This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of Down in the Dirt magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
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Fear has gripped me once again. I know now that I will not survive the night. It was my own mistake so I must claim full responsibility for what I have unleashed upon this tiny world. This had all started so innocently last year when I was given a book on pagan rituals as a gift. Being a study of ancient cultures and spiritual practices, the book was still unknown to me. One of the books considered forbidden knowledge; it was only mentioned in underground circles and was never recognized by historians to ever really exist. Even the church took a stand saying that the book was a fantastic story made up by pagans and any copy that did exist had been written as a joke and were not considered real.
I was so enthralled by the book that I had read it twice through in only a couple of days. It took less than a week to set up an alter and gather all the ritual items needed to perform the ceremonies listed on its forbidden pages. It is at this time that my mind was so clouded with the grandeur of what I was about to do that all rational thoughts had left me.
I performed the first ritual that very night, alone. I had already become so selfish that I felt threatened by my colleagues not wanting to share credit. The ritual went without fault, the circle drawn on the floor in sheep’s blood, the symbols cast on the walls in the blood of four unclean animals. The circle on the floor had a six pointed star drawn around it in the ashes of the dead so that it was in the center untouched by the star. Upon reading the last sentence of the ritual aloud, I realized all my dreams and hopes. I saw a great future and world fame reach for me through the dark. It was also a time for fear and uncertainty as the circle grew dark as night and “Dagoth” who would later be know as, grew from the dark to fill the circle. Short in stature, he was a hideous abomination to world. He did not speak freely, but only answered questions after listening to me talk to him for over an hour. There was only time to ask a few questions before he begin to fade into the dark.
When the circle grew dark once more and “Dagoth” went back to where he had come, I was drunk with the power of what had taken place that night. My mind went wild with the possibilities and dreams of things to come. I dare not write here those things I learned. If this world survives the night, it is better off to be blind sheep in a flock of deceit and lies of mere humans then to again unleash the horrors that I have upon myself.
As my immortal soul was put on the line, I reviewed the information received that night. However, the answers I had been given only created more questions. I vowed not to let one night go by without learning more. Once night had fallen again, I found myself at the alter performing the first ritual. Once again “Dagoth” had come.
Each night for a month I had performed that first ritual. “Dagoth” had come each night, sometimes staying for hours, sometimes for only a few minutes. I had become lost in a sea of information and was starting to turn my back on the world around me. I know now that the greed and power of what I was doing had consumed me fully and was now in control. The rituals had given me a false sence of power and control. As each night passed the thought of power grew in my mind, I didn’t see that it was why this information and these books were forbidden. I had become lost in my own mind. As the year passed I went on to perform six different rituals contained in the book. Each one of the rituals summoned forth a new being into the circle. Some were so horrible that to look upon them flooded you with a sickness that could not be shed throughout the night. Others were as angels.
There was only one ritual left unexploited in the book last night. I had performed them all in the last year, each one many times. As I got to the limit of knowledge with each being, they always told me to speak with “Yewah.” Even in my questioning they would not say more then to speak with “Yewah.”
It was through greed and power that drove me to performing the last ritual in that accursed book. Without consideration, I set forth last night to finish what I had started. When the being appeared in the circle as all the other had many times before, I found myself falling to my knees. I asked the being for forgiveness. I offered it my soul. Then I did the only thing I could do, I broke the circle and set the being free upon this tiny planet.
Before it left the room, it replied only this.
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. You are the beginning of this journey and when I return you will be the end.”
It was then I realized in my own horror that I had released a terror upon this world like no other. Death will be the final curse upon my ragged body; eternal will I be immortal in the world of death. Forgive me...
