Blatant tribute to Lovecraft. Finished writing this not long ago, quite unrefined, but I probably won't refine it as I wrote it for my enjoyment. I've got exams soon and writing chills me out.
Anyway, I need to expand on it quite a bit, but my first attempt at horror 3rd person so tell me what you think please
Critique is adored! Oh yeah, about 4 pages long. I hope it does it's job and that you get it.
Nathaniel waded in and looked around.
There was darkness, and although He had a slight field of view because of His flash light, He could make nothing out.
He sighed and shouted back but the suit muffled any noise and he muttered under His breath,
“For fuck sake....”
And leaned down to grab at a button by His waist. White noise broke in to his ears and He let go instantly,
“Bloody hell, fucking suits,”
The next time He pressed it, the white noise was softer and went away in a second,
“What's there?” were the words that met Him.
“Fuck all, it's dead, completely dead.”
“I doubt that, I'll be there now,”
He now stood bored and waiting, slightly curious He increased the intensity of His flash light and started to look around with interest. There were a few slabs of stone but that was it, they held nothing of His attention yet He knew hundreds of scientists would be fascinated as the stones were clearly carved by hand.
The concept of 'hand' made Him laugh, whatever carved it had no hands or certainly nothing resembled hands.
Another suit waded in behind him,
“What's the story then?” It said,
“Rocks, rocks and more rocks. We found better things in the southern excavation, what's so fucking important about this one?” He turned to face the new suit and it spoke to Him,
“Can you for once keep that profane tongue inside of your mouth?”
“I'll keep your Mum's profane tongue in my mouth,” Nathaniel replied and laughed,
“You're fucking pathetic, what possesses you to even speak like that?”
“The ghost of your long since dead and pathetic ancestors. They want me to tell you you're a genetic failure,” And He laughed even harder.
“Good to know,” The other suit gave up and started looking,
“So Lazarus, do you like?”
“Huh?” And Nathaniel spoke louder,
“Do you like what we've found so far? I haven't heard your opinion it?”
“Well, I think it'll be pretty shocking to find out that we weren't the first to try and colonise this planet,”
“I guessed that a long time ago,”
“But even more interesting is why they attempted to colonise the darker side of the planet. I mean, they must've saw the satellite orbiting far away and saw it was in geosynchronous orbit. Half the planet is in constant darkness and cold, why do that half and not the light and warm side?”
“Maybe they liked cold and darkness?”
“Maybe....aw I don't know.”
“Yeah, so we've found rocks. Ooooh, what's over here?” Nathaniel said and in an eccentric manner tried to run over to another set of rocks in a corner, “Look, I've found pictures! And writing!”
“What?”
“Look, writing.”
“Shit...get out the way,” And Lazarus looked pushed past to stare at the rock. His flash light illuminated and created a heavy outline on the characters that were carved into the stone.
Nathaniel spoke,
“Looks like this will be interesting, what does it say?”
There was a pause, Nathaniel had His arms folded and impatiently threw them to His side. His right arm fell against the button and let out a raw white noise into His helmet,
“Shit!!” He shouted and squeezed His eyes tightly shut, in anger He punched His head violently and heard a crackling noise as the ear piece became warped and broken. Finally the noise lost it's volume and became inaudible.
“Fucking stupid radios, they don't work!! I told that stupid fucking wench at the repair station, argh! Why am I surrounded by incompetence!”
He continued to dance for a while as the pain in His ears dulled down and He spoke calmly,
“Sorry about losing my head. Did you lose you're concentration? What does it say?”
“Look for yourself?” Lazarus spoke to intentionally create tension and Nathaniel replied with a stare. He eventually leaned over His shoulder to stare and saw words written in English.
They were worn and illegible, but in English.
Lazarus looked back, stood up and then grabbed Nathaniel and laughed hysterically. Each of them jumped up and down clumsily in their suits,
“Ha fucking Ha man, oh my God I can't believe it.”
“Fucking Hell,” said Nathaniel with a grin on His face, “Just...just...”
“I know man!!”
“Just...just....”
“I told you!” Shouted Lazarus, “It's be worth the investment to open this place up, and all thanks to President Croft we now get three times the reward for this kind of shit!”
“Imagine the money we're going to get the university,” Said Nathaniel, still dumbfounded.
“Imagine the money we're getting for us! We won't have to lecture, or write books, with this place discovered by us our names will go down in history.”
“What's it mean though?” Said Nathaniel,
“Who cares? We're not qualified to deal with this level of....of....” And a pressured breath left his body as He looked at it.
Normally, Nathaniel hated visiting the darker region of the planet, and had many times declared it damned out right chilling. Even though He had been known to dwell in dark rooms for hours at a time processing photos. The issue, He claimed was never lack of light, but His deeper belief that the darker side of the planet was there to dampen out light, that it was there to eliminate warmth and joy and that any life there had it's soul sucked right out of it.
This superstition had become slowly more common amongst other investigators and explorers.
Even Lazarus had come to bare witness to the effect it had on people's souls, and himself had shown an acute phobia of being left alone there. Not that He'd ever confess this fear, it was still well pronounced in his mannerisms and a startling level of hostility and tension between Him and His companions.
This tension and dislike had become warmed in light of the new discovery, as was shown by Lazarus and Nathaniel holding each other while jumping up and down hysterically.
“So How are we going to move it?” Said Lazarus,
“We're not,” He said, “We are going to have to send out a message to get a few more people in to move it, until then me and you are going to have sit on this egg and keep it warm in the nest.”
“True, but I don't have anything that'll send a message through these walls...” Replied Lazarus.
“Fuck...right...” Said Nathaniel, “Umm, lemme try mine.” And He pressed the button, a muffled white noise sizzled out of the ear piece, “Hopefully it can still send, as long as she can hear,” He said to Lazarus and then turned His head to the microphone, “RIGHT, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! BUT THIS IS URGENT, MAJOR DISCOVERY, NEED HELP MOVING IT. THIS IS FIRST CLASS FIND, I REPEAT, OF HIGHEST PRIORITY!”
“Hope she heard it,”
“So do I,” And Nathaniel sat down and so did Lazarus, they were each preparing for what could be a very long wait.
It was a very long wait, and they both found each other becoming deeply uncomforted by the atmosphere, they had tried reminiscing which failed and they had tried games which failed miserably. In the end they were sat down on rocks bored witless.
Nathaniel, had found himself thinking of it all as an emergency and He scolded himself for doing so. The cold of the water had started going through the suit and had become horrifyingly chilling against His shins. The severity of the cold wasn't the problem, but it made everything around him uncomfortable and nervous and therefore he was very afraid.
Lazarus had simply found himself trying to decipher the words on the stone.
He'd had no luck whatsoever.
Nathaniel got up and finally thought that he'd go try to go back and get someone,
“Erm...it's a been a few hours. I think I should go get someone...”
“What? Don't leave me here...!!”
“Don't worry,” He spoke and His voice was stale, “It'll be fine. There are no boogey men in here...” And He laughed wearily.
Lazarus went to object, but simply looked at Nathaniel,
“Can't I come with?” He solemnly replied.
“What if someone else gets here, is it worth the risk?”
“No,” He shook his head, “ You're right, I'll stay here. But hurry up.” Nathaniel went to walk away and Lazarus shouted, “Listen, you know I went to check out that side passage earlier, well I didn't tell you, but it's a bit freaky. See it, if you want, but....I wouldn't recommend it,”
“Alright, I'll avoid it.”
He started to wade out of the cavernous room, the water was shin high and slowed Him down, but He pushed His legs harder against the water.
It pushed harder back.
The darkness fell upon Him and at first He ran His hands across the wall next to Him, but while catching His breath He looked up and saw that the lighting was pitch black without the flash light, meaning He couldn't tell where He placed His hand so long as His head pointed forward.
He didn't like it.
He tried to walk for a while with His hand firmly against the stony walls, but bulky gloves meant He had no real sense of what His hands were touching. In the end, He let go and risked falling over because of the water just so He knew where His hands were.
The thought pinched at Him, and He tightly squeezed His eyes shut as He realised He had no idea of where His legs were either.
The hallway backwards held only fog.
Forwards and backwards, He could tell no further than what the flash light permitted and it's easily diluted glow made things even harder to see.
His heart was beating and as He waded left to right the shadows would move to a rhythm, and as His heart beat faster He walked faster. Unwittingly, He noticed that the rhythm of shadow was out of place with His walking, and He'd pause for a few seconds.
The shadows fell rightly where they should.
He'd tell himself that by walking faster, the shadows moved faster and would seem out of rhythm as His eyes would be confused.
“Shit,” He muttered and tried to continue.
Something inside of Him, didn't want to go back and it fought hard to make sure the caves behind Him were a scarier prospect that the ones in front of Him so that naturally He'd go ahead. But it just made Him feel He was being chased, and with out warning He realised His mask was steamed up as He'd started breathing out of His mouth.
“Jesus, no, no, no,” He said and looked around, the idea of sitting down was terrifying and simply couldn't be done. Continuing was the only possible choice, even with disrupted vision.
His jaw shook.
Noticing something ahead He stopped, frightened to the bone He remembered the shadows being out of rhythm and felt His chest go light and stomach drop with dead weight. He blinked and even though His fists were clenched so tightly the muscles underneath pinched and cried slightly, He kept on walking.
The object was stationary and to the relief of His hands, it was a mere slab of brick that blocked the way.
Thinking, He realised that He must've taken a wrong turn and wandered the wrong way. No wonder Lazarus had been so against this route, He thought, every step in the hallway gripped your heart with fear for some reason.
He examined the block from a few metres and then took a few steps to examine it.
The tablet was a plate with odd protrusions at the top and curved outwards. It was five feet wide and a dirty grey colour with root hairs poking out of it, He wiped the grime off of it and the texture made Him pause.
He stared at it and thought intensely.
Under the dirt it was a bright cream colour, of ivory in fact, and He desperately scratched His mind.
“Shit,” He said and took a step backwards, His jaw shook and He looked up and noticed it continued both up and down through the ground. “It's whole...fuck...no, It is... It's whole,” He said and examined it deeply from afar.
His eyes constantly squinted shut and then open, as He thought of the meaning of it.
“Whole single piece, it's a whole single piece...” And He felt once more the ivory texture, and spoke a final sentence on the subject, “It's a rib,”
Before He left He held His hands out wide and stood to it and couldn't touch both ends with His hands.
Lazarus stood and Held onto the side of the rail intensely, it was the monorail leading from the research station and to the light side of the planet.
He turned and spoke to Nathaniel,
“Did....” And He stuttered, “Did, we ever get a complete survey of this planet before we lost contact with Earth all those years ago,”
“No...”
They were silent again...
They looked at each other.
Nathaniel spoke,
“Ninety per cent of it is unexplored....” And He swallowed, “What are we going to do?”
“Don't know, but...it's expanding...”
“I know,”
He looked at His hand,
“The smell, the fucking smell, we never noticed. Three weeks under ground, and we never fucking noticed the smell of rotting meat...”
“It's the masks...”
“I know it's the fucking masks! But, there was still rotting meat on those bones...”
Lazarus looked up and spoke,
“Fresh...they were fresh...”
(I don't think this was very clear, the bodies were of giant thingies and weren't fossils. They were fresh and is supposed to indicate there are lots of these nasty things wandering about, but they haven't noticed.)
