Post by Nepty on Jul 11, 2014 4:14:59 GMT
“Around the world, you’ll find paintings of them. In the deepest caves. In the most secluded of temples. In the blackest fathoms and sanctums, you fill find record of them.
Many are driven into these caves by bad weather. They are hiking or walking and with no forwarning, the sky roars open and water, ice or rushing, sleeting rain drives down for hours, flooding the paths. They find themselves inexplicably drawn to this cave, and often congradulae themselves on their sense of the wilderness or simple good fortune.
Upon entering, it is as dry as a bone, and a single great firepit sits in the center. Ash and fragments of ancient bone lie undisturbed, and the floor is smooth and brown.
And upon the walls, done in ochre, are paintings. Cave paintings of strange, fantastical creatures, and in the soft clay wall is set hundreds of tiny scrimshawed carvings on a smalll bones. The carvings invariably depict the same thing. A hunched, four-armed man, devouring a prone, two armed man. Totems perhaps. They all date from thousands of years ago, according to carbon dating deviced
But whatever they are, these images are unsettling. Many leave as soon as they are dry, huddling away from the depths of the cave, nearer to the entrance. These caves go deep and narrow until a man must go down on his hands and knees to crawl through them. None do.
Most prefer to brave the rough weather outside than remain in the cave. They leave and go home damp, or perhaps with a touch of the cold.
But some stay. Some spurred on by bravado-fuelled companions, or some simply too foolish not to trust their gut, who’s mind still roils with fear. They stay the night and mean to weather it out.
The intelligent stay awake or leave. Some stay awake and light a fire and huddle near the door with a club or an axe close to hand.
But at some point, the campers fall asleep.
Then one of them dreams. He dreams of the cave. Of him and his companions sleeping, and of the shadows in the cave lengthening and sharpening. Of glistening black orbs in the deep reaches of he cave. Of a faint clack, as if a man snapped his jaws together. Of the drip of free-falling salivation. Of the faint clicking of talons on a stone floor.
Then, they come for them in the dark.
There is always one. Only one high, mutilating scream, and then…nothing. Those who awaken in time may see a struggling shape being pulled into the shadows by long, taloned hands, a trail of smeared blood behind it. The foolish few who lean forwards for a better look see the glittering black eyes and the snapping mandibles, and the gaunt, emaciated chests rising and falling. The scabrous hands and scurvy-ridden flesh, and the strips of meat from their cannibalistic diet beneath the earth hanging in their needle teeth. They may smell the rank odor of their corpse-breath and the reek of their unwashed bodies. And some see the screaming, bloodied man struggling as it pulls him deeper into the cave.
Then they blink, and it is gone. The thing, the victim, the stain of blood on the floor.
And one camper is missing. And come the dawn, he is still gone, and nothing else is amiss. His bag is gone, his belongings are gone, and the paintings are still there, the tiny bone carvings of scrimshawed men in terrible agony…the tiny bone carvings…wait…Was that carving, that one right there…was it there yesterday?