Death, Damnation and a Tax Declaration

The gates opened and the Ancient Ones awoke. No storm, no roar. They did not engulf the world like a tsunami but seeped quietly and silently into our universe. Time had no meaning within the black planes of formless darkness. Much time would pass before the mortals noticed what was happening, but when they finally did, it would be already too late.

And to blame for the demise of reality as we know it were three simple, unwitting individuals. These three completed - unsuspecting and unaware of each other - a sinister, timeless ritual that plunged the world into eternal darkness, caused the demand for adjectives with negative connotations to skyrocket to infinity - but allowed a young tax clerk to have the best day of his life.

The first one was Erna Pachowski: a cleaning lady, or better facility service specialist, in a public library in the Schöneweide district of Berlin.

Erna had been cleaning the library for 25 years, five days a week, always starting at 8 PM. Except on the sparse vacation days, which she detested, knowing that she would have to clean even more afterwards. Erna was devoted to cleaning and enjoyed her work, even if this was not apparent in her dismissive grumpiness.

On this particular evening, her work ended much earlier than usual. Now, as a reward, so to speak, she finally wanted to dedicate herself to a hitherto neglected corner in the farthest part of the upper floor. There, where non-fiction books on topics such as "Repairing a Trabant" or "Concrete Mixing Made Easy" glowed silently, had always been an old shelf. Behind this shelf was a wall in which - only to reach with extreme difficulty - a dark niche had been collecting dust for decades. Erna Pachowski felt it was a disgrace to her trade that she had never been able to reach it during her many years of service.
But when this shelf had been emptied the day before, Erna saw a chance to finally put an end to her ongoing disgrace. Now, in the twilight of partially defective neon lights, she pushed the previously obstructive shelf aside with all her might. Apparently ancient, it seemed almost older than the building, which, at 180 years, already had quite a bit under its belt.

Without allowing herself a break, she set about the overdue cleaning of the niche and squeezed between the shelf and the wall. The ancient plaster, however, did not withstand her frantic wiggling and scrubbing, crumbled, a piece came loose from the wall ... and a large, unnaturally heavy book fell directly into Erna's lap. It was dirty and dusty. The title was unreadable. Erna tried in vain to clean the old cover with a rag. Finally, she reached for her miracle weapon, the dirt remover "Shoggoth Ultra" ...

In Erna's defense, she could not have known that this substance owed its development to a fanatical follower of the Ancient Ones. The latter actually created it as an imitation of the bodily fluids of the Great Old Ones, in order to use it in the usual perverse, deviant rituals. Recognizing its incredible dirt-dissolving properties as a side effect, he soon stopped performing the - to be honest, rather disappointing - rituals and subsequently became pleasantly wealthy from the sale of his novel cleanser.
Erna now carefully dabbed some of the liquid onto the book cover and slowly ran the soaked rag along the strange triangle on the metal cover. In the next moment, the heavy tome shook, archaic seals opened, and a blood-red glow of light streamed from between the pages....