Forbidden Knowledge

A Worm/Lovecraft Crossover

I was trapped inside that locker and the walls closed in. Covered in filth, the rancid smell of fermented blood and dry vomit assaulted my senses. I did not know at the time how long I was trapped in there. Days afterward, lying in a hospital bed, I was told that it had only been a few hours but at the time, overwhelmed by panic and despair, it felt like an eternity.

What was it like in that moment? I was angry, desperate to get out. I cried, called for help until my throat was raw and voice was hoarse. Still, no one came, and as time lingered, surrounded in the confines of the locker, I despaired. In retrospect I know now that those thoughts may have been a tad melodramatic. But in the bottom of my heart, there was the faint suspicion that I might die there.

So yes: I desperately wanted to get out. In a perfect world, someone would have come. Perhaps one of the students would have stood up to Sophia and Emma and released me no matter the consequences. I used to think that people were inherently good, that heroism was real, in such a silly cliché that there is still hope in the world. No one came.

At some point, the desire to escape became overwhelmed by an even deeper desire to understand. Of everyone at Winslow, Sophia had singled me out. True, I don't doubt she targeted others among my classmates, but the extremes to which she brought herself on that day… why would she do this to me? Why would she do this to anyone? And Emma. Emma had been my friend. Hell, she had been my only friend. What had I done to her that deserved such cruelty? Had I betrayed her some way? Was all this my fault?

Deep down, a single desire reverberated in my psyche: I didn't want to escape so much as I wanted to know; to understand. Why is the world the way it is? Why do friends betray friends, why do the Endbringers attack, why do millions around the world suffer in silence, dying in anonymity, squalor and despair? I wanted to know everything, and I wanted it so desperately. And as that desire, that need, crystallized in my head, I caught a glimmer, an image of a dance: of two vast creatures together in the void. And in that moment, seeing them dance, I saw something beyond, hidden in the vastness of space, embedded within the very tapestry of the universe itself.

Do not ask me to describe what I saw, for there are some things human beings are not meant to know; there are some things they should not have to know, and there are images that will be burned in my memory until I die.

You label me insane. Psychotic. Maybe schizophrenic as well. One hundred years ago, you would have locked me up in an asylum and thrown away the key. I can tell you though, that even though I am broken, I will freely admit that much, you can't help me. What I have come to know, what I wished to understand, is horror beyond the Endbringers themselves. You look at me when I say this, the skepticism is obvious on your face, and you ask me questions, trying to pry further answers, to understand what you believe to be delusions.

Fine, I will speak, though I do not expect you to understand. At that moment, in the locker, watching that dance in the heavens, I caught a glimpse of something behind it: something incomprehensibly vast lurking in the depths of the universe. And it was not alone.

Horrors are sleeping in the hidden depths of reality, waiting for the stars to align. And whoever is unfortunate enough to live in that time will be devoured. They have slept for millions, perhaps even billions, of years in secret places across this world, and every other world, and when they awaken… Let me put it this way: Leviathan, Simurgh, even the Great Beasts in the Ether: they will all be but prey. Food for horrors that will run rampant across the universe, reclaiming what was once theirs. What hope will humanity have when that moment comes, when we can barely hold off the Endbringers as it is? How will we hold off that flood, when we can barely keep the insects at bay? Or perhaps we will have been wiped out long before that point comes. Honestly, that would be the more merciful option.

You look at me, a glimmer of skepticism in your eyes. Don't bother denying it, I did not expect you to believe me. How could you? You weren't there. You didn't see what I saw. F %k, I wish I didn't see what I saw. The subject laughs bitterly In all honesty, I wish that was the worst that I knew. I asked for understanding, remember, for knowledge, but the Great Old Ones sleeping away for eons, waiting to rise and rampage, that's not really an answer, is it? Not to the questions I asked anyway. It's just a confirmation that civilization is damned, one way or another.

In itself, that would have been overwhelming. But it wasn't what broke me. That wasn't the worst thing that I saw… The subject is silent for a moment, apparently gathering herself, suddenly hesitant and afraid I beheld the face of God, the mind of the Creator, and in that moment it all made sense. Why the world is such a hellhole.

People have the underlying assumption that God is good, but look at this world and tell me: do you honestly believe that's true? The reality is, the cold unyielding truth that I learned: God is a lunatic, a petty creature of unlimited power that created the universe on a whim, without even realizing it, focused so much as It is on Its own petty entertainments, like a child kicking down anthills. That's all we are. Momentary diversions for a drooling idiot, if It cares to note us at all.

Perhaps that doesn't sound so terrible to you. Philosophers have discussed such matters in theory after all. Maybe you'd find the idea unpalatable, but hardly something to inspire madness. Then again, you didn't see what I saw. You didn't hear what I heard. The cacophony, the insanity, the warped depravity of it all: you can't possibly comprehend something of that scale, and I can't adequately explain it. There are no words in the human vocabulary that could describe the sheer awesome horror of such things.

You look at me with such concern, as you take down a record of our session. Perhaps as you set about recording this entire conversation, or at least my half of it. Don't bother lying to me: you don't believe me. I wouldn't either, were I you. I'm not asking you to, but you wish to understand what you believe to be my delusions. You think you can help me, somehow restore my sanity, make me fit to reintegrate into society, but you can't. Honestly, Taylor Hebert died in that locker, and I'm all that remains of her. I am past saving. So please, stop these interviews. Stop trying to know, to understand, to help.

You'll be happier being ignorant. I know I was.