The Tunnel

Story by ShaydeMohr on SoFurry

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

#2 of 1,000 Word Challenges

This is my, so far, ultimate attempt at diving into the realm of Lovecraftian Fiction, and my desire to continue my 1000 Word Challenges. After not being able to write anything for some time, I decided to really delve into my subconscious and allow the part of my imagination that creates the most horrible things, and I came up with this, and I could not resist writing it in the First Person-Limited perspective to really attempt to 'infect' the reader with the speaker's thoughts. What the speaker went through, is up for you to decide, and this little story is designed with the intent to allow your imagination to run freely.

As always, do provide feedback! I look forward to comments and suggestions, as well as critique and any errors that you might spot that I missed in my personal editing. For those of you interested, this is my submission to the Wordsmith Awards challenge by naraki wolf. If you are interested in the contest, then, check out his journal on the prompt and for further details!

So, without further ado, I give you:The Tunnel


The truancy of any breeze as I walked along the dimly lit path disconcerted me, affixing my cutis alight with a myriad of impressions as it deftly strained to find any sensation at hand, whilst my eyes battled against the increasing gloom for any serviceable construct of the cherished channel to the outside world. The hair on the nape of my neck stood at attention as footfalls echoed around me, and the soft sounds of my own subdued breathing sent waves of horriplation to dispose along the bare body as it inundated my ears with the only tone in the desolate bleakness. It was unsure if my imagination was to blame, or if my intermittent phantasm of footfalls behind me in the gloom were true, yet when I gazed back to audit the wake I left in the gloom, my eyes shewed nothing but indistinguishable brume, through which I, on occasion, fantasied witnessing the writhing of an unseen mass, before it vanished and was dismissed to the reaches of my youthful machinations of mind, un-helped and aided by the dank and clammy sensation of the smooth alluvium under foot. My journey through this tunnel, if one could endeavor to consider such an environ as an actual tunnel, while it seemed more to be a vesicular tube of antediluvian origin, flanking me on either side by means of the sent of damp stone, molds and fungi, but curiously not of cold. I noted that, while the surface 'neath foot was moist and, at times unctuous, but not wholly cold, having more a characteristic of warmth in dissimilitude to the gelid air that assaulted my skin and brought intense shivers which were want to brush off my efforts to cover my denuded frame, in particular the decency of my bosom, with my arms, refraining from the yen to brush my long hair away from my face. Amid the tenebrosity my ears consistently fantasied the sounds of a liquid source in the breast of the stone, dripping noisily to the floor as the smog that had been following me slowly enveloped me with an icy grip more fierce than the air prior, and bringing with it a new clamminess to the ground beneath my feet and an insistent resurgence of the phantasms I had sensed earlier. Distinctly I could discern behind me the babble of a mob of footfalls, some I recognized as echoes of my own steps on the echoed air from the invisible walls, others which seemed unfamiliar to me; A scratching, almost moist, shuffling against the alluvium that seemed to grow increasingly closer and more energized as it grew in volume, and brought with it fantastic, chimerical conjurations to my sensory-deprived imaginings, each idea as horrible as the last as I considered the creatures that could strike up residence in this place, until with a sudden gust of pallid air my imaginings were cast aside, and my pace was harried forward by a desire to break through the smothering brume. I staggered forward against the shivering of my body in the fog, my feet slapping softly against the floor as my eyes strained forward ahead of me, my will trying to pierce the mist to reveal the blackness prior. My imagination played tricks on me. At times the mist appeared to break and reveal the murkiness that I had been enveloped in, but at what point in time I had no reference for, until the shifting mists closed to ensnare me once again while the shuffling and sliding behind me grew in fervor , and the mist seemed to coalesce into solidity about my body and caress my twitching skin with a horrid clamminess that seemed even more putrid the more it assaulted my body. I stumbled as a tendril of the tangible vapor caressed between my legs, trying to close my legs and fight the shiver of disgust and fear that intermingled with something else I couldn't quite describe, and now cannot dare to remember in detail enough to attempt a description. The sensation, however, did not leave with the tendril, and neither did the mist stay separate from me for any length of time, pressing close to my body with a sensation of comforting pressure and invading my mouth and nose while my mind struggled to comprehend the sensations of _physical_contact against my lower abdomen; a distinctly animate and intelligent touch that snaked and slithered about my smooth skin and drifted between my shuffling legs and around my neck and chest, fully enveloping me, and foiling my attempts to run with a vulgar intrusion below my navel brought my mind back to clarity and sent me stumbling to the alluvium beneath me with a shuddering gasp as my legs collapsed. I clawed at the soft loam and rolled over, unable to articulate sound as I beheld a very much solid tendril of some wriggling mass penetrating my body between my legs, accompanied by a mass more that had infused to my calves while still more worked up my torso, seemingly aggravated by my instant struggling against the swirling sensations that came from the snakelike apparitions. Somewhere amid my struggling the shuffling became almost an unbearable sound, distracting me from my struggles and compelling my head to tilt upward. What my eyes shewed brought to me a terror that was indescribable, and I shudder at thinking about the horrid mass that caused me to flee, falling numerous times until with a scream I escaped the brume, and the wretched creature that pursued me, at long last breaking through the nightmarish tube to find a rhythmic tone, and an insistent, piercing cry:

"Doctor! She's waking up!"