Robert Grains stopped by the café this week and regaled diners with this terrifying tale from his visit to the Cthulhu Mythos universe, a visit in which he learns to never walk alone.

Somber are the paths in this place. Where it is located, I cannot say with certainty. Is it a part of the tangible reality familiar to me? Does it fare inaudibly, moved by forces unknown, through interstellar realms, meeting the prying eyes of earthly astronomers every now and then? If so, are they averting their astonished gazes, perhaps, consciously?

Who can tell? Is it maybe the accursed hollows of our home planet, or even the unfathomable abysses of its seven seas sheltering these high, arched corridors through which we solemnly advance, gently illuminated, as if by dark starlight? Well, I will soon find out because, quite obviously, this is not a dream—no, by no means.

Lord help me! Solely my eyes still obey my will. The rest of the body is surrendered to the mercy of another, an unknown force yet to be defined precisely. My attentiveness cannot have escaped my two gnomish companions, clad in hooded robes of silk, but it does not seem to bother them. I have spotted their kin before, indeed. Hidden, shy with extraneousness, calling the shadows of our haunted world their habitual abode. Vigilant, ever watchful, measuring every thought and every step out of the dim corners of our dwellings, yearning for one’s helplessness during an imposed sleep. These are the ones escorting me through scenery so abhorrent to nature. Actually, I should be terrified, but enigmatically, I seem accustomed to the obscure wonders of this Magonia unveiled.

Again and again, we pass extensive levels of operating theaters full of altars consecrated to a gnosis of the stars. Just like a sterile glow of an otherworldly light, a sweet blood-vapor surrounds the sacrificial animals unceasingly dissected alive in this place. Stitch by stitch, cut after cut, each stroke, every thrust precisely executed by the delicately grotesque surgeons’ claws of a nonhuman order. Then a disturbing glow is reflected on the pitch-black slanted eyes of my companions. Are these oily, shimmering surfaces gateways to their mysterious souls? What kind of spirit do they proclaim? Did it once incarnate under a sky thick with oxygen and light, on a soil of proud vegetation, or were rather the last sparks of extinguishing neutron stars witnesses of its artificial creation? Upon which wretched beast did the nameless gods of primordial Earth lay a deep slumber to chisel these frail brood’s progenitor out of its flesh?

As if constantly shielded and guided by a hidden hand, the forced pilgrimage continues. My frozen body hovers a few inches above the polished metal floor of this secret sanctuary of techno-magick marvels. Is this place too holy for my bare feet to touch? What embodiments of galactic principles, wrapped in emerald silk, usually stride through its secret passages smirkingly? What spiritus loci inhabits the high domed halls whose twilit and, oddly enough, rusty walls adumbrate the vague forms of indescribable things and perversely convulsing phantasmagorias ominously promising doom before me? The misplaced smell of rotting wood accompanies our journey ahead, and I am surprised by the ghostly melodies of somber cosmic chants teasing my perception. Just like all the others who were spirited away this night, whose half-paralyzed twitching columns we pass quickly now and again, I wear the white festive garment of the chosen ones, the elect, of those supposed to rekindle the exhausted flames of distant planets’ cores, the withered breeding fields of an elfin otherworld through the fiery sparks of an empathic creation.

Infrequently, one of my earthly comrades awakens to a brief sight of terrible astonishment, followed by an epileptic seizure. The intimidating visual organs of this dark round dances’ ubiquitous controllers force upon him anew and with ease, the incomprehensible will of high and mighty nobles residing in interdimensional onyx basilicas. If anything of this traumatic experience should survive in that brother’s mind at all, then only as a screen-memory surfacing during countless nightmares to come. Henceforth, unprecedented fear—not only of the unknown—will subtly accompany his monitored existence, the sardonic light of day serving only as cynical annunciation of a restless night. In its shadows, when the scarred surface of the knowing but eternally taciturn moon reveals itself in all its threatening splendor before a starry sky and that pilgrim turns his questioning gaze toward the shimmering Polar Star, he will try to remember…Yes, he will—in vain.

The destination of my involuntary night journey is not yet obvious as a hulking simian beast growls and blocks a crossroad decorated with elaborate blue floor reliefs. Under the stare of my silent escort, it eventually gives way, its furry claws encrusted with blood from clandestine nocturnal hunting expeditions through earthbound nature reserves.

We turn right. Most of the levels adjoining this sparsely lit corridor are hermetically sealed by reflecting bulkheads. I am not allowed to see more for the time being—am I? Through the fluid surface of a strange pyramidal gate, we enter a high, vaulted room. The architecture of this place, permeated by a depressing vibration, reminds me of the awe-inspiring forms of antiquity, and in the dim glow of irregularly placed skylights, I become aware of a group of young, bare women rallying around a towering overlord. Dwarfish, frail bodies with semi-human countenance are placed on tender breasts by wary forearms unfolding bizarrely. Lo, it is here, where the daughters of men, the chosen brides of the cosmos, give the brief blessing of motherly love, the communion of the dawning eon, to the denizens of an Eden to come.

For a moment, we pause piously—

The huge triangular head of that unreadable Demiurge incarnate mechanically tilts in my direction. Seized by its hypnotic stare, my consciousness is flooded and intoxicated by psychically transmitted pictorial inklings of a heretical cosmogony undreamed of. Erelong, my journey will come to an end—this is certain, as certain as the yearning maternal love that will outlast the incomprehensible chronologies of galactic gulfs in hope of that day foretold, when once lost daughters and sons will descend from unknown constellations onto a transformed Earth in noble black, sigil-embellished celestial barks.

An icy cold enshrouds me as I float onward. My companions? They have disappeared! The corridors become narrower, even darker. Ghostly wafts of mist, dying starlight, a static hum, sinister sermons offered by restless Nephilim spirits wayfaring in the gloom, leave my already intoxicated consciousness vibrating in ecstatic frenzy. Soon, I gain control over my body. The spell seems to be broken. But where shall I turn? I am not left with any choice! In the pervasive darkness, I stagger forward with difficulty, toward the faint but clearly visible glow at the end of a decrepit corridor. This musty cinnamon smell, these gruesome sounds, where and when is this maddening pilgrimage path to end?

I was expected already…As I enter the brightly lit white chamber, I notice their intimidating presence to my left, yet I do not return a look. The massive liquid-filled container in the middle of the room attracts too much of my interest. Behind it, separated by a crystalline barrier, is a myriad of sparkling stars, the pitch blackness of the void, planetary vistas in all their glory. But this container, this terrible container with its perverse tubes and maddening flashing indicators, presented decadently like a monstrance of wolf’s blood consecrated by Cardinals of the Abyss. In it, disgustingly pale, drifting embryonically, is me—my body, my flesh, of the same age, of the same growth. How is that possible? As I stare in horror at the closed eyes of this blasphemous nightmare clone, in nerve-splitting fear of a conscious stirring of this bald changeling, I notice a paw armed with six claws resting icily on my left shoulder. By God, never ever will I forget that deeply unsettling voice, mischievously imitating human tongue…The scaly thing pushes me toward an oddly shaped apparatus protruding from the side of the container at face level.

Hold on! No, stop it! What—

Oh God, thank heavens!

What grace is bestowed on me, when, suddenly and scared beyond all measure, I escape this most ghastly nightmare, ferally gasping for breath. What time is it? No light rays penetrate the blinds. Dazedly, I feel around—yes, this is my place. It is, for sure. Wherever I was, I have returned—alive! A deviant lucid dream, an outrageously vivid vision of lunacy, but my body hurts quite badly. This cold, this strange smell. Tumbling around, laboriously searching for the light switch and hitting it at second attempt, I stumble from the bedroom across the hall into the bath.

Well—I do not know whether I screamed or if the insane lamentation from that dry, unused throat died silently in the inner spheres of my tormented being. I do not dare to speculate how long I stared disbelievingly at that blank, ashen face, how long I giggled madly, exploring the depth of its eyes sparkling hideously in the mirror. They appeared changed—

Are these sensitive surfaces not the gateway to the soul? They are, of course! And finally, after a godless eternity, already on the other side of time and space, there at the very bottom of my being—bursting, piercing, and passing through the pearly gates of perception, beyond the moonlit midnight surges of the dreamlands’ most sanity-defying shores—I saw it…In the shadowless spotlight of an impious introspection, I saw its bewildering glorified guise, that eternally winding, flailing, bleating, and blindly nesting inspiration of antediluvian, mycelium-contaminated idol priests. And lamenting all existence, I shudderingly remembered that merciless, grim hissing voice amidst the ever-hidden throne world of fallen gods, near the bestiary halls of soulless staring court dwarfs clad in hooded robes of silk, imbued with the sanctifying shine of eternally dark starlight:

“Step forward! Without your soul, it cannot live.”

Truly, somber are the paths in this place. They are part of the tangible reality familiar to me—and from now on, I will never walk them alone.

Robert Grains is a contemporary independent author, occultist, and elite aesthete. This short story was first published in Ossuary of Dreams: Twenty-Five Tales of German Horror and Weird Fiction in June 2023. In addition to classic hair-raisers, a rich cauldron of sophisticated weird fiction stories steeped in metaphysical and arcane allusions is presented to the gentle readers, a collection that will certainly enrich your personal eldritch studies and expedite your descent into madness.