Chapter 65: Terror

-Chubster POV-

That single sentence from Orwell’s mouth sent shivers running down his spine. It felt as if he had been plunged into ice cold water, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. From the wide eyes and pale faces of his team, he wasn’t alone in that feeling.

Suddenly the cave that had seemed so safe suddenly felt…wrong. The shadows crept deeper, the light seemed dimmer.

He felt exposed, watched.

“Shade!” He half yells, half whispers. “Turn us invisible!”

Ben waited for the man to pop up, as he always tended to do – likely behind someone to boot.

That doesn’t happen, and as the seconds drag on Ben realises something has gone horribly wrong.

“Shade!” The walls whisper back with his own voice. “Shade! Shade! Shade! Shade! Shade! Shade!”

He shudders, eyes darting to every shadow.

Then he whips around to Pyroclasm.

“MAKE A WALL!”

Pyroclasm, shaking in fear, does as he is ordered. Stone flowed upwards at his command, first in front of them and then behind them. Preventing whatever was following them any easy way to get to them. The walls bubbled, tiny holes forming within the cement and ensuring they wouldn’t suffocate to death.

Ben heaved, his heart thundering in his chest as he stood in the dark.

With shaking hands he reached into his bag to retrieve one of the few items they had been able to salvage from their -mostly crushed- supplies. A Glow Stick. With a snap and a shake, the chem light illuminated the pocket of safety Pyroclasm had erected.

His team were all there, pale and frightened but alive.

“Pyro,” he once again whispers, much lower this time. “You can sense vibrations if you concentrate right? What’s following us?”

There was no response, and for a brief, dreadful, moment he thinks the creature had snatched him up. But as he looked to his left, he saw Pyroclasm. The man was shaking, arms still held up – as if he was bearing some heavy weight only he could see.

“Can’t.” The man’s words were clipped and ringed with effort. “Something’s-it’s fighting my control of this place, trying to revert my changes!”

“So what, you can’t keep this up?!” Wayfarer shouted, immediately being shushed by everyone present. The man’s face held nothing but panic, eyes bulging and teeth grit.

Ben couldn’t blame him there was something-

No, it was this entire place. There was something horribly wrong, and they could all feel it.

‘A Stranger Effect’ his more logical side distantly notes, but his instinct driven mind doesn’t hear. Too busy drowning in fear to think things through.

“Well, Maybe we should-“

Wayfarers words caught in the back of their throat as they, and everyone else, heard a noise.

They freeze.

A footstep. Unmistakably so.

“Shade?” Atlas calls out, hopeful but with fearful eyes.

Another step, closer this time.

The sharp clack of something hard pressing on stone.

No voice calls out.

Ben glances over, noticing Orwell beginning to shake once more. With steps he so desperately hopes are silent, he goes over to wrap his arms around the cape. This close, he can feel the panicked breathing, can hear the thundering heart even as the man attempted to be silent.

The others were barely better, with Scope completely checked out – still on the floor.

Another step, this time there was the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

Then there was a wet splat and the sound of crumbling rocks.

Then another footstep.

And another.

So close now. So terribly close.

Time seemed to move so slow, like molasses. Each breath feels dry enough to clog his throat and his body refusing to stop shivering.

It’s here.

…

They wait in silence, only the sound of their own heartbeats to accompany them.

….

Ben thinks of charley, how many times is he going to come within a hairsbreadth of leaving her alone?

…..

There is scratching at the wall.

……

There is tearing at the barrier that separates them.          

…….

Something wants to get inside.

……..

Then it stops.

And there is a footstep.

And then another.

They keep quiet. Ben doesn’t know how long it’s been, he lost track of time – the terror drowning out all other thoughts. Yet, even hearing the footsteps drawing further away, none dare to move.

Not even Pyroclasm, despite his muscles straining and a thin stream of blood pouring from his nose.

It must be gone now, right?

Eventually, more out of need than any courage, Pyroclasm groans and releases the hold he has over the earth. The stone, now moving to the command of an alien will, begins to recede.

Once the stone reaches the height of his waist, Chubster leaps over it to inspect the other side.

The lowering wall was covered in scratches.

And nothing was present.

That did not ease the chill in his soul, however.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Ben blinks, liquid kissing his cheek.

He reaches up, to wipe it away.

He brings his hand back down, the fingers now covered in red.

Ben trembles, not wanting to look up – yet his body, in a daze, does so anyway.

He finds the lifeless gaze of Shade staring back at him.

-Atlas POV-

“Chubster! Chubster! Ben!” His whispered words were in vain however, Ben’s eyes remained locked upon Shade’s. The man’s pale face was shaking back and forth, in denial over the sight before him.

Without another word Atlas hoisted Chubster unto his back, carrying him like a sack of potatoes.

“Wayfarer! Remote! Grab Scope and Orwell! We’re moving!” He ordered as softly as he could, his eyes following the path the footsteps of whatever killed Shade had taken.

The sound of which lead back to the entrance. Shit!

Every instilled line of training urged him back up, to face the monster instead of heading further into the cave. Yet, the idea of facing whatever had brushed past them sent shivers of unease crawling along his back.

Something told him that if they encountered that thing again…

He shook his head, abandoning the thoughts of doom as he glanced towards Pyroclasm.

“Are you alright to move?”

The question got an affronted grunt out of the man. “I’ll live,” he whispered back, seemingly stoic. The slight shakes gave the lie away, though Atlas wasn’t sure whether those were from pain or fear.

Likely, it was both.

He chose not to address it, instead clapping the man on the back softly. “Good man, alright everyone, that thing went towards the entrance and in our current state I don’t fancy our odds. We’re going to have to head deeper.”

While a few looked shaken at that, it was quite telling that none of them protested the decision – their brief encounter with whatever that thing had been had driven a cold biting fear into all of them.

There was no other way to describe it. Atlas had faced scarier things than a monster in the dark, and yet…

The beating in his heart refused to fall.

Wayfarer and Remote gamely hefted the two Thinkers onto their backs, Remote having to stop fiddling with the useless communication device in order to do so – something he was clearly not happy with.

Together they crept downwards, wincing at every careless noise made. They scanned the darkness with the eyes of frightened children. The cave was no longer cold and dry, as it had been before. Now it was warm and damp, with the wheeze of air rushing back and forth – the sickly sweet air tickling at their noses with its acrid scent.

It almost seemed as if it were alive, something old and slow. Scope’s mad mumblings did not help with the unease they all felt as they wandered down.

It was quiet down here, forebodingly so. Nothing but the sound of wind of feet attempting to march quietly upon stone. Four pairs of feet clambering upon ancient stone that had never seen the light of day.

Click Clack Click Clack Click Clack Click Clack Click Clack.

He didn’t know how far they walked, the memory hazy, but eventually their eyes began to register a faint warm glow sputtering to life before them. A divergence in the path, a side room that radiated a soft yellow light.

They came to a stop. The sound of the clicking and clacking of shoes upon hard stone, a sound that had been a constant companion on the way down, coming to an end.

Click Clack.

He Stiffened, ice creeping down his spine.

With shaking legs, he turned around.

Nothing.

Just the beady stare of smooth stones staring back at him. The abyssal black of the rocks surface gazing into his soul.

He shuddered, turning back around – trying to convince himself that the breathing on the back of his neck was just the cave, and not something else.

Like moths to the flame, they pressed forwards.

The doorway opened up to a well lit room. It appeared to be some kind of study, notes and scientific equipment lining the tables in the middle of the room. The room was caked in a fine layer of dust, clearly long since abandoned, and the bulbs and beakers of glass were clearly ancient – riddled with cracks.

“Wh-where are we?” The groggy voice of Chubster groaned out over his shoulder.

A sharp relief hit Atlas, his friend was okay!

“We don’t know, some kind of room carved into the mountain itself. Remote, any guesses?”

Remote, having long since placed Orwell down to fiddle with a spindly contraption of brass and glass glances over to him.

“The tech is old. 1900’s, maybe.”

Atlas felt confusion bubble up at his teammates words. How was that possible? This cave clearly wasn’t natural, if the smooth walls and perfectly circular shape were any indication, but he didn’t think the ones who created it were from that long ago?

Heck, Atlas had never paid too much attention in his history classes but were people even poking around in Antarctica back then?

It stunk, this whole situation reeked to high hell.

He needed more information, his eyes drifted towards the notes and books that lined the tables.

“Wayfarer, guard the door. Everyone else who feels up for it,” he glances at three bleary eyed -and still shuddering- members of his team as he says this, “grab a book and try to figure out what the hell this place is doing here.”

Remote, without glancing up once, grabbed a thick book close to him and began flipping through the pages.

Atlas himself reached for the nearest parchment of paper, a single sheaf that had yellowed over the ages and turned brown near the edges, and brought it closer.

It is to my greatest shame that I am forced into speech by pen and parchment because the rest of my colleagues, men of science and reason, refuse to take heed and leave this place with me. It is thus my will that I leave behind this warning, even knowing it might be in vain, for those who come after.

I do not know who you are, but I imagine that, just like us, you are curious individuals of good learning. Thus I know that to turn away must seem like the most bitter of poison, but the secrets that lie in this place are not for you. Not for any of us.

I suppose I should explain my own circumstances. I am a Geologist, a man of learning from Cambridge University charged with uncovering the secrets of God’s wonderous creation. This expedition was tasked with collecting samples of rock from this land far in the south, of particular interest was pre-Cambrian strata that we discovered to the North of this camp.

Then we discovered this cave. I regret that discovery, and I suspect I will to my dying day. It fascinated us, of course. A queerly shaped structure that showed no evidence of the erosion of time. Prof. Frank Hebert was fascinated by a material he found deeper within that could not be scratched by the remarkable drill he devised. Prof. James Emory supposedly found an unknown type of flora even deeper in, though in his mad fit of paranoia we-

The next few words were smudged out, completely indecipherable. Atlas attempted to uncover what they said for several minutes, placing the latter up to the flickering light to no avail.

-Which only got worse in time, now we hear them every night - baying at our barricades. We cannot keep them out any longer, already the crude planks of wood we have been forced to cannibalise are worn and falling apart. The others claim that we must press deeper, that our salvation lies there.

I suspect we shall only find more of them.

The other are packing even now, leaving behind only what they believe is unnecessary. Whole books detailing our observations on the lichen and insects present in the more temperate regions of this blasted desert, the mating behaviour of the Skuas, the journals detailing our travels to this very place. All of it, discarded as if it were nothing in the face of this vile unnaturalness.

I will have none of it. They may seek to go lower, but I shall not.

To whoever is reading this, if anyone ever does, please turn back. If you have reached this far then there must be a reason to believe that you cannot. Perhaps parts of the cave collapsed, perhaps members of your group have fallen ill or perhaps you have even met one of those-

Once again the next section has been blackened out, scrubbed away with a furious hand. It was thankfully a smaller section this time, likely only comprising a few words. Despite this Atlas felt a cold curdling feeling in his stomach, sitting heavily.

However I must warn you: this is a trap.

We experienced much the same. Supplies would mysteriously disappear, sudden cave ins, hallucinations and even encounters. All whenever we wished to head back. Something is here. Something is watching us, and doesn’t want us to leave. It wants us to dive deeper into this gullet.

But I will not play this game, and I hope you refuse to do so as well.

With regards, and with the utmost luck.

Prof. Eric Whitehall

1903

Atlas tore his eyes away from the paper, glancing at the doorway. The darkness looming outside seeming even hungrier.

“Remote, did you find anything?”

His question just got a shaken head. “It was a book detailing an expedition to this continent, but none of it mentions this cave at all.”

“I’ve got something similar here,” said Ben, still appearing shaken but gamely flipping through a book to his side.

“It seems to detail a type of bird native to this place. No mentions of a spooky cave,” he smiled, the attempt at levity as frail as the smile on his face was.

Atlas held up the letter. “Well I think I’ve found something.”

Remote and Chubster gathered close, reading the letter over his shoulder. Chubster still shook, but it was fainter now, his leader having had the time to centre himself once more after the death of…Shade.

Atlas’ mood turned dark at the reminder of his friend’s death. Shade had been many things: moody, taciturn and secretive but the man had been on the team for two years. That was more than enough time for bonds to form and be tested. Shade had saved his life once, in Louisiana when a Biotinker unleashed a swarm of ravenous plants that they had been brewing in a nearby forest.

Atlas had gone down hard, a titanic specimen managing to hold him down long enough that the variants with spores potent enough to make a man cough his lungs up could get close. If it hadn’t been for Shade, he wouldn’t be here.

And now he was dead…

Remote clucked his tongue in annoyance. “A bit vague wasn’t he?”

Ben nodded. “It still gives us a few useful bits of info, though. That creature was trying to lure us further down, that’s why it didn’t follow us.”

Remote chuckled darkly at that. “That’s not all that it did,” he said, pointing towards the sections of the letter that had been made completely illegible. “I highly doubt it was the professor that did this.”

Oh.

The implication settled in Atlas, clawing up to his brain like a buried tick.

“It does seem to cut out whenever the man seems to talk about whatever is down here, you think that’s from them?”

Remote nodded at Ben’s question.

“Yes, which would imply that these things have enough intellect to read and plan ahead. Which certainly isn’t ideal,” Remote said, troubled.

“Are we really supposed to believe that this originated from 1903? That’s before Scion, before Parahumans!” Atlas couldn’t help but point out, yet the sick twisting in his gut only increased when Remote shook his head.

“I already considered the possibility that this place was a fabrication,” he said, before he pulled out an odd rectangular device -clearly of Tinker make.

“According to this, the carbon dating matches. It’s not exact but the things in this room are definitely from that time. The only other possibility would be a group managing to fabricate the decay of Carbon atoms, and then deciding to use it for a glorified haunted house in the middle of nowhere. Not very likely.”

When he put it like that, Atlas was forced to agree – but still! Something like this predating the arrival of Parahumans was…well, it was huge! Paradigm shattering!

He swallowed.

“Ideas on what to do next?”

Chubster didn’t hesitate. “We can’t stay here.”

“He’s right, whatever wants us to continue forward clearly has malevolent intentions. We need to turn back,” Remote agreed, despite the longing in his words. Remote was, after all, a Tinker, and a researcher before that. The call to explore this place that defied everything they thought they knew must be nearly irresistible.

“That’ll mean confronting that thing,” he pointed out, much to the consternation of everyone lucid enough to hear it.

Orwell and Scope were still down, though Orwell appeared slightly less pale than before – and was breathing easier. Pyroclasm was still holding his head in his palms, attempting to stop the light from reaching his eyes.

That left him, Ben, Remote and Wayfarer. Three bodies needed to be carried, Atlas might be able to carry two, or even three, of them. However that would leave him, the strongest brute of the team, effectively sidelined.

Yet, what choice was there? The only other person who might be able to carry all of their incapacitated teammates was Chubster, whose Brute rating relied upon how slow he was moving.

Remote and Wayfarer, in comparison, were much frailer and less capable of carrying heavy loads – Remote being a Tinker already lugging around hefty equipment.

Wayfarer was-

He stopped. Eyes wide as he noticed something.

“Atlas?”

He ignored the call, eyes fixed upon wayfarer. Instincts warning him that something was wrong.

The man wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t simply still, he was completely unmoving.

The others had noticed now too, their eyes trailing over to where he was looking. Only needing a few seconds to notice what was off.

“Wayfarer?” Ben called, a pitiful note in an ocean of silence.

The man didn’t respond.

Atlas’ eyes met Remote’s, gesturing for him to drag the others away from Wayfarer. The man nodded, reaching down to pull them further into the room, and away from the stock-still figure.

Atlas moved towards the man, the electric blue of his uniform now appearing so dull.

“Wayfarer?” He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, shaking it.

Wayfarer’s body lolled back and forth, bonelessly. His head flopping with the motion.

Atlas shivered, and turned the man around.

Coming face to face with the dead eyes of Wayfarer. His face pale, and nose bleeding. Every inch of his expression carved by the same inexpressible terror that he had seen in the darkness.

The darkness that was still waiting.

Watching.

AN: First time I’m doing anything horror related, so not sure on how I did. The letter is actually based on some of the first lines of The Mountains of Madness, though what they’re facing is rather unique.

So yeah, Shuffle is a Titan, Shade and Wayfarer are dead and the two Thinkers as well as Pyroclasm aren’t in a good state. The only ones truly up and ready to fight are Atlas, Chubster and Remote. Not ideal.

Will probably switch back to Alexander next Chapter, he’ll be making the city-sized inner sanctuary – with enough horrors within that would make the Simurgh blush.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment!