THE VISIONS OF AZATHOTH

WARNING: The visions revealed herein depict the darkest recesses of our reality. If you are haunted by past traumas, do not proceed! Every horror of this world is depicted here. This is not a story for children, and it is not a story for those with gentle hearts. Hate, and pain, and suffering are vividly depicted in these stories. If there is any subject which will cause you unbearable pain, turn back now. These visions are revealed to illuminate, not to harm; but some are not prepared to face the darkness. It is with respect and empathy that I tell you: this story is not for you!

Note: Some portions of the original text may be redacted, or censored, so that they may meet the standards of publication. I have done my best to make sure that this story can be told in as uncompromising a fashion as possible, and it is my hope that someday the story may be told in its full and unredacted form.

Abguvat vf pbirerq hc gung jvyy abg or erirnyrq, be uvqqra gung jvyy abg or xabja.
GTLC S

Chapter One: A Dream

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired.
- Sonnet 27, William Shakespeare

"Come child," said the whisperer in the darkness, "I have wondrous things to show you."

The voice echoed in the vast vacuum of chaos. It was a whisper - a woman's ragged voice which hissed in the void. Where am I? she thought. As if in answer, a light sprung to life before her, the flickering red-and-orange glow of a flame. As her eyes adjusted to the light she saw that it was a lantern. It was four-sided, wrought in gold, and an icon shone in its centre. It was a star made by two intersecting triangles, aglow with blue light. It took her a moment before her eyes fell upon the figure which held the lantern.

"Come with me, murderess," the old woman said, her white smile unnaturally wide "your apocalypse has come."

Terror seized her heart and for a moment she stood petrified. An old woman stood before her, naked; but what terrified her was the burns which covered her from head to toe. Patches of scar tissue, red and pink and black, covered her emaciated frame like a mottled tapestry. Only the barest suggestion of breasts remained, only two scabrous mounds. She had no discernible privates, between her legs ran melted flesh. Here and there flaps of skin hung loose. But what was most horrific was her face.

Under one eye the eyelid had melted away and the top one receded, so it looked as though her eye was being pried open. The other eye had nearly melted shut, with only a thin slit which slanted downwards. Her nose had been destroyed, only two skeletal nostrils remained, blood glistening on the raw mound. Only a few patches of hair remained on her head, a clump of black hair on one side, a clump of white on the other, with stray hairs sprouting here an there atop her blackened scalp. Her mouth was stretched back in a wide, crooked, demonic rictus grin. What remained of her lips were taught and leathery, grinning malevolently over her white and gleaming teeth.

The burned woman saw her revulsion and laughed, a sharp, high cackle. Her mouth clacked and hissed. Saliva ran down her chin.

This is only a dream! She thought.
"Is it?" the Burned woman asked, "Is it only a dream?"

Something flew around the Burned Woman's lantern. A moth, she thought.

"Not a moth, girl," the Burned Woman said, "a butterfly."
"Where am I?" she asked, in a voice that was not her own.
"In your grave." The Burned Woman said with a smile. "Get a good look, so that you may see it coming."

She was in some vast cathedral. It stretched on over some vast expanse. She could not see the walls nor the ceiling, but she could see the rows of pillars and the floor below her. They were made of black stone, and the pillars arched outwards as they rose, as if they held up some barrel-vaulted ceiling. She did not recognize this place, yet she did.

"He sees you," the Burned Woman said.

She saw two eyes of burning fire, floating high up in the darkness. There was a doorway in the distance. A huge arched doorway, which opened into outer space. The stars shone brightly. Three stars formed a triangle in the sky, one of red, one of blue, and one of green. But the stars were concealed as a huge figure materialized. It was a man, a giant, seated upon a gleaming emerald throne. His body was made of molten medal and wreathed in an aura of green-and-indigo flame. The burning eyes which had floated in the void now peered down from his head. His body changed from molten metal, to raging fire, to thick red blood.

"Run!" The Burned Woman screamed, "Flee into the darkness! Flee into the ancient forest!"

She turned and ran. She was in some vast primeval forest. An owl hooted, a raven quorked. Animals were moving among the trees. She was cold and naked and afraid. Wrapping her arms around herself she ran blindly through the trees. "Virgin Mother," the Burned Woman said from among the trees, "Magdalene… Hekate…" Branches whipped at her flesh, branches grabbing at her as she ran. A wolf howled in the distance.

She came into a clearing. An ancient elm stood before her, and below its branches stood a man. Huge and muscular, his body was made of stone and her eyes were black obsidian. His cold eyes inspected her. He seemed strangely familiar somehow. The giant reached out to her calmly, gently, but she became afraid and ran from him. As she flew among the trees she heard the deep granite roar of the pale giant.

She had been running for years. Time congealed around her as she ran through the liquid air. A man of surpassing beauty reached out to her as she passed. With blond hair and bright green eyes he had a feminine beauty which she found captivating, but she feared a trap, so she kept running

"Wait," he called to her, "come back!"

She spun back around to find herself back in that cavernous cathedral once more. The flaming giant was gone. In its stead stood an obelisk of fiery stone, which filled the room with orange light. The doorway to the stars still stood against the far wall, and the trio of stars still sat in its centre. In front of the pillar of fire stood twelve men dressed in golden robes with dark blue hoods, speckled with stars. Their hoods concealed their faces. Though their faces were shrouded in darkness, she knew each man. No… She thought, confused, I don't know these men at all… Do I?

In front of them, the thirteenth man. He was tall, unnaturally so, and the steepled mitre on his head made him seem almost a giant. His skin was dark, his expression and demeanor regal, his eyes aglow with amber light. He wore robes of crimson, its fringes traced with elaborate embroideries of golden thread. His tall mitre was crimson too, and it bore a strange sigil embossed on a gold medallion. He held out a large hand, in which he held a polyhedron of opaque amethyst. The orb began to hover from his hand as it came alive with iridescent light. Fractal rainbows scattered in all directions and she was hypnotized by its beauty.

"Don't be fooled," the Burned Woman whispered, standing behind her, "He's found you at long last… He sees you… and he sees me, too."

She looked down and saw her belly was swollen, and she could feel the baby which stirred restlessly inside her. She could feel her child's fear, so she too became afraid. The hooded men had encircled her. Their old, grasping hands grabbed at her naked body. Grasping and her breasts, and her behind, their dry hands tried to wriggle between her thighs. They want my baby! She struck out at them blindly until she heard one cry out in agony. There was a sword in her hand, running red with blood. She had driven the blade through the chest of one of the men.

"It—It wasn't me!" She cried out. She dropped the sword and held her hands up in a plaintive gesture.

"It was you," the Burned Woman said, grinning malevolently, "It was always you, murderess! It will always be you, the Virgin-Whore of Babylon!"

She ran once more, fleeing from the grasping hands of the cloaked men. Back into the ancient forest, cold and unknowable, with strange animals lying in wait. She heard the chanting of the Burned Woman in her head, though she was nowhere in sight.

"My heart, my mother! My heart, my mother!"

She saw a young woman, who's hair changed from blonde, to brown, to black, to red. A lion sat at her side, her hand resting on its head. She held a pair of scales in her other hand. She wore a beautiful translucent white dress. Her eyes changed colour, just as her hair did. The woman smiled and blood ran from her mouth. And as she smiled, a second smile opened across her throat, blood washing down her breasts and staining the pure-white dress she wore. Behind her materialized an immense tree, taller than a skyscraper. It was made of sapphire, its crystalline trunk rising and splitting into a dense canopy of branches which spread out triumphant against the starry sky above.

Three beautiful women danced naked around the tree. The first had red hair, she thrashed about in frenzied agony. The second had black hair, her dance was calm and dignified. The third had black hair about one side of her head, and white hair on the other side. Her dance was sad and melancholy. Though each of them had their own dance, the words they sang, they sang in unison:

"Harmachis, Anumis, Hekate, and Shu… Tefnut, Seb, Sa, Isis, and Tmu… Horus and Amon, Amenta and Sa… In Duat, find Thoth, the scribe of the gods!"

The tree shone as topaz, then aquamarine, then a radiant emerald green. She heard its voice inside her mind: 'I am Yesterday; I know Tomorrow.'

"Who, then, are you?" a raven asked her, resting on her shoulder.
"I am Osiris," she replied, "Eternal as the day, everlasting as the night."
"No!" The voice cut through the silence of the woods. A man emerged from the darkness. He was a middle aged man, stern and paternalistic. "You are weak, and small, and stupid, and scared."
"Plunge the blade, girl!" The Burned Woman hissed in her ear. "Let his blood flow! Gut the pig! Kill the father!"

The bloody sword was in her hand once more. She thrust it into her father's chest. But the sword was a golden key which she thrust into a keyhole. The cyclopean bronze doors opened before her, and she stepped into a moonlit palace. A vast Greco-Roman palace blossomed before her, its walls of marble rose thousands of feet into the air, its checkerboard floor ran off to the horizons. She stood on the surface of the moon, she knew, the cosmos expanding out above her. Across the vast expanse of the moonlit palace a blue, ethereal glow emanated; and a pale mist moved over the floor. On opposite ends of panorama rose two colossal, fluted columns, one of black marble, the other of white marble. It was these columns which held up the firmament.

She was breathless. The beauty and the magic of this place had overwhelmed her. She could see the swirls of distant galaxies, nebulae, and great red eye at the centre of the universe. She saw a vision of three golden wheels, like the wheels of a wagon. The three wheels were interlinked, the first and third spun in one direction, the middle spun in the opposite.

"It is all within the dreamer's crystal prison," the Burned Woman told her. She stood before her, moonlight mist swirling around her burnt and bloody body. The woman was revolting. Her scabrous flesh and her rictus grin filled her with a mix of fear and hatred, but she knew that this woman had a deeper knowledge than she could comprehend, and that drew her forth. "Let me take you past the crystal veil."

The woman led her to a spiral staircase which rose up into cosmos. Its sides were banded with gold bannisters and its steps were made of marble steps of black and white, like some great piano ascending into the skies. The woman was first to climb the stairs, but as she took her first step a voice called out behind her.

"Wait!" he bellowed. It was the red magician. "She is a liar! She will lead you to your doom!"

He stood among the cloaked men, who eyed her hungrily. The magician held out the rainbow stone.

"Come with me," he said, is amber eyes aglow, "and I will grant you power beyond your wildest dreams."
"You'll grant her death and deception," the Burned Woman hissed back, spit dribbling down her chin. She turned her gaze upon her. "He intends to make you a slave."
"I would make you a goddess," the magician said.
"No one can make you a goddess," the Burned Woman said, "Come with me and see what the Archons have hidden from your eyes."

She found herself ascending the spiral staircase, her curiosity had won. She followed the Burned Woman up and up and up. Aeons passed and still they climbed, until they had gone past time itself. When they had reached the top, twenty-five thousand years had passed, and now she was drifting through the vacuum of space. She saw the three stars again, red and blue and green, forming a perfect triangle among the stars. Between the stars, a light emerged, a golden star. It grew in the sky as she watched it. As it came nearer she saw that it was not a star or a planet, but a great golden eye. In its centre was a thin black pupil, slitted like a cat's.

"Yaldabaoth," the Burned Woman whispered in her ear, "Azathoth… Azathoth awakens."

The Eye grew. A great eye of golden fire, so bright it blinded her. She shielded her eyes from its glow. It grew and grew, larger than any star, larger than any galaxy. And as it grew its fire extinguished galaxies. Before it, all matter was annihilated.

"Seek the servants of Satan!" the Burned Woman screamed in agony before the golden fire incinerated her.

The eye knew all that was, and all that would be. Every love and every hate; every war and every peace. But it didn't care. It grew closer and closer, larger and larger, until it filled the sky. Trillions of lives extinguished, time and space obliterated. And it swallowed the universe, it was the universe. And it didn't care. It was looking for something. It's looking for me. The fear that filled her then was so profound she thought she would die of fright. Finally, its eye narrowed on her. Her body was torn into pieces. It saw her.

And when it saw her, everybody died.