The Shadow Beneath Squalmoore

Chapter 4: Dreams of Fire and Dust

I used my bloody hand to remove the crumpled box of matches from my back pocket and took three attempts to strike one. The lantern flared back to life and the ever-creeping shadows and tendrils of darkness dispersed in an instant. Without the glass as barrier, the flame licked and prodded far too close to my hand and I had to turn the knob to its lowest setting; dimming my visibility once more.

It hit me then, what the implications of my discovery were. I had fallen down a staircase, there was no doubt about that, though imperfect and rough, stairs had certainly been chisled out of the limestone. But a staircase? Behind a cave wall? Had this tunnel been sealed long ago? Why?

My already swimming mind teetered on drowning as I shakily rose to my feet. My chest sent pangs of fire crackling across my body with each beat of my heart. I tore a strip of cloth from my shirt and wrapped my bleeding hand as best I could. The local doc would prescribe me bed rest for the rib, and I had no intention of turning back now. I straddled the boulder and dropped carefully to the other side. The staircase continued.

Down and down I went into the bowels of the rock we call home. My ears popped and my breathing shallowed. The scratches and marks on the wall gradually became patterns, then script of a language unknown. My fingers glided across the smooth stone, tracing outlines of unknowable words, each a message from some forgotten time, beyond the confines of understood history. I shivered.

The lantern caught the floor before my eyes did, the rock now moist and shimmering a static ocean of orange below. My pace quickened. When I emerged from the staircase, I abandoned this world. For an immense cavern opened up around me like the maw of an unimaginable beast. Large enough to contain its own lake, it sprawled out ahead in each direction, the ivy-strung ceiling a hundred feet up, more.

A small river ran across the space, it's curves mimicking that of a snake; a serpent, as it curled around houses; yes, houses!, and sheds, all crudely hewn from stone and log, using the caves natural outcroppings and offshoots as foundations and rooms. They say perched atop a meadow of damp moss spanning the entire cavern. Phosphorescent mushrooms speckled the walls and ceiling, casting the cursed village into infinite twilight; each spore a brand new constellation.

And the trees, hark!, the trees! Numerous in count, dotting the landscape en masse, forming a canopy in some places thick enough to block the psuedo-night sky; living, nay, thriving, god knows how many feet below their natural habitat, roots planted firmly in moss and silt. Ferns and mushrooms and weeds spewed forth from the not-grass, a terrarium carefully constructed over generations. Every aspect had to be man-made, each tree a brush stroke, each plant a painter's flourish.

"But why?" My brain begged. Why go through the effort to create a false surface when the real one is so wide, so full? The pyramids floated through my head, Stonehenge, Petra; why did any primitive peoples make such complex conditions for themselves? I shook my head, forced myself to walk forward. The spongy ground sunk beneath my feet as I floated across the landscape and approached the nearest structure.

It was a small, squat house, mostly carved from a massive stalactite, it's roof composed of mummified logs. A pile of dust and stick husks sat where once might've been a door. Inside, also carved from the cave itself, sat rough outlines of a bed and table. Detritus littered the floor, remnants of furniture and tools. The moss had spread inside, and even onto the walls in some places. A pile of smooth stone balls sat on the maybe-table, ammo for sling hunting perhaps? Though they could have possibly hunted down here besides bats was lost to the preceding aeons.

I exited the abode and followed what was once a tiled path through the scene in front of me. Past towering trees and thick bushes, I floated, over a no-longer-existing bridge which crossed the small river, between countless houses and shacks, completely lost in this alien world in which I found myself. Bolts of awe shot through my shivering body, ideas and inspirations, plots of stories yet to be written. I was ecstatic! My own place, my own WORLD.

Eventually the ever-bearing silence was shattered by the roar of foaming water. The houses were more sparse here, the plants unceasing. I was nearing the far side of the cavern, when a waterfall could be seen poured from yet another crack in the wall. Beside the waterfall, a large house, a mansion, previously excluded from view by the ever-growing trees, filled my wondrous eyes. I immediately recognized the bulbous spires and uncanny architecture as that of the church which now sat innumerable feet above my head. I was awestruck at the size, the grandeur, the taboo beauty of it.

I rushed inside, my heart skipping beats with each leap. Pews hewn from flowstone filled the open room, moss and mushrooms fully overtaken the beautiful craftsmanship. Vines hung low from in between stalactites and glowing growths of fungi. The walls, so ornate with carvings fought mother nature as she attempted her mutiny. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen

It was a dream.

And at the end of the chamber, the most grand pedestal you could possibly imagine, each corner adorned with spiraled columns, the walls seemingly three layers of different detail. My breath caught in my throat. I wanted to cry. Behind the altar, the back wall was half-octagonal, 5 perfectly-cut walls forming a rigid, round soundstage. Each wall was a mural, a different magnificent artwork.

The bas-reliefs here seemed more together; coherent, like they told a continuous story. The left-most, the most worn of the quartet, simply depicted a crude rendering of the sun - complete with child-like rays of unsymmetrical length. The background was pock-marked with small pits which I assumed at one point must've been birds.

The next illustration showcased that same sun with a small chunk falling away from it, tailed by a roaring trails of fire. The moment the artist had captured was the very moment the chunk had entered our atmosphere; punching a hole through the ozone in a streak of incinerated stone. I remember smiling to myself with the thought of primitive people's imagining all meteors come from the sun simply because they too are on fire.

The third image revealed the same chunk of stone; now landed on what was presumably earth. It sat in a small crater beside a bulbous, round building. People; more-so stick men, surrounded the chunk of drifting rock. The figures stood at a distance, locked in a perpetual state of caution.

The fourth relief followed the same subject as the previous two, though the chunk now sat atop an ornate pedestal, it's flames extinguished. Figures; of the same kind as previous, stood around the pedestal; heads raised, as what seemed to be words poured from their mouths. The language was basic, yet indecipherable, and I cannot recall having seen it anywhere previously or to this day.

It wasn't until I saw the final illustration that I realized how incorrect my previous assumptions had been in regards to the primitive nature of this caverns Inhabitants. The fifth and final bas-relief showed the same sun without it's flames; for it wasn't the sun at all, but the moon.

What I had thought were rough patches or imperfections in the stone had been the texture of the crater-riddled mass of our celestial guardian; and what I had assumed were worn carvings of birds had obviously been stars; hundreds in number and gathered in instantly recognizable clusters and constellations. The rays and flames and trails had never been burning but instead were cold tendrils writhing through the surface of the moon; a thousand snakes pushing and eating through their fragile egg's shell.

And the inhabitants, they had a piece of this monstrosity, a hunk of its rigid flesh. They sang, chanted to it, forced it to sleep, and in turn the rest of its body slept. This series of revelations, though intense as they are, would prove to be merely appetizer for my unearthings as I turned around to realize that I was myself now stood behind the very pedestal depicted by the cursed, worn, stone. The pedestal, just as intricate in person as it was in carving, now stood empty, only a thick layer of dust where should have been monstrosity.

I gulped drily as I was punched by understanding of what cursed knowledge bore the breath of itself unto me, and the implications it carried with it. When the inhabitants died off, their chant, their forgotten, forbidden words, died with them. The thing had risen; awoken in the wake of a songs permanent conclusion. If this piece of it was awake then-

I shuddered; forced myself to breathe.

Something cold and wet twisted its way up my leg.

I screamed.