-THE FROZEN ENTITY-
By
Thaniel Ion Lee
Even though it was only the beginning, the winter of 1905 was already unnaturally harsh and unforgiving, the snow was piled as high as door frames , and the cutting winds screamed and moaned through the now empty streets like it was calling for even its own death.
The cold had frozen the town's water supply, and the ground had become so hard that no one could bury their dead. It was so bad that when some poor soul passed away they were laid upon their own frozen plot and over time they became their own cracked gray tombstone.
Using what little dry firewood they could find sparingly, the survivors huddled close to their dwindling fires, fearing both the cold and the numerous nameless terrors that lurked just beyond the reach of their dim flickering lights.
There was one among them who knew the true horror that lay in wait, searching for its moment to blot out the remaining warmth of the winter sun. This man's name was Peter Wilkinson, and he was a seeker of all things hidden and withheld from common knowledge.
When he was a child his widowed mother taught in the town's school, and made sure her son was taught everything he needed to know to escape the town they lived in. After he graduated highschool he traveled to most eastern parts of old Europe, the Middle East, and Africa where he got his first taste of the occult and all things hidden from the average man. He searched for things that should not be seen by mortal eyes and He learned the names of the nameless formless forms that haunt the depth of the hinterlands of both the world and the inner mind and became familiar with even the most blasphemous of rituals.
He did not know why he once again returned to the place his mother begged him never to return to, but something drew him into the darkness of this forgotten town. But because of his sacred training and studies of the unknown entities that salt even the most fertile lands, he could feel that there was something ancient and dark that slumbered just beneath the frozen lands that surrounded this forsaken town. Waiting, and dreaming of the day that its indescribable maddening nebulous form can once again coalesce and cloak the sun beneath its dark leathery wings.
Starting at the first sight of frost he had started to notice subtle signs of its soon to be all consuming presence. First its ancient unreadable dialect was delicately etched into the morning frost and was so small that the untrained could easily confuse them for the footprints of ants, but as time slowly passed the small gossamer writing became deep violent scars that disrupted the fields and yards of the land.
He spent his days poring over ancient decaying books and scrolls, searching for a way to stop the inevitable swallowing of the sun, but He knew that the time was fast approaching when the ancient horror would awake from its deep slumber and claim the sun as its own.
He tried to warn them, but they lacked occult knowledge. They called him a raving fool, and ignored his passionate pleas to run. He showed them the scars upon the land, but they in their ignorance of what rested beneath their frozen soil could not understand his concern, so they made every excuse they could for the marks upon their land.
As winter passed the night became longer and colder til the frozen silence of the dark had enveloped the whole of the day. Until one day they found themselves trapped in a vast frozen purgatory, with only the sound of the maddening wind and the cracking of distant ice. Beneath the frozen soil, something dark and unholy stirred.
It fed on their fear and despair, and with every shiver, cry and whimper it grew stronger and more ravenous. It could feel its wings slowly form and flex, and as it shifted so did the earth surrounding it move, and this subtle movement was slowly freeing its dark unholy form.
With cold numb hands He slowly shifted through his collection of ancient tomes, scrolls and spell books until he found a ritual that may please this cold sentient embodiment of all things frozen. But to save what was left of this world, He must make the ultimate sacrifice. He must give his own life to appease the beast and put an end to the eternal winter.
After one last meal, He set out into the frozen wasteland beyond the edge of town. The cold was bitter and the winds were fierce, but he pressed on, determined to put an end to the terror that had befallen his town.
After three days of travel he saw what could only be described as a coal dark void in the distance. As he came closer to the void the whispering in his head became louder and louder until the only thing he could hear or think was the unspeakable language of the entity beneath the land.
When he finally stood upon the center of the screaming void, he heard nothing but silence and saw nothing but infinite emptiness. At that moment he whispered the words contained in the ancient tome, and for a brief second he experienced everything it saw and felt, and for a moment he understood the meaninglessness of everything and how with time he and the entity will do this again and again. And with that most sacred and hidden of all knowledge he was absorbed into the entities being, and the being was reduced back down to its formless form.
At that moment, the winter ended. The snow melted, the winds died down, and the sun shone once more. The townsfolk emerged from their homes, confused and bewildered, but alive.
The entity had been appeased, but at a great cost. They knew nothing of the sacrifice that was again made in their name, over time that long winter will be just a memory, and after many eons, this story and sacrifice will be repeated again and again.
