This curious tale is an exercise in emulating a certain style, specifically that of a particular horror author. The interesting part is fitting that author's style to world of pokémon. Hopefully I've produced something entertaining. Enjoy.

The Elder Pokémon

Until I played my ghastly role in almost committing the gravest folly humankind has ever sought to undertake, I was seen by many as a strong man and one of most keen mind and scientific nature. Professor Jared Beech, they called me- now I am Inmate Number Thirty-Six, committed for protection from self-harm.

I was the leader of an archaeological dig in the Hoenn Desert. Archaeology was, and is, hardly at the forefront of public interest- if it were so I should fear... yet no, I do fear. I fear so that I am sickened by it, and this fear is not one iota of the true horror...

I shall start at the beginning. Ten years ago, I received a telegram telling me that as part of the Hoenn Archaeological Society I was invited to help head an expedition to uncover what lay below the surface of the western quadrant of the desert. Sonic forays had hinted at subterranean catacombs, yet until a few weeks before I was invited to supervise the expedition, we had no way to further discover possible secrets. However, with the completion of a fantastic new drill design, we could explore further the unknown structures.

Aside from the ten stout workers we brought with us, my companions were my loyal flygon and my partner Pyre, an eccentric Kantonian researcher whose interests lay mostly in the esoteric. I surmised that his inclination towards this expedition lay in the possibility of discovering secrets as yet unknown to man. His constant companion was his friendly arcanine, who seldom left his side and, when forced to, whined pathetically. Such a gentle beast I had never met. She and Flygon were quite amicable and formed a fast friendship while Pyre and I were absent.

The first two days were spent in preparation for the drilling, and Pyre and I were needed only to draw up plans. During that time, like our pokémon, we quickly became friends. Pyre was a man of singular oddity, and yet he was most intriguing. He hinted at strange and obscure branches of research. Once, when we first met, I asked what sort of person he was and, chuckling, Pyre told me he was a 'dreamer'. One did not press such matters with Pyre: his company was for simple enjoyment, not for inquiry into the strange matters and ideas he alluded to.

On the third day we, with our pokémon, oversaw the commencement of the drilling. The operation was a testament to the power of man and pokémon's cooperation. Inside the belly of the powerful drill sat three zubat, using their sonar to search for hidden objects while the drill commenced its relentless excavation towards buried secrets.

No less than seven times over the next two days we halted operation in order to recover possibly valuable submerged objects. Three times we unearthed pokémon fossils; the rest yielded mainly worthless shale and on occasion a rare star piece.

On the fifth day the zubat reported a vast, submerged building; confirmation of what we had been awaiting. Progress thenceforth was almost painfully slow, with conventional drilling equipment and pokémon labour in order to avoid possible damage to the probably ancient submerged structure. I noted a gleam of almost zealous triumph in Pyre's eyes as we surveyed the work.

Midnight of the sixth day found me examining in my tent one of the star pieces we had found when I heard a curious sound, just at the edge of hearing. Stepping outside, I saw from underneath Pyre's tent a gentle glow. I stepped forward and was suddenly struck as though by wind as I heard in guttural tones hinting at a quality just beyond my perception (and yet its presence raised the hair on the back of my neck!):

I'yath najoue Arceus, I'yath najoue Ka-lathe, I'yath sherori, I'yath KAYATH!

Hearing these queer, unknown and frightful sounds, my presence of mind suddenly deserted me and I fled to the refuge of my tent, shivering.

Consciously did these words then escape my mind, yet they were repeated as an endless refrain through the most perplexing, unnerving and faintly horrible dreams that invaded my mind that night:

Nameless, twisting forms writhed around the tendrils of my thought, startling me with their acute awareness. Their senses were alive, and to them I was naked in every way, further even, for my skin melted away under their horrific attentions.

"You are dreaming," said one, a dragon hundreds of miles long, its eyes regarding me with happy malice.

"You are unwanted," growled another, a strange being of whom I could comprehend not voice, form, nor any other aspect I might focus on in a world I knew.

Burning, chaotic hatred. Inconceivable whim, expunging my presence from a world I had been unwillingly drawn into. A hot maelstrom of crushing darkness...

I awoke in a chill sweat with nameless dread sitting in my heart and the memories of being unwanted slipping fast off my burning mind. I staggered outside and the cool night air blew away my sweat and the memories of all that had happened. The dread remained.

The next morning, feeling faintly unsettled, I awoke to find Flygon missing. This I was shocked and saddened to find, but this this distress was only further multiplied when I heard that every pokémon our party members had held were similarly missing. This unnatural disaster destroyed the will of all but one of the workers, and they fled en masse into the desert. I found myself vaguely wondering if ever they would be heard from again.

I grieved in private for my beloved Flygon, the maddening terrors cowing me even as they had compelled the other workers into action. Pyre seemed content to watch the lone worker hurl himself at the final layer of excavation with what was almost manic zeal in the harsh desert sun. Pyre showed a flicker of annoyance as he collapsed, and moved him into the shade before surveying the work he had achieved.

The excavation was complete but for a rock which, without pokémon or machinery, I didn't see how we could budge. Above the rock was a small aperture, but using it to gain entrance to the mostly submerged catacombs was out of the question and would be almost suicidally foolish.

Reflecting upon my actions at this point, I can only surmise that I must have been detached from the horrific implications of the mass exodus or theft- I could not say- of pokémon. This state I suppose had come from both the profound sense of wrongness my horrifyingly thrilling dreams had instilled in me and from my grief over Flygon's inexplicable departure. I slept uneasily and haltingly that night.

I was woken by a creeping reek of singularly mysterious origin. It was entirely unlike anything I had ever smelt, a noisome odour the near-tangibility of which induced severe nausea.

I left my tent to behold in the sickly moonlight the entrance to the cave open, its darkness shockingly plain in the pale light. The mysterious and inexplicable absence of the previously obstructing rock took me aback, yet, perceiving it (rightly so) to be of great portent, I walked into the open entrance to the catacomb. The rock was old, worn and hardly seemed stable, yet curiosity propelled me forward, my scientific nature urging me to discover what lay within this extraordinary cavern.

(I know not now how I exited that lair of known and unknown terrors, nor how the entrance came to be vanished. I am only thankful that the secrets that should never be known- and that we in our hubris almost revealed to the world- remain buried under the sand.)

The odour grew stronger as I entered and I bowed my head, taking several deep breaths with my shirt pressed to my mouth. After a pause, I then raised my head and cast my torch forth. Within the entrance I saw that the place stretched out for at least several hundred metres. The roof was barely six feet high- if I were any taller I might have to stoop. The structure was indeterminably large from the entrance, so I moved forward, the moonlight fading as I entered the strange place. It seemed bare of any ornament, merely a gigantic room any edge of which I could not perceive. After continuing somewhat, I found a narrow stairway that led into still further depths. By the light of my flickering torch, I descended the spiral staircase. Darkness rose to swallow me as the moonlight faded, leaving me with my flickering torch as my only light.

Suddenly I slipped. My torch flew out in front of me as I fell into empty space.

The few seconds of falling through sickening, rushing darkness seemed to last an eternity.

I heard the torch clatter against the floor and crossed my arms in front of my head- and crashed brutally into the ground, the impact severely bruising my shoulder and driving the breath from my lungs.

Blood pounding in my ears, that maddening stench filling my nostrils, I lay curled up for a minute or two, wrapped in darkness.

At length, shivering, I unfolded myself and looked up. Crawling over to my torch, which was mercifully still lit, I went to pick it up before the realisation hit me in the gut- there was a faint footprint in the dust, illuminated by the flickering torchlight. The piercing scream tore itself out of my throat into the still air and thereafter, mouth agape, I could hear only my own breath as I knelt, frozen, in this horrid place.

And then as that hateful, horrid stench crept anew into my mouth- the blood in it was almost palpable- I heard a long, low chuckle.

I quite took leave of my senses then, scrambling around in the stark terror that descended like a ravenous flygon upon my mind.

I came to lying prostrate on the ground, my torch a dwindling light. Grasping it, I leapt up and suddenly by the torchlight beheld writing on the wall:

And He caused the upper class of pokémon to be created. Those He held powerless under Him, Arceus, Ka-lathe, and they held under them their own other servants, but He was the greatest of the Elder Pokémon, and He lies in dark sleep while permitting the lowest creatures to scurry in placid ignorance for His amusement...

Below this was a carven image of man and Nidoking bowing to two strange forms, one looking familiar from Sinnoh mythology. In the background of the carving was a pair of eyes that seemed to burn with malice.

My breath caught in my throat. Was- was this text claiming that the pokémon worshipped as gods were nothing more than powerless servants of a true, primeval God? I shuddered, and for the first time beheld my frightful position within the terrifying vistas of reality. This black, horrific knowledge quickly began to drain my strength of mind. Shaking, I turned slowly to find my fumbling way back to the staircase.

I saw that we had delved too far- for me alone the hideous remembrance of the experience cast a shroud over my mind as the happy ignorance under which I had spent my life was burned away by this harsh truth.

Presently I heard a moan of a familiar voice. Without thinking, I turned the corner and then another- and beheld the fruits of Pyre's endeavours.

I saw him dead and covered in blood, slumped sideways in a circle of candles with his one remaining arm thrown out in front of him and covering his face. His chest was torn open, ribs bared. Sitting next to him, grinning with a mouth covered in blood and gore, was his gentle companion, Arcanine.

I fell to my knees and the palpable stench struck me anew, creeping into my mouth and filling me with its half-mysterious, half-familiar reek. The blood was shockingly familiar, the mysterious element suggesting horrific possibilities I could scarcely bear to consider. Bile rose in my throat and I vomited, the undigested globules splattering on the centuries-old floor.

Absolutely sickened in my heart and soul, my gaze was inexorably dragged upward towards the carnage.

And then Pyre raised his head. Blood ran down his face- his one remaining eye mangled still within its socket. More poured from his gaping mouth, his grinning mouth, as though he were in the grip of some disgusting ecstasy.

"Here and now I can fully claim my place in the dream world; I am free, exalted!" Pyre rasped, his bloody face lit by a hideous light. And then in a sing-song voice, bubbling through blood, now in English:

He created Arceus, He created Ka-lathe, He created all, He is KAYATH!

Yes, I know Lovecraft wasn't really into blood and guts but I'm not trying to ghost-write, and my story needed it.

Anyway, if you're feeling lovely you can leave a review. If you've read any H.P. Lovecraft, I'd appreciate a note as to how I went emulating his style.

"A curious tale told by one Jared Beech, telling of the horrific events that have led him to his current state of incarceration within a mental institution."