I knew a man once; I thought him to be mad.
And yet I listened to his stories, listened as he spoke
Of legends, myths and songs of old.
And as he spoke I lost myself within his eyes,
Devoid of light, and my reflection disappeared
To be replaced by images from tales.
I listened, for I could not stop ?
I was a moth attracted to a golden flame
Which stung and made me weep from pain.
And yet I listened. I was entranced, and doomed.
He told me of a man who had his heart torn,
Found himself in hell, obtained a fear so great
That he stopped breathing, died, awoke only to die again.
His terror was intense, severe, as was my own.
I cried and shivered, identifying his feelings.
They belonged to me, for my heart now was torn as well.
Oh, but the words! The words he used,
Like serpents dripping with Death, drenched with malice.
The language swallowed me and soaked me in its poison.
And yet I listened. I listened?
One night, when stars themselves were in a better place,
We sat, the man and I, beside the embers of a fire long gone,
And stared at iridescent crimsons, burgundies and scarlets.
I was ardent for stories, prepared to be a character
Within his tales; to fight, to be victorious and triumph,
Then die, as heroes often do, as I have done when each tale ended.
Instead, he looked at me for long a time, and I stared back,
Afraid and tense as if it were my judgment day.
Instead, he looked at me and said:
Have I ever told you of the Thing?
It is pure darkness. So black, that night is sunshine
To the being. And when you stare too long, you will
Be pulled inside and ripped apart until your
Organs will not recognize themselves.
Its glance sends thorns and spears through veins,
Tracking your heart and killing everything inside.
It?ll steal your soul before you knew you had one,
And drag it miles and miles through hell.
Not once, not twice, but for eternity.
And always will you feel the torment, agony, and grief.
It moves so quietly that silence is itself a drum
That beats to match the rotting heart of Death.
You?ll hear the stars move before you?ll hear the Thing.
And when it speaks it?s language, foul even to the dead,
It screeches, shrieks and screams and squeals,
Making the air bleed with blood unknown to man
As anything but hatred.
Waste fifty living years in a confinement with rabid pests,
No food, no water, only darkness and obscurity.
That is a nothing compared to anguish from the Thing.
Your pain is nectar to the spawn of hell.
Your wails and cries of mercy are a treat, a honey.
It is a cold so chilling that it burns your flesh,
Eats away your insides and then regurgitates them back
And sculpts your feeble form from your own gruesome limbs.
It?ll plucks your skin off, inch by inch, and pull away your nails,
Leaving you bleeding, screaming, dying.
It slaughters in a sluggish pace that bores time itself,
To make you pray to devils to take away the Thing.
And years will pass, and centuries and eons, but you won?t die.
?What really is the Thing?? I asked, my mouth empty of moisture.
It is the everything inside a nothing.
The universe within a drop of rain.
It lives in shadows, in abysses, voids.
Yet even those mean nothing to the being.
It wasn?t forced into existence, as you and I.
It is the darkness that became alive one night,
Acquiring mentality and intellect. It simply is,
As it has always been; before your world, before your God,
As darkness lives before the light, as darkness is the
Quicker, greater, and more bold. As it is everywhere, and nowhere?
I lost myself that night. I stared at nothing, hours at a time,
Afraid of letting my own heart beat and break the silence.
I felt it. Sensed the shadows closing in, felt
Claws enclose my soul, shrouding my vision, blocking sound.
I couldn?t move. Nor did I try, for darkness held me
In its chains so tight that my own blood was nowhere to be found,
Evaporating from the fierceness of my terror.
I was a nothing then. I did not live, nor did I think of living.
Only hours later when the sun was brave enough to rise, I woke,
Still shivering, still thawing from the cold I felt within my mind.
I never left my house since then; in fear, I said.
I was afraid of turning on the lights, of eating, sleeping, breathing.
I simply was a part of nothing, an empty shell waiting to die.
I don?t remember how I lived, nor if I lived at all.
But I told stories to those younger,
Seeing them wince and seeing the tears swell
In their eyes from their own pain, their agony.
Yet I couldn?t stop. Nor did I seek to.
I was the flame that beckons to the moth.
And I told stories, as I have told you now.
As I have told you of the Thing.
