Carrying Water (Part One)
He was going to be late, he just knew it. The waters only turn on for a short time at the crack of dawn, and his tardy pace will surely make this crack into a fissure, leaving no water at all for him. Darting out of the door between immense timbers, his feet hit the cobblestone street with an urgency so pure that it seems to be imbued, and he focuses on the direction he is headed as if it’s the only thing he knows. Despite the obscurity and isolation of his vocation, it is centrally located within the city, making the path out the front door perilous, a risk in and of itself.
Luckily, without water to carry, he is able to be much lighter on his feet, almost floating between steps as he weaves between passersby, making sure not to knock into any knees. Besides the length in the land between himself and his objective and its bustling busyness, the only other issue comes in the form of four-legged thieves, who will make attempts to abscond with his liquid even when he has none in hand, so he has to stay vigilant.
Into the Earth: Book Two
I now find myself buried somewhere even further within this “cave”, if you can really call it that. My plan failed, I was unable to stay in the place I was hiding for long at all. Not five minutes after I returned my journal to my bag, something shifted. When I reached back, my elbow pressed into the wall, activating a mechanism unseen by me.
Frigid air began to cool the left side of my body, and the sound of two large stones sliding against one another reverberated off the smooth walls surrounding me. I could feel it in my bones, and as I stood frozen in that moment, my gut sank below bedrock. Immediately, I realized the situation I had gotten myself into, and my hand dove back into my bag, searching for a torch.
Into the Earth: Book One
Monday, August 14th, 1876:
I awake in a cold sweat, today is the day. The anniversary of the day I decided to dive into the Earth. The cave was known to me for some time when I finally stepped in, and I would never be the same. I bring this page to the beginning in order to introduce you to a collection of entries I assembled myself, in order to illustrate the exact path to my current, heretical state. These entries were originally meant for me and me alone, in order to regain some control of myself, but I could no longer selfishly hoard this corpus of horror. The world needs to know about these events, to understand what truly is contained within this world which feigns innocence on the surface. If that intrigues you, then prepare to have your assumptions destroyed.
We begin this tale at the shores of the island called "God's Head", in a small, one man expedition vessel. I brought plenty provisions, sparing nothing, as far as I could tell. But how could I? What it would take for this leap of faith into the Earth was truly a mystery to me.