Every day, I go to "new" page of reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts (I apologize in advance if you were previously unaware of Reddit) where I select the latest prompt - whatever it is - and write it out. I've decided to post those here. Hope you enjoy it. Today's Story is:
UNTITLED
In the darkness below, the ancient beast stirred and woke - struggling against the oppressive black encasing it. Muscles older than modern culture and atrophied from millenia asleep beneath the earth ached in protest as the Ancient pushed against the confines of its tomb. And again when the gargantuan beast tried to draw breath to light the world in flame it drew in only dust and soot and the stale air of this too-small cavern formed around its horrible form.
The Ancient's roar of protest came out only as a moan, low and dark. The great beast knew it had awakened only to die. What power was left in this world was not enough to sustain it. What power was left within was already seeping out into the earth.
I am dying, the Ancient thought - its mind awash in language and imagery long ago lost to the minds of men. And in its thoughts there were stars.
In ages long past, when the Ancient and all its kind had been rulers of this world, and so many like it, the stars had offered comfort. And somewhere deep within the creature's frail, breaking form, it found the Will to push. To dig.
Wings, long tattered and weakened from so long out of the sky, strained to against the earth. It's great tail, like the swaying trunk of a giant redwood, uncoiled and pushed. Limbs larger than most men's imagination pressed through the pain of disuse and the Ancient began to dig.
The Stars. If I am to die, it will be beneath the Stars.
The candles flickered in the darkness. The low song of the wind chimes by the window filled Marten with a sense that this was right. He knelt on the floor of his dorm room in the center of a white pentagram, marked out with masking tape.
Dipping first one hand and then another into the cauldron sitting at the north of his magic circle, he withdrew the warm oil and anointed his forehead and then each of his Chakras - the mystical points of convergence in his body.
"Spirits of Earth," he said, picking up a bit of earth taken from the garden outside and laying it just inside the circle, past the cauldron, "I welcome thee."
The earth trembled; and Marten's momentary panic was instantly shut down with a broad smile. It was real. He returned to the center of the circle and lit the incense, taking it to the eastern edge of the circle, "Spirits of Air," he said, "I welcome you!"
He hoped for a gust of wind, or a flicker of the candles; but there was nothing. Instead, he closed his eyes and imagined he was beckoning the spirits of the air to come and witness his ritual. When there was no physical manifestation, he satisfied himself that he didn't need to see evidence to believe the spirits were here.
In a small iron bowl, Marten lit a fire of kindling and dry brush. This he placed on the southern edge of the circle and beckoned the Spirits of Flame. This time, he believed his faith was answered with another low rumble beneath the earth. It threatened to knock over his bowl of fire. It wants to escape, he told himself without knowing why. He wasn't talking about the fire.
He took a second bowl and bid the Spirits of Water to join him and then took his place back in the center of the circle. He opened his grimoire - his magical journal and spellbook - to the right page and closed his eyes, imagining that the world was falling away. Only the circle remained - the circle and the Called Spirits (which he could see in his mind's eye, even if they didn't leave a mark on the "real" world), and the alter and himself.
"Great Father," he began in a bold voice, "Mother of All, I beseech thee to look down on this working with favor!"
The music from his roommate's bedroom grew louder, probably an attempt to drown out Marten's voice; but the young man in the black robe didn't care. He pushed all thoughts of it away, focusing on the wind chimes, on the circle, on the magick.
"I come here to a time that is not Time, in a place that is No Place-"
And to Marten, it seemed as though the Earth woke up. His entire room felt like it shifted six feet to the right, throwing him out of his circle and against the Cradle of Filth poster that hung beside his bookshelf. He struck the bookshelf with the side of his head and lost consciousness for a moment.
When he came to, he woke to a nightmare. It made him think of the earthquake ride he went on once in Florida.
"This can't be real," he cried, hearing for the first time, the screams of the students in the rooms around him.
As if in answer, the entire Eastern half of the building fell away into nothing. Marten clumsily got to his feat and inched his way toward that edge of his circle. Looking down into a chasm that had just been six stories of college dormitory and was now a fucking hole in the world - was too much. Water pipes and electric cables poured their contents all over each other.
Shane West - who'd been kind of a dick to Marten - but really didn't deserve it, lay spread eagle on his back in the raw earth. He wasn't wearing anything except his boxer shorts, and he shook and twitched and tried to scream. Marten wanted to scream too. When their eyes met, Shane's eyes pleaded with Marten, who now thought he must look ridiculous in his heavy, black robe and nothing else.
The heat of the fire started by Marten's candles and the small bowl he'd placed in his circle, broke into Marten's thoughts.
"Oh god," he said, turning his back to the ledge and facing the wall of flame that stood between him and the door. Not that the door would do him any good. The stairwell was in the eastern part of the building - buried beneath all the-
The sound that erupted from below him was unearthly. Low and loud and dark and deep - it was a cross between growl and a scream and a tornado and maybe Godzilla. Only that last one was probably right, even if the sound was off, because Marten turned around and saw it.
Not Godzilla. Definitely not the Spirit of the Earth; but some Thing. Marten understood why Lovecraft always said people went insane when they saw the monsters. This was surely one of the Great Old Ones he'd read about in those stories that hadn't really scared him until now.
It was too big to be real. Too-
Marten's vision started to shut down and his head suddenly felt light. He swooned and fell from the ledge; but the shock of the fall - even in the face of this monstrosity - jolted him awake, and he screamed as he toppled over the edge.
He glimpsed something massive and black move beneath him, and he understood that no matter how big he'd thought it was, he was only looking at the surface of it. It wasn't possible. There was no way in hell there could be more of the thing; bit it was starting to come up out of the earth.
An arm, or a limb - or something - the size of a skyscraper reached out to catch him, but the fall was too far and he heard bones break when he struck the hard scaled flesh. It was all too much. He wanted to cry out, but only wept, pleading with this Ancient God. What else could it be? The magick he was trying to believe in was real, and now he was looking at the proof of it.
"Please don't kill me," he begged, trying to turn over in the Ancient Thing's massive paw, but unable to do so. This time he did cry out in pain as broken bones moved within his broken flesh and tore new holes in him.
The Great Old One - or whatever it was - tossed Marten aside like a toy, and he landed in a large puddle of mud formed by the water main and the sewer pipe. His breath caught in his throat and he knew he was going to die. There was nothing he could do about it. There was too much pain. Too much... everything.
"Please," he whimpered. "I want to live."
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