The King

I have to write everything down; this has to serve as a warning to humanity. Tonight everything shall end, for I have endured the pain and agony far too long. The last drop of morphine has mixed well with my blood; nothing remains to support my life. Perhaps my suit could grant me a pittance, but not enough to buy me crude opium. Through these few pages of scrambling, you witness a small fraction of my agonies. Do not judge my words with doubt; since I have fallen into slavery to drugs, you shall realize all I have written are truths, and death is the only answer.

In the vast open sea of the Atlantic, a storm struck my ship. The ship lurched violently, enough to throw a young journalist into the ocean. The cold water hit me like concrete. It was almost instant that I lost sight of the clear blue, and darkness surged into my mind.

The change happened whilst I was still drifting in darkness. I could not recall the details, nor did I want to. The sensation of the coldness finally changed. When at last I awakened, I was stranded on a blue meadow. The grass on the meadow tangled upon me like a squid tangling on its prey; the blue stretched infinitely long toward the horizon. The Atlantic Ocean was nowhere to be seen around it.

One would imagine my first thought would be relief: at last I have hit land. In actuality, I was more terrified than relaxed, not by the thought of being alone. The moistness and noisomeness in the air and the tangling grass sent me trembling, for nature now speaks sinisterly. Everything here was sickeningly vibrant; the colors were spinning my mind, causing nauseating fear. I shall not use words to convey such terror; it is futile to use any language known to mankind to translate the view. In my sight was only blue: nothing within sight, nothing within earshot apart from blue.

The meadow caused a strange fullness in my stomach, the ailing fullness brought by tapeworms. I sat in the meadow for hours; the parching sun hanging in the sky served no help in alleviating my distress. At night it was impossible to fall asleep; the harvest moon illuminated the land with a weak, pale glow. I could not fathom an explanation for my eerie position; no knowledge in my mind could be used to at least identify anything. I lay back down on the prairie, forcing myself to close my eyes and get some rest, though the dreams were troublesome and continuous.

The next morning I sat back up on the field, the fullness still festering in my stomach. It was clear that I was standing on a no-man’s land; staying here would only lead to starvation. I looked at the shadows of the grass to guess my direction; then I went westward, dauntlessly, in search of living beings for help. If I were still in the Atlantic Ocean, then walking westward could lead me to South America, perhaps.

All day, I trekked towards the west, guided by the sun’s direction. Each step was arduous; the twisting grass clung to me, trapping my foot on the revolting mound. Before the horizon had swallowed the last drop of sunlight, I saw it, a gate. An enormous gate stood on the land, with its door ajar. The long day of trekking forced me to interrupt my journey and lie back down for rest. I did not have trouble sleeping that night, but my dreams were still draining my mind.

The next morning I slowly descended from the hill I was on; the tangling grass offered some help and acted like footholds. I went closer and closer towards the gate; each step was shaking, yet I was drawn toward it. The meadow only offered an opaque horror to me, but each step towards the gate brought me a greater sense of terror. As I gazed upon the gate, inscrutable sigils filled my sight. Consisting only of symbols, yet unable to interpret.

Regret filled me when I thought of being a possible linguist or historian; perhaps with that little knowledge, I would at least know where this leads me. I peered into the gate; the sight drew the breath from my lungs. There was nothing in it. Not darkness, nor the stygian view, it was nothing. Yet in utter despair and exhausted options, I slowly walked through the gate.

The mephitic air struck me, pushing me away from this abysmal environment. The light from outside the gate was gone; I saw nothing and could only use my hand to feel my direction. Slowly, after a few hundred steps, I could finally distinguish something in the dark. I was in a corridor; on each side were paintings and archaic artifacts. Paintings, vases, statues, amulets, necklaces, bracelets, and the like. I didn’t stop to admire these beauties, though they drew my sight like pulling shackles on my eyes. The air became more moist; the floor below me made sloppy sounds as I walked. I was in some sort of palace or a king’s tomb; the goods here were nothing like those in museums or in books. The very little sanity of mine comforted me, giving me a glimmer of hope that I could be rich after telling historians about this tomb.

Then, in the stagnant air, a weird twisting sound struck me. Everything around me was indiscernible, and the sound was too vague for me to trace. It was by then that I finally remembered I was addicted to tobacco. I pulled out a lighter from my pocket; fortunately, it was still usable. In the dim, warm light of the lighter, I finally saw it. There was a flower in a vase, twisting its stalk and fluttering its leaves. I placed the lighter closer; I was spellbound by this otherworldly view, and the flower immediately twisted its stalk closer to the light, opening its bud. I fell onto the ground after I saw what was inside; mere words are futile to convey the view. It was madness! Horror! Insanity! I scrambled away. As I looked back, I saw the flower emit a sickly glow, throbbing as if it had a beating heart. Then I saw it wilt, petals on the ground twitching and curving, twisting to unknown angles that broke the law of mathematics. I could care no more, and I fled away from the flower. With the flower blocking my way back, the only option was forward.

I did not dare to lay eyes on anything other than the little flame I had on my lighter. I did not track for how long I had walked, perhaps a few hundred yards or even more. Then I saw it, the statue. It was made of metal; a thin sheet of water vapor was on its metallic skin. I saw the crown on its head; the statue stood tall enough to give me the feeling of being an ant, looking up almost broke my neck. I did not even need to walk around to see its front view, for it had suddenly twisted its head like an owl and bent its back to look at me. It had no face. No face! Then I saw cracks form on its face; dark, ichorous liquid seeped from the cracks. Then the cracks enlarged; struggling out was squirming flesh. It was amorphous, rugose, and abominable. Nothing I saw was utterable; what I have written down is just a fraction of what I saw or felt.

I remembered little afterwards. In my frantic and delirious journey back to the blue meadow, I cheered. “Hurray! All hail the new king!” When I could not cheer, I laughed ecstatically, in euphoria. Before my sanity drained completely, the last thing I saw was the maddening flesh slipping out of the gaps of the door.

The fishy scent woke me up from this fever dream. The first thing I saw was blinding; the light held on the ceiling forced me to squint my eyes. I was far from dry, like someone who fell into the lower deck of a fishing ship, swimming in carcasses of squids and fish.

It was not long after that the nurse finally escorted me out with a walking cane and some medicine I could not name.

I tried telling the historians about my journey, but they were helplessly and hopelessly sane. The sun, right! The sun! I’ve read books about how the heat of the sun can cause hallucinations! Hah! King! You’re not real! None of this is real! I’m free from your grasp!

Gah! The tomb, the king, and the revolting flesh kept wriggling into my mind. You’re not real! I know well you’re not real!

The flesh, the flesh! Why is it slipping in the gaps of my door? Spare my worthless life! You can’t be real! King? You’re real!

Woe to you! Woe to you, people! The king has awakened, and it shall rise upon the Atlantic Ocean! You shall suffer from its tyranny and find no escape! I shall end it all tonight; the king will never take me alive! Where’s my pistol? Where’s my pistol? You abhorrent creature, you shall never stop me! You will not strip my chance of falling into the warm laps of death! Yes! The rope. The rope!