Olethros
Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft
It was in the small hours that I plunged deeply into that feverish nightmare. A healthy and conscious organism could never produce such a bewildering vortex of horror outside the world of dreams. The painkillers helped me drift, but the illness had spread enough to distort even the waking world. I had seen it; the fall of humanity.
A huge cohort of blurred faces were walking in tandem in the middle of the street. They were screaming at each other, but had no voices; with weirdly elongated mouths, only their nauseous screeching indicated the pure hatred towards other members of the cohort all the while maintaining a steady pace, almost robotic, towards a horizon of greenish light. This could not be sunlight for it was still barely two past midnight. No attempts at describing the sight can capture the insanity. Some of the strays were bald and naked with thin, carefully groomed curved beards, and bore a strange resemblance to kings of ancient lands. Some, wore slimy top hats as filth was dripping on their faces. They held chains in their hands - my gaze dared not trace the other end. But nothing compared to the sickness of the slim, hairless, broken-necked creatures. Their gaze seemed to be fixated on a bright block of light not 3 inches from their thorax. The bones in the back of the nape had torn the skin due to the unnatural bent of their spines. It was because of them and their awfully familiar aura that I frantically ran out to the street and joined the mindless march.
Despite the horrendous situation each of them was in - for they were clearly led by some hidden force which I dared not inquire - their fiendish screeches never ceased. In an instant, all heads turned in nightmarish synchronicity. They had neither eyes nor nose and ears, and yet I felt the piercing of their gaze. A haunting voice from the deep suddenly gnawed on my sanity: "Can you not see they are doomed?” it shrieked. “They march towards their demise; straight off a cliff and into the sharp rocks of the sea. Do you see the sea?" A mirage then formed all around me. I was floating. Below, a bubbling infernal sea stretched as far as I could see meeting a horizon of cosmic iridescence. There were faces in water - smiling and laughing frantically. All of them fixated on a green stain on the firmament. Was that the green curtain that the masses were drawn to? The voice in my head laughed malignantly. What kind of devil gains pleasure of witnessing such a gruesome fate? Anger consumed me as the mirage dissipated. "Can you not see?!", I shouted back at the creatures. "We are all headed towards our doom! Mindless and controlled while it laughs from the comforts of the beyond!"
The slow and steady pace of the cohort was now anxious and impatient. I was running among them, ever closer to the cliff, desperate to make my case heard. My voice became coarse burning my throat, but the horde wouldn't stop. They begun shouting back. I could understand them now. Some became violent - I retaliated. All it takes is a little push for a man to revert to violence. Before I knew it, I was cutting and slicing and biting - drowning in madness and depravity. The laughing intensified, but this time the source was different. Was I the one producing such blasphemous utterings? I glanced around. Black rocks and an endless sea of boiling blood - I was in the middle of it all. And there it was, up in the sky, the green spot.
I woke up in an agonizing scream. Pain, mental and physical, kept the nightmare at the forefront of my consciousness. I laid soaked in sweat, shivering from the fever. What kind of other-worldly force conjures up a figment like this inside a mortal's brain? The dream was as vivid as the freezing wind. All of it makes sense now. It was a warning, a taste of what is to come.
04:00 am. Noises on my window. Scratches. Faint footsteps on the street below. Whispers.
God, the march. I see friends in there! I have to warn them. Look up! I am here, stop! That terrible yellowish hue on the horizon. That is no sun. I must run…