Posthumous Aether

“The only thing in a decade-wreathed world of sleep a person should need is the sense of patriarchal avenues of a once boisterous society. So long as the gods of old wish it, we shall brood our way through the annuls of history guised as a war-torn society, ripe with injustice and the need for wanting.” - Notes from Dr. Jon Wexler; 1929.


It was a grand consciousness of ghostly horror abound by the amorphous daemonaic shivers I had experienced while waking. A feverish sweat dripped from my brow, in sync with rapid succession with my heart beat. Unutterable monotony found a grasp on my vocal chords as I exhaustedly panted; excruciating. The gibbering would last for several minutes before I found myself clinging onto nerve-shattering constellations of a once glistening paradise of thought and clarity. Similar in every facet of obscure phenomena, I took grasp of the dull, coarse blanket hugging myself as well as the cot I had been given by a dear friend of mine after I had moved to this anomalous city of Mishkatoshen.

The 17th of June, 1927, at approximately 1 in the morning, there was a preliminary advancement of my surroundings were in due course. The rain-kissed windows studding the walls to my apartment ignored the dreary backdrop of the amalgam of poorly lit street lights and the fusion of a waning moon with a hint of subtle cumulus clouds. I, Francis Huff, stood from my cluttered cot and communed to my kitchen sink, fumbling over myself with unaccustomed feebleness. The heritage of rain droplets gave a deafening silence, almost demanding attention from its ill-fated crooning. There were no words I could shout that wouldn’t expedite further sanity. I needed water. Waves of thirst poured over me as I reached the sink in time to find it blackened in the unmistakable aether I had heard of years previous.

I whispered in dissolved binding words “Mustn’t there be a precautionary lens folding over myself? I have to be dreaming.” In a silent tomb of gruesome anguish, I superimposed my will to release a flood of water from the tap. Nothing before had felt so plain and illuminate. Folding irregular disappointment, the tap continued running as a peculiar news article in the Indianapolis Star peered out from the corner of my eye:

“32 disappearances by the end of 1899.”

Puzzled and disjointed, a concentric and centrifugal force led me to finding more and more haunting chapters within the article.

“Mrs. Bradshaw found missing near local library-Second confirmed case in 1898.”

“First logging of strange aberrations appear in Elkhart-circa 1898.”

“Turn of the century-10 missing just shy of Mishkatoshen. 42 total.”

“Strange happenings determined to be the work of cultists in league with a starry void known as the Elder Ones; cultists confirmed for human sacrifices-reported by Jon E. Wexler in 1913, known physician and anthropologist going through medical school. Confirmed cultists taken into questioning reported as having intricate markings on their torsos.”

“Reported cases of cultist kidnappings and strange disappearances subsides nearing the great war. 63+ in total.”

Certainly the work of fiction, I must assume. Hardly a second has gone by that the asymmetrical writings did not harm my scope of the world beyond. No background with this was evident. In one corner was the cobwebbed and glazed thoughts which pierced my soul and heart. The other was a traditional feeling of undisturbed distance that could be touched upon by the readings of curses brought about by significant findings in my current state of depression.

There amassed a loathsome and dubious feeling of arousal within my mind. I had to find out more. Something higher in thought and an inexplicably unidentifiable medium has compelled me to delve further. Was I being possessed by the future efficacies of occultism? Most certainly was the ideal. Much was in store for later details and presumably even greater knowledge of something more sinister and shatteringly older in terms of aeons. A flaccid unperturbed gesture walked me to slumber away while I felt all but a slight hint of amusement coming over me. Works of fiction, these must’ve been.

Minutes ticked by and I couldn’t help but find myself gazing up at the ceiling while the melancholic undertones of rain filled the room with vast atmosphere. “I suppose a nice stroll outside would fill the void of wandering within one’s mind.” Those were the only words which drove my insomniac ways to the deepest parts of the void. The news article coursed through my veins as I slipped on the comfortable loafers I received as a gift back in 1915 from my grandfather. A brown leather duster swung its way onto my back and arms while I picked myself up and sauntered out of my one room loft. It wasn’t but a claustrophobic person's nightmare - writing utensils strewn about, week old news papers and magazines cluttered the in-tables, clothes previously washed yet not worn hung on the chair as though they were about to be recycled. Any locking of doors was simply a sign of primordial and barbaric symbolism to dispel evil and any form - or void - of emotionless human denial. I had to make my way outside.

It was but a mere glimpse into what became known as a dark age of instability. The smell of ozone wafting from the rain outside crossed every saintly depiction of my senses. By this time, the rain subsided and all but a few scarce drops of water fell forth from the clouds above. Few locals were awake, but it was enough to close a desolate, padlocked portal which I so hoped to one day allow myself to gain acquaintances in an affluent city up north. An overwhelming sense of decrepitude lined the faces of those I neared. It was a gloomy sight. None that I so ever wished to speak of again. Ghostly, gossamer lights lined the street from ground level which hid the ignorance of poorly installed cobble-stoned streets.

Just passing Franklin street, I witnessed a rather peculiar sighting in a nearby alleyway, perpendicular to the local butcher, Hopkins Delicatessen, and the pharmacy. A facsimile to an undaunted maze, I pressed on in curious droves of mental strain. It was spectral in its labyrinthine twilight, yet was profoundly alien. Surely something spectacular and intangible from the remnants of days past. The brilliance was overwhelming in its nameless void of vibrant white. Why has no one speculated about this before me? Were they ignoring it for certain unreachable terms?

The event horizon shot through my consciousness as I stood in perplexed mysticism. Flashes of ethereal conjurings joined by perpetual transmogrification, words passed through and implanted themselves into me. Of these key elements, one segmented, fanatical extreme poised stupendously over others: M’il’jyn. I dare not recount its non-terrestrial tarrasque-like form. Venturing into such monstrous folklore was almost bizarrely a hoax. This must be a posthumous award. Such a being of great intensity was all but commonplace theoretical fiction.

II

Hours have slept and I have no recollection of any rather unorthodox inquisitions. Perhaps the drawings at a leisure time would conjure up what I have witnessed just hours ago. A reputable study of this evidence shown itself to be directly correlated to my insomnia. Perhaps I was in a constant state of dreamscape and nightmare. Undoubtedly so, my curiosity drove me to depict a horrifyingly disfigured hominid in the cosmic vortex of sleep apnea. Undulant markings upon my mind have rose to prominence and brought me to my next line of work.

Booming rays of sunshine appeared over the horizon and I found myself leaving this damned and morose dwelling. I needed a residence to hold up into which aroused my findings and proposed a new strain of sleep formulae. The being from my haunting nightmare surely caused more calamity than frightful momentary lapses of time and being. This alien being brought about the clutched whisperings of a fiendishly astonishing cure to my sleep problems. Was it a higher being than I set about making the world a windswept whirlpool or drones for its bidding?

Writhing free, I hastily set about venturing off to ensure my new line of work was created and mastered like that of an opera. It was tumultuous and tenuous. I found myself at the hands of dark masonry in the form of utterly fantastical scientific breakthroughs. I must confront this being; this M’il’jyn. Conjuring up such superimposed crags to help fund and fuel research was certainly blaspheming. Alas, phantasmagoria infused itself to my incalculable findings with such thorough hilarity that I must share it with the world.