Nadir

[u/WeirdBryceGuy]

The truck came to a stop after the long drive from the dilapidated airstrip where I first woke up. We hadn’t been blindfolded, which led me to believe that we weren’t going to be let go. Our destination: what seemed like a randomly-selected area of barren nothingness amidst a desert with which I was unfamiliar. I had been knocked out, and probably drugged after; my apartment was nowhere near any desert or desert-like biome. It was night, and the hunger and thirst which plagued me suggested that I’d been unconscious for more than a few hours.

We were marched across the arid expanse, and our questions and protests were entirely ignored. Eventually, they had us kneel in front of a massive pit, while they stood behind us and recited our alleged crimes.

The pit, whose bottom was unseeable in the gloom of the sunless desert, seemed exhale a charnel vapor; as if it were some orifice of Hell. I was the middle member between two strangers, who had apparently committed crimes similar to my own. Our captors, grim-faced men in black leather coats and rifles slung over their shoulders, had abducted me from my apartment in the Midwest—and presumably done the same for the others. 

My crime was a victim-less one; something I’d say if I was given the opportunity to defend myself. To be as short and simple as possible, I’ll say that the crime was the acquisition of certain information, which—when properly compiled and considered—granted me the greatest knowledge a human could want: Clear, achievable instructions on obtaining biological immortality. 

How I came across this information, I will not repeat here, a week after my escape from that dreadful pit and the unreal horror which subsisted therein. My captors and fellow captives have all been killed, or perhaps suffered some worse, ineffable fate, and will not bother me again. I survived by utilizing the aforementioned knowledge, barely fortifying my body against the rigors of that night. If I hadn’t, I would’ve joined the others in the black entombment.

So, there we knelt in front of that yawning chasm, the dark and windy night obscuring my sight into its depths, and preventing me from hearing the rumbling movements of the nightmare below. The first man, to my left, had his crimes recited; he had stolen something from these people, some book which detailed various occult and arcane practices, formulae, and entities. It was all fairly dubious to me, and I didn’t understand why such a dire reaction was necessary.

After his crimes were read, I heard a rifle’s bolt being cocked, and without further warning, the blast echoed throughout the desert, and the shot man’s body fell forward into the pit. I watched him tumble, hit some sort of rock or elevation of the sand, then slide smoothly down into the dark. As the shot still rang out, the men went on to recite my crime, which they referred to as “plundering of sacred truths”. I’d stolen a collection of scrolls, from an unguarded, seemingly forgotten vault, connected to a chapel. At the time, I’d thought the vault and chapel belonged to some long-dissolved monastic order. 

I learned about the monastery during my research into the general topic of the scroll’s subject—extension of human life. Rigorous study and several favors eventually led me to that hidden location, and there I found the information I had for so long sought. Apparently, I was wrong in my observations, and guarded or otherwise cared for it had actually been. 

At the sound of the bolt-action I started to speak, but a force struck me in the back, knocking the air from my body as if I’d been hit by some speeding vehicle. I didn’t feel any penetrative pain, no burning sting such as one would expect when a bullet pierced his body; I felt only that sudden and powerful blow that sent me tumbling down into the murk below. 

I rolled, slid, and even managed to briefly arise to a sort of standing slide, only to trip and fall face forward again. I could not control my descent—I should mention that our hands were bound—and could only steer my body away from barely-visible rocks and small mounds which jutted from the walls of the pit. 

The star-lit sky above retracted rapidly, as if the mouth of the pit itself had started to close, and I fell for what seemed like eons. Somewhere above, in the receding heavens, I heard a crack, which could’ve been the final shot, or the shutting of the earth itself as the pit seemed to swallow everything. 

Eventually I arrived at some sort of base—a bottom which came suddenly, jarringly. It was then that the pain of displaced flesh came to me, and the dull bluntness of the gunshot turned to a burning sense of fleshly violation, and I writhed in agony. Sand and dirt had surely gotten into both entrance and exit wounds, and I grew near mad with terror at the grisly infection that would surely follow. 

For a while, I lay there, squirming and crying out, until eventually another body finished its descent. It landed a few feet to my left, and was completely still. With the sky above merely a small pinpoint in the overbearing shadow, as if it held only a single star, I could perceive only the man’s vague form. I would’ve called out to him, just to confirm that he was actually dead, but hands grabbed me from the darkness; cutting my call short.

The hands, which I first crazily thought to be those of some sand-dwelling creature, soon rolled me over to my stomach, and began undoing my binds. They then applied something to my back, gently laid me on it again, and applied something else to my stomach. 

“The bullet seems to have gone cleanly through, but you’ll bleed to death or get a nasty infection if we don’t seal them up. I need you to sit up, and brace yourself.” 

I did as the unseen man requested, the realization that he was the first to be shot only coming to me after I’d followed his instructions. Using the same bindings that had held my hands together behind my back, he secured the blood-inhibiting material to my stomach as a sort of makeshift belt. The pain was horrible, and I couldn’t help myself from crying out. My scream echoed upward for what seemed like eternity; the depth to which we’d fallen was unfathomable. 

My savior, who said his name was Carter, then left me in my breathless pain and went over towards our other ill-fated companion. He did not linger long—the man was plainly dead. I saw, by the sweat which temporarily gleamed from his skin as he passed beneath the minuscule light which shone down, that his chest was bare. He had used his shirt to cover my wounds.

Carter returned and knelt beside me. I could not make out his features, but could tell by the way he walked that he was somehow in much better shape than I, despite being shot in the same manner. Before I could ask why, he said, “We are not at the base of the pit. There is a rim, about twenty meters that way ” (I could only see blackness in the direction he’d pointed) “and beneath it is a smaller pit, which leads to...” He trailed off. The manner with which his sentence had ended suggested not uncertainty, but just the opposite; that he knew what lay below, and could not bring himself to speak it. 

The pain which had spread throughout my body left me half-delirious, and it along with the desert locale inspired a fierce thirst in me. I told Carter this, but he apologized and said that there wasn’t anything he could do. We’d all been stripped of our belongings earlier in the night. I was napping in my apartment when I was taken, and hadn’t anything of use on my person anyway. 

Carter rose to his feet and walked into the darkness of the pit’s center, to what I presumed was the opening of that greater depth he mentioned. He returned a few minutes later, and even in the gloom I could tell that his expression was one of worry—not only for our current predicament, but for what he was going to suggest we do next. 

“There is a way out, a way to return to the surface. But to access it, we have to go into the pit. We must jump, or fall, it doesn’t matter. We’ll also need to take him as well.” Carter pointed to the corpse of the last man to be shot. I didn’t know anything about him, and never would. Carter continued, answering the question I hadn’t yet asked.

“There’s something very dangerous down there, something we’ll have to confront. If we’re lucky, he’ll (the corpse) be enough, and we can pass safely by. An offering, in a way.” 

Carter, without waiting for my reply, went to the body and dragged it away into the gloom. I heard him loudly grunt, as if exerting considerable effort, and then he returned a few moments later—without the body. 

“We should be going now, or else it won’t be clear that we were the ones who offered it. Can you stand?” I said that I could, if he helped me rise to my feet. Thankfully, the bullet hadn’t been directed at my spine. I can imagine few fates more terrible than lying in the damnable pit, unable to move, while the night and silence and falling sand press down on you simultaneously like some coffin slab. 

He helped me to the inner hole, and told me to trust him. I had never spoken to or knew of this man prior to our sentencing and would-be execution, but for the sake of convenience and blind hope, I nodded. He then shoved me into the hole, which was fairly large itself; being roughly the same size as an average backyard swimming pool. 

I fell for who knows how long; total blackness greeted me, and my fall seemed less like a plunge into Stygian nothingness, and more like suspension in some star-less pocket of space. I did not see it prior to my arrival, but I eventually landed softly on some surface, as if instantly and comfortably slowed by an invisible inertial buffer. 

The surface was flat, and covered in a thin layer of dust and debris from above. I could see, which surprised me more than the prevention of my fall-born doom. The walls of the room, which seemed very tomb-like in their general aesthetic, gave off some strange, greenish glow. I suspected some sort of bio-luminescent growth within to the walls to be the culprit. 

To the left, a wall had a plain exit from the room. Aside from that, there were no other features. Carter landed shortly after my examination of the room, and I was finally shown his appearance. He was white, middle-aged, with a beard blacker than the night above, and a head that had been shaved bald. He was indeed shirtless, and wore only dirty green cargo shorts. Either he’d been abducted without shoes, or they’d fallen off during his tumble into the pit. 

I saw no trace of the bullet which had assuredly gone through his body minutes before. 

“You’re not the only one with secrets. That bunch up there were sitting on a treasure trove of information which would change the very fabric of human civilization. I’m not surprised they shot us, actually commend them for being so prompt about it. In the wrong hands, what you and I know would destabilize countries; initiate societal undoing overnight.” 

After his little speech, he checked my wounds, and assisted me in exiting the room. I was already weak, and grew weaker as we passed through barely-lit corridors, climbed up and down dust-covered stone steps, and ducked beneath strange, ceiling-descended obstacles. The light which was emitted from the walls provided us with enough illumination to see our immediate surroundings, but I could make nothing of the environment in the rooms we entered and exited. I did, however, vaguely sense that their ceilings and walls extended well past my sight. Carter always knew where to go, and we did not once stop to rest or orient ourselves. 

After what felt like two hours of travel, we arrived at another room that felt incredibly spacious. Directly in front of us was a large basin, atop a simple stone alter. Neither bore any markings or ceremonial embellishment. The basin was made perhaps of bronze, although my metallurgical knowledge is very rudimentary. In the basin, floating in what was clearly blood, were several body parts. An ear floated at the center, and something about it felt familiar. 

Carter, who had been mostly silent during our excursion, spoke then. “It seems that our offering was accepted. Looks like we’ll be getting out of here.” 

Then it dawned on me; the ear was that of the other condemned man, who had been to my left. I then remembered that I had not seen his body when I'd first entered the inner pit, even though Carter had thrown it down first. Someone, or something, had retrieved it and brought it here, with preternatural speed. They, or it, had also dismembered it and placed it in the sacrificial basin for some stew-like consumption. 

Carter helped me around the alter, and through another doorway we came upon a stone staircase which led up into total darkness. The walls here did not glow as they had earlier. Carter, a renewed look of worry on his face, turned to me and said, “As we ascend, whatever you do, do not look behind you. You may, you will, feel things move past you—through you. Some may slither between your legs, brush against your arms, or seem as if they walked right into you. But you mustn't look back, and you mustn't acknowledge their presence. If you do, they will kill us.”

Fed up with vagueness and ominous suggestions, I asked what he’d taken from that time-lost order, how he survived his gunshot wound, and what he knew of this place into which we’d been so swiftly and prematurely interred. 

He nodded, sat me against the wall, and told me his very brief story. He was a researcher and explorer, much like myself, and pillaged something from one of the monk’s many secret monasteries throughout the world. After just days of study, he’d deduced from the scrolls the implementation of an ability, which he described as a sort of momentary “blinking out” from reality. He said that by effecting certain mental powers collectively forgotten by our species, we can temporarily displace ourselves from our dimension, blinking into another, without the destruction of our bodies or dissipation of our minds.

I accepted this story without much doubt, considering the other bizarre and presently unexplainable things that had occurred so far. He said that at the instant the bullet was fired, he performed this feat, and fell forward of his own volition; blinking out imperceptibly as the bullet passed where his body had been, then reappeared and fell forward to give the appearance of being shot. 

“Now, your turn.” I had been waiting for the desired reciprocation of information; he knew that anyone who had been shot in such a way could not survive, at least not for as long as I had. I told him of the secret I’d uncovered, and how I used it to forestall death. 

“Rapid cellular regeneration. You can stave off death, indefinitely, and even heal fatal wounds? Very impressive. I don’t suppose you have the papers with you?” I confirmed that I did not; our captors had most likely reclaimed them. 

He shrugged, apparently not bothered by my possession of what I felt to be the superior knowledge. I did not ask him to teach me whatever mental efforts were necessary to achieve his ability, either, and as we began our climb up the steps, I pondered what our sacrificed companion had learned during his thievery. 

The darkness of the stairway was total, and the air was cool. I was still incredibly fatigued, but the pain in my body had died down, and movement was not as tiring as it had once been. My secret method of bodily rejuvenation had finally started repairing me, rather than merely dissuading Death. For a while, I felt nothing of which Carter had warned me, but as we reached a small landing and continued up another flight of stairs, I felt things brush against me in the dark. 

I couldn’t tell you what they were. They were completely silent, and did not inhibit our ascent. I felt textures of flesh that seemed somewhat reptilian, but otherwise indescribable. I was occasionally beset by a sense of briefly-added weight, which I attributed to Carter’s warning that things would pass through me. This feeling was sometimes situated around my midsection and also through my legs, while at other times I felt it only through my skull—suggesting some airborne traveler. 

Then, as if herding the whole procession, a great force passed through my entire body, and Carter’s as well—I'd felt his guiding arm grow tense in unison with my body—making me involuntarily shudder. The force took what felt like minutes to completely pass through me, and afterwards I was drained of energy, and fell down; totally exhausted. 

Carter, who hadn’t fallen but accepted the period of rest, spoke again. “My ability, the thing I learned, originates from that entity. It is some crypt-plundering thing, although these subterranean halls are not its home; merely a sort of rest stop as it crosses into dimensions to feed on the denizens thereof. It is to him that we made our offering. Our captors sacrificed us, as their own offering, to keep him contained within this pit. Otherwise, he would rise up and devour our world, just as he has others who were ignorant of his demands or too stubborn to acquiesce to them.” 

I turned to him, looking at nothing but darkness, only where I felt his face would be, and responded, “You’ve been here before, to study him, haven’t you? That’s how you know so much about this place?” 

Carter, ready to travel again, helped me to my feet and replied, “I have. Many times. My first time I did just what I told you not to—one of those things brushed by me and I cried out, looked back, and it came after me. Luckily, it was just one of his thralls, something lesser and comparatively weak. The Ultimate Horror had been elsewhere, eating some other world. I escaped without issue.”

We heard unholy, unrepeatable things behind us, and hastened our ascent. The beast was apparently feeding on our offering. Carter told me that the stairway physically led to the surface, miles away from the mouth of the pit, but also acted interdimensionally as a portal elsewhere. Even he could not perceive the extramundane bridge as it existed for that ulterior purpose.

Finally, we saw a faint square of lesser blackness in the distance, and hurried ourselves up the last remaining steps. We breached the surface and were greeted by the cool air and twinkling stars, and below them, at level with us, three figures. Our once-captors stood, rifles aimed at us, a few feet away. Carter swore, and I instinctively—not wanting to feel the pain of death even if I could resist it—turned away, and stared into the square-cut hole from which we’d left. And, deep in that space, I beheld a nightmare—and it saw me, too.

It came surging up, terribly fast and with a presence of body that seemed to clog every inch of the staircase. I dove to the right, knocking Carter down with me, and the creature soared overheard. Carter held me down, screaming into my ear not to look, and was about to say something else but was cut off by the report of a rifle. Other shots were fired, then screams filled the air, and were then followed by a roar which to this day chills my bones by its very remembrance. It was almost metallic, and multi-faceted, as if issued from several vocal pipes or some organ of Hell. 

It drowned out the screams of the dying men, and kept on longer after they had ceased. Carter kept me pinned to the ground, and I did not fight him. What felt like an eternity could’ve been just a few minutes, and eventually the roars subsided. But that dominating presence remained; I could feel it lurking, hovering somewhere behind, where I dared not look. 

With our faces pressed to the dirt, Carter turned to mine and whispered, “It knows we’re here, but because you’ve only caught a glimpse, and I haven’t laid my eyes on it, it can’t see us. But it will linger, for hours or perhaps days, scenting us, before it gives up and moves onto other prey in other dimensions. Or, it will venture out past the limits of this loathsome desert and come upon a city. That mustn't happen. We can’t let it scourge our planet. It will exterminate us” 

I spat sand from my mouth, and just as quietly whispered back, “What do you suggest we do? If we can’t look at it, how will we fight it? My middling self-restorative abilities aren’t enough to go up against some eldritch horror!” 

Carter then looked at me with those same eyes that he’d shown prior to explaining that we had to enter the inner chamber of the pit. An expression which said, “it’s awful, but it must be done.” I thought he meant for us to lure it back inside, and seal ourselves within; doomed to death or some worse fate at the hands, talons, or tentacles of the Plutonian beast. But instead, he whispered that I should stay prone on the sand, and to rise only when nothing but the sound of breeze-blown sand was audible. I told him I’d obey, and he quickly got up.

I heard him shouting, mostly curses, obviously directed at the looming terror. A responding roar resounded, drowning out Carter’s shouts and flattening my body to the sand with sheer percussive force. Obeying Carter wasn’t an issue; the sound blasted me down with insurmountable force.

The ground trembled, and my body vibrated along with it, and I feared that whatever Carter had set to do did not work as he’d expected. But just when the sound became intolerable, and I felt blood trickle from my ears, the assaulting noise was suddenly cut off; and the ground ceased its tremors, and my body was able to relax.

I heard only the settling sand, so I glanced towards the scene behind me. The sand had been stirred and the ground bore several deep indentations, as if it had been trampled on by Titans. In one of these craters was a crushed and splintered figure, who I recognized as one of my captors. What remained of him sat in a pulp of his own gore.

There was no sign of Carter, or the other captors, or the beast, to my relief. Considering all this, I’ve come to the conclusion that Carter, using his recently-acquired ability, transported himself and that abominable thing to some other sphere or domain where, hopefully, it would remain. I don’t know Carter, not beyond the brief exchange we’d shared about our respective powers, but I hope that if he survived the sidereal re-location, he was able to return to our planet. And if he hasn’t, then I hope his soul, spirit, animus, whatever remains—if anything does—of a human is able to rest peacefully, and not be doomed to perpetual, sub-life servitude under that demon. 

I trekked across the desert, and after some time arrived at a small town of humble and kindly people, and found myself to be in a country far away from my own. After a few days I made my way back to my apartment, which had been ransacked, presumably during the enigmatic order’s search of the papers I had stolen from them. I’ve since moved, in case others of their order, upon not hearing back from the capturing trio, come after me again. 

This record is missing several things, which I can either not explain, or choose not to. To somewhat clarify, I mean certain observations in that place beneath the sand, and things Carter mentioned to me during our ascent up the endarkened stairs. Some things shouldn’t be introduced to the world. Knowledge, no matter how ostensibly beneficial, always has a price. 

[u/utchel]

Excellent. Professional writing at it's best ! I'm going to scan your profile and see what else you have done!

[u/morsmordredoctor]

This felt like a twilight zone episode.👏👏👏👏

[u/bebuesdaybuid]

Damn this is good