This week in "Ask HP Lovecraft"
Ask HP Lovecraft
Dear HP Lovecraft,
My sister and I are very close, and we always agree on everything- except now, she's dating a man who I think is wrong for her. I want to support her in her new romance, but I'm worried he's going to break her heart, and I can't let that happen. What should I do?
-Big Brother in Cleveland
Dear Big Brother,
Terminal black night I espied in its sunken orifices! The diseased daemonic yowling of an army of maddened, undead imp-men lay in the horrific aspect of its voluminous, scarlet eyes! Caldwell froze in terror next to me, the beast slurking forward towards our carriage. Those eyes! Their visage takes seed in my soul yet, ten years hence! I was quick with the pistol, but not quick enough to save poor Dinky-cat, who'd been consumed before we even stepped out of the car. Rolling to the ground, dodging the cackling fiend's rocketing missiles of filth, I emptied six rounds into its putrid, yellow chest cavity- yet it did not yield. "Caldwell!" I shouted, hoping to seduce him from his catatonia. "The Vial Of Yug-Shiddith! Throw it to me!". "Caldwell!" I repeated, turning my back briefly on the sub-cosmic miscreant before us. Caldwell's eyes, though glassed-over, caught mine, and this seemed to awake him from his pitchless stupor for a moment. "The...the..v..vial" he muttered, reaching into his waistcoat for the eldritch trinket. He handed it to me slowly, as if in some necrosomanic dream-state, uttering the unholy words under his breath "Nur shaddath al jabbaraz- yithog, yithog". The cursed vial steady in my hand, I faced the devil-thing and intoned likewise, only shouting the words as though they were God's own decree. Just then, a twisting thread of green-yellow light shot from the vial into the rotting half-face of the abomination, and it began to scream- not the scream of a man, no, but the sickly, deaf'ng howl of thousand unknown evils being forced through a pinhole of light back into the etheric abyss of ur-existence. It was working! "Nur shaddath al jabbaraz- YITHOG, YITHOG", I repeated, walking towards the beast as the beam of light between us grew, as if compelled and emboldened by all the angels of heaven against this dark force.
And then, The Beast was gone, as if it had never been, and the Vial Of Yug-Shidith was dark and plain as before. I looked to Caldwell, slumped against the carriage behind me, an expression of dazed relief fixed loosely on his sunken face. His hair had turned white. He looked to me, and, wheezing asthmatically, half-whispered "Can we go home now?".
"We can never go home again", I replied.
Now, as I sit at my desk, these many years later, my fine things surrounding me, in my comfortable and beautiful house in country, it occurs to me how right I was in that moment- for when we sent that wretched litch back to its black home, it took part of Caldwell and I with it. We are linked, you see. My dreams, when I have them, are fevered and filled with ancient anguish. In them, I see cities from before mankind had words- filled with Cyclopean mazes of impossible angles and unknown shapes- I see and hear colors and sounds I am unable to describe, and creatures, writhing on walls and ceilings, that I dare not attempt to describe, for fear of madness. I am there now, as is Caldwell, for the Beast is our brother, as he is the brother of all men who dare look past the shadows.
Dear HP Lovecraft,
My sister and I are very close, and we always agree on everything- except now, she's dating a man who I think is wrong for her. I want to support her in her new romance, but I'm worried he's going to break her heart, and I can't let that happen. What should I do?
-Big Brother in Cleveland
Dear Big Brother,
Terminal black night I espied in its sunken orifices! The diseased daemonic yowling of an army of maddened, undead imp-men lay in the horrific aspect of its voluminous, scarlet eyes! Caldwell froze in terror next to me, the beast slurking forward towards our carriage. Those eyes! Their visage takes seed in my soul yet, ten years hence! I was quick with the pistol, but not quick enough to save poor Dinky-cat, who'd been consumed before we even stepped out of the car. Rolling to the ground, dodging the cackling fiend's rocketing missiles of filth, I emptied six rounds into its putrid, yellow chest cavity- yet it did not yield. "Caldwell!" I shouted, hoping to seduce him from his catatonia. "The Vial Of Yug-Shiddith! Throw it to me!". "Caldwell!" I repeated, turning my back briefly on the sub-cosmic miscreant before us. Caldwell's eyes, though glassed-over, caught mine, and this seemed to awake him from his pitchless stupor for a moment. "The...the..v..vial" he muttered, reaching into his waistcoat for the eldritch trinket. He handed it to me slowly, as if in some necrosomanic dream-state, uttering the unholy words under his breath "Nur shaddath al jabbaraz- yithog, yithog". The cursed vial steady in my hand, I faced the devil-thing and intoned likewise, only shouting the words as though they were God's own decree. Just then, a twisting thread of green-yellow light shot from the vial into the rotting half-face of the abomination, and it began to scream- not the scream of a man, no, but the sickly, deaf'ng howl of thousand unknown evils being forced through a pinhole of light back into the etheric abyss of ur-existence. It was working! "Nur shaddath al jabbaraz- YITHOG, YITHOG", I repeated, walking towards the beast as the beam of light between us grew, as if compelled and emboldened by all the angels of heaven against this dark force.
And then, The Beast was gone, as if it had never been, and the Vial Of Yug-Shidith was dark and plain as before. I looked to Caldwell, slumped against the carriage behind me, an expression of dazed relief fixed loosely on his sunken face. His hair had turned white. He looked to me, and, wheezing asthmatically, half-whispered "Can we go home now?".
"We can never go home again", I replied.
Now, as I sit at my desk, these many years later, my fine things surrounding me, in my comfortable and beautiful house in country, it occurs to me how right I was in that moment- for when we sent that wretched litch back to its black home, it took part of Caldwell and I with it. We are linked, you see. My dreams, when I have them, are fevered and filled with ancient anguish. In them, I see cities from before mankind had words- filled with Cyclopean mazes of impossible angles and unknown shapes- I see and hear colors and sounds I am unable to describe, and creatures, writhing on walls and ceilings, that I dare not attempt to describe, for fear of madness. I am there now, as is Caldwell, for the Beast is our brother, as he is the brother of all men who dare look past the shadows.