Shivers 2

The Hidden God

Under the indifferent, desolate heavens, the roaring blades of a Black Hawk helicopter whispered tales of war and peril over the savage, sundrenched crags of the Syrian desert. In the belly of this iron beast, Delta Force Bravo team sat in meditative silence, their expressions concealed beneath cowls of shadow and anticipation. This clandestine mission promised rewards well beyond financial benediction; the thrill of uncovering relics as ancient as time itself, the prospect of turning the tides of an ongoing war was a siren’s song none could resist.

Their leader, Mason Church, a man as impressive as he was intimidating, stared over the vastness of the sands that glowed like the surface of an alien moon under the moonlight, swallowing the blinding darkness with the hunger of an ancient god. His gaze was not on the unforgiving terrain before him, but fixed on the distant past where a city of ancients once flourished, now only cryptic hints of their existence carved in the sandstone of time lived.

“Maintain radio contact,” he warned his men as the helicopter touched the earth, “Explore, document, retrieve. Leave no stone unturned, gentlemen.”

They were an army of shadows upon the forsaken city, their deft movements whispered through the forsaken ruins. Amid the eerie calm and quiet, a colossal pyramid manifested, its geometry insulting the basic laws of the universe, its alien proportions inciting vertigo and disbelief.

“This is it,” Church opined, a grim smile etching itself over his rugged face. Each step taken towards the monstrosity seemed to stretch on for an eternity, reality warping and woefully tugging at their sanities as an ominous presence from immeasurable depths of the earth stirred to greet its visitors.

One by one, the pyramid claimed them; grotesque traps sprung, stone spears impaled, crushing blocks fell, and spectral hysteria drove men to their doom. Stralen, Davies, Vega – the radio spit out their names in a last futile gasp, punctuating their demise with a palpitating silence that was almost inhuman.

Inside the hypnotic dark chambers of the pyramid, Dyson and Lieutenant Ramsey, the remnants of their once formidable unit, were greeted by an entity beyond human reason. Emanating light in phosphorescent pulses, the monstrous entity loomed before them, a grotesque shapeless mass of luminescent protoplasm with countless eyes and innumerable tentacles that sent ripples of frozen horror coursing down their spines.

“Shoot!” Ramsey screamed, his voice echoing into the nauseous air, but the bullets ricocheted off the quivering hide of the primordial source of nightmares.

Church slipped into the chamber, an emblem gleaming in his gloved hands. An indistinguishable rune set embellished the perfect geometry of the mystical artifact, causing Ramsey and Dyson to catch their breaths and the creature to momentarily pause its terrifying attack.

“Is this what you are looking for?” Church revealed, his voice oddly calm and asserting dominance over the horrific rumbles of the monstrous entity before him.

To the shocked disbelief of his remaining comrades, the ancient creature eased, its dreadful gaze remaining transfixed on the emblem in Church’s outstretched hand. Dread coalesced with bitter betrayal, washing over Dyson and Ramsey in debilitating waves as the realization set in: Church had played a long, cruel game.

“Wha-” Dyson gasped, “Church-”

But before he could finish, the entity’s tentacles lashed out in petrifying speed, seizing Dyson and Ramsey in its monstrous grasp before smashing them into the jagged walls of the chamber with a terrifying finality. The creature then receded, almost easing into the fatal rhythm of the pyramid, a grotesque sentinel obsessively focused on what Church held.

“Finally, you're under control,” Church gloated to the imprisoned monstrosity, glorying in his triumphant ambition tied with a grotesque apathy towards his dispatched team, “And lucrative business awaits.”

The erstwhile comrades dead, the ancient monster pacified, the pyramid’s deadly resonance subsided into a humming undercurrent. Across the transgressing realms of the universe, shadows fell heavily, tainting the spectral glow of the faraway stars: a grotesque prelude to an anarchy that was cautiously poised on the tip of a two-faced soldier’s ambition.