You brought me here under the false pretense
of finding the truth,
because somehow, you're convinced I know it.
But you have the wrong person.

I cannot tell you why the moon is crimson now
or why dark tendrils writhe beneath our skin.
Nor can I explain the shrieks
that echo outside your windows at night.

Sometime between the yesteryears and this moment
our world became a nightmare.
I am just as perplexed as you
about its cause.

It isn't a fault
that I have simply adapted to it better.
That my steps aren't as halting and fearful as yours.
That I have made friends with the now deeper shadows.
That my terror still lies with the possibilities of fearful humans,
and not with the monsters we now walk beside.

I'm sorry that I have no answers for you.
That I am not the cause of this transformation.
That I cannot soothe your fear.

Peace is a haven you must search for alone.
Maybe it's in those patches of light you people cling so desperately to.
If it is, I hope you find it.
Because I have a feeling
that your haven and mine
are two very different places.

​Good day, sir.

I don't know how long I fell.
For months or miles, it's hard to tell.

But amidst my tumbling I felt the eyes of more celestials
than the simple sun and moon.
Beings everlasting, burning brighter than mortal minds can imagine
immune to the troubles and struggles that subsume us.

I could have fell through entire worlds and not known
for though I felt gazes and my own unyielding, fetid motion
blackness was the only constant
and so in stygian abyss I lost myself, wanting only permanence.

I keep hearing it.
A soft whisper on the cold breeze
delivering news of a horde
of many feet stumbling blindly through white powder
beneath bowed backs and bleeding gums.

But the summers here are endless.
Chills are stunted before they ever reach the surface
let alone storms that bring down snow.
That's why I came here.
To escape that feeling of being frozen into my own bones
trapped below icy atmospheres
separated from warmth and sun.

I must be tired
or stressed.
Imagining things.
Because no such thing would ever exist
on a planet like this.
It couldn't.
There's no way to walk
across a galaxy.
​They could never follow me here.

Deep below the earth
darkness crawls.

Twelve wickedly barbed
clawed fingers
dig into stone and drag it's body forward.
Its flesh of innumerable tendrils
wrapped around bones of glass
dripping with ichor
leaves an oily trail behind.

For millennia it has searched for escape.
Ever since its one fleeting glimpse of sweet starlight.
That memory shimmers in the pits of its mind
which has only ever truly known darkness.

It thinks not of what we mortals may think
if we come across it.
Nor what dangers our surface world may hold
for a creature such as it.

It only wishes
to feel the satin touch
of cool starlight upon its face.
Maybe if it climbs high enough
it will reach it
and watch all worlds below
​as they dance through an unknowable day.

And with the tolling of the bells
the heart doth beat
the spirit swells,
and what once was dead
and buried deep
shall raise its head
and never sleep again.

I see your eyes widen.
Is it death that you fear?
Well let your soul be lightened,
for I am no threat to you.
I am simply here
to guide you
and be your puppeteer.
You'll be my break through!

Through the stygian abyss they climb
with mandibles clacking
tentacles writhing and gripping the walls.

We like to think we’re safe
but that’s only a temporary state.

When they reach our world
there will be nothing our earthly weapons can do.

Because how do you kill
what has already been dead and rotting
​for a millennia?

The silence is different at night.

A cool
soft pressure upon your eardrums.
An absence
rather than a sound itself.

Everyone else is asleep
leaving the world to the insomniacs and red-eye fliers.

All the sounds in your house
that are buried beneath the daylight
are suddenly vivid.
Creaks and shifting pipes
the light shuffling of invisible feet upon the floor...

Oh wait. You must have just imagined that.
You're home alone.

Regular ice is bad enough
so try not to step in the living stuff.

It'll latch its little shards
into the soles of your shoes
and chew through them
until it reaches your bare skin.

Then it will seep through your pores
opening
welcoming the numbness in.
You won't even know its within you
until you're almost fully numb.

After all,
your foot falling asleep is totally normal, right?

Next thing you know
your whole leg is encased in clear blue
and you can't feel a thing.

It's funny
how something as innocuous as a whisper
is barely something to bat an eye at
in most circumstances.

But as soon as the lights go out
the sun has hidden itself from view
a noticeable chill settles upon your skin
and you appear to be alone,
a whisper
can strike a person dead
or at least terrified.
Especially when accompanied
by the hint of a breath
from right behind your ear.

I know you can hear it.
That whispering voice
between your breaths.

I know you've checked the room.
There's no one else there.
No shadows deeper than black
within your closet
or under your bed.
No strange reflection in the mirror
with pinpricked glowing eyes.

You're telling yourself
you're safe.

The doors and windows are locked
there are not strangers in your house,
the sound is a fluke
a pitiful wheeze inside your chest.
No more or less.

But answer me this.
Doesn't that wheezing
sound like its coming from above you,
not inside your chest?
And when you listen closely enough
you can just make out
that it's speaking words
with every rasping breath
there are words and gasps.
Like the voice is conversing with something else.

There's still no-one else in the house
but now there are two hushed voices
mumbling and you can't ignore them any longer.