Pieces and bits collected from the expedition journal.
Muriel Francis Gerrick writes:
I miss you. Mother.
I wish Father would see that. He drags me around to meet all these people. Smile, dress sharp, smile. Dr. Robert Gerrick, adventurer extraordinaire. Needs money to finance his forays into the unknown. Look at his happy kid. Look at how he has raised her single-handedly. Now, give him the money so he can drag her to some cold and barren place and engage in his scientific pursuits.
Dr. Gerrick writes:
The mountain looms upon us. We reached the base yesterday. Under the watchful eyes of a sickle moon. Osmond, dashing fellow and a geologist of some renown joins us. Peters, a local interpreter rounds the team. Tonight we rest.
The weather seems to be taking a turn for the worse. I sneaked a page out of Father’s notes. He talks less to me, day by day. I can make out nothing from it. There is a word underlined on it. I can’t read it. Some kind of ancient scrawl.
It is stifling. The dark presses on me. My legs hurt from the running. I can’t see where I am running to. Suddenly the land under my feet gives way, I fall. Yet, it does not feel like I am falling. Then it happens. The darkness pervades me. It forces itself inside me. It covers my body and its grubby fingers grope for my face. But, then I wake up.
Father was standing over me. He hauled me roughly to my feet. I dared not question him; such was the fury in his eyes. Something dreadful had happened.
As we walk on, I realize that Peters is not with us. Personally, I couldn’t care less.
I tried reading the page again. It bored me and the weather wanted me to sleep. The letters seemed odd. It was almost like they wanted me to speak them out loud. That is all I remember. When I woke up, I was being carried on a gurney by the two slaves. I pretend to be asleep. I hear snatches of talk between Osmond and Father. I try listening more. One of the slaves realizes I am awake and signals to Father. He glances at me and the discussion dies.
Everything looks gray here. I never really found out what happened to Peters. I see the word in my dream again. It seems real. I try to touch it but It moves out of my reach.
This time I do not fall.
The cave is huge. We do not need to walk far. Even by the light of the slowly fading day, the thing can be seen. It stands upright. It is a mere stone. I go for a closer look, hoping to find something of significance. Osmond confirms what has broken my heart.
Osmond wants to run some tests on it. I leave him at it. I shouldn’t have lost that page. It was torn off from a tribe’s compendium. That is all I know. With Peters gone, there is no way I can get these locals to talk.
This rough data is gathered from one of the local slaves
Gerrick woke up in the middle of the night. Osmond was missing. Muriel ran in after Father. Osmond was lying on the ground, shrieking like a madman. Father touched him and was taken aback at how cold he felt. Muriel looked at the purple rock. There was something alive about it. Muriel was transfixed. Osmond was beyond help. He sat up now, muttering again and again. It was necessary to get Muriel away from there and as far away as possible. Father grabbed her and ran. He looked behind but there was nothing. Osmond made no attempt to get up.
Sorry bastard. The elements would kill him. But not soon enough.
I ran and stumbled in the dark. Something cut me, I could feel warm blood oozing down my cheek. I made it safely to the camp. He had laid Muriel down and checked her for fever. She was as cold as Osmond. I used the transmitter and sent the distress signal to the base camp. I prayed silently for them to make it here in time.
Muriel’s mouth was moving, forming words. Dr. Gerrick moved closer to listen. There was no sound. He tried reading her lips but in her delirium, she was speaking to fast. He held his daughter’s head in his hands and looked into her eyes. He must have read the word in her eyes. I knew what would happen. I ran.
The page :
The mountain. It was the center of an ancient kingdom. The gods were angry and wanted to punish the land of the mountain. So, they sent it to the peak. It was not of this world. It did not understand the ways of men. It was to men as men were to ants. Powerful yet inconsequential. It existed across time. A speck of existence divided over centuries, perhaps. It could manifest in different places. It could very easily transcend most physical boundaries as a human could stamp on an ant. But the ants have no idea of what a human is. In the same way, it did not regard this universe.
It could be and not be at the same time. Exist simultaneously across eras. Showing up in points of time. It flexed one of his great hands, there was a flood in the East and there was hail in the West. The North and the South were mere points on a line for it. So it would grow and the humans would not be aware of it as their frail mortal minds could never wrap themselves around the concept. They could see the destruction and they had questions to ask. But they never knew when to ask them.
The Gods, as is their nature to meddle with things that outweigh them in importance, decided that it had to be stopped. They knew that the being could never be restrained. So, they fashioned a cross for the thing to bear.
A corporeal existence it must have if it is to exist at all. But the price for creation, was destruction itself.
Confidential Report :
The locals have been debriefed. All priors are investigated. This is accessible on a code 4 clearance.
Osmond had apparently impaled himself on one of the sharper rocks. Peters was never found. Muriel was rescued by the search party. She was taken to the general hospital and declared a vegetable. Her Father, Dr. Gerrick was found near the mouth of the cave. Foam lined his mouth, his eyes were a pulpy mass. They had bust due to internal pressure. There was no semblance of a brain in Gerrick.
He was found lying on his back, his shirt torn open, a bloodied knife in his hand and a single word carved on his chest.
