~Part 6~

I don't remember the following events very closely. I recall being lift from the ground, as I raced to meet my other half, and a voice that screamed at the distance, I don't know what.

Sometimes, everything was dark; sometimes, I could see everything clear as the day. My thoughts were so confused that I can't even begin to describe them. I could only see clearly that accursed burning eye, never blinking, seeing everything, every time.

In my delirium, I've heard a loud explosion that made all my senses go haywire. I've felt a rumble that shook the very foundations of the mountains in which we were and there was the faint sound of a rock slide. The rock slide became louder and then, there was the horrible, implacable light.

I don't know how a dim light such as the one that poured into the cave managed to be so hurtful, yet, I've never been in so much pain like that one. I could only scream when I felt my body burn and dissolve, as I stood completely paralyzed and helpless. Then, the pain went away all of a sudden.

For a short while, I only heard my own heart, pounding desperately in my chest. Something that seemed like a hand, but couldn't be a hand was gently stroking my hair. I opened my eyes and, despite being in a closed space that should be pitch black, I could see everything around me, in astounding detail.

I didn't knew, then, that something had broken in my mind at that point, but it remains as a fact that I was never the same again.

Tilili and Telili were surprisingly patient and caring towards me. When I finally felt like standing on my own legs, they explained me what had happened since my blackout. Or, more accurately, Tilili explained while Telili grunted in agreement.

I snatched you from the circle of runes, but it was already too late. Her mental tone was sad. An enormous shadow was already forming and it tried to engulf you. Your friend screamed that we should run and we ran as fast as we could. The shadow went after us, all the while trying to reach you. I have read about those horrors that are summoned by the Shining Trapezohedron, how they will try to merge with a conscious being to form an avatar of the Crawling Chaos, and how they are hurt even by the tiniest of the lights. My plan was to get you out of the caves, where the thing couldn't catch you, and try to ban it somehow.

Then, there was this explosion and one of the walls of the cave subsided. The shadow was buried and then bathed in sunlight. It vanished shortly, and you started to scream. We kept running just in case, because there is no way that all this sound didn't attract other shoggoth sentinels. Nothing has appeared yet, but it is just a matter of time. Now, I'm worried about your cold friend. Since the explosion, I can't feel his mental voice in our telepathy circle, and that small abomination went silent too.

I grit my teeth.

We have to go. I don't know where I had found so much determination. We need to get to the plane and prepare it to fly. It was part of the plan that we would not wait for anyone. Besides, we can't afford to help Van Helsing when we, themselves, need help. I've already fled from a giant shoggoth, it isn't a pleasant thing. I suspect you agree with me.

They did. With an "excuse me", Tilili lift me from the ground with her arm tentacles and started to run surprisingly fast for a bulky being with starfish-like tentacles for feet.
We ran in the maze-like corridors, anxious to get out of the complex. At some point, Telili let out an angry grunt.

Yes, I know. Tilili agreed. We are being followed. Let's try to lose it.

They started taking many unnecessary turns, but, judging by Tilili's increasing impatience, I could tell that it wasn't working. As for me, I ignored the Elder Thin… the Elder People's foul smell and nested myself in her barreled body. My newfound vision in the dark meant that, when the monster following us inevitably came out of a corner, I would see him very well, and I wanted to avoid that. She apparently understood my behavior, since she used her spare arm tentacles to increase the protection on me.

A pile of rubble, probable one of the many that the earlier explosion had caused, slowed us down. I felt a sense of dread. Something was coming. I could feel the tension. Suddenly, we could hear a distinct and tired mental voice:

Wait… for me…

It was Linus' voice, without doubt. I relaxed a bit. Yes, he was one of the ugliest things I've ever seen, but at least he was tiny and non-threatening. The two Old Ones didn't agree with me, because Telili still made an angry whistle towards the small proto-shoggoth.

I would follow his advice, shoggoth. Tilili said, her mental voice changing back to a cavernous and frankly alien sound. Where's the cold one? What have you done to him?

Linus shrunk and let his fear whistle out. He started to "talk" incredibly fast I don't know. I don't know. He told me to leave and find you to tell that you shouldn't wait for him. He will catch up later. I didn't know that he would botch a spell and explode everything. I don't know if he's still alive. I only know that the elders will come and we should run if we want to leave.
A likely story. Why don't we feel his mind? She said. You traitorous goo, I should burn you to ashes right now.

The being closed all of his eyes and his fear whistle became even more high-pitched. I know I would regret it later, but I couldn't bear it anymore:

Wait. I meddled. Excuse me, Miss, but we are assuming too much. If Linus is a traitor, it wouldn't be smart to kill the only member of the group that trusted him. Let's keep him. At worst, we still can use him as a ransom. Now, our focus is running.

Tilili grunted a "fine" as her voice become more feminine again. Telili also grunted, and I suspected it had a similar meaning. I just hoped it was the best decision.

We reached the plane surprisingly easily. No one was in the mood of talking. I was feeling exhausted, like I was a stuck in a day that would never end (which wasn't far from the truth, since we were in the South Pole at summer), but I still found the energy to put the plane in flying conditions. It was ready to take off at any given moment.

We were worried that there was no sign of Van Helsing's mental activity until that point. He could be just out of reach, but we all silently feared for the worse. Since there wasn't any immediate sign of danger, we decided to wait a little for him.

Our mistake, of course.

A little far from us, the there was an explosion of ice and stone. We could barely see a dark small figure jump out of the hole. This thing dashed to us and a voice filled my head:

What are you still doing here?! Run! RUN!

Oh, thanks God, our pilot was alive.

What about you?! I was stupid enough to ask. Come, we will wait. He wasn't that far. He surely could make it to the…

There was a new explosion and a bigger – WAY BIGGER – hole appeared on the ground. A black blasphemous mass of writhing tentacles appeared from it, with green phosphorescent eyes blinking madly. The air was filled with the unnerving chant of the word 'tekeli-li', repeating ad-nauseam.

I don't know exactly how, but the two tall and bulky Elder Th… People and Linus fitted in the small compartment for the passengers. When I came back from pure panic, I was already at the pilot seat and the plane was flying. I was just an amateur, though, and it worried me. How would I save our friend? Or, better yet, where was he? Dammit, if he had let that monster eat him, I would kill him again.

I'm here, professor, calm down. His 'voice' appeared in my mind, amused. All speed to the nightgaunts' cave, the quicker we get out of this accursed place, the better. I'm right behind you.

I didn't even try to spot him behind the plane. I just shrugged. We are out of the reach of this thing. What could happen?

At this point of the story, you would think that I was smarter than that already.
Of course the big shoggoth abomination that was tracking Van Helsing would sprout enormous wings and fly towards us. What was I expecting, really?

I may have been hysterical for a little while. First, I started to have delusions of the plane being filled with mist. After that, I have no clear memory of how I was shoved from the pilot seat by Van Helsing (I don't even know how he managed to enter the plane, for that matters), of how my seatbelt was buckled, nor I remember when I stopped screaming.
What brought me back to sanity (if my state can be called 'sanity' by any measure) was the fact that I was suddenly blind. It made me enter another kind of panic mode that cleared my mind and allowed me to "hear" telepathic communication again.

You will have your vision back soon, professor, now breath. Van Helsing had assumed his hard 'military voice' again. This plane is not fitted for this, but I'm doing some maneuvers to the best of my possibilities to gain some time. It brings your blood to your feet and may cause temporary blindness. I'm sorry, but it's the only way. That thing out there is fast.

After that, there was a silence in the physical world and in the mental link that made it possible for me to hear my own scared heartbeats. I focused on my breathing, as the plane shook and made sharp curves in the air. I'm not an overly religious man, but at this time, I recited every single prayer I could remember in rapid succession. Judging by the weird chanting that I was "listening" in my mind, no doubt from our alien guests, I wasn't the only one doing this.

The prayers became quicker as it looked like we were plummeting to the ground at a horrible speed. At the last possible moment, the plane started rising again, forming a sharp V trajectory. I imagined more than I heard a disgusting "splat" sound when a big shadow passed by us.

Ha! Success! Van Helsing cried, joyously. Let's get out of here!

I peeked through the window and saw the horrible greenish goo puddle in the ground, but I didn't feel any joy myself, because it was still moving.

The plane flew as quick as it could, considering that it had two humans, two bulky elder ones, a fun-sized shoggoth and some luggage. We were conquering the harsh winds that came from the mountains protecting the dead city when I finally saw the tiny black spot detach itself from the ground and grow wings again. Any hope I had that it would forget us and go home was lost when it went in our direction.

We were far from the monster, but it was gaining on us quicker than I would like. When it was close enough for me to see the eyes and the horrendous gaping maws of the monster, Van Helsing quipped, unnervingly calm:

Brace yourselves, we will start evading maneuvers.

The next few minutes were a confusion of sensations. I don't know what I saw, I don't know what I heard, I don't know what I thought. All I know is that the plane shook me left and right while I was in a constant state of dread. Suddenly, everything was back in its place. The plane started flying straight again. I wanted to check if we had lost our pursuer, but the scene ahead of us took all my attention. We were right out of a cave, and its entrance was filled with a black mass of beings with bat wings and no faces. They were coming towards us and I felt an irrational fear of them. I was about to grab Van Helsing's arm to force him to fly away from the things, but he did it first. He steered the plane violently upwards, making a sloppy "L" shape. Tens, maybe hundreds of those bat-winged things ignored us and kept flying in a straight line to the shoggoth that was right behind us. After they stopped swarming from the cave, we changed direction right into it.

Heh. It's always useful the fact that the nightgaunts are blind. Van Helsing said, after we successfully entered the cave. I hope that the shoggoth understands the hint, I personally think that it would be a pity if it entered here after us. If Linus told us the truth, these big guys protect their people and they need all protectors they can find in this environment. Especially now that the anomaly is destroyed and this place is entirely in the Dreamlands domain.

I felt like I was losing something important:

When the anomaly got destroyed? I don't remember it.

Oh, well, that's why I was left behind by you guys with the dynamite. When you stepped those 'runes' in that room in the mountain, something was summoned. I studied the 'runes' briefly and noticed that they didn't call the monster. It was the room itself. It was all slanted and weird, and it somehow made the room, I don't know, magical? Anyway, I just had to use a little dynamite to defile the form of the walls. After the explosion, the entire mountain shook with much more violence that I could have anticipated, like I had triggered an earthquake and I could hear all sorts of strange noises and laments and screaming voices. In the end of all this commotion, I couldn't feel any anomaly in the mountains anymore. See how our radio is completely mute? It can't connect with waking Earth anymore.

And how have you survived that? I was incredulous. He laughed at my outraged voice.

Well, I can survive pretty much anything. Whoa, look out!

The plane did a barrel roll out of nowhere, almost ejecting me from my seat. When it was back to normal, I finally noticed two important things: I was still able to see things in the dark and this unnatural vision showed me that we weren't in a normal cave.

Now, just to make sure you understand how crazy the situation was, let me remind you how planes are able to fly. They need space and speed, with winds flying through the wings just the right way. Inside a cave, we would have speed, but no space or enough air to keep us flying. The plane would crash (at worst) or simply land and keep moving on ground (at the absolute best).

None of things happened, which would have tipped me that things weren't right, but I kind of was busy with other things. Now that I was looking beyond the windows, I could see that this cave was incredibly huge. There was a blackness under us that even my vision couldn't penetrate, hinting of immeasurable depths and stonewalls so tall that we couldn't see where they met the roof, if there was any. If the whole mountain was hollowed, the resulting cave wouldn't be as big as this one. It looked like we were in another realm of existence.

We are in another realm. Van Helsing explained. It's another layer of the Dreamlands, called Noden's Abyss. Nightgaunts guard the portals to this layer. I know how to navigate this place, which doesn't mean that I like it. We have to get away from here as quickly as we can, or we could…

Hm, people, it's been a difficult task to keep ourselves stable back here, so we were just listening your instructive conversation. Tilili cut his "speech", a little nervous. But we felt that we should intrude to point out that the shoggoth made it into the cave.

Sure enough, there was a horrible mass with titan wings flying towards us. I heard our pilot sighing.

Poor guy.

None of us could express our outrage at this, because of the thing. From the unfathomable depths of the abyss, something emerged. It looked like a viscous, faceless, grotesque worm, writhing in hateful body undulations. We could only dread for our lives as this apparition enveloped the shoggoth that was after us and dragged it whole to the unknown blackness.

W-What was that? And here I thought that nothing could scare me anymore.

Have you seen it? Van Helsing asked, with a curious emphasis in the word "seen".

How couldn't I see it? It was huge!

He looked at me doubtfully, but immediately returned his attention to our course.

It was a dhole's tongue. Something that should be invisible to humans. He stated this in a clearly controlled voice. We don't have any reason to keep flying within its reach. Let's get out of this hellhole.

The plane started to rise in a prodigious speed. I haven't any idea that it could be so quick. After a long and exhausting day like this one, I started to feel our activity taking its toll in my body. I remember to have entered a small panic about we running out of fuel, but then I couldn't move from my seat. My body was heavy and my tongue was tied. I slept right there, vaguely wondering if I could have a dream within the Dreamlands.