My Mother's Book

It's only a transcendental irony that this story should be published during the harvest season. Some kind of cruel twist of fate that will make it seem like this is just another legend of ghosts, goblins, and vampires. But this is no yarn woven around the campfire on all hallows eve. It is as real as you sitting here reading my words this very moment. Not the kind of reality men see, but the kind that dwells within the bosom with an inward warmth. Humans come to expect things, things they take for granted yet they barely understand.

It's this commonality that keeps me from admitting I may have lost my mind entirely. It's this commonality that constrains me to write these words in hopes that others may understand my pain and perhaps avoid the misery and torture I now endure. It is an emptiness I never knew I had. Like a hole or a crack in a vase just large enough for its water to seep out slowly, undetected over time, until at last it is too late. 

I was content in life, living peaceably and focused on my occupation. Betrothed to a lovely woman with property awaiting our union to be inherited from my family. Yet, over the course of only a few months I find myself engulfed in a waking hell unlike anything I have ever imagined. And at the center of it all is that book.

I had never thought much about my mother's book growing up. Nor did anyone else in our family over the years. It was nothing more than a trinket, a treasure, a family heirloom that had sat on the shelf for generations. Genevieve, my elder sister, had read it, and Charles, our eldest brother himself had become acquainted with its stories. Neither seemed to take any offense, nor suffer the kind of maladies that I have since picking up that dreadful tome. Genny even raved about the beauty of each line of poetry scribed within it like it was a book of scripture.

Certainly she was not exaggerating, at least in part, for the words within were not without power. Yet each word seems to linger with me like a million little slivers lodged within the wrinkles of my brain. The images they conjure of the suffering, the sorrow, and of course the ominous structure. That dreadful, damned structure.

The image of that monolith has robbed me of my sleep, but even worse are the nightmares of its endless corridors. I run, scuffing my arms upon every jagged stone that seems to be closing in upon me like the clutch of two giant hands. Not a single light to illuminate the world, only my eyes adjusted to the darkness allows me to see. But how much more I don’t see. It is this, or perhaps that lack of this, of anything, that keeps me from my sleep.

Yet all of these things are merely aftershocks. Side effects to the crux of my torment. You see, I had only made it partially through the book they call Lethwei,

before I was overcome with a vision that has left me without sleep for days. It is hard to describe, but I am sure it is even harder to understand. I would gladly stare the horrors of hell in the face, or gaze at the extinction of the cosmos in a fiery, white, hot flash then live another moment not knowing the face of what it is that truly haunts me.

For as I was caught away in this vision, I found myself in a mist of thick, gray fog. Like a swamp it felt humid and hard to breathe. Not a thing was discernable, though it felt like my feet were submerged in mossy, murky, warm pond water. The kind unkempt and rarely dredged by an owner. 

I tried to call out, but my voice seemed to catch in my throat like someone was clasping it just tight enough for only a little air to move through. All that I could muster from my poor vocal chords sounded like short, sharp yips from an incessant pup. It felt as though I was a mere dog nipping at the heels of this, my master, the liminal abyss.

Then suddenly, a trembling of the ground beneath me erupted like a geyser. In the distance I could make out the image of an enormous black figure piercing its way up slowly through the fog. At first I thought it was a monster, some kind of behemoth from the bowels of the underworld, countless horns and thousands of eyes crouched and ready to pounce.

As it continued to grow in size I soon could make out that it was in the shape of a building. Far more grand than anything I have known to exist even in the possession of the richest kings. Then my mind jolted with the thought– The structure from the book! It must be! I knew then I must find out for myself what the structure truly was. I had to know! I could not remain in the dark any longer!

But as I pulled at the mossy ground beneath me, I found I could not move. I feared that I might sink further if I writhed any more, and so I stopped. I tried to peer beyond the fog as if my eyes might better adjust to more clearly see the structure’s form. I rubbed each eyelid, hoping it would help, yet still the exact image of the structure was as clouded as the fog.

I had barely begun to try this more risk averse means to make out the true nature of the structure when another trembling upheaval occurred. But this time the eruption was too close. A great force was pushing its way through the muck and mire. It was as though I had stepped upon the head of an ancient earth deity that was now rising to claim a sacrifice. Every cell in my body wished to exist anywhere that was not here to witness what was coming. From out of the fog a mossy, slimy, bulbous shape began to rise from the ground. It looked almost as though the ground, like a frog in that most sickening way, was inflating its throat.

In terror I fell back into the murky, mossy water onto my back. The rush of water shocked my body despite its putrid, warm temperature and nauseating textured muck. I pulled and scraped and dug with all my might, but I only seemed to move slower as I looked behind me for one brief moment.

The creature that had arisen was nowhere to be seen. As I went to turn around I faintly saw the mossy feet of the monster in front of me, obscured through the gray fog. Then, in an instant, and before I could look up, the world went black. I could feel nothing. My entire being numb. Only the vibrations of my ears and the faint but unmistakable sound of one haunting message that still echoes in my mind:

“You may read the book, but you may never see the structure for what it truly is.”

So, dear reader, I ask of you: will you do what I could not? Will you finish the book? Will you see the structure truly?

I leave the choice to you.