Before I start, I’d like to say this was not my idea. My cousin, John, had been finding a weird chain of caves on the coastline of the small island we lived on, caves that, and I quote, “led to other worlds.”
We shared a house, as it was easier to pay for with both of us providing for it. I had a typical job— I worked from home providing tech support for DISMAY, a company which presented itself as a typical manufacturing plant. Anyways, my cousin had different aspirations. He craved adventure, and the outdoors. Pretty soon he was doing odd hunting and fishing jobs, specializing in large predators. Sometimes he would get requests for particularly strong or large animals, for which he would take some melee weapons as well as guns, he had been studying the organ locations of his targets to provide maximum efficiency while hunting.
In his desire to explore these areas, he begged me to go with him. I’m a very cautious person, so originally I said no. But at the same time, I hadn’t wanted him to get hurt by someone or something in his arrogance, so eventually I cracked, joining him on his adventure. He drove us down to the coastline, where we got out and he handed me my gear. He brought food, water, flares, and a few of his weapons. But one thing I thought was odd was these cheap dust masks he brought with us. Upon asking him why he brought them he shrugged, saying “You never know, man. Wouldn’t wanna breathe in something toxic or anything.” We walked for what seemed like ten whole minutes through an oddly smooth-walled cave, before finally seeing sunlight. The smell of a carcass wafted through the air, prompting both of us to grab a weapon.
Just in case.
Upon exiting out the other sid, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The inside of the cave was bigger than the island. In fact, there was a sky. Another dimension, perhaps? I shook my head, there was no way. Had to have been an illusion. But the area we were in was off, as well. Everything was made out of rotten flesh. Then it hit me, through some weird stroke of luck I managed to get ahold of the situation pretty quickly. This whole are wasn’t just made of carcasses… it WAS a carcass. A huge carcass. I looked at John, and nervously asked him if it was possibly a blue whale, as nothing else I knew of could get this big. He shook his head, pointing to the right. When I looked over, my jaw dropped. It was a skull. But not just any skull, it seemed like the skull of a giant reptile, my mind immediately went to thinking about assorted giant monsters from film, most notably Godzilla. How could this even exist? According to the laws of physics, nothing this big could exist, let alone be terrestrial. It was huge, like a whole town packed into a dead body.
We continued walking, the whole area strangely devoid of life. But I did have the strange feeling we were being watched. We were about to turn around, actually, when we noticed a strange mammalian creature with what I only assumed was its calf. They looked thin, most likely due to a lack of food, but they were digging in the dirt. The calf dug up a mushroom, and ate it. That must be why they were there, they ate those mushrooms primarily. That was the only natural cause, as nothing else seemed to grow due to the harsh environment inside the corpse. I looked to the side to talk to John, but he was gone. I looked around and noticed him sneaking up on the calf with a spear. “What are you doing?!” I said.
“If I get samples of this, or better yet, a full carcass, I’ll go down in history!” I shook my head and did my best to try and get him to come back, but it was to no avail. But that’s when it happened— the feeling of being watched grew stronger, making me sick to my stomach. The other creatures seemed uneasy, too.
Suddenly, noxious effuvia was sprayed into the area from the ground in what seemed to be vents, but they were lined up in two rows in each section. Calls similar to a howler monkey or a kookaburra could be heard. I couldn’t see in the gas, but many large, tiger-sized figures bolted the smelly fog, and I heard not only screams from the two creatures, but from John as well. The only reason I wasn’t poisoned by the thick effluvia was due to the mask John had packed. Before long the gases dissipated, and I took a peek out. What I saw made my heart practically stop. There, lying upon the ground, was the mutilated corpse of my cousin and the two mammals. There were three odd reptilian creatures gorging themselves on the large mammal. The reptiles were covered in scars and missing chunks of flesh, but it didn’t seem to bother them. They were a dull brown, with flesh-colored highlights on their back and neck. Upon closer inspection they had the build of a massive monitor lizard, dwarfing the komodo dragon. They had odd inflatable sacs on the underside of their neck, which looked useless to me until they began doing something strange—sucking in the effluvium. As they sucked it up, their sacs inflated, showing that they were actually storing it inside of them. That’s when i noticed the vents on their backs, as well as the new pits in the ground— they had ambushed us by spraying the rotten gas from below. I couldn’t believe it. I got dragged here to watch my cousin die, and judging by the intelligence and power of these reptiles I’m next. I was looking around for something. Anything. Something that would help me get out of this place.
Right before I began typing this, I noticed a piece of scrap metal embedded into the flesh walls. I brushed it off, and to my horror, on the scrap was the logo of my company. It’s a wonder I found it at all, it was so dirty. I don’t know how or why it was there, but they knew about this the whole time. They had to. My time may be limited, but please, to anybody reading this… do not let that wretched company get away with whatever they’re plotting. It’s too dangerous.
Oh god, I think they know I’m here