The Call of The Abyss

The ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. --- H. P. Lovecraft

“Listen, son, you need to tell me exactly what happened.” Mr. Walker spoke with sobriety and confusion.

Mr. Walker was the on-site manager of our project. We were mining a tunnel under our town’s frigid, Alaskan shoreline. None of us workers knew what it was for. The numerous non-disclosure agreements and occasional military presence on the site had made clear that this project was not one of commercial motivations.

Mr. Walker and I stood solemnly on the shoreline next to the empty tunnel’s entrance. The project was on hold. Three of the workers had died in one of the less explored parts of the branching labyrinth that was being mined. Those three workers had been my colleagues, and they had died in front of me. They had jumped into a flooded part of the mine and had never come back up.

I didn’t want to tell him that I was the reason for their deaths, nor could I explain how. How was I to explain that the nightmares I’d been having caused those three men to drown themselves?

My dreams were cryptic and weird. They had begun in the past week, when I started working on this site. There was something off about the frigid ocean of our small town that I had never been able to put my finger on. I had never gone near it until I took this job up. I hated the smell of the sea, and I was unsettled by its frozen waves and tarry blue water. I always had a feeling that something deep inside it was calling me however illogical that sounded.

I would wake up underwater. I would wake up in a barren cyclopean world in the realms of the ocean’s deepest trenches. The lighting not too much different from that of the damp and dim mine I worked in.

What I noticed first was the water. The water was different. The water down there was not the same water that flowed in the beaches and onto the shore. The water held an immense pressure. This pressure was not of the conventional form; it was a pressure entirely novel and uncanny. It became a barrier to comprehension and perception, it not only clouded sane thought but actively worked against it. It left me with a sense of hopelessness and agony that no one could withstand. It was too much for any living soul to take. It was clear that no being of earthly origins would ever be found here.

The world was for the most part a vast expanse of the barren ocean floor in all its peculiar darkness. I would find myself near a massive crater that extended downwards to an immeasurable and abyssal depth. This crater was surrounded by small watchtowers that emanated a small blue flame whose dim glow I found some solace in. The crater was lined with engraved flattened stones in a spiral pattern. The engravings were in a language that was most certainly foreign to our world. I could not read what they said but each symbol was familiar in a morbid and sinister way. It was as if this infernal script was engrained in our primal senses; its torment, we could feel but never comprehend. Looking at the symbols made me sick to my stomach but I would rather look at it for eons than behold the scenes that play out in my dream after.

You will soon understand why I cannot tell you what happens after. It aches my mind just to even recall the slightest bits of the scene. Let me just say that something came out of that abyss. Something I cannot and should not understand. Nor is it something I should even try to describe. I have already made that mistake.

“You need to tell me what happened.” My boss repeated firmly.

And so, I did.

“Sir, I was with the other three down in our section of the tunnel. We were mining and these guys noticed my silence and asked me what was bothering me.”

“So, I told them about these dreams. Th-these nightmares I’ve been having.” I quivered.

The agonizing scene from my nightmares started playing in my head alongside the scene of my colleagues’ submerged heads. I began sobbing.

“Then th-they fell.”

“Son, tell me about these dreams.” He sounded half like he was trying to understand and half like he didn’t know what to ask.

I looked out toward the ocean. I shivered at the eldritch scenes I had seen deep beneath those waves. Even the surface of the ocean deceived me and replayed the morbid scene in its reflection. It was all too much.

“I can’t.” I managed to mutter between sobs.

“Son if you don’t tell me everything, I won’t be able to make the police not take you in as a suspect.” The compassion in his voice was gone. It was replaced by annoyance and impatience.

“Trust me. You don’t want to know.” My voice grew steadier as I regained some composure, fully ready to abandon this conversation.

“Fucking tell me. You don’t understand, do you? We’re all on the line here you little shit.” His impatience grew into anger.

Anger welled inside me at his lack of compassion or patience at my clearly distressed situation. The dreams festered in my mind. I tried to keep them in. I tried to control them. I tried to take a deep breath, but I couldn’t. I was not in control of myself anymore. The dreams, and whatever monstrosity that was within them and the cause of them now had control.

I told him of everything up to the part where it came out of the abyss. I spoke of the dream until I reached the same part I had been hesitant to tell my now dead colleagues.

His face had grown continually grimmer as I described the dream. He somehow understood some of the implications of it. Despite this, he continued to profanely force me to continue.

“Alright get to the fucking end of it already,” his anger now growing into a sort of hesitation at what he might hear.

I told him of the scene I had made the mistake of describing once before down in that damp corner of that mine where my colleagues had met their demise; this time I somehow added even more excruciating detail. The last few words of my description escaped my throat, propelled by the uncanny force pushing me to speak. As they did, he began to understand. Similar to my colleagues earlier, his eyes were welled with tears of immeasurable torment and sorrow from something he couldn’t even begin to understand.

My feet grew numb and refused to support me and my mind grew hazy. I saw him walk towards the ocean. His gait showed the immense weight he was carrying. The weight of knowing.

The scene of that endless pit regurgitated from my subconscious once again. It was too much. My mind dipped back into unconsciousness, and back into the familiar dream. Before it did, I saw Mr. Walker’s head slowly dip into the waves. Just like my colleagues’ had.