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Amnesia 9
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Amnesia - Issue 09 (1993-02-01)(Eclipse)(Disk 2 of 2).adf
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ARTICLES
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The outsider
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1993-01-31
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passages and having high ceilings
The Outsider where the eye could find only cobwebs
and shadows. The stones in the
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of crumbling corridors seemed always
childhood bring only fear and hideously damp, and there was that
sadness. Wretched is he who looks accursed smell everywhere, as of the
back upon lone hours in vast and piled-up corpses of dead generations.
dismal chambers with brown hangings It was never light, so that I used to
and maddening rows of antique books, light candles and gaze steadily at
or upon awed watches in twilight them for relief,nor was there any sun
groves of grotesque,gigantic,and vine outdoors, since the terrible trees
encumbered trees that silently wave grew high above the topmost
twisted branches far aloft.Such a lot accessible tower.There was one black
the gods gave to me-to me, the dazed, tower which reached above the trees
the dissappointed; the barren, the into the unknown outer sky, but that
broken.And yet I am strangely content was partly ruined and could not be
and cling desperately to those sere ascended save by a well-nigh
memories, when my mind momentarily impossible climb up the sheer wall,
threatens to reach beyond to the stone by stone.
other. I must have lived years in this
--- place, but I cannot measure the time.
I know not where I was born,save that Beings must have cared for my needs,
the castle was infinitely old and yet I cannot recall any person except
indefinitely horrible, full of dark myself,or anything else alive but the
noiseless rats and bats and spiders. regarded myself by instinct as akin
I think that whoever nursed me must to the youthful figures I saw drawn
have been shockingly aged, since my and painted in the books.I felt
first conception of a living person conscious of youth because I
was that of somebody mockingly like remembered so little.
myself,yet distorted, shrivelled and Outside,across the putrid moat and
decaying like the castle.To me there under the dark mute trees,I would
was nothing grotesque in the bones often lie and dream about what I had
and skeletons that strewed some of read in the books;and would longingly
the stone crypts deep down among the picture myself amidst gay crowds in
foundations. I fantastically the sunny world beyond the endless
associated these things with everyday forests. Once I tried to escape from
events,and thought them more natural the forest,but as I went farther from
than the coloured pictures of living the castle the shade grew denser and
beings which I found in many of the the air filled more with brooding
mouldy books. From such books I fear; so that I ran back lest I lose
learned all that I know. No teacher my way in a labyrinth of nighted
urged or guided me,and I do not silence.
recall hearing any human voice in all ---
those years- not even my own; for So through the endless twilights I
although I had read of speech, I had dreamed and waited, though I knew not
never thought to try to speak aloud. what I waited for.Then in the shadowy
My aspect was a matter equally solitude my longing for light grew so
unthought in the castle, and I merely frantic that I could rest no more,and
I lifted entreating hands to the not reach the light, and would have
single black tower that reached above looked down had I dared. I fancied
the forest into the unknown outer that night had come suddenly upon me,
sky. And at last I resolved to scale and vainly groped with one free hand
that tower,fall though I might; since for a window embrasure, that I might
it was better to glimpse the sky and peer out and above, and try to judge
perish, than to live without ever the height I had attained.
beholding day. ---
--- All at once, after an infinity of
In the dank twilight I climbed the awesome, sightless, crawling up that
worn and aged stone stairs till I concave and desperate precipice, I
reached a level when they ceased, and felt my head touch a solid thing, and
thereafter clung perilously to small I knew I must have gained the roof,or
footholds leading upward. Ghastly and at least some kind of floor. In the
terrible was that dead, stairless, darkness I raised my free hand and
cylinder of rock; black, ruined, and tested the barrier, finding it stone
deserted, and sinister with startled and immovable. Then came the deadly
bats whose wings made no noise. But circuit of the tower, clinging to
more ghastly and terrible still was whatever holds the slimy thing would
the slowness of my progress;for climb give; till finally my testing hand
as I might,the darkness overhead grew found the barrier yielding, and I
no thinner, and a new chill as of turned upward again, pushing the slab
haunted and venerable mould assailed or door with my head as I used both
me.I shivered as I wondered why I did hands in my fearful ascent. There was
no light revealed above, and as my marble,bearing odious oblong boxes of
hands went higher I knew that my disturbing size. More and more I
climb was for the nonce ended; since reflected, and wondered what hoary
the slab was the trapdoor of an secrets might abide in this high
aperture leading to a level stone apartment so many aeons cut off from
surface of greater circumference than the castle below.Then unexpectedly my
the lower tower,no doubt the floor of hands came upon a doorway, where hung
some lofty and capacious observation a portal of stone, rough with strange
chamber. I crawled through carefully, chiselling. Trying it, I found it
and tried to prevent the heavy slab locked; but with a supreme burst of
from falling into place,but failed in strength I overcame all obstacles and
the latter attempt. dragged it open inward. As I did so
Seated on the stone floor I heard the there came the purest ecstacy I have
eerie echoes of its fall, hoped when ever known; for shining tranquility
necessary to pry it up again. through an ornate grating of iron,and
Believing I was now at prodigious down a short stone passageway of
height, far above the accursed steps that ascended from the newly
branches of the wood,I dragged myself found doorway,was the radiant full
up from the floor and fumbled about moon, which I never before seen save
for windows,that I might look for the in dreams and vaguue memories,which I
first time upon the sky, and the moon dared not call memories.
and stars of which I had read. But on
every hand I was disappointed; since Story by : H.P.Lovecraft
all that I found were vast shelves of (Gazzer:Gravedigger Dug him up!...)