I don’t particularly like cigarettes. I don’t particularly like the stench, nor the constricting feeling of the smoke creeping its way down, deep into my lungs, forever staining them black with the inky vapors I so dutifully inhale. And yet, I continue to smoke them, chain smoke, even, because so often I find my mind wandering when I don’t have one of the small sticks that spell death tucked neatly and tightly between my lips. Having one’s mind wander isn’t inherently a terrible thing altogether, but for a mind such as mine, well, it very much so is a terrible thing. It, my mind, always craves the answers to what happened on that night, answers that I have none for. I have lost nearly everything because of what occurred, but the cigarettes are all that keep me from losing that dearest thing that all common folk take for granted: sanity.
Do not, dear reader, think of this account as one of self-pity or sadness, it is simply what I will make it: a warning. That you read this and spread the tale with others, hoping to have them refrain from what dark rituals and night gaunts now haunt me, creeping me ever so much closer to my untimely death. It is my hope, my one last solace before the creatures in my mind finally consume me.
This account begins where my normal, everyday life ends. Slightly before, I wager, but nonetheless, it was bound to end sooner or later, for fate always finds a path to get her way. I was but a regular man, working a regular desk job at a regular office space. For years, day in and day out, nearly a decade of my life was spent wasting away at that cold, unheeding prison of a cubicle. I yearned for excitement, for something to make my mundane life bearable, if only even slightly. What I found, instead, was what would lead me to wish and plead with a god I no longer believed in that I had never had this yearning in the first place.
You see, this yearning of mine, this absence of adventure, led me to making a few less than reputable acquaintances, one of whom was named Robert. Robert was a peculiar man, a salesman, quite charismatic and frequently a charmer of women, but could just as easily slit a man’s throat as he could sell them a new car. I never saw him do this, of course, but I did have my suspicions. Robert could switch his personality, his demeanor, and even his face on a dime. Late on nights which were dominated by the abundantly full moon, filling the sky and our small city with the pale light from itself, Robert would invite me to accompany him and a few others deep into the woods surrounding our town for what he called “parties.” These parties usually consisted of animal sacrifice, bonfires, and the occasional orgy by firelight. I myself never participated in the parties, save for once, resigning myself only to observation. Eventually, I began to get the feeling of adventure I had so long been grasping for. I had a secret life, one that none of my coworkers, or even my wife of nearly twenty years knew about.
Despite the obvious and glaring dangers of participating in such activities, I found myself utterly fascinated by the night rituals and dark dances. I had seen and experienced satanism before, but this was different. Something ancient, something primordial, something older. I seldom took part in the sacrificing, the rituals, dances, and often exclusively watched from afar. Robert had taken the liberties to make sure that I was safe and comfortable, and that the other members of this… Club? Cult? were fine with my presence and observation. Although skeptical at first, most members of the club came to know me as their watcher, silent guardian and Argus, watching but never disturbing, and warning of any possible intruders through a whistle I had learned from them. Two short, high notes, and one long, low note, warned my nocturnal brothers and sisters of any threats or possible authorities out near us.
So, it was from my position as watcher that I observed what I thought would be my final moments, and will most likely lead to them. I never quite believed in these rituals, nothing ever seemed to manifest or take shape out of the flames of the large bonfire, but my lingering suspicions and superstitions still caused me a great deal of apprehension. Not fear, but apprehension. Suspense, if you will. Obviously, things of this nature would cause any sane man to be on edge and high alert. Maybe a sane man wouldn’t be there in the first place, but seeing as I was, I always felt a peculiar mix of the excitement and adventure I had so long needed in my mundane life, and a strange feeling of being watched. Like I was the one being observed, not observing. That these naked, dancing bodies, soaked in the blood of whatever animal had been sacrificed that night, were themselves invoking something that, by its very nature, hated. Hated not only those living mundane and boring lives such as my own, but those living and worshiping itself. Hated life, no matter what the shape, form, or plane of existence that life went on in. Hated existence, for it itself never had, and never would.
As I worked in my small, solitary cell at the office one morning, I got a call from an extremely excited and quite on edge Robert. As he spoke, a pit began to form in my stomach. From excitement or nervousness I could not tell. He spoke of an ancient goblet that had been procured (through means I do not know, for he would not tell me) by one of our club members. He told me that this goblet had been kept a secret for many years at our local university, that most passing by the object thought nothing of it. It was, he explained, used in rituals such as ours, dating back centuries. Robert told me, through an audible smile and the giddiness of a child on christmas morning, that we must go out tonight. Use this ancient goblet, call upon the beyond, hoping we could get closer than we ever had before. Enthusiastically, perhaps too much so, I accepted, and mine and his fates were sealed.
That night, after working that hideously mind-numbing job sitting at my desk, I ate dinner and told my wife of my plans to leave again tonight. My excuse for her was nearly always the same: I was going out with Robert. My wife, bless her, was never one to pry or ask questions. I loved her for that. Now, in a small part of my mind, I resent her for it. For maybe if she had pried or asked, she would have caught me in the lie, leading to my sanity staying intact and my witnessing of these horrendous, ghastly horrors, to go unseen.
So it was, around midnight, that Robert and I loaded up in his truck, goat caged in the bed, we set out for a different spot than our usual. Tonight was special. Tonight was monumental. Tonight was the night that we finally communed with whatever lied out there, Robert stated. I kept myself resigned, unsure of just quite what an old cup would do to change anything. We found a suitable clearing, far from even the most off-beaten paths, and set the fire. The other members were around, now, too, and the one who I assume had taken (or stolen) the goblet placed the object on a small stone we had placed near the fire for the goat Robert and I had led to its soon demise. The goblet itself was one of a pauper’s, a crude and crumbling mass of clay, dirty and dusty from what I assume was decades, if not centuries of unuse. The commune of ritualistic members all gathered around, gazing at the goblet, entranced. I, however, stood unshaken, skeptical of the small object that stood before us. A quiet murmur broke out amongst the dozen or so participants, remarking on the idol’s beauty, craftsmanship, or cursing those who had for so long kept it under lock and key, never using it to its full potential.
After the group had finally broken away from and left the goblet, the ritual began as normal. I climbed low into a tree, giving myself a fair vantage point to observe both the ritual taking place and the surrounding area. I looked into the sky and saw that it had grown exceedingly clear from the clouds that had seemed to blanket it only moments before. I noted that I could barely see the faint glow cast miles away from our small city. I began to feel on edge. Normal, of course, as I had stated, however this feeling was different. It was as if my muscles, heart and body were all screaming to my mind in unison, a mind that decided it needed to see what would happen. I wish it had listened.
At once, the dark ritual, as it had so often before, began. All members dancing, chanting, speaking from the dark, leatherbound book that was always present, but never seemed to be of much use. And so this continued for some time, as the participants removed their clothing and began to handle the goat, readying it for sacrifice. However, instead of the normal slit throat and blood spilt, with the members rubbing it on their still-naked bodies, the goat’s blood was drained into the small goblet that had so unimpressed me. And so, with the chalice filled with the crimson, viscous liquid, the goblet was chanted over by the man holding his book. He then drank from the chalice, and passed it along. After all members had drank, they poured the remaining contents of the goblet into the fire and proceeded to coat their skin in the blood that still ran warm out of the goat’s freshly cut throat. Then the orgy commenced. I had seen many of their blood-soaked and flesh writhing orgies before, but this one was different. More spastic, more frantic than any others I had witnessed.
As the members continued their bloody sex acts, I became acutely aware of a still silence that seemed to come in waves through the trees. The wind shifted, becoming quite still but somehow making the fire dance and curl high into the sky. I felt a presence, something that I had never felt before. Something demonic, but even older than the first of the demons. Something that was older than this earth. Older than this plane of existence. Older than existence itself. All of this I felt in less than a moment, as the stillness of the night exploded into a cacodaemoniacal chorus of terrible screams, whipping winds, countless insects, lost souls, trapped minds and a sound that rose above all the rest, something I still have yet to be able to describe in any way at all without shaking and feeling my mind slip into that deep inky blackness of insanity.
So it was, I observed from my safe spot in my tree, I looked towards the members of our little rituals. All of them were now writhing, no longer penetrating or thrusting, no longer squirming in ecstasy, now writhing, twisting in pain. I saw their mouths open, but could not hear their screams over the terrible uproar of whatever this presence was. As I looked on in abject horror, the bodies of the members became increasingly twisted, their bones obviously shattering and their silent screams turning into death roars. At once I could hear them. All dozen of them, screaming mercy, roaring, yelling, pleading. They couldn’t understand why this being that they had worshipped, sacrificed for, given their lives to, was taking them, torturing and killing them. But I understood. I felt its hate for humanity, its absolute loathing for any form of life on this infernal, primordial, insignificant plane. It cared not for them, nor for me. It cared for nothing and no one. It craved nonexistentence, the emptiness.
As I continued to watch, the screams crescendoing, deafening me, I knew that it was there with me, looking right over my shoulder. Whatever it was. No, I realized, what it wasn’t. What it never had been and what it never would be. I didn’t dare look, shutting my eyes and keeping them shut. The wind shook my tree, the branch I was perched upon cracked and bent. I was sure I would fall to the ground, into the open maw of this unseen force, but it held. I cling to the trunk as the wind around me blew and blistered and flew.
I awoke to a dim sunlight streaming through the trees. I looked to where the group had been, looking for any signs of life or death. There was nothing but a large clearing of dead, scorched earth, and that terrifying goblet. I didn’t waste a second, I snatched the goblet up and ran as fast as I could out of the woods.
I don’t know why I grabbed the goblet. Perhaps, out of some intrinsic desire to protect others from it’s demonic, eldritch prowess. Perhaps because deep down I wanted to use it again. Whatever the case, I did neither. It stays with me, in my home, hidden, close enough but not easily accessible.
I still feel the presence. Always. That lack of anything nearby, the absolute hatred it has. It feeds off of me, off of my sanity, this I know to be true. Each day I feel myself slipping, falling further down the bottomless pit. Into the blackness. Into the nothing.
I won’t let it take me. I can’t. I won’t let it come through fully to this dimension, this plane. And so it is, I have decided that this, my friend, is the last thing I will ever write. Even now, as the gun sits on my desk, so close, the metal cold and dark, I know my time has come. I cannot let another soul take my burden. I cannot condemn another soul to my fate. I refuse.
Thank you, Robert. Thank you for freeing me. I will see you again, my friend, wherever it is we end up. For our sins, I fear where that may be.
Your friend, faithful companion and watcher, Xxx