How Long is Never?
I don't know what year it is. I think it would be the first thing I'd ask someone if anyone ever came down here anymore. At this point I'd even welcome the scientists in their white robes and holding their needles. But it's so quite here that I don't know if anybodies even still in the installation. Maybe they forgot I was here and all left.
There's no night or day in here, I sit awake until I'm tired then I sleep till I awake. They stopped bringing food a long time ago. Guess the scientists were right about me not needing to eat. Took a long time for my body to figure that out though, I felt hungry for forever it felt like. There's water, a whole pool of it in the corner that is fed by pipes and drained by pipes. They found I needed to keep my skin damp at least or I'd start to crack. Wonder how many of the others they took died before they figured out why.
I still have the dreams whenever I'm asleep. Wish I didn't, they're useless in this place. Spend the night dreaming about being free to swim in the deep ocean with others like me, only to wake back in this cell. I don't get depressed about it anymore, but it does make each waking a disappointment. Sitting in the pool doesn't help anymore. I sometimes hope I'll just fall asleep and not wake up again. But despite ramming my head hard enough into the wall to knock myself out I eventually woke up and my head hurt so bad I couldn't fall asleep again for what seemed like days so I have never done that again. I'd bite my wrists if I had any teeth left, but they all fell out around puberty. Can't even drown myself. I tried drying out but there's too much damp in the air from the pool, even if I don't lie in it I stay moist.
I had a name once, I was born Jeremiah Dean Elliot, Jerry for short. I lived in a little seaside town called Innsmouth with my mother and father. Lived there for 19 years till the government people came and took me away. That was back when things had gotten bad in town. Old Barnabas Marsh was running things then, and my Dad was real close to him. I can still remember some of the meetings at the church we used to go to. Of course my Mom didn't go, with the way she looked she couldn't be out in public just in case people got spooked. Nobody questioned it, she wasn't the only one in town what had to hide away. Barnabas himself stayed out of the daylight except for church. Heck, I think the town must have been full of those who were so far gone they just stayed indoors. My Dad didn't like my Mom, he married her because he had to. He'd tell me all the time that she was our ticket to eternal life, his for marrying her and mine for being her son. At first he loved me, I looked just like him and he spoiled me rotten when I was little. Then as I got to puberty and I started to change he got distant. Guess after I started to take after Mom he didn't see me as his little boy no more. At least he still called me son and would sometimes even hug me. But I could see his eyes when he looked at me, the way he'd cringe slightly when we talked. I don't blame him, he just didn't understand what he'd gotten himself into. But the older I got the less time Dad wanted to be around me.
See my Mom wasn't quite what you'd call human. My Dad and old Barnabas worshiped a god they called Cthulhu, and they trafficked with his minions which they called the Deep Ones seeing as how they all lived in the sea. Supposedly this god also lived underwater in some great city where he was dead but dreaming, at least that's how my dad used to put it. I was told when I got old enough I'd get to go into the sea and live in this city with all of those that came before me. Of course I was young and didn't fully understand what it all meant. Then when I was old enough I was in school and decided I didn't want to go to the church no more, although my Dad used to say it didn't matter what I wanted because it was in my blood.
I did well in school , was even a little popular I guess. Had a girl, pretty little thing named Mary-Lynn. She didn't mind me having the Innsmouth look. She liked that I was smart and funny. Funny....Now that's something I haven't been in a long time. Just nothing to laugh at here. Anyways she and I were quite the pair, until she got chosen to be given to them we worshiped. I was so sad that she had to go. But we all knew the price that had to be paid, our riches didn't come cheap. I tried to get my Dad to have them pick someone else but he told me to stay out of it, fact is that was the last time he ever really talked to me.
Didn't matter anyways, it was only about a year later that the Government men came. What a day that was. They arrested over half the town, including myself and my Dad. Not sure where my Mom went, but I didn't see her that day and have always hoped she got into the water somehow. Then the men blew up almost all of the warehouses near the sea, the houses that them below were using. I was never sure what they used them for, all I remember was my Dad always saying I should never go near them. We were all loaded in police wagons and rushed out of town. At first I was held with a few others I knew, George Elliot (my cousin), Franklin Marsh, Deborah Waite, and old Yeosmith Gillman. But soon after we got to this place we were all split up and sent to different cells.
At first they studied me non stop. They took blood samples and skin samples and urine samples and stool samples and just about every type of sample they could. They questioned me about my family and my religion and my Mother and my Father and my friends and the town and all sorts of things. I did my best to answer them. Always tried to be friendly and helpful, hoping they'd let me go eventually. Never did have no trial or anything. It was about 5 months after I got here they put in the water. Not that I needed it much back then, but it sure has been good to have as I've gotten older. Guess some of the older ones they'd captured had died from drying out and they didn't want to take chance. Sometimes the guards would talk to me and tell me about the others, how they were being studied too. But after a while they changed guards and the new one said I was the only one like me in this place any more. He didn't know what had happened to the rest. Then they stopped having guards come out to me except for feeding or if they needed a sample of one kind or another. Then the scientist started coming less and less. One of them said he'd been in the installation for a year without even knowing I was down here. It was around then they decided I didn't need to eat to survive, so they stopped having the guards bring me food.
There's still 2 lights left, I thought for sure when the first one blew that someone would at least be down to fix that. But that was six bulbs ago and no sign of anyone. Amazing how long those bulbs last, not like anything I'd ever seen. Figures the government would have bulbs that last for so long. When they put them in new they said it was 1968. Seems like a lifetime ago, might be for all I know. Guess when these go I'll just sit in darkness and listen to the water in the pool. Last time I had a visitor he told me it was 1970. He seemed nice, a young man with a clipboard who asked questions I couldn't answer. He didn't seem very happy with me and I wished I could have helped him more, but I was too young back when this all started to know much of anything. He visited about 4 times, and since him there's been no one. Maybe they've forgotten I'm down here, or maybe they think if they ignore me I'll go away. They don't like not having answers. Wish I could tell them neither do I.
My Dad used to say that I was lucky, that since my Mom was different I'd get to be immortal. I know what immortal means, it means I'll live forever. Never die, unless I'm killed by some outside force. But I wonder if my Dad was joking when he called me lucky. To live forever, sitting here in this cell. I've been here since 1929 and I don't know what year it is anymore or how old I am, not that age matters to me. Waiting for the last bulbs to burn out so I'll be in darkness.
Just me and my little pool and these walls and those bars and that bed and this table and my little note pad and pen.
Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year, forever sitting here alone.
All alone.
Oh dear Cthulhu, please just let me die...........
It's funny, I had this story knocking around my head way back when I first read 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' by Lovecraft back in high school. If the Deep ones lived forever then how long could the Government keep them in jail? What do you do with a prisoner that you won't admit you have but never dies? Maybe you just forget about them, lock them away like a dirty little secret and throw away the files and the key. This is my second story based on Lovecrafts work. Just like the first it'll help if you've read his Mythos stories before you read this one, especially 'Shadow Over Innsmouth'.
There's no night or day in here, I sit awake until I'm tired then I sleep till I awake. They stopped bringing food a long time ago. Guess the scientists were right about me not needing to eat. Took a long time for my body to figure that out though, I felt hungry for forever it felt like. There's water, a whole pool of it in the corner that is fed by pipes and drained by pipes. They found I needed to keep my skin damp at least or I'd start to crack. Wonder how many of the others they took died before they figured out why.
I still have the dreams whenever I'm asleep. Wish I didn't, they're useless in this place. Spend the night dreaming about being free to swim in the deep ocean with others like me, only to wake back in this cell. I don't get depressed about it anymore, but it does make each waking a disappointment. Sitting in the pool doesn't help anymore. I sometimes hope I'll just fall asleep and not wake up again. But despite ramming my head hard enough into the wall to knock myself out I eventually woke up and my head hurt so bad I couldn't fall asleep again for what seemed like days so I have never done that again. I'd bite my wrists if I had any teeth left, but they all fell out around puberty. Can't even drown myself. I tried drying out but there's too much damp in the air from the pool, even if I don't lie in it I stay moist.
I had a name once, I was born Jeremiah Dean Elliot, Jerry for short. I lived in a little seaside town called Innsmouth with my mother and father. Lived there for 19 years till the government people came and took me away. That was back when things had gotten bad in town. Old Barnabas Marsh was running things then, and my Dad was real close to him. I can still remember some of the meetings at the church we used to go to. Of course my Mom didn't go, with the way she looked she couldn't be out in public just in case people got spooked. Nobody questioned it, she wasn't the only one in town what had to hide away. Barnabas himself stayed out of the daylight except for church. Heck, I think the town must have been full of those who were so far gone they just stayed indoors. My Dad didn't like my Mom, he married her because he had to. He'd tell me all the time that she was our ticket to eternal life, his for marrying her and mine for being her son. At first he loved me, I looked just like him and he spoiled me rotten when I was little. Then as I got to puberty and I started to change he got distant. Guess after I started to take after Mom he didn't see me as his little boy no more. At least he still called me son and would sometimes even hug me. But I could see his eyes when he looked at me, the way he'd cringe slightly when we talked. I don't blame him, he just didn't understand what he'd gotten himself into. But the older I got the less time Dad wanted to be around me.
See my Mom wasn't quite what you'd call human. My Dad and old Barnabas worshiped a god they called Cthulhu, and they trafficked with his minions which they called the Deep Ones seeing as how they all lived in the sea. Supposedly this god also lived underwater in some great city where he was dead but dreaming, at least that's how my dad used to put it. I was told when I got old enough I'd get to go into the sea and live in this city with all of those that came before me. Of course I was young and didn't fully understand what it all meant. Then when I was old enough I was in school and decided I didn't want to go to the church no more, although my Dad used to say it didn't matter what I wanted because it was in my blood.
I did well in school , was even a little popular I guess. Had a girl, pretty little thing named Mary-Lynn. She didn't mind me having the Innsmouth look. She liked that I was smart and funny. Funny....Now that's something I haven't been in a long time. Just nothing to laugh at here. Anyways she and I were quite the pair, until she got chosen to be given to them we worshiped. I was so sad that she had to go. But we all knew the price that had to be paid, our riches didn't come cheap. I tried to get my Dad to have them pick someone else but he told me to stay out of it, fact is that was the last time he ever really talked to me.
Didn't matter anyways, it was only about a year later that the Government men came. What a day that was. They arrested over half the town, including myself and my Dad. Not sure where my Mom went, but I didn't see her that day and have always hoped she got into the water somehow. Then the men blew up almost all of the warehouses near the sea, the houses that them below were using. I was never sure what they used them for, all I remember was my Dad always saying I should never go near them. We were all loaded in police wagons and rushed out of town. At first I was held with a few others I knew, George Elliot (my cousin), Franklin Marsh, Deborah Waite, and old Yeosmith Gillman. But soon after we got to this place we were all split up and sent to different cells.
At first they studied me non stop. They took blood samples and skin samples and urine samples and stool samples and just about every type of sample they could. They questioned me about my family and my religion and my Mother and my Father and my friends and the town and all sorts of things. I did my best to answer them. Always tried to be friendly and helpful, hoping they'd let me go eventually. Never did have no trial or anything. It was about 5 months after I got here they put in the water. Not that I needed it much back then, but it sure has been good to have as I've gotten older. Guess some of the older ones they'd captured had died from drying out and they didn't want to take chance. Sometimes the guards would talk to me and tell me about the others, how they were being studied too. But after a while they changed guards and the new one said I was the only one like me in this place any more. He didn't know what had happened to the rest. Then they stopped having guards come out to me except for feeding or if they needed a sample of one kind or another. Then the scientist started coming less and less. One of them said he'd been in the installation for a year without even knowing I was down here. It was around then they decided I didn't need to eat to survive, so they stopped having the guards bring me food.
There's still 2 lights left, I thought for sure when the first one blew that someone would at least be down to fix that. But that was six bulbs ago and no sign of anyone. Amazing how long those bulbs last, not like anything I'd ever seen. Figures the government would have bulbs that last for so long. When they put them in new they said it was 1968. Seems like a lifetime ago, might be for all I know. Guess when these go I'll just sit in darkness and listen to the water in the pool. Last time I had a visitor he told me it was 1970. He seemed nice, a young man with a clipboard who asked questions I couldn't answer. He didn't seem very happy with me and I wished I could have helped him more, but I was too young back when this all started to know much of anything. He visited about 4 times, and since him there's been no one. Maybe they've forgotten I'm down here, or maybe they think if they ignore me I'll go away. They don't like not having answers. Wish I could tell them neither do I.
My Dad used to say that I was lucky, that since my Mom was different I'd get to be immortal. I know what immortal means, it means I'll live forever. Never die, unless I'm killed by some outside force. But I wonder if my Dad was joking when he called me lucky. To live forever, sitting here in this cell. I've been here since 1929 and I don't know what year it is anymore or how old I am, not that age matters to me. Waiting for the last bulbs to burn out so I'll be in darkness.
Just me and my little pool and these walls and those bars and that bed and this table and my little note pad and pen.
Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year, forever sitting here alone.
All alone.
Oh dear Cthulhu, please just let me die...........
It's funny, I had this story knocking around my head way back when I first read 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' by Lovecraft back in high school. If the Deep ones lived forever then how long could the Government keep them in jail? What do you do with a prisoner that you won't admit you have but never dies? Maybe you just forget about them, lock them away like a dirty little secret and throw away the files and the key. This is my second story based on Lovecrafts work. Just like the first it'll help if you've read his Mythos stories before you read this one, especially 'Shadow Over Innsmouth'.
posted by Azathoth100 | 2:26 PM
4 Comments:
damn good stuff brotha mang!!! keep um comin!
Fo real tho, u kno i dun take anyone's junk ;-) PEACE
that was great! It took me a moment to switch gears from the last blog and realize that you were writing a story! lol
Thanks!!
oh! my dearest darling, azathoth!
*giant hugs* your words flow so freely. i adore you and admire your writing talent!
your humble irish lassie,
kerry
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