Live Cargo

I awoke. The room was dark. Shadows crept in the darkness. They spoke a different language, uttering hushed commands. "Who's there?" I asked. A slap across the face.

"Shut up." I truly wish I could have. But the oppressive blackness of the air and the heavy cord restraining me set my brain on fire. Nothing I hate more than being unable to see or move.

"Light?" I tried speaking again. Another slap, this one harder. My mind raced. Where am I? What's happening? Regarding the former I intuited that I had been kidnapped. I was on a boat, as evidenced by the rocking sensation. God, why can't I remember anything? Somebody must have gotten me on the head, and bad. As I came to that conclusion I noticed a dull throbbing in the back of my brain.

"We're almost at the base," said a voice in English, "Institute's gonna pay a pretty penny for this one."

"I wonder if they'll sacrifice 'em too," said another.

"Wouldn't be surprised." That didn't bode well. I needed to get out and fast. Faced with few other options, I started kicking and flailing. All I managed to do was knock myself onto the ground.

"Knock it off!" growled the first voice. "Put the prisoner in with the other live cargo." With that I was picked up and dragged by my shoulders down, down into the lion's pit. Please don't make me tell you what's in it! I don't want to remember! I've already told you what you need to know. Don't you Coast Guard people know when you're hurting someone by asking all these questions?

Fine, it was just as dark as the room I was initially in save for a single light that swayed with the waves. That accursed light! Had I known what it'd reveal, I'd reach up and smash it without hesitation. Each wall was lined with sets of cages. Great hulking things skulked in them. They were horrible! Their skin writhed from within as if something was just waiting to burst out in violent fashion. What I saw was alive but no creature. Each one was a mere shadow of a greater form. They all moved in unison in a way that made me think they're controlled by the same sinister thing.

A name stuck to my tongue like a bad taste that won't go away: Tindalos, Tindalos, Tindalos. It called to me in a way I was afraid I might not be able to refuse. Release us, they seemed to say. What had gotten into me? I did what they asked and opened the cages. Something told me they were never really trapped.

Everything must have been a game to them, or rather it. The object, so it seemed, was me. Moments later they were gone. Upon reappearing all were outside their cages. Believe me when I tell you that they defied description. Those horrible things were amorphous and could change form as they pleased.

One of the creatures put me onto its back, revealing to me its true horror. In order to transmute all it had to do was rotate across the fourth dimension. As it did so I felt myself turning inside out and back again. My heart, normally in the left-center of my chest, was now displaced a great deal up and to the left. Come, feel my heartbeat with some of that equipment of yours. You'll notice it's coming from my shoulder instead of the usual spot. Doesn't that prove that I'm not insane, or at the very least that I'm telling the truth?

Worse yet, the process severed part of my spine, paralyzing me from the stomach down. My eyes fell right out of my head too. Thankfully I still have my tongue. I was allowed to shriek in abject terror as the beasts ran amok through the craft. First to go were the other prisoners, unable to break free of their shackles before being wholly consumed bones and all. Each kill only made them hungrier. I could feel my own stomach twisting too. They were turning me into one of them, those horrid things that lurk beyond reality, and I was passing into their realm!

What terrible vistas I saw with my unseeing eyes! Colors which do not exist revealed themselves to me: Shades of red, orange, and black more intense than physically possible. Just the sight of them would be sufficient to blind anyone unlucky enough to gaze upon those holiest of tones.

I remember little else after that. My body was continuing to warp and shift while my mind ascended to the realm of dreams. I saw others like me, other dreamers lost in the eternal darkness that shrouds the beyond. My mind aches at the confines of this pathetic body. Kill me, allow me to ascend beyond and enter Tindalos. I shall join the ranks of the Lord's army and consume this world along with all others. Your days are numbered. I am not the only threat you face. Look to the skies, for Misery is soon to come upon us all!