[Inspiration: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (starting monologue), FAITH: The Unholy Trinity (The horror part), H.P. Lovecraft, The Thing (1982), and In the Mouth of Madness (1994). Please watch this movie! It is free on YouTube and is literally my favorite movie. I love John Carpenter movies.]
“How the world has fallen. Fallen so deep into the darkness. I have seen the end of days. I have my own dreary eyes to see it with. I can see the decrepit creatures. The creatures that roam the fields at night. The king *cough*. He does nothing to stop this blight. I was young once *cough cough*. I was happy too. Now I am old. Now am only here *cough*... to suffer. *cough* Stop them. Stop *cough* the… the darkness.” The old man slumps down as his limbs go limp. His eyes roll back in his skull.
When I close my eyes, I can still see the corpse of that withering old man. I had a hard time sleeping after he died. Well, given that I had known him well, it was no surprise to me. He was my great-grandpa after all. His name was Peter, Peter Hywitz, an esteemed researcher at the local university. My family had always written him off as a lowly hermit, but I knew him better than that. He was less of a hermit; moreover, he was just a shy fellow who enjoyed nothing more than learning about the world. Nature was something he loved deeply.
There was a forest east of here, not too far away. It was a place where the leaves cast beautiful dancing shadows on the ground, like a shimmering lake of life. Little birds flew above the trees, and foxes cuddled up in their holes. I’ve always loved the forest, and Peter knew that, too. We would walk together along the path deep into the forest; we’d always walk too far and be late for dinner. My mom didn’t appreciate it like I did.
“What did I tell you about walking with Jans? You can’t walk that far without being late!” My mom wasn’t happy about it. It was the third time it had happened this year.
“June, can’t you just let the kid live a little? There is so much in the world for him to learn. I mean, he won’t learn anything if he stays inside his whole life.”
“I get it, but I just get worried. He’s my son.” She was right, to a point. She was worried about me, but I knew Peter would keep me safe. I think she knew too, but after what happened that winter, anyone would be worried.
It had been a harsh winter for the people in my town. I was about 8 years old, so around 16 or so years ago. It was so long ago, that I have a hard time remembering it, but it still haunts my dreams. Anyway, as the story goes, amidst the coldest week of winter, the food supplies in the town had dwindled scarily low. No one was able to grow any food as there wasn’t enough heat or sunlight. To make matters worse, almost all of the animals had died from some sort of disease. The people in the village were devastated. If they couldn’t find a source of food, they would all die of starvation.
As a last resort, two people went into the barn where the animals had died. The air in the barn was rotten. A fetid miasma permeated the air. It was horrifying for anyone unlucky enough to breathe. As they walked in, their feet began to stick to the ground. A translucent red paste covered the floor as it oozed from the disheveled corpses of the animals.
“I don’t think we should be in here Ill. T-This doesn’t seem safe.”
“Do I look like I care! I am starving, Johnny. I will eat anything!” Ill replied with a diabolical look on her face. “If we didn’t come in here, I would have eaten you, Johnny. You’d be dead where you stand! I’d make sure to just leave the bones!”
“Oh m-my god! You are m-messed up Ill. It’s f-fine though. Just eat the meat over th-th-there. It can’t be that bad,” Johnny stuttered. Ill’s words had chilled him to his core.
Ill walked further into the barn.
The harsh weather had eaten away at the wood leaving room for rats and other pests to enter the barn. The animal’s corpses were almost unrecognizable. As Ill walked in toward the dark side of the barn, it became too dark to see. Ill pulled out her lantern. When she lit the lantern she saw the corpse of a large cow. It was covered in a mixture of plant life that had crept in and a horrible red sludge that was so pungent Ill could hardly breathe.
“I’ve had enough of this, Johnny,” Ill yelled sick of being in the barn. ”I’d rather starve to death than eat anything in here.”
As Ill started to walk back to the entrance she heard a noise from the dead cow. It was a quiet piercing scream. It was that of malfunctioning machinery. A whirr of life from an abandoned system. The shriek started to get louder. Ill’s face turned to pure dread. She couldn’t move. Her body felt paralyzed from the terror of the barn. In a daze of discombobulation, she dropped her lantern. The lantern shattered on the floor lighting some dead, dry moss on fire. The fire shone its warm light onto the cow.
Ill could see it. It was no longer a cow. The corpse had transformed into an amalgam of pain and suffering. Its soft reanimated viscera trembled like the rumble of a storm in the distance. The pulsating mass of flesh and sorrow appeared as if it was speaking to Ill. It began to moan and plead, “The cold… I… can see… the. It… burns… as. Upon… the light. Thr-... -ough… the haze.” It paused for a moment.
Its eyes opened. Its stare burned through Ill’s eyes like a ray of light through the clouds. She tried to close her eyes… but they stayed open. The creature spoke once more. A horrid malevolent speech, “I… shall. You shan’t be… afraid… of me. We… you… I see... through. Why? I am… the… terror in. The… people… they speak… to me. Be… afraid… of the. I have… made… the. We… are the… terror… in the n-night. The Lord… can’t save you. He… is no… longer… your savior. I am… your… refuge… from… the dark.”
The barn became pitch black. Johnny stood at the entrance in a daze of confusion. He couldn’t hear anything. Ill hadn’t come out of the barn. A person ran up to the barn after the commotion. Jonny saw the man in front of him. The man was speaking. He was asking Johnny something, but Johnny couldn’t hear anything. Soon, Johnny fell to the floor. His body showed no signs of life. A red ooze crept out of his body.
That was a long time ago. It is said that later a monastery was built on top of the barn after the harsh winter. They had built it as a refuge from the cold. It served as a new sign of life in the dying village, but no one knows what happened to the villagers after that. The only reason we knew any of this was from the village’s library. They put all of their records and stories in the library, but after the monastery was built, no more entries were put into the library.
My ancestors eventually moved here with some other villagers after their town was pillaged during the war. They came here in the dead of winter like the people of the old village. They stayed in the monastery throughout the winter and eventually survived to see spring.
My great-grandfather worked in the monastery as a young adult. He studied all day and night, but once I was born he saw something in me. He saw a light inside me that he never saw in anyone else. Eventually, I started working in the monastery too. I studied many different things. Arithmetic, literature, history, and theology. There was one day of my studies that I remember above all else. It still haunts me today.
I remember the warm candlelight shining on my face during the dead of night as I studied the relics of a time long ago. My father, a soldier, would often bring me relics that they had found on their missions. I would study them and record my findings in my journal.
[This would then include a part where he studies the relics but is haunted by a ghost (think Edgar Alan Poe). He would then go into the basement and get spooked.]
His ghostly presence still sits in the ancient ruins of the monastery.