think of that. History does cycle. And... as always was, is, and will be.... filled with irony.
I look at the black and white photo of my dear husband, and his academically astute "nerd" as they call them. "Nerdy," children call it. Yes, ever so he is "nerdy", yet his also adorable, exterior. The mass of thick hair that makes a halo 'bove his head.
"1/20th a man," the Americans say.
"Sub-human."
Oh, how not so long ago was those like him considered 'the true humans' by the world powers that were. Ancient and dry Kemet, Kush, Punt, and the fevered whisperings of the "African Atlantis", a once great city of clay sculptures, stone streets, and smelted iron genius at a time when the most advanced in all of Europe or Asia were still struggling with copper...that long dead metropolis called Nok. And those like me considered 'bestial'. As also was claimed by he who serves as the great contradiction to the homophobe's jaunt - Alexandros Megas. Or who men today call 'Alexander, the Great.' He, and his fellow Greeks, claimed that the lands we today consider superior and Aryan, Alexander and his fellows deemed the people and natives of northern Europe as no more than beast-people. Monsters of low IQ, lacking in humanity, and too useless even for the fields or to be set beside the oxen and goats.
And it just makes me wonder ever so, who next will be called 'beasts'? And will they rise in time to conquer all, and deem another group as 'beasts', who thus will also rise, and repeat this...cycle? This cycle of arrogance, ignorance, and karma.
Forgive me, I have a bad habit of rambling and becoming sidetracked by my thoughts.
As I had been saying earlier, my husband's father's line has a rather detailed and well-kempt history of their descendance from a Roman Centurion - something akin to a army captain, I take it. I have never been one for military heraldry and the like. Not due to being a woman, mind you, since my very own mother and sister are beyond any man in being experts in that very thing. But I just never have found intrigue or drive to study within it. So, returning to former point, my husband's ancestor apparently had such shortcomings - or so-thought shortcomings - that they drove his diligence that proved to keep his family's history finely detailed even to this day, even into a alien land, even into the once-enemy culture of the very Celts that he and his saw with such great disgust, disdain, and bigoted hatred. And yet, here the history survives - forcing me to question if truly are "illnesses" and "shortcomings" truly negative drawbacks? Or are they simply a insurance of information and superior action? Are they a 'gas pedal' to press a would-be-content human mind to such discontent that it drives a woman or man to elevate beyond all they would have been? Again, I apologize, my thoughts are deep, and my muscles becoming gelatinous-like, as my friend sits here burning a odd Oriental mixture of herb and stem in a bronze bowl for the sake of some foreign practice of thought and concept. But I doubt it has any effect at all other than pleasing the senses of smell and aesthetics. And I must merely be too comforted in deep thinking, such so to have caused my ladyship to have rambled thrice by now.
Anyway, my husband's bloodline heralds to that Roman Centurion. To me, and to most in our small and rural town, he looks or appears no more than perhaps, from the lands of Somalia, or of the native Berber blood. The only give-away to his Italian heritage being the odd shape and shade his brows make in a certain light, or when he turns to a certain angle. And, dare I say, much to his humiliation and my laughter and love, his gross amount of body hair. He shaves it ever often, like a woman cursed with lycanthropy~
* .
Damnedable ink pen! Forgive me for those marks. But the idea of calling him a wolf woman sent me trembling into fits of laughter. And then coughing. That damnedable brass bowl burns and fumes, turning this entire room into something akin to a bath house - so thick is the upper ceiling with the burnt leaf smell of those strange herbs. For the second time, here I am repeating my husbands relation to the Roman empire through a Sicilian-borne Centurion named Tyronius. And that first name was passed down to him, making me Mrs. Tyronius Chadrick. But other than the age and past, I do not see why I have placed such importance on saying this. It has a strange ring to it, reminding me the name 'Tyson', or Tiesenn. Perhaps he fears it will take other, more malicious, meaning in the future? And how foolish a man is he for doing that? Who are we to know what the future holds? Who?
Except the studious historian. The historian, machine-like in their emotion and empathy, engine-like in their passion and consumption of raw, naked, undressed, non-glossed-over, and non-personal-influenced truths. Who, except for those, akin to me? Or, I should say, what I will become. May become. If my organs of birth, betwixt my legs, do not drive those around me to harass my pursuit because of whom I choose to marry, or because of the form my body has taken - a choice I did not make, nor had any decision concerning. If they do not attempt to punish me for what I can not control, or for because whom I love, then great I will become.
I must confess, all reason for going into the heritage and heraldry of my husband's fatherline has now escaped me. Why was I discussing that? I have forgot. But that is not of importance any longer. What is of importance is Eleanor and I's - jolly romp, dare I say? - into a very ancient set of books discovered deep in the Swiss Alps. They had been buried deep in a naturally-formed cavern, which to this day, is still molested ever so mercilessly by ignorant and uncouth pagans. My own uncle, head of the archaeopteryx department, suckseeded in saving the cavern from chose who those to use it for warmth, prayer, and whatever else shameless deeds there within they did in it's inner inside within it's depths.
Mercifully, Ellie has cracked open a window, letting a cool breeze of fresh, yet disagreeably damp and wet, Fall air blusterbuss incite. I must change my cloves, theyare musty with the smelling of verb.
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Ellie and I decided to freshen up with a bowl of soup and tea at the bookstore down the street. Oddly enough, the procurer of the place, a lovable yet odd little woman who walks the path of Tibetan mystics in secret rather than the way Ellie and I do, she commenced to snickering the moment she looked in our faces and caught whiff of Ellie's still-smoke-filled clothes. Yet, there was no malevolence in her humor, but something more akin to a aunt laughing at finding her niece trying to put on make-up. I don't understand whatever for, but what I am assured of is that I believe I must have a allergy to my face powder. My eyes are bloodshot red, and drooping as if a large and sleepy dog. The kind I've seen before in California, snooping about among the lovers of massive dogs. Danes mayhaps? I do not know. But the Fall must have placed me in good spirits, for Ellie said I found everything damnedably funny.
It WAS funny, as my husband says "You simply had to be there to catch gist of it." And that is where I leave it, for how else could I rationally explain the hilarity of someone ordering clam chowder with a strong green tea?
Anyhow, after refreshment, we have returned to our top floor apartment and lab, where we do a large bulk of our academic pursuits, without fear of being molested or harassed by the American Anglo-Saxon immigrant to our fair college branch. Ever since the railways have opened, allowing the ever meek and ignorant to lurk amongst our halls, we natives of our small and fair town have slowly commenced to develop a disgust of those who latch ever passionately to the influences of colorism, misogyny and miscontruing of history for the only-reasons-offered to be filibustering and pseudoscience. False truths, is what it translates to, and even many a so-called expert knows not this. But I digress, I have my own prejudices and hatreds which I hope one day to be rid of. A fantasy story that is currently gaining popularity, it totes that it's basis is of European folklore and fairytale creatures and elements. Yet, any who have grown up with said very thing know that book carries nothing in the way of European native folk and fairy myth. It is a fantasy and fairytale version of the "Yellow Peril" conspiracy. And whether agreeing with that or not, it still is not European folk and fairy tale.
Though the room is clearer of the smoke, my thinking seems slower to return to normal sharpness for some reason. Mayhaps the clams were not the freshest in my soup? But what does confuse me is ever how much so that a unusual clamminess has filled our room. Much more so than even the wettest and most damp of areas outside. And yet, despite the frigid cold, it has become warmer. In one corner, the glass of the small lab has commenced to fog up, and yet the bowl of burning herb has remained unnaturally dry and simmering. No matter how much Ellie has attempted to blow it completely out. When she wasn't looking, I dashed a drip or two of water in it...and yet, it was as if I did nothing. Mayhaps the herbs have a strange and foreign feature to them?
Once again, I have rambled, and I apologize to any reader of this.
As I have said on the first page of this haphazardly makeshift of-the-moment journal, my father's archaeological team was studying the prehistoric remains of neanderthal tribesmen fossils in the Swiss Alps, when they accidentally happened upon a once-secret passage that showed signs of being used by paganistic practicioners since a time beyond a hypothesized date which even the most liberal scientist could feel confident in declaring. The cave most likely had been in use from before the Great War, and all the way to possibly before Christ. Yet, unknown to all but the team themselves, my father, and thus Ellie and I...they believe the cavern had served as a temple of sorts since possibly the times of the mammoths and saber toothed great cats. That it's usage, and the cult dominating it, may have continued unbroken from then to just before the Great War - most likely stopped due to the Great War.
The village around the mountains which the cavern was found have remained beyond resolute in yielding no information whatsoever, feigning ignorant, or overacting their faith in Jesus and the Christian church. I am not surprised in the slightest, if that kind of behavior is what was common amongst my great race, then I say no wonder the ancient negroes of Egypt and the swarthy natives of Italy said what they said. Yet...
Forgive me. I am absolutely wrong in such a rabid prejudgement. I confess, I am frustrated, and titillated, both at the same time. And feel akin to a child merely a fence away from a open barrel of Turkish delights, or some other such delightful sweet. I have never had such ill towards any group of people, so why does such hatred spike in me when regarding what was found in that cave? Curiosity perhaps, or maybe there is a slight side effect beyond spice of the strange herb blend that refuses to be snuffed out, even with water. If not for Ellie, I would dash a glass of water into the damned bastard of a spittoon, and be done with it.
Although the findings in that cavern are means for rabid excitement, what truly piqued Eleanor and I's interest was the queer and yet oddly alien markings that coated the stone walls. And tablets of stone, all marked and carved in the 7,000 year old ancient writing style of west Africa, called Nsibidi. We thought this language and it's influence was restricted to a wild, primitive and tribal people stuck in the jungles of Africa. But, under the mud, and steel walls of racist dogma, we find ancient cities, roads, kingdoms and more. And that is where Ellie and I most shine academically.
But why would a African language, of such ancient heritage, be found still used in the Swiss Alps?
Several odd and queer carvings and copies of symbols we have procured, thanks to my father. And truly, they are...odd. If I was to guess, one of them is a obese ape of some sort, sitting down, but with the head of a great cuttlefish, or some other flabby cephalopod. Except the eyes have been replaced with the beady and multiple eyes akin to a spider's. And the hands remind me of a anteater's, with a ape-like paw that flaunts prodigious claws which sprout from every finger, while the toes bear a similarity to the feet of a giant anteater's. The way they curl inward make me wonder if this...mythical thing, was considered to have walked on the sides of it's feet like the anteater does? And the giant ground sloth? But the question is, this should be impossible. How would primitive Swiss villagers, let alone even ancient Africans, know of a beast from South America? Enough to even mimic any element of it? And at first, I thought mayhaps this was due to people traveling in Colonial times, but Ellie corrected me by pointing out the statue was tested without a doubt to be found no younger than the BC era. Thankfully, it was lovingly preserved and most likely never touched by those who revered it. Aiding in it's perfect preservation.
Even weirder is that the idol had crafted from crude metal. Possibly from a metal vein in the cavern's wall? But...? Tis so queer. So very queer.
Ellie has spent the better half of a hour tediously combing the ancient books found in the cavern. But they are more than once thought when we received them, tediously bound and cared for in leather and burlap. Apparently, a odd animal skin has been...somehow...fused or hinged to a brutally crude, yet clever, melting (and then cooling?) of metal upon the surface of the strange leather. Probably with hooks or tendrils inside that we can not see, or get to without a proper blade. For every scalpel we used has not even put a scar on the surface of the leather. Pressing harder would either damage the artifact...or cause the scalpel to snap, and ricochet around the room, causing two young women harm.
At first, one would think it is something of a box, but tightly wrapped and sealed in that peculiar leather. Yet, one must tediously, and dare I say 'sensually', rube their hands along the side until a unseen slit is discovered. Then, push the fingers firmly until they push into the slit, and inside feels like a stack of hard stone tablets. The entire thing peels apart, like a book cover, revealing a stack of tablets - some stone, some clay. And these seem to form the shape of large "card boxes", for inside the top and bottom boxes seems to be most-ancient parchment. Thin sheets of what seem to be woven hair, stained firmly with dye in the shapes of writing. And a identical copy beneath it with paper, or leather.
My Nsibidi is rusty, but I made pitiful attempt to translate each thing as Ellie wrote down what I was saying.
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We stoked the furnace higher, not due to coldness, but to try to get rid of this damnedable dampness. The glassware on the table to the far right corner of the room even has droplets on it! And yet, despite this damp mugginess that plagues the room, that damnedable brass herb burner continues to smoke as if it had a will of it's own. When we popped open the "book" for the first time, the damned pot burst forth a roaring flame so high that Eleanor screamed, before I rushed to blow it out. We did douse it with water, which was audience to Ellie's profane curses at my person for doing so due to how much the herbs cost her, but not to either of our chagrins, the herbs took light once more. Even as there was a barely-shallow puddle of water in the base of the bowl. Thick gouts of herbal smoke urged upward in the damp room, thick and spicy. Much to my disgust.
We closed the windows in hopes the dampness would be ceased - but to no avail. Ellie surmises it must be something in the basementfloor of the entire building.
We continue our works, but by the third tablet, we feel as if our pursuits in progress are akin to attempting to run through syrup. We feel tired, and as per my suggestion, we have decided to cover up everything and take a small nap.
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Eleanor and I both awoke to the sounds of birds. And not the gentle prodding songs of sparrows or some other such bird. But to the sounds of screaming crows, as their ugly voices crawl and clamber through miles of air, just to mash their horrendous call through the window pane and into our ears.
The room wreaked of a smell reminding me burnt leaves and over-cooked Hindi spice. We both were damp, our hair hanging wet and smoky smelling. At least, that damnedable pot went out. The lovely lady downstairs was not her usual self, seeming to try to hide a odd tension that creeped through her inner being. She seemed disturbed and forever lost in thought. As Ellie and I quickly downed some porridge, all in a child's excited rush to return to play (which, for us, was the artifacts), I overheard a caretaker of the house in fitful whispering gossip with the maid. "The bats", he hissed in his odd accent. "Did you see the bats?"
I do not know exactly from what region or nation he is native of, one of the Slavic races I suppose. But I do know in many cultures, that bats are symbols of good luck and blessing. Especially when one enters the house, or lives in one's home. Such a symbol as that would be equivalent to a Christian seeing a white dove land on their porch, I would say. So, I could understand the trepidation with which he panicked over the bats. For some reason, a flurry of bats fled this building last night, which has the poor man all in turmoil and superstitious anxiety. But flocks of the flying shrews go to and fro, now and then, and back again. Either the man has no zoological understanding, even on a child's basic level, to understand this? Or...mayhaps, those bats found someplace better? I do not know.
But as a white woman of the modern western world, one thing I do know that gives me almost a shadow of anxiety akin to his, is that...there was nary a birdsong this morn. Not even so much a barely noticeable pip.
Ellie and I returned to our work with the passionate fire of young women near 15 years. Odd, considering both of us old maids of the ages of 23. Maybe, through science, a woman's prime will not end at 16, but continue until she is at least 22? Perhaps. Maybe one day, I will live to see it.
After preparing everything in proper order, so no bother with sterilization and setting up once more, we both went to bathe. Since, surely we reeked.
In the warm bath, I sat enjoying a clear and crisp mind, which I missed ever since that herb spice smoked in the room. Maybe it was more potent than merely just a sweet smell. In the water's reflection, my ears were still red. More red, matter of factly. Bloody red. Akin to looking at two blue pearls sitting in oval pools of blood. I sighed in disgust, for surely that smoke reddened my eyes, but the people of this building must surely think I'm a drunkard! Or some alcoholphile in one form or another! How shameful!
I took to trying to wash my eyes clear, but to no avail. They stayed almost glowing red. I just was thankful I would spend the day with Ellie, whom's eyes were not even pinkish in skinny, milk-white face.
But as I sat in the water, washing myself this morning, I spent a better half of the morning just thinking, meditating on what I did yesterday in the way one may reminisce about nothing of import on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea. And as I relaxed in the bath, pondering all that we had done last night, a suddenly queer and puzzling remembrance came 'pon me.
Ellie was mumbling in her sleep, waking me in one degree of sleeplessness, or another. We slept together in the same small bed, as we have always done since children. But where she does naught but moan or mumble, if even that, last night saw her fitful and beyond talkative. And conversating gratuitously. But to what phantasm, I do not know.
I would have laughed, if not the memories of those things she said did not cause arcs of icy cold horror to urge up my back lazily, like a lighting bolt moving at the hateful speed of a arrogant slug.
She spoke, as if speaking with someone. Asking questions, questioning answers, answering questions, answering questioned answers.
And she spoke a word that horrified me, sending cold shivers through my body in that hot and steaming bath....
Shubb Niggurrath.
irrL-yeH.
And a strange choking sound...finished by something that sounded very...Zulu-sounding.
I do not know, nor have the slightest concept, of who or what any of those means. Surely the ravings of a poor girl who swallowed a sour clam. So, why do I seem to have such a naturally occurring horror?
As if the body knows what the soul, the actual me, does not.
I sat up in the bathtub, noticing my body was filled with goosebumps. My nipples were hardened, the hair along my arms flared out as if shocked, and a hot river of adrenaline thumped throughout my inner entirety. My body was prepared to run for all it could muster to do so. My heart quickened. And a lazy opening of rivers fumbled down into my utmost memories like a slow door opening to release a lazy deluge of syrup, to flood downward in hateful and taunting slowness, savoring all the fear and nightmare it's coming caused. As if it knew it's coming forward brought terror, but it was of such merciless character that if it could, it would go backwards just for the joy of the fresh terror to burst forth again on the one it was to drown.
"Shubbnig Urrath...Shubbnegguwrath....."
No....
"Shubb-Niggurath."
"R'Lyeh."
C'thulhu....
I don't know, nor recall, any of these things. But of all the nonsense she mumbled in her sleep, which now she seemed gleefully unaware of, why is it these things...THESE ones....stick out so cruelly in my mind? Why? Why is it they which send the frigid fingers of horror to sensually molest up my inner being?
I do not know. And part of me does not want to know.
But I want to know.
WHY?
A sudden case of exhaustion befell Eleanor, and merely a hour after we finished our bathing and begin our studies once again. Her body dripped with sweat, and her clothing was soaked. I was wanting to call for aide, but my dearest friend halted me. She was cheerful, mocking me with innocent jaunts of how I looked like something betwixt a drunkard, and a jotun, due to my pale white face and blood-red eyes. A jotunn, of all things. At least, of all the things to be upset about in that moment, I did smile out of joy that she at least finally had the correct idea of what a jotunn was - a Nordic supernatural being who may be not much bigger than a normal person, but is blessed with superhuman capabilities or powers. And on occasion, something inhuman, like two heads, or blue skin, or almost-racistly funny exaggerated European facial features, or....in my case, red eyes. But besides that, she begged me to help her strip, which I did. And she did not stop until she was naked...except for taking a cloth and forming a perfectly handled silken belt...or semi-dress...around her waste. She then deftly commenced to braid and bun her hair, until it took shape of a crude and shameful attempt of the hairstyle women of Ethiopia and Eritrea like to wear - 3 massive cornrows, ending in long braids or straightened hair.
My heart commenced to thunder, and my own body became drenched in sweat. But not sweat of heat, or whatever malady accosted Ellie, but...from horror. Fear. It was not the African styled short-dress and haphazard hairstyle which Ellie dressed in which horrified me...but that...she did not even know of them. And she did them expertly, as if having done them for years. What horrified me even more was that, that very hairstyle which has become so prevalent with the natives of Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia - was once the favored noble lady hairstyle of ancient Kemet. I would know how to do this, or make a crude attempt. But for Eleanor, who has only known of them, bit by trickling bit, and only by word of mouth, to make such a fetching mimicry....
And then, when finally dressed in something I would call a flea market version of Cleopatra's dressing...she smiled, and whatever stress or discomfort that had been 'pon her had suddenly...and with finality....stopped.
She walked over to the bowl of wet incense, fiddled with it outside of my view in the dark room. I could not make out her actions in the deep shadows, since there were no lights on, and we had used the light of lamps and the sun yesterday. But today is dreadfully dark and cloudy...to the point that one could mistake it for evening.
And to my disgust...and confused horror...the bronze meditation incense bowl lit once again, as if no dampness never had come upon it. And Eleanor would not tell me what she had done other then give teasing answers of humor. I was happy she was in good humor, and did not want to vex her.
But I could not go on any longer like this. And I questioned her about last night.
The attempts to receive answers became a bullfight between us, with me being the proverbial bull with my questions...and her answers being a matador, while fanning a red flag that was a joke, whether complicated and very funny...or simple and childish.
And she shows no signs of tiring of this. I know if I press her, I will incur her ire. She is like my very own sister. So I will tread carefully.
After the 6th simile about a woman's genitalia being a cat with a taste for large Mongolian sausage...I think I broke her.
We took a break from work, and decided to quietly lunch in the loft. Over sandwiches, she told me of her dream last night. Of the raving doctor who was dressed in foreign clothing. It was not till the end that she told me that he must've been a native of the Americas, and how his dress was tribal. For the most part of her explanation, all she told me was that he was a doctor and occultist.
But that aside, she told me of how he argued with her. He screamed at her, and threatened her. But not a threat as to attack her, but told her of the dangers she was approaching. His threat was not to actively harm her, but...a negative one...to not save her, or offer her aide if she continued on her endeavour.
OUR endeavour.
He told her of a god....a blind and idiotic being....sleep and unaware....
He told her of...that name which I do not even want to spell....Shub-Niggurath.
Of the unspeakable yellow king, as he dons red as he goes, and sometimes wears yellow when is comes.
Of the daughter of the drowned one, who molests her father's unconcious form, becoming pregnant with him immediately upon his death, so she can birth her own father, becoming her own grandmother...
Horrible, horrible things...
Things which horrified me to tears.
And it....
/ ^ *
I apologize, but suddenly I was gripped with emotion of jerking and tears. But I will continue, for I have the odd sensation I must keep this. Record it.
But as she told me her dream, and the long argument she had with the Medicine Man...or theological physician, as she said...which makes sense....it dredged up memories in my own being, like lost corpses slowly being urged by upturning waters, slumping from the filth-laden bottoms to rise into the sightline of men once more - and scar us for the time of our existence.
And I remembered...the voices.
As if someone was speaking, from behind the walls. In low mumbles, barely audible due to the sound of some...form....of....rhythmic beat. Norse, I would say. The drums and crude song of pagans that rejected Christ for Thor, pagans that welcomed and admired the black Moors as they enchained men of all colors, pagans that claimed war upon troll and human alike, pagans that debased and debacled their white flesh with marks of blue and black in honor of their southern-borne gods. Hateful Memnon, god of Ethiopia, true father of Thor, who's red eyes sit in the flatness of his black face, and glare through twilight's yawns. And treacherous Mithra, who urges the worst in mankind to it's surface as his caramel skinned visage mocks and laughs at those who cower before church bells. And the hyper-effeminate Ganymede, homosexual feminine Greek god, who's thick and frizzy dark blonde locks glimmer with more motherly beauty than a woman's, and who's wide ample hips invite the tender kiss of the most man-love hating man.
I do not....I do not know what came over me just moments ago. But I read what I wrote, and....what is this? Surely, it must be the gouting smoke from the burning herbs in the bowl, mayhaps?
But I remember....
Remember hearing the voices from behind the walls. BEHIND the walls. The entirety of the top floor is one room: Ellie and I's lab! There is no 'other room behind the wall'. Only bricks, mortar, and air. Not even tree branches, which would give me some form of comfort in thinking I heard branches scritch and scratch along the building's side!
Those voices...they spoke among one another like ungentlemen, carousing one another with fishermen's tales of mundane nothings and petty conquests. All the while drowning in the thick and hefty beating drums and song of some...rhythmic....rhyming.....crude....."music". Drums, like those from either Africa or Northern Europe, or mayhaps Ainu of Japan....and then, coupled with rhyming word and song?
I do not know.
Ellie continues to work on the unwrapped tablets, deftly recording everything, and acting as if the nightmarish dream she had never occurred.
She mocks me as I sit here, disturbed, and jotting in this journal. She calls me a scared little girl. Which...she is right. A bad dream, and I, a older woman of 23, now afraid. What would Tyronius think of me?
A silly, dizzy girl. Most assuredly.
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