The Arms That Howl

How did you like the first story? The first few threads of a tapestry slowly blanketing every one of us.

I include myself in this assessment because even I cannot escape what comes. I am, however, one of the few who desires it.

There are those who oppose me in this. Perhaps I will tell you of their conclave someday.

By now you must be wondering, why does this man speak of doom? With names and monsters I do not know, let alone understand? Where do these stories he mentions come from?

I will answer the last question first. While I do say only four have been to the Other Realm, many have glimpsed it. Some recorded their experiences. Others went blindingly mad and their stories were written down by others between seizures. Some had the integrity to write what they had seen, but then tried to destroy those writings.

Fortunately for you, I quickly become aware of these gibbered scrawls. And I possess them.

I took a handful of pages from an ornate tomb in a black pit off the frozen shores of Norway. A complete, if short manuscript I dug up in what you now call northern Iraq (once Sumer, the nation you foolishly believe the oldest in human history).

A few were given to me by their authors. Now long dead, either from age or self-inflicted release.

Why so much fear surrounding their stories? Horror writing brings fear, yes. But prophecy brings terror. Cold, implacable terror that nestles in your chest like an ice tumor.

That is why they all surrendered their words to the winds of chance. They wrote down their terror and tried to cast it away from them. Escape in some final effort of divorcing truth from their minds.

It does not work that way, my friends. Truth stays. No matter what it means for you, for your city, for every city on the Earth today. Truth will sweep them all away in the end. And watch the new Realm-life ooze into shape on the warped, raw-edged landscape.

Oh, and as for the names and monsters and doom you do not yet understand? Patience, friends. You will.