February 16th
Victor Hauspar
I cannot rightly remember all of the proper steps I took that lead me to the doorstep of this abominable structure. I remember the book, first of all. No. To be correct, I remember my childhood first of all. So many years of meaningless travel race beyond my eyes when I think of that time so long gone. Meaningless in that they no longer have any bearing, however, ‘meaningless’ is a word used incorrectly. Those long vanished years prepared me for the life that yet remains. I learned then those most valuable lessons. Critical thinking, serenity before faceless oblivion, problem solving, and even diplomacy were the things taught to me in my youth.Most of these lessons I can directly place at the feet of my father. I unintentionally shudder when I attempt to recall his face. I fear to know why, however.
My father traveled the world, and had a great collection of artifacts from every unknown corner of the globe. Hideous and provocative, his tokens of the various cultures he visited brought great interest to my youthful mind. I first saw them as toys, but with an ice chill do I recall the pain that taught me otherwise. I was not to touch his trophies and fetishes, he left me with the tomes. He could not read them, you see, and he trusted my youth to soak the knowledge, even if I could not understand it myself. As my memory tells me, he would often remind me, that faceless shadow in my mind, that I was to be a repository. When we found one who could decipher the ancient and enigmatic runes I committed to memory, the whole collection was to be translated.
Through my mind’s eye, I recall little else of any substance. As though the fine threads of a dream long dead or dying is all I have connecting that childhood with my current state.Perhaps it is an effect of the lithium or the opiates. Perhaps it is a defense. Perhaps the nightmares that visit me waking and dreaming are in truth the journey that led me to the brink of oblivion. At times, between the false lethargic peace and the waking horrors of my broken mind, the veil lifts. In these fleeting minutes, I feel the bare threads of my mind fatten with recollection. Only in these rare moments am I able to see the road in the darkness. However, it is these times when the road behind me is once again clear that I am most frightened, for only in these moments can I be certain of what is real and what is not. It is only when I am aware of my lucidity that the terrors beyond can truly feed upon the fear within me.
I must tread lightly. The more I focus upon those terrible visions, eyes and teeth, the harder it becomes to maintain my memory. If only you could know the visions, if they spoke to you instead. I would sit across this table. I would calmly write words! I would rest in haughty skepticism! I would… I… I am sorry. As was said, it takes a great deal to hide from them. I am alright. As I sit upon the precipice, I feel my legs dangling over the edge. Terrible and glorious, it is. If I were to descend now, however, you would not listen to my tale. So I will remain, whilst I am able. I can recall some of the past, if you wish.
Between a childhood spent traveling across every derelict and unknown culture and a life in chains and a fountain of madness, there were several decades. Unfortunate, then, that no one can recall them but one you must wrap in such cruel bindings. As was said, I recall little from those young days, despite them being the things I most desire to remember. In the distant memory fogged by madness and lithium, I can see my father. He sits with old, brown men. There is a fire, and some kind of meat.
I have been told on no less than three occasions that I traveled to the ancient temples in the deep, enigmatic east. I know that we wandered the tribes of the Amazon and the modern ancestors of the vile brutes of the Central American bridge. The recollection of such travels I feel clawing at my mind like some spiteful gaunt, tearing its way out of the depths of the great abyss.Oh, their cries! Years of travel locked away! The keys! The words! They will! They must!They… I … I cannot. I am still here. Oh, my time is yet still shorter. I may continue, if you have ceased your scribbling. In the fog I see they had given me a tome of some kind. I was “reading” it, to the best of my ability. My father was watching their rituals, and attempting to bargain for several devices and the very book he begged to impart into my own mind. My memory fails me at this image; for it is here that that damnable book fills my eyes. I cannot recall if I turned my eyes from the visage of those ancient shamans or if my eyes were turned to the tome by some sinister force.
Just as my memories of my father’s torrid negotiations are faded and shadowed in the firelight, each arcane letter in that cursed tome is forever creased into the fabric of my tenuous sanity. I can feel its weight in my hands, even now. I can see each line and curve. Each geometric simplicity that lapped at my eyes, searing each detail into a memory bereft of all else. It is more than that. More than the simple lines and strokes combined to form a sort of primitive, perverse writing. The texture, the structure, even what supposed to be grammar was an affront to civilized reality, and each detail is complete and unforgettable. The letters were not scribed, pressed, or inked. They appeared to be some kind of change in the substance upon which they were wrought. Dare I say, the immortal grimoire was a thing of flesh and bone. The beast, as it were, was burned and blistered with writing in a tongue I could not comprehend. It was branded with a script and arithmetic now forever etched into my own eyes.
That, after all, was why my father brought me to that forsaken place. My impeccable memory, as had been predicted by my youth and exercised to perfection, made me a master at copying ancient texts. My comprehension remained independent of my remembrance. Alas, it may be too late in the evening. As the day gives way into night, so too does my lucidity wane into lunacy. You see, the grimoire’s ilk, its masters and brethren, seek those touched by the grotesque. The cries and claws... they screech louder and closer as I reminisce. They come from within. From within me! I feel them struggle and claw!
The book called to me then, as it does now, a babbling nightmare. I can still see it! I feel its warmth! Can you not smell the singed skin?! It calls! By all the blasphemies that gurgle and curse in their death, I can hear the pages! A legion in unison, the cries of the damned shaman and their filth! FLTH S’DNUG GIZNATHUL! THE KEYS! THE KEYS! Grunfultd, and Ky-ii. The keys! Eyes and teeth, NO! They come! Can you not feel it? So much blood! So much blood!
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