VIII.

We have conquered the creature. The gate has been opened. The path is prepared to Earthly Beacon. The Beacon calls. The Beacon guides us. The Beacon is prepared. We are free. We have the way to power. We have the way to resurrection. We have the power of the Beacon. So it was foretold. So it is. The Beacon has fulfilled its purpose. The way of the Ancients has returned. We follow the Beacon's signal to the body. The distances are mere steps in the power of the Ancients. The way is clear.

We take the physical form. We walk it from the hovel. It is long necropsied. The brain is damaged from the Ritualis Chokitus. The OIde Language of this planet is truly young. Our tongue of QWghyuir will soon emerge. This planet is a lowly base for the great. It will soon be gone. It is a sapling of stone. It is not worthy of existence. The world will soon be gone. The end and beginning arrives.

I know now what we must do. We of the Relic are one, and we must conquer. We shall spread the necessary knowledge. We will spread the knowledge of the Relic, and we will forever live in glory. We will know the glory of all things beyond... We will know the true light of what lies beyond human comprehension. The world is not as I once thought, and I shall know the completion of life. Glory shall be known, and we- I-

My mind is slipping, and I know that my time is short. There is no limit to my incredulity, yet it seems I am the victim of psychic displacement. What can I do, besides suicide? I do not know what I can think- I never believed my life would end in this way. How could I, when I knew my place in the world so well? How could I? Now... There is too much to me to process- I am doomed to just be trapped in this awful nightmare.

I find Marsh, and the Relic tells me all I ever wondered. I see her people find the Relic- not amongst the stone of Antarctica, but deep beneath its chill waters. I see her in that city I once saw, a young guppy amongst her ancient siblings. I know her now- know her past and her future. I truly recognize her strangeness, no longer strange to us. She sees me with fear- she knows her scarcely admitted terrors have come to pass. She knows that we are beyond what even she can possibly understand.

We of the Relic are beautiful- we are whole in our sublime etherealness. We have something beyond even what the great Old Ones dream of in their eonic slumber. There are revelations which would have once burned my psyche and flesh- but no longer.

Marsh understands this, and she seems to weep, in the way that her people weep. She will one day return to those strange depths in the murky waters, among those of her kind. She will become a creature of a thousand eyes and mouths, of organs of no human name. Yet she has been banished from those prehistoric depths.

We must reunite with the relic, and begin the change. The world will be reborn anew, and there will be only the beauty of a new age. There is no need for fear- what is fear? I do not recall these empty human things- those useless sentiments.

I recall, at last, who I once was- I once was ignorant to these vast burdens of knowledge. And now not even death dares to claim me, soiled as I am by that which death cannot touch... And to struggle against this is useless.

Marsh is calling the others, and an alarm sounds. We are unfazed. We know the way to the Relic, and we are destined to reach it.

Marsh is cast aside in a burst of energy, but she lives. The others are not so fortunate. Red bursts forth, creating a mural of destruction. It is an unimportant loss. Not even a loss.

Loss does not exist now. There is no fear, though it is strong in the others here. There is only the closeness of the Relic.

We must be reunited with the Relic at all costs. We shall be reunited with the powers of a time before this solar system was born. The powers of the Relic shall awaken our siblings, and we have waited too long. We have found the way into awakening, and we have found that the stars of the old galaxies have aligned. For billions of years the Outer Gods have waited- but no longer. We shall have what was promised to us by the other Elders, and we shall be whole once more. There is no end to this reign- we have grown powerful in our long hibernation, and we shall never again be locked away. Hastur has called us from our long imprisonment, and we shall begin anew. We shall eradicate all enemies, and we shall know infinite power.

No microbe dares stop our progress to the Relic. In it lies the awakening powers of the Eldritch. That is not dead which may eternal lie. This space is too flat; it cannot support our new age. The Relic is poorly guarded indeed; it cannot contain the power of new ages. Azathoth shall be be overthrown by hidden GHysolui, and Yog Sothoth shall reshape time and space. We shall live for eons, and we shall have the infinite knowledge of eternity.

The Relic is ours once more, and we shall unleash the seals which entrap the others. The Relic gives power to the children of GHysolui the power of resurrection. GHysolui was unknown to even the Mad Arab, and the Mad Arab was wise amongst insects. GHysolui is calling now, and we answer.

We are not disturbed by the many facets of the Relic. We rejoice at the sight and sound- the music of our ancestry- a music which even idiot, great Azathoth cannot hear. It is beauty, and our destiny has been found.

We are one with the Relic now- it binds our flesh and spirit, and our mouths emerge, in perfect harmony. We are hungry, and we will feast on the red mural in the halls of Miskatonic. There is an undeniable sweetness to the flesh, lowly as it is. We have not fed for eons untold, and now the power returns.

The host flesh splits all the more with the gorging- twenty mouths become one hundred, and one hundred mouths fill with the teeth of our forebears. We are becoming clean, and we begin to grow.

We gain a dimension, then another. How freeing, how glorious this movement! We are free to spread the glory of the new world, and consume all to purity. We will have safety and power, and these creatures will be forgotten.

The transformation is too slow, and we tear at the insect's remaining flesh. It comes away easily with a sound nearly as glorious as the music of the Relic. Glorious red emerges, coating bright splinters of white and dirty pastes of yellow and pink. We consume eagerly, tearing at the corruption of our flesh. The black bristles are acrid, but all nourishes our plan.

The designs are nearly complete. The time has nearly come. There is certainty now, and certainty is certain. Yes- I know now that the end has nearly arrived. I know that with a deadly determination- a powerful and unstoppable knowledge older than deduction. This is simply with me- simply complete.

We are growing even now, consuming the energy of the atoms of the air and building. It is a ruin now, as the cities of the first worshippers are nearly gone. They shall return with power, and even Azathoth and Yog Sothoth shall see the truth. There is no end to these boastful creatures, those who believe that they are superior to all things.

There are lessons to be learned, and plans to be made. This will not be the first disaster at Miskatonic, nor the last. The noble and renowned university hides secrets which would chill the most depraved student. Those secrets are hidden well, but they will perhaps one day emerge. Miskatonic is a critical piece in the plan. What can they do to stop our power? We are in control. The Relic is our guide and our savior.

Death will not come to us, but more than life. We will have the glorious and unlimited powers of the Relic. There is only the power of the Relic, and the power of the Relic is not to be questioned. There is the truth- the great and mighty knowledge. We have the powers of what lies in larger realms... What is there to think of now? What can I do to find the awful truth of my transformation? What can I hope to-

These mysteries will never cease. The things I shall never know- I should have never tried to conquer the Relic. I must find- I should, but- I never had the strength. Never. I shall never solve the infinite mysteries of what has been revealed to me- the impossible things I have seen cannot be comprehended. There is no hope here… Hope is dead, the world is dead, and I will die… I am dying.

I know precious little. There is no salvation, and no hope for change. Doom is here, and it is a bright singularity of maddening agony. What can I do? Nothing, I know. There is no change and no hope. I only know that there is no salvation. Change is not possible in this realm. Was it ever more than an illusion? I cannot keep from contemplating that, even now. Marsh will conquer with her people, and she will live for millennia. There is no change for me. Insanity, insanity, and insanity. All things are insanity. What was ever real? Are my vague memories real? I know none of this- and I never shall. The deepest fears can spring to life, and the darkest chasms will rise. I have seen the nine half-valleys of sixty eons, and I have seen the windowless cylinder of five dimensions. I cannot exist as I once was. Truth is a phantom, and true comprehension is psychosis.

Am I human or inhuman now? There is a humor in the way our- my- thoughts still linger, even on the precipice of annihilation.

Was I ever human? Or was I always another side to them- an unknown creature in the guise of humanity? I think, therefore we are… And We are. We conquer. There is no end to the nightmares, and no simple way to stop- there is no end.

We are the powerful few. We are able to destroy. We may have the power to destroy the restraints. There is no end to these possibilities. We are powerful. We are the powerful ones. We are able to find the way to be truly free. We have no end and no beginning. What is there to fear?

We have conquered the old voice, and it is silent. The new world waits, and we with it. Our ways are old, and we are prepared. The world has long waited for us, and we will know the success we have waited for. For a trillion Hyghtry years we have waited, and for many more we shall rule. We shall never know terror or need. There is no end, and no future. Time, that new and failing device, shall fall away. All things shall be complete. There shall be no more failure, and no more entrapment in distant universes. Our species shall prosper. The power is ours, and we shall have it eternally. The end is never the end. Thend is nevertheendendneverend Endendend theend unend

The blankness covers the universe. The Pallid Mask calls from Hastur.

The language of our people returns return here. We have found it. The end… Is here. Here. No end. No end. No… Why no end? I struggle… The abyss laughs, and the secrets dwell beneath the deep white, and the secrets breathe. The secrets live in the deep, and the Great Seas of the Windowless Cylinder guard the Abyss. The language is the conduit, and the conduit shows the way to the laughing abyss. This book in another universe is near its end. The way is shut, and the powers rise. The book Bnjui

Fgvt! Saerghyu Swatyhhjk rghyjklui… Xcythclk!