Where myths were used to beware people of the old creatures, terrible beings who are big and malicious enough to crush you until not even your soul remained on Earth, they were also a way to scare children into meekness and humility. Over time, myths lost their original meanings and just became stories. One before bed, one for school. They became just words of what could have happened a long time ago, things no one were sure thet happened, or, more exactly, no one thought as real anymore.

This is the reason of people's disbelief and rejection of when things in myths happen in their real, boring lifetimes.

And this is the reason of young Jyushimatsu's fear and incomprehension to his nightmares, recurring night terrors he had been having since a week ago.

From one day to another, every time he fell asleep he awoke somewhere that should've been a beautiful place millenia ago, now destroyed by time. The very first dream he had awaken at midday on the boundaries of the city, where once upon a time there had been walls instead of rotten boulders and alien fern growing through them.

He walked and he felt that something was waiting for him on the core of the city, and had no encounters in his voyage, and that was until suddenly he woke up to real life. But the strangest part was that everyday it passed, every night he appeared on the same place he had left. Like on a videogame saved archive, he walked towards his destiny.

By the sixth day, the city inside his dreams grew darker, but not a day had passed inside the place. Its twin suns were setting to sunset, but black stars were visible in the sky.

By the sixth day, Jyushimatsu had fallen sick, and had to be taken care of his enormous fever all day by his mother and brothers.

In the dream, Jyushimatsu had walken lots and lots of miles. From a green prairie he entered a forest. From the forest he entered an eroded city. The city gave pass to a hidden shadowed meadow, and the meadow was linear to a lake with waters as black as the stars dangling in the strange sky. All the time he walked he had found nary a sign of life, but the nearer the lake he got the louder he could listen to the Lake's Song. Slowly, he started to understand those foreign lyrics. Something there sang for someone , about the destiny of the city, about the inhabitants it had. About the King that resided there, in a castle inside the lake.

With 40°C and numb to them, the fifth brother entered the dark lake.

The water was cold, he felt. Numbing to the touch, his feet felt like actual ice. But the songs called him, and not caring about his pajama clothes, he entered.

In the real world, he shivered, clothes dripping in sweat. His fever was getting worse. Blackened saliva dribbled from his mouth.

He couldn't breath, but it was alarming how easy it was to not breath and swim inside the lake. Did he need to breath after all? Was he dead? Jyushimatsu perished those thoughts, focusing on his goal. The dark lake was like the sky, full of shining points of various sizes that floated around, creating small galaxies of their own. It was beautiful, and kind of scary. He was sure that if he got to touch one of those spheres something would happen, and it wouldn't be good for him. But they gave him space, like guiding him to the bottom of the lake, where the Songs came and where The King was waiting for him.

Jyushimatsu kept his pace, even though a cold sweat was filling his insides.

And, after a while of swimming in that reduced piece of galaxy for himself, he was finally able to see the Palace.

Like made of aged gold, The Palace stood out in the dark place like a sore shined with its own power alone. Full of enormous towers full of undescriptable forms, windows and doors, it was art on its own. In the upper part of the main door an enormous pair of doors all opened just for their visitor, the one where Jyushimatsu had to enter, there was a small crest. A Sign that couldn't be read by anyone, but that signaled that He Was There, waiting.

When he put a feet on the ground, he was suddenly able to breath again. A few breaths later, and swallowing his saliva, the small boy entered the place. When he was inside, both doors closed completely with a resounding roar.

Jyushimatsu kept on walking, even when nothing appeared to get him. The big halls were deserted of any decorative item, and no hints of life were seen, even though the ones singing were there, somehow. Maybe they were invisible? Or were the castle itself. No one knew, and maybe it was better not to ask.

The tiles on the floor were black and white, the only thing that was different from the earthy copper and gold that covered all the rest of places. Still, the boy could see them forming patterns that showed him the directions, instead of just forming the usual checkered path.

The farther he got the stronger were the songs, the lyrics were clear now. Jyushimatsu could listen the invisible creatures singing about The Lake Hali, the Black Stars, how the city prospered and died. Forbidden things for other people's ears, but his own. Yet, he felt it wasn't for his too, and that maybe he would be on very big trouble after all ended.

And when he ended in the biggest room and touched the ancient Door, engraved with a neon Yellow Sign, the same one outside The Palace, the songs stopped, just as if they never existed. Not even the echo of them was listened anymore.

The doors opened, and a Voice resounded inside.

" , COmE, I WAs WAiTING FOR YOu , "

Not being able to refuse that abyssal voice, he entered the hall, the enormous hall of that magnificent and terrifying room.

In the farthest part of the room there was a throne, eroded by time and eaten by flies, with its upper part covered by an enormous faded red curtain with the Yellow Sign engraved on it, the Sign having no sign of erodement itself. Surrounding the throne there were skeletons and ghouls, awake and undead, claiming their choruses to their king.

The king was an enormous being. A thin creature covered by tattered yellow robes, easily as big as a giraffe or more, Jyushimatsu's infantile mind could not comprehend how someone could be so tall. He could not see its face, for it was hidden behind a silken yellow mask, but he could see its blackened hands, its fingers that grabbed the throne's armrests were abundant and prehensile, as if they were some malignant octopus tentacles.

The ghouls and skeletons tried to touch the kid, but one single nod from the Thing in the Throne made them stop. The enormous being stood up, slowly, from its eroded throne and gestured the kid to come closer. He did, enough so they were just a mere meter apart.

" , IT's TImE, KId ,"

"T-time for?"

" , I'Ve CAlLEd YOu HErE TO REtRIeVE WHaT IS MInE , "

"Yours?"

" , YOuR BOdY. IT's A VEsSEl FOr ME TO GRoW INsIDe, SO I CAn REaPPeAR WHeN THe TImE COmES , "

"But this body is mine though?" - In his curiosity, Jyushimatsu, while scared as hell of the giant man covered by those hideous tatters, he couldn't help but to be intrigued by his words. To a six year old little terror in his own house and street, getting called out of his actual body because it belonged to someone else felt wrong.

Where was his retribution?

" , THaT'S OF NO MAtTEr TO ME, I MUsT GEt BAcK WHaT IS MInE, CHiLDrEN OF MAn ,"

"But… if my body is mine, and it's yours too… doesn't it mean… yours is mine too? I'm yours, you are mine then? "

He had no idea of what he had signed out with those words, but The Yellow King did.

Oh, how amusing it was!

The King, after some empty moments where the small boy could listen only to his own heart, not even the sizzles of the ghouls and rattles of the skeleton bones were able to be heard, laughed.

A terrible laugh, meant to wretch hearts. A long laugh, that bristled Jyushimatsu's hairs.

Then, the King moved his mantle, enough to envelop the children in it.

It suffocated him.

" , VErY WElL, CHiLDrEN OF MAn. I'LL KEeP YOuR PRoMIsE, UNtIL WE MEeT AGaIN. SOoN, "

And Jyushimatsu couldn't answer, cause the mantle entered on all his pores. On his eyes, on his mouth.

He couldn't breath.

He couldn't…

...

After a while, he woke up. He was on a hospital room, covered on a pale yellow blanket. His family was there, all his brothers were there, piled one over each other, giving the small boy the warmth he needed. The room he was looked as normal as a hospital could be. There was no galaxy, no Palace, no King. Just what he needed to live, what he desired to protect. He cried a few tears, just happy to be back on his world, to then sleep like his family.

And so, when asked how he was feeling by the doctor that next day, he said he had forgotten. His fever was too strong, his memories a lake.

And inside the lake there was...

So this is Lovecraftmatsu. Thanks Hesokuri Wars!

This is out my comfort zone, but please expect more.