It Came from Under the Earth
#2 of It Came...
A little bit more of my writing exercises and attempt to merge horror and smut together. This time, I wanted to play on the old 'found footage' style of horror. I was honestly not sure how best to incorporate it but eventually, I came up with this!
A corporate auditor is tasked with going through the finances of a coal mine but finds footage that is both disturbing... and transformative.
Hope you enjoy!
It Came from Under the Earth
Foreword
Never listen to the Tongue that Writes
Never utter the Unspoken Speech
Never pay homage to the Dread Speaker
Never reassemble the Lord of the Screaming Hill
Never read the Broken Language
Never try to understand the AllTalker
May Yzitkthl forever remain broken.
May he none find all his pieces.
May he always whisper in silence.
May Nyzda'Kumyr protect us all
- Prayer against Yzitkthl the Tongue that Writes
From the Primolibrus
Chapter 1
Email from R. Fallihd to A. Heinrich
Hi Anton,
Now, as you know, we're in the process of conducting a review of our assets and great concerns about the Underide Coal Mine in Wyoming has been raised. It is far from the biggest producer of coal and though it does sell a reasonable amount, the costs of maintaining it have been skyrocketing of late.
You will need to review the various reports and videos from on-site personnel we have gathered and make a sound judgment on whether or not it is in Blackscript Investment's interest to maintain the site. I've read reports of lots of resignations from that mine and they are already severely understaffed. So we need to review everything about its operations to see if its worth hiring more people.
Zero in on anything that might be construed as a money sink.
Don't let any of the employees' pleas for new equipment or better working conditions cloud your judgment. We're after whether or not it is_worth_ investing more in the facility. Look at the numbers, look at the videos and study the maps. Consult with our geologists if you need to.
Also keep in mind that a rumor has already circulated that we are planning to shutdown the mine so do not be surprised if the miners lay it on thick. If you need extra guidance on how to deal with any such emotional blackmail, let me know and I can direct you to HR and any appropriate training. I am also happy to add some weight should they decide to gang up on you and start showing you pictures of their kids or something.
'Profitability' is our motto, after all. Yes, this does mean profitability in personal growth as well but remember, we run a business and this mine has had years to turn a profit. According to our reports, it isn't. Unless the mine suddenly turns up a large deposit of diamonds, chances are that its profits won't be turning any time soon.
Know that if you do push Underide to be saved, it'll be your name on the report and your ass on the line. One mistake, one slip-up and it will be shutdown. I can't save you from a sinking ship that you put your name to. The higher-ups are already thinking about pulling our investment from Underide so if you want to save it, you need to make sure you back it up. It'll be a hard sell.
Underide has cost Blackscript millions so the only way it'll be saved is if you can predict it'll return millions.
My advice as your supervisor is that you stick with closing it down but ultimately, the call is yours.
Your responsibility is to remain impartial, remember that.
Report back in two weeks.
Thanks and good luck,
Rowan Fallihd
Director of Finance
Blackscript Investments.
******
Anton
A lamp overhead buzzed and flickered, plunging Anton Heinrich into moments of darkness in the cramp cubicle that had been his 'office' for the past few years. Drab, gray walls lined with sound-absorbent fabric drained any semblance of individuality and energy from within its confines while simultaneously blocking out all outside stimuli. Anton barely even noticed that the sun beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office had set a long time ago and the janitors had come and gone. The entire floor was completely abandoned save for the light on his little laptop and desk lamp, almost completely consumed by the towers of papers and folders that formed a miniature city of precarious numbers and reports that told the sad story of the Underide Coal Mine, Wyoming.
It wasn't that long ago when Anton had bravely asked his boss and manager, Rowan Fallihd, to give him a new project. Wish granted in perhaps the most unexpected of ways. Fallihd had given him the Underide project. At first, Anton had suspected that it was just another throw-away assignment. Something to keep him busy and to address the low-hanging fruit that was set before him. But it was more than that.
Anton brushed his greasy, brown hair back away from his eyes. Almost ten hours of sitting slouched in front of his computer, making notes about the mine had wracked his appearance. Do this for several days in a row and even now, on a Saturday, and he couldn't even remember when the last time he had gotten a good night's sleep or a hot shower. His eyes throbbed and ached so he took a moment to pull off his square glasses, clean them out with the microfiber cloth he kept in the breast pocket of his white and pink-striped collared shirt before putting them back on. He wasn't sure why he even dressed in the typical 'business casual' attire when it was a weekend.
Most people were out with their families or enjoying a relaxing weekend. Fallihd was likely sitting down for dinner recounting the goals his kids made in their soccer match. But Anton was here, in the office, working late into the night trying to reconcile the reports about the mine that Blackscript Investments had bought nearly a decade back and had never once turned a profit.
His tired, bloodshot, blue eyes turned to his right where a tower of papers recounted the finances over the past decade. By all accounts, the bloodthirsty and often shrewd Blackscript Investments should have either sold or entirely shutdown the mine long ago. Usually, the investment company didn't tolerate two consecutive years without any profit. Yet, Underide had _consistently_come up short; causing the company to hemorrhage money at an alarming rate.
Anton pinched the bridge of his sharp nose as he regarded the stack of papers to his left. These would account for the spending being poured into Underide. Surprisingly, everything went into staffing and hiring. There was an enormous overhead that went into the site's ridiculous turnover rate. People constantly left or merely stuck around for a month-long stint before moving on elsewhere. Hiring costs and training proved to be an immense money sink.
Then he came to the crux of the issue; the mountain of papers currently sitting in front of him. Scattered reports from HR, exit surveys, interviews and so much more spoke of a mine that just 'didn't feel right' to many of the employees. No one at the site lasted more than a year. In the entire life of the site, they were in a constant state of hiring someone. Some potential employees even got up to the stage of visiting the site before declining the offer at the last minute.
Anton was half-tempted to go down and see the site himself to try and understand what was causing this constant state of rapid resignations but that simply was not in his budget.
"Why is everyone leaving?" he mumbled to himself.
On some level, he knew he should just crunch the numbers and rubber-stamp it for closure. However, Anton Heinrich was a man of understanding and knowledge. He did not want to just look down from above at what he saw on the surface and leave it at first impressions. Long ago, he swore that if he ever reached a position of power, he would delve deeper and understand the root of the problem. It was a personal mission imbued with a promise from a distant past.
So, for what must have been the twentieth time this evening alone, he went through the reports again. Every piece of paper gave a different reason for the resignation or rejection. One employee claimed that the staff housing at the site was simply not accommodating enough. 'Uncomfortable' was the term used. There was a contrary report on one of the piles that clearly showed an invoice for new, ergonomic chairs, beds and brand-new air-conditioning units there was as silent as the night. Another mentioned that the equipment constantly unnerved him as it rattled and creaked, almost like they were 'telling' him there was imminent danger on the horizon. Blackscript invested in brand new equipment that very same year. Then there was another employee who felt that the mine just felt too claustrophobic and, to him, they weren't following regulations in terms of miner safety. Inspectors and auditors were sent and they all reported that the site was technically sound and had very little chance of collapse.
Some part of Anton theorized that they were just excuses, lip-service paid to a box that had to be filled out. But that didn't make all that much sense. Why would anyone leave the job when they would have only barely received a single paycheck and it would have cost them _more_to move up to the mine? Financially, it didn't make sense. This was not some huge, elaborate scam to milk money out of the company. It couldn't be because of a toxic boss or manager either since no one - not even the managers - stuck around long enough to even make any sort of impact.
"So why?" he asked himself. "Why are you all leaving?"
On his laptop were various still images of the mine. The large, open-faced coal mine seemed like any other. Though the surrounding landscape looked about as gray as the walls of his cubicle, it didn't seem at all that odd or different from any other mine. Anton had worked with other mines and even successfully turned anything that had been given to him into a profitable venture. Once, he even refocused a mine from looking for goal to mining other precious metals like iron and copper. Underide was doing a decent job producing coal - far from a lot - but if they could get some _permanent_staff in there, they could certainly turn a profit in a year.
That was what made this difficult.
Anton knew what the solution was but he couldn't understand the problem.
There was really only one remaining course of action and it was one that he had been putting off until now; the employee interviews. One of the on-site managers had been asked to conduct interviews with the current staff at the mine to gauge how they were feeling and any potential improvements they could make to ensure it ran more efficiently. Fallihd had warned him not to get too close to the employees and not to look at it on a personal level. He was an internal financial auditor not a psychologist. He wasn't there to make people feel better and he had thought that the testimony of the miners would put no bearing on his decision.
But as the days went by and the mystery of this constant exodus persisted, he became more and more convinced that he needed to really understand why people were leaving to get to the solution. Now that he was sitting in his cubicle on a _weekend_with his report due on Monday, he had no other option left.
Setting aside his personal feelings, he opened the folder on his desktop containing the testimonies and interviews. After double clicking the first one, his video player popped up with the image of a rather portly man with black hair, graying temples and a thick mustache. The man had a neck that was nearly swallowed by his powerful shoulders and deep, sunken brown eyes that almost disappeared beneath his big, bushy eyebrows. The easy smile the man wore brought to mind the image of a cuddly teddy bear and the way he stood with his hardhat clutched in his arm while wearing a tie over an collared shirt with the top three buttons undone to show off his hairy chest made him seem rather approachable.
Anton pushed aside his immediate impressions of a middle-management sort of guy that both tried to schmooze upper management and get a beer with the boys and hit the play button.
"Hi," began the man in a gruff voice and a thick Brooklyn accent. "My name is Fabio Romani. I'm the current foreman of the Underide Coal Mine. I know you wanna shut this place down but let me tell you why that's a bad idea."
Anton crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. He closed his eyes briefly, the light emanating from his laptop shining so brightly through his eyelids and into his tired eyes that he could actually see some of the red veins against his skin.
"Here we go," he breathed and opened his eyes again. "Give me all you've got, Fabio."
Chapter 2
Transcript of a speech from F. Romani sent to all employees of the Underide Coal Mine
Hey boys. I know you've all heard some shit. You know I ain't one to mince words. So Imma gonna lay it out straight. We're in the shitter. We just ain't pumpin' nuff coal to keep up with the other big mines an' people are droppin' left-right-and-center. Now I ain't sayin' we're gonna get shut down right now but we're definitely gonna get shutdown. I dunno when. But this place ain't long for the world.
I know you've all been feelin' it too. There just ain't sumthin' right with this place. No one is gonna blame ya fer leavin'. Me? Imma gonna stick around until they stop payin' me. I've been livin' in this place fer a month now. What's another few, right?
I dunno about you but I ain't getting comfortable and hopin' that they'll just ship me off to another mine. Start lookin'. Start savin'. Cuz' this ain't gonna last.
That's all. Next round is on me.
******
Interview #1
"So I ain't gonna mince words," Fabio began. There was something charming about the burly man's cockney accent and blaise attitude even though he was looking down the barrel of the person that could very well ruin his livelihood. Confidence radiated from this man like a warm wave of sunshine that could be felt even through the minuscule screen of Anton's laptop. This was clearly a man who had been on the cusp of being getting his pink slip multiple times and had the confidence to talk his way out of it.
"I've seen the numbers,"_continued Fabio with a grim professionalism. _"We pump out the coal well 'nuff. Ain't big 'nuff to compete with the bigger coal mines. But we still can pump it out. The mine ain't dry. It's jus' the turnover that's the problem."
Anton leaned back in his seat and sighed. "Glad we're on the same page here, Fabio." His voice rang out in the empty floor. No one else was around and the setting sun started to cast a rather grim light on his surroundings. Even with the padded walls of his cubicle, his voice still found a way to bounce around vast floor. It almost felt like he was talking to himself of, if he allowed his imagination to go wild, someone else was parroting him.
Fabio went over the figures with a rather rushed but still accurate approach. The foreman's casual style added an air of approachability to the presentation that wouldn't have bored Anton if the office worker hadn't already been so familiar with the content. These were numbers that Anton had gone through repeatedly in the past week. He was tempted to skip this part of the video but human decency stayed his hand from that 'fast forward' button. This foreman had gone through great lengths to record this message and from the looks of it, there were multiple other videos in the same folder. It was logical to assume that Fabio had recruited key and promising members of the crew to add their own testimony into what was effectively his defense to keep the site open.
The problem was with the staff turnover, after all. If, as the foreman, he could put his case forward that the staff under his care were fine and would stick around for the long-run, he would not only placate the fears of the upper management but make himself look good in the process. Especially if he could deliver on those promises.
At least that's how Anton would approach it.
"So let me start by telling you a little about myself."
This is exactly what his supervisor had warned him would happen. In Fallhid's exact words, 'They're like inmates on death row. They'll plead, cry and try to get you on their side. Don't let them get to you.' Taking a deep breath, Anton swallowed his apprehension and turned his attention back to the site foreman. That moment of distraction cost him a few seconds so he rewound the video so he could get a fresh start.
"... you a little about myself. You know I'm Fabio Romani. I'm 47. Born August. I'm a Leo." He gave the camera a little wink. If Anton didn't know any better, he could have sworn that was a subtle attempt at flirtation.
"Not that he looks bad," he mumbled to himself. "Little chubby but he's got that 'daddy' look that I'm sure some girls like." Glancing over at the pile of papers dictating the accounts, he could reasonably imagine that Fabio could make a very decent wage. Given that he lived on-site and didn't have to pay rent for most of his working days, the foreman could save quite a lot of money and, in turn, accumulate a bit of wealth. That was prime prey for gold diggers.
Anton chuckled to himself at the little joke of a gold digger going after a miner then realized, yet again, he had gotten distracted and had missed a portion of Fabio's statement. Long hours and stress were starting to get to him. Rubbing his eyes from beneath his glasses, he once again rewound the video a few seconds before continuing.
"... Leo. I've been working in the mining industry since I was 18. My pop was a miner and he brought me in to work the mines searching for precious metals all up and down the west coast. We moved a lot. He wasn't one of those types that would set up a house and then leave for several months to come back for a bit and then fly out again. He brought him with us."
Wondering what relevancy this had with the current situation, Anton was tempted to skip the sentimentality but he recalled his prior promise of being very thorough. So he tried to reorient himself, pool all of his focus on the screen in front of him and refocus himself once more. Thankfully, this time he didn't have to skip ahead as Fabio had taken a second to pause.
"I'm used to moving around," continued the foreman. "I ain't used to upping and leavin' but I make it a point to only leave if I hafta. I see a lot of potential in Underide and it could damn well be one of the top coal mines in the country if we just solved the turnover issue. I'm speakin' a lil' bit from a personal perspective. I dun wanna leave and it ain't jus' because I'm buyin' into the ghost stories told 'round here."
That was a new piece of information that piqued his interest. "Ghost stories?"
How he wished he was actually conducting the interview instead of just watching a recording.
"Yeah, this place has this... thing about it that just wants to make ya leave,"_Fabio continued. _"I dunno what it is. Been feeling like people have always been flighty 'bout it. Especially 'round the old mine."
"Old mine?" Anton repeated. He remembered hearing something about an older structure where they were digging. He paused Fabio's interview and pored over the notes he had compiled. There was a pile dedicated to the 'old mine' as Fabio had called it.
As it turns out, Underide wasn't the first mine built around the location. There was a similar unmarked mine a few miles to the east but since Underide was so big, the two intersected. Miners excavating for Underide eventually stumbled upon what was effectively old tunnels held up by rotting wood and still bearing some rusted tools from when it was in use. Something Blackscript had to deal with was a historical society trying to close down the mine in favor of calling it a historical site but since they hadn't actually encroached upon the old mine itself and just uncovered one of its unfinished tunnels, there was an agreement that the eastern half of the Underide would remain untouched until such a time that the historical society had uncovered more about it.
It had been about nine years since that tunnel had been uncovered and that very same society hadn't been down to that new mine once. It frustrated the higher-ups at Blackscript since there was nothing they could do except send inquiry after inquiry. There was no telling how old the mine was and the fact that it could very well collapse at any given moment made the society hesitant to start an expedition. Thus far, Blackscript was content to keep their operations as far away from the unearthed tunnel as much as possible though that gaping maw served as a reminder that they could not fully mine for coal in the land they had rightfully bought.
"Then again," Anton mumbled, "probably better that the historical society not act. They'd probably shut down the entire mine if they discovered the tunnels were of historical significance."
There was a photograph of that mine entrance. It was surprisingly large but years of decay and disuse had left it looking rather rough. Rocks had collapsed to reveal the vaguely trapezoidal shape and remained at the wider base of the mine. Their vague arrangement almost made them look a little like crumbled, broken teeth. Accompanied by the jagged edges of the roof and it gave the entrance the appearance of a black, void-like maw of the earth silently screaming at nothing.
Looking at it left Anton with an uneasy feeling. Perhaps it was the fact that he could not see anything into the shaft itself or perhaps it was how no matter the distance or angle based on other shots, that mine entrance was constantly visible; like that annoying dead pixel on a screen. Not really that significant but you just could _not_help but notice it.
'Unsettling' was the best way he could describe the mine entrance.
Turning back to Fabio, he continued the interview.
"I really think that the old mine is kind of what gets people," confessed the foreman. "I catch some of the guys looking at it every now and then like they can't help but wonder what's in there. It's got everyone curious. Used ta be some of the older guys would dare newcomers to spend the night in there." Fabio shook his head. "That don't happen no more. No accidents or nuthin'. Just... people stopped. Kinda like everyone just agreed_ya ain't meant to be there, ya know?"_
It was strange to think that anyone - especially humans - would just universally agree on some unspoken rule especially as tantalizing as the old mine. Then again, most of the people coming into the job were fresh and green, new hires of Underide and Blackscript. Few would dare to stir up trouble when they were just hired.
"Anyway," Fabio said, "the point I wanna make is that mine ain't on any of the hiring ads."
Anton's eyebrows shot up. "It isn't?"
"When people sign on, they see this big ol' mine an' think, 'well shit, they've got a good thing going on here but what's that hole'? Ya can imagine what it does fer morale when you come in and suddenly get told that there's this place you ain't allowed to go through and the entire east side of the main is off limits. It's bullshit."
This was excellent insight and Anton nodded in agreement. "That's a good point. I wonder why it was never on the job postings?"
"So I personally feel that if we're up front about the whole thing, people are less likely to leave. Out here, far from the corporate stuff, when the first thing ya get told is there's sum shit goin' on with some historical society an' legal shit, ya feel like they're hidin' sumthin' from ya so ya start doubtin'."
Fabio shrugged and hiked a thumb over his shoulder. "Anyway, I'm done talkin' fer now. Imma hand ya over ta one o' my longest workers. Digby Hawkins. Guess ya could say he's my second-in-command. So long fer now."
Anton nodded to himself. That was a very good start. He had lots of insight and was already concocting plans and approaches to retain employees for longer. But, as he constantly did, his mind wandered and as the camera went black, he left the recording running. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem but in his distraction, he failed to notice that there was still more on the video.
So he was surprised when the darkness of the screen was suddenly interrupted and a new face came up.
"Hi," said the skinny man with rather ragged, unkempt hair and sunken features. A patchy stubble clung to his cheeks and his deep, brown eyes were bloodshot with heavy bags hanging underneath them like he hadn't slept in a long time.
"My name is Troy Burgess,"_rasped the man. _"I'm the on-site engineer here at Underide Coal Mine. You could say I look after the machines."
Anton tilted his head in confusion. He was pretty sure Fabio was going to pass him on to someone called 'Digby Hawkins'. This 'Troy' was not someone he was expecting.
"I was in charge of compiling and sending over these interviews," continued the disheveled man. "I managed to splice these messages at the end of each video. They're not long enough to arouse suspicion. Now I know it'll sound weird. Crazy even..." For a second, Troy let out a bitter laugh, as if he was mocking himself. "God... sometimes I don't think I'm even sane..." Then his eyes, laser-like in focus, turned back to Anton as if he was seeing through time and space and staring right into the auditor's soul. "... but you've got to believe me. This... all of this...?"
Troy made a wild gesture around him.
"... It's all a lie."
Chapter 3
Text chain between D. Hawkins, F. Romani and T. Burgess
D: Hey, Troy! So how did it go with that shit you found?
T: Bad. It's useless. It's like the goddamn machine just won't start!
D: What? Dude! I thought you were a genius at this shit!
F: Digs, I know you mean well but you've got to watch your language. Troy is very qualified and he's been working on these machines. Hell, remember when he fixed the coffee maker and you promised to suck his dick?
T: I'm still waiting, by the way, Digs. LOL. But I'm serious. This doesn't make sense.
D: Just name the time and place, Troy. I'll blow your brains out.
F: Thank god this is unofficial and not something HR monitors...
D: You love it. Anyway, Troy, what's wrong with the damn machine?
T: It's the damnedest thing! It's like it just won't start near that damn mineshaft. It works fine anywhere else but if you even point it in the direction of the shaft, it stalls! It's... it's like it knows not to dig anywhere near that hole or even think about it...
******
Anton
The recording ended. Once again, Anton found himself staring at a black screen with the little buttons at the bottom tempting him to either move onto the next video, play again or rewind. Confusion rattled in his skull, growing more and more with each question that arose with each second that passed in silence.
Was this a prank? Did some of his coworkers realize that he was working too much and decided to splice this little joke into the end of his recordings? Were there other snippets at the end of each file that would eventually culminate in his coworkers jumping out at him and scaring him after he was led down a line of mystery, intrigue and horror?
Anton got up and glanced around at the dark, empty sea of cubicles. City lights were visible through the windows but no other form of illumination came save for the sole, miserable, green glow of the exit sign at the end of the floor. It was possible that someone else was hiding in the rows upon rows of cubicles, ready to pounce.
"Hello?" he called out, voice confident and more annoyed than scared. "If this is prank, you can quit it. This is a really important account."
No response. Just a few honks of aggravation from cars on the street.
"This is literally_billions of dollars over decades," he barked in frustration. "If you're seriously throwing this kind of stuff on what could effectively go to _court if we get sued by the employees, you could be responsible for losing the company nearly a decade's worth of investment."
Still nothing.
"I mean if we close down the account and the site and then the employees sue over wrongful dismissal, these could get this evidence thrown out of court!"
Now he was getting frustrated and he was just throwing legal jargon he'd seen on TV into the darkness. A week of overwork and exhaustion was getting to him. He wasn't a legal expert in any form of the word and just hoped his threats of litigation would end this charade.
It took him an entire minute of staring into the darkness to realize that if anyone wanted to play a prank on him, it would've been during office hours where more people could be around to laugh at his humiliation. Not to mention that these videos had been sent to him an entire week ago. That was a very long time to wait for a prank to pay off.
That only led to one logical conclusion: this video was genuine and Troy's warning was real.
Just to be absolutely sure, he stepped out of his cubicle and strode along the office. Rows upon rows of similarly designed cubicles passed him by making the trek almost seem endless. He spared a glance into each one, just looking long enough to check that no one was hiding under the desks waiting to scare him. About halfway down the office, he realized he was holding his breath and slowly released it.
"No one is here," he told himself. "It's just my mind playing tricks on me."
Except that recording was _very_real. There was that sliver of doubt again. Conflicting questions about whether or not he was hallucinating from exhaustion or the victim of some elaborate prank clashed, leaving him torn. The only thing he could be sure of, however, was that he needed to check the rest of the office.
Anton strode past the break room, flicking on the lights and wandering the small space with the same old coffee maker, the staff fridge and the cupboards that always seemed to magically restock themselves every morning. No one was seated or hiding in the hideous lime green, plastic chairs that were 'ergonomically designed'. When he flicked off the light, only the gentle blue light from the vending machine cast shadows in the room.
He continued his lap of the office, stopping momentarily at the door that would lead him to the foyer with the elevators. Perhaps it was time to call it a day and leave. There was always tomorrow and, if not, Monday morning. The sun had long set and the office was barely illuminated by the lights from the city. That had to be a sure sign to go home.
"No," he told himself stubbornly. "I've got to finish this. I'm almost done."
He finished his lap, finding no one hiding anywhere in the office and coming to a single, logical conclusion; the video was real. That mean Troy's warning was also very real.
"God I don't know what's scarier..." he mumbled to himself. With a sigh, he slumped back down into his seat and regarded the next video in the sequence. Out of some sense of morbid curiosity, he loaded it up. There was another man that appeared on screen. An athletic guy with a scruffy goatee and long face. Unlike Fabio, this guy was blonde and had a strong upper body, very top-heavy. His features were friendly, approachable and reminded Anton of the 'boy-next-door' type with a little bit of roughage added. The scar on the lower part of his jaw that cut into his goatee cut through the illusion of a clean-cut man. Bright brown eyes regarded Anton with enthusiasm.
"Hi," the man began with a cheery, almost boyish voice. "I'm Digby Hawkins."
He paused the video. So that was Digby. At least he could easily identify them. Next, he sped to the end of the video. Curiously, there was no mystery recording from Troy and as he worked back, he only saw Digby. Perhaps it was a fluke. Maybe Troy's actions were his own kind of prank.
Or maybe he had been caught and now silenced.
Anton regarded the first video again and wondered if he should forward it to Fallhid. If anything, that video alone represented a severe security breach. If someone was sneaking in video testimonies like that, it was entirely possible that Blackscript could have a mole in their midst that could leak sensitive information not even related to Underide.
All that that training he had to undergo around network security and the annual seminars he had to attend with regards to cybersecurity and compliance came rushing back. If he were to follow those rules to the letter, he should immediately report this to his security officer. But something told him to hold off, to see how deep this went.
Maybe it was some power fantasy of being someone's hero or toppling the evil corporation that was Blackscript but Troy's last words lingered.
"... it's all a lie."
What was a lie? _Who_was lying?
Anton gripped the sides of his head, struggling with these questions and groaning to himself.
"Maybe I should call it a day," he told himself, his voice echoing in the darkness of the empty office floor. The looming deadline kept him away from that possibility. His report had to be on his manager's desk first thing in the morning and he hadn't even gotten started on compiling it. All the evidence he had gathered thus far pointed to closing Underide but he _still_had to go through these interviews and videos.
With a sigh, he slumped back into his chair and resoundingly decided that he would finish gathering all the data now and make his report tomorrow. At the very least, he could sleep on whatever it was that all these miners had to say. There weren't that many videos anyway.
Taking a deep breath and steeling himself against more desperate pleas, he navigated the video back to the start of Digby Hawkins' interview and hit play.
"Hi, I'm Digby Hawkins..."
Chapter 4
Extract from a local Wyoming news site
Today we commemorate the tragic loss of what had originally been the Deepguard Mine. Originally founded 1849, the Deepguard Mine was supposedly an attempt to find gold in Wyoming during the California Gold Rush. Started by the entrepreneur Silas Haart - now assumed to be a pseudonym - a lot of money was poured into the mine based on Haart's claims that he found gold at the site. After several months of digging, however, no gold was found and support for the project was pulled especially after Haart and several of his closest associates mysteriously went missing with all the funds that they had accumulated at that point.
The mine eventually collapsed on its own due to disrepair and lack of maintenance nearly a decade later. Thankfully, no lives were lost though the whereabouts and true identity of Silas Haart and the twenty-or-so men who had spearheaded the project remain unknown.
******
Interview #2
"... and I've been in the mining industry since I was about 21 years old. Right out of college, really. I'm a geologist by trade. I've got a Masters in Geological Studies and was hired at the site to not only survey the area but also to assist in the day-to-day operations of this site."
A geologist. That was interesting. Anton recalled seeing geological reports and surveys. Most continued to claim that Underide was still rich in coal and would be incredibly valuable but this was the first time he'd actually get to 'hear' it from someone. Anton considered himself a decent judge of character so he hoped he could at least tell if a person was feeding him bullshit.
Digby spoke in a more sophisticated and articulated manner than Fabio. Less approachable in Anton's opinion but nevertheless someone that he could understand. It looked like poor Digby had been sunburned a few times as there were patches of red over his cheeks. Clearly he wasn't someone used to working outdoors. He recalled the Wyoming was rather cool this time of year which meant that the moderate temperatures was rather deceptive against the sun. You could be standing out there being exposed to UV rays but not feel it because the gentle breezes would cool you down.
Anton sighed softly and wondered if he should go to a holiday to Wyoming after this project.
"I'm sure you've read the reports by now," Digby continued_. "The site is rich with coal. That much is evident. We just don't have the manpower to dig it up. Fabio has likely already told you of this. But I want to inform you of a factor that you may not have considered."_
There, Anton straightened slightly and paused the video long enough to say, "Oh? What is it, Digby?" he asked.
As he hit play, Digby gave the dramatic statement of, "Gold."
That made Anton's brow furrow. There was no mention of gold in any of the reports. But this was big. If a geologist actually claimed there could be gold in the site, then that would skew the decision to keeping Underide open.
"Trace amounts of gold have been found in the coal samples we've collected," continued Digby, growing a little more excited. "This isn't unusual but we've seen it with increasing frequency the more we dig towards the old Deepguard Mine."
"The what...?" Anton asked, pausing the video once more. He glanced over to the papers and reviewed the sheets a few time. 'Deepguard' was the name of that historical site that the miners had discovered sometime ago. Strange that he had missed that.
He hit play absently while reading some of the notes on the dispute between the historical society and the Underide Miners.
"Deepguard was a failed venture during the 1800's by a man named Silas Haart. Everyone thinks that Haart was a swindler. He tool Wyoming's money in an attempt to build Deepguard because he convinced the government back then that there was goal here. According to historical records, he convinced them by showing this massive gold nugget. Nothing was ever found after months of digging and Haart disappeared."
"Sounds like a swindler to me," mumbled Anton as he went over the record again. There was no mention of Haart or the Deepguard mine besides initial arguments by the Historical society who mentioned that it could be the site of the Deepguard mine. The entrance to the mine was lost a long time ago in an old landslide and now they were thinking this could very well be it.
It was then that he realized he had left the video running again and he glanced back towards the screen.
Anton nearly jumped out of his seat in shock.
The man on screen was no longer Digby Hawkins.
It was Troy Burgess again, looking just as disheveled and insane.
"It's Troy Burgess again," said the engineer hurriedly. "I've inserted my messages throughout this videos at random places. You never know who might be listening."
Anton gave a sour, exasperated look at the man in front of him and mumbled, "Of course you don't... Smart move but just as annoying." Now, he was compelled to go through every_video, watch them all to completion and hope he didn't get bored and miss Troy's messages. Even if he didn't believe this nutjob, he would have to write down the exact _times when Troy gave him these insane warning messages so when they were eventually audited and reviewed, they would know exactly where to look.
Once again lost in his own thoughts, Anton realized Troy signed out after putting down a sheet of paper, leaving Anton with the exhausting job of once again rewinding the video to just the point when Troy had begun speaking. He took note of the time and sat back, arms crossed against his chest to watch and listen.
"I've been asking myself why Blackscript keeps this mine open even after no profitability in nearly a decade. Most investment companies wouldn't even keep this place open for a few quarters let alone years if it was this bad. But for some reason, Blackscript still keeps the lights on and keeps sending people in. I had to start asking questions."
"Of course you did," sighed Anton, running a hand down his tired face. At the very least he was sure he wasn't hallucinating this. This guy sounded incredibly insane. Some part of him wanted to blame the lack of productivity on this guy but Troy likely hadn't been working in Underide for long. He wouldn't be able to justify keeping the place open by firing a man who clearly needed psychological help who had only been present at the site for a month or so.
"At first, I couldn't find anything. I was stonewalled. A lot." Troy looked exhausted. Some pang of sympathy trickled up from Anton's chest. In many ways, there were much the same; two men searching for answers and now dangling at the end of their ropes.
Then a triumphant glint entered Troy's bloodshot eyes. "But then I found something. Something that led me down the right path and started the chain of events that blew this case wide open. It was small. But it was everything_."_
Now Anton was interested and for a moment, his eyebrows rose.
Troy lifted a piece of paper. It was a simple white sheet, likely from a printer. The contents looked to be an invoice of some sort. The video quality was a little too blurry to truly make out what was on the sheet but what was clear were the huge, red markings that someone had drawn all over the page, circling certain letters, drawing lined between them and making it look like some form of arcane rune from an age gone past. It almost resembled a snake with its tell-tale 'S' shape only it had four branches spreading out of it on either side of its long, elongated body. Almost insect-like albeit missing a few legs.
"You see?" Troy exclaimed excitedly, jabbing a finger at the page. "You see?"
"No," Anton said with a defeated sigh. "No, I don't."
"When you draw a line between instance of the letter 'Y' on this page from top to bottom, it makes this! This is the key! It kicked off the start of my journey to finding out what the truth about this whole place is!" Troy held up a hand. "Now I know what you're thinking."
"Really?" Anton commented bitterly. "Do you really?"
"Why the letter 'Y'? Well, how many times would the letter 'Y' appear on an invoice? Underide doesn't have it. Neither does Blackscript. It shouldn't be there!"
Anton ran a hand down his face and kept his fingers hovering over his eyes for a good long, few minutes. "I dunno, Troy... Invoices usually reference days. They're generally about paying someone. Those have Y's in them..." He was half tempted not to go back and replay the parts that he had missed in his exasperation but his age-old promise came back and he groaned to himself. Going back to where he left off, he grit his teeth and endured this insane rambling.
"... be there! So I got to looking. I traced the lines! It's a map! The first letter! And it is exactly what will prove to you that I'm telling the truth." Troy glanced around his little room with paranoid, darting eyes. "I'll end the message here. Look out for me in the next video."
That was where he put down the page and the video switched back to Digby.
"Jesus Christ..." groaned Anton, pausing the recording long enough to write down the end of the Troy's ramblings. With a shake of his head he focused his attention on Digby and Fabio's second in command.
"I know Fabio will have already put his case forward in sorting out the turnaround issue," Digby said, never having missed a beat from his previous statement. "So I'm here to give you the perspective of someone who isn't just gunning to keep his job but also from a professional standpoint. I'm a geologist. I've studied for this. So I'm a professional and I can tell you now, there is something down there that will really turn the profit. We won't just be selling coal. We'll be selling gold too. I guarantee you, if we sort out the employment issue around here and expanding our mining operations to a little northwest, we will find goal. We won't just be breaking even, we'll be tripling our profits. Look at this."
Digby provided two pie charts. Anton had seen them before in the reports he had seen. They were mineral compositions of soil samples taken on the site. He didn't really pay attention to them but with a geologist there to explain things, he was genuinely curious.
The site geologist pointed at the right most pie chart.
"The soil taken from where our mine currently is contains large amounts of coal and other traces of some other elements. But note how there is a 1% bit of gold on average_. Not enough to really make a profit but it's there. Then look at this sample taken northwest."_ He pointed at the other pie chart. "The gold amount has jumped up to 5%! There's gold there! I think Haart was actually onto something but he was just digging in the wrong spots! With proper equipment and manpower, we could make Blackscript profitable!"
There was a shout off screen and Digby beamed brightly. "Right! I'll be right there!" shouted the enthusiastic geologist. "I'll be handing the reins over to Aleksandr Smirnov. He's the most senior person here. Actually stayed at the mine for over six weeks now. I'm sure you'll make the right decision but if you need more convincing from a geological standpoint, I'll be back to give you the rundown on our primary focus and that is coal."
The video ended and Anton shrugged. That was a convincing argument. Gold was a popular commodity and a lot of the people up in management wouldn't really care about soil quality or composition. So long as they heard 'gold', they would jump at the opportunity to make themselves rich.
With a shrug, he started up the next video. The man on screen was tall, had a strong, square jaw and almost box-like head considering his short blonde hair cut in a crew cut. His piercing blue eyes and high cheekbones reminded Anton a lot of a viking. When he spoke, this Aleksandr Smirnov emitted a sound that was deep and thick with a Russian accent that - coupled with the man's enormous, muscled build - brought to mind some sort of elite soldier from the cold, unforgiving north.
"My name is Aleksandr Smirnov," grunted the man. "I am most senior worker here at Underide mine. I come here to the America to work. Am refugee but find work in mines. Came here to work six weeks ago. Rumors about mine do not scare me. These things that 'go bump in night' just all in imagination. American jokes. Just excuse to not work."
Anton nodded to himself solemnly. "That's what I thought. Given any chance, I'm sure any American would look for any excuse at easy money. Suing the site or Blackridge over inhospitable working environments after the track record it's had would be very easy."
Before Aleksander could continue, however, the video cut off and there was Troy again, holding up another image, this time a photograph and again, it had red marking all over it.
"Hi, it's Troy Burgess again."
Anton slammed a fist into his table.
"Goddamnit!"
Chapter 5
Extract from an anonymous opinion post on Twitter
Blackscript Investments is bullshit. They treat their employees as disposable and investments worse. The minute you make them lose money, you're out. No warnings. No transparency. They just send some 'auditors' to you and then you get pink-slipped 1/2
They don't care about the people they affect. It's all just numbers to them. Look up 'top-down-management' and you'll see their fucking logo. Fuck Blackscript and fuck all those that enable them. To those owned by then, get the hell out 2/2
******
Anton
Enough was enough.
Troy's constant interference was no longer funny or novel and this recent development now constituted as interference in official business. The ragged expression on his face, the wild-eyed stare he gave Anton and his constant interruptions and rantings amounting to someone needed psychological help. This had to go to HR.
But first, Anton knew he had to at least let his supervisor know.
Part of him was tempted to stop here, enjoy the rest of his weekend and wait until Monday to tell Fallihd that he couldn't finish the report because of the ravings of a madman that had constantly popped up on the video testimonies. But that wasn't the kind of worker that Anton prided himself in being. Perhaps it was a bit of paranoia and a bit of perfectionism, but he couldn't leave himself open to being blindsided by someone saying that he should have immediately called HR. Their HR Service Desk was open 24/7 after all.
Besides, if he used the corporate phone and Fallihd gave him some angry rant about not calling him on the weekend, all of that would be recorded so if ever he was asked why he didn't call his manager, he would have recorded evidence that he tried to do the right thing.
Having secured his path forward, Troy picked up the phone right next to his desk and dialed his supervisor's number. There were only a few rings before someone else picked up on the other side.
"Rowan Fallihd," came the curt response, ever professional.
"Hi Rowan," began Troy, hiding his weariness. "It's Anton."
His supervisor's mood immediately brightened. "Anton! How are you doing, my man? Enjoying your weekend?"
Fallihd must be having a good time wherever he was. That caused a bit of bitterness to bubble up in Anton's stomach but he swallowed it and pushed forward with politeness and a fake smile that his supervisor couldn't see.
"Of sorts," he answered. "Listen, I was going through the videos of the Underide case."
Fallhid's tone suddenly changed to being grave and serious. "Anton, those documents are highly secure. Please tell me you didn't take them home. You know what's a breach of security."
"No, no. Of course not. I'm in the office."
"Wait... You are?"_There was a moment of shuffling. _"Jesus Christ, Anton! It's eight PM! How long have you been there?"
"All day," Anton groaned softly. "Listen, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."
"If this is about the deadline, don't worry about it. We can always ask for an extension to the board. Hell, if you want, we can work on it first thing Monday morning. Just go home_."_
"I will, but I just wanted to tell you something first," Anton insisted. "It may actually help with asking for that extension."
"Alright. What is it?"
"I've been going over the videos," he explained. "And it looks like some engineer on site has tampered with them."
"Tampered...? What do you mean?"
"He's inserted videos of himself in them at irregular times. He's randing about some sort of conspiracy at Blackscript and Underide. He honestly looks a little crazy and I honestly think he could have done more to the videos to make them look more incriminating. I don't think they'd be a valid source of information for this review."
There was a pause on the other side and what he thought was a sigh.
"Okay," Fallihd said at length. "If this guy is on every video, then there is plausible cause to suspect that he may have tampered with not only the videos but the reports as well. He might be trying to shut us down for some reason or another. We can go over it on Monday. If we present enough evidence, we can give it to the board and tell them that this nutjob screwed us and we'll need a few more months to actually get some evidence down there. Maybe we'll send you over there to actually see the site. Two weeks ought to do it."
Anton shook his head even though his supervisor didn't see it. "I don't need -"
"Two weeks, Anton. You'll probably get the audit done in one but you need a holiday. Wyoming is gorgeous this time of year. Been there myself on a site visit a couple of years back. Trust me. For now, call it a day, rest up and go home_. Have some dinner, binge watch something, sleep. Hell, masturbate if you have to so you can blow off some steam. Just relax. We'll deal with this on Monday. Okay?"_
The office worker sighed softly and nodded to himself. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Rowan."
"Good man. See you Monday."
Fallihd hung up and Anton set down the receiver. Some part of him had expected his supervisor to yell at him, to scream at him, to ignore the ravings of a lunatic and just look at the cold hard facts. But Fallihd had been surprisingly understanding and quite generous. Maybe it was just his weariness that caused him to project negativity on his boss. His supervisor's empathy deflated a lot of his seething rage and, at the same time, filled him with a bit of renewed energy.
"I need to clear my head," he concluded.
Rising from his seat, he wandered out of his cubicle and followed the familiar path towards the men's bathrooms. He had walked this path so many times before that even in the twilight that was the office with only the lights from the city offering any sort of illumination, he could make it to the door without issue. Thankfully, the bathroom itself was one of those types that would immediately switch on the lights once it detected movement. The flash of those soft, yellow lights was almost blinding but he powered through it and headed to one of the nearby cubicles.
It was almost instinctive, like his body was entirely in auto-pilot. He wasn't exactly sure why_he pulled dark gray slacks down, pushed down the toilet seat cover and sat down with his modest balls hanging over the edge of the porcelain but it was not something he would do normally. Anton was very professional and despite not having many opportunities for sexual relief, he never felt the need to pleasure himself at work. There were _some_people he knew that indulged like that but Anton would _never dare such an act.
Sheer embarrassment turned his ears red and he could hear his heart pounding in his eardrums.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Yet, here he was, frozen in mid-stroke with his modest six-inch dick semi-hard in his hand with the high, pale-peach walls of the toilet cubicle forming three protective barriers around him, shielding him from the rest of the world. There wasn't even a little opening at the base of the door. Somehow, he had subconsciously locked the door. Now he was in his own private, semi-sound-proof box with the rest of the world waiting on the other side of that door.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
The rest of the world which included that looming deadline, the politics around Blackscript and Troy Burgess' insane ramblings. After nearly two weeks of stressing about the fates of nearly a hundred workers and hundreds of millions of dollars worth in investments coupled with lack of sleep and poor nutrition, it was perfectly natural to want to find some form of release, right?
His body answered that question for him.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
His hand was already stroking his dick to full mast. It was all he could do bit back moans of pleasure as all the tension, all the stress and all that worry that had built up over the entire expanse of the project transformed into energy and motivation that drove his hand. What hesitation he had faded into the arousal and huffs of relief that grew with each stroke.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Anton leaned into the sensations, lightly bucking his hips and shutting his eyes. Nearly two weeks of stress and work was transformed into raw sexual energy that seeped into his muscles and bones. Every minute of tension was a drop of fuel that was ignited by the spark of this brazen violation of corporate policy. It set his body ablaze and within moments, he was fully thrusting into the air, using his free hand to hold himself down on the toilet seat.
Some part of him was still paranoid about being heard despite the lack of anyone being present in the office building. That part caused him to bite his lower lip, perhaps in some desperate attempt of the evolved side of his brain to use pain to knock him out of this sudden, sexual outburst. The effort was in vain. Every cell in his body was consumed by the overwhelming heat of the moment.
Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump.
His strokes became more and more desperate. All that worry, anxiety and distress was poison in his veins and he wanted it out of his body as soon as possible. He curled his toes, visualizing _pushing_all that black venom out of his feed, sending them coursing up his calves and across his thighs to his balls. Muscles all along his legs tensed, pressing up against his slacks and stretching the fabric with an audible groan.
His back arched, head thrown back as a silent gasp left his lips. Baring his chest, he felt all that frustration pump through his veins, passing through his rapidly beating heart and making its way straight towards his throbbing dick. Those very same veins pressed up against his skin, invisible beneath his long-sleeved shirt but just barely managing to crawl up his neck and kissing the base of his skull before rapidly retreating as the pressure in his cock grew to unbearable levels.
Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump.
Anton's eyes burst open as the floodgates exploded. His cum exploded out of his cock with enough force that he could swear his dick stretched from the sheer force of the expulsion alone. His sticky, white seed blasted out of his dick, arched through the air and splattered against the wall of the stall.
The loud splattering sound triggered a moment of fight-or-flight, fear of discovery causing his body to seize up. That only caused him to clench his cock and send out another burst of seed that filled his mind with the blissful touch of afterglow, sending his body into a spiral of relaxation once more.
Panting, Anton rode the headiness of post-orgasm bliss for a few more moments and let out a soft sigh of relief. Fallihd had been right. He needed that. Waves of warmth and relaxation washed over his body, turning his body into gelatin and weakening his resolve. Nothing sounded more appealing that shutting down his desktop, leaving his cubicle and returning home to curl up and sleep for the rest of the weekend.
Sexual release came with a moment of post-nut clarity and he determined that he owed it to the miners at Underide to keep pushing forward. Fallihd gave great advice about finding relief but Anton was still determined to push forward. The videos weren't that long. He'd finish them and then go home and spend the rest of tomorrow doing nothing. Just some time to himself.
"Sounds like a plan," he sighed to himself with a nod. "I won't let what happened to Michael happen again."
He basked in the joy of afterglow for another few seconds before he grabbed some tissues, cleaned up his mess and flushed the evidence down the toilet. It took him until the bowl had filled up again to realize that his dick was still out and semihard. Odd given that he would've gotten soft by now. There must have still been some stress that he was keeping bottled up. So much the better. He could let it out at home after he was done here.
Anton zipped himself up, left the cubicle, washed his hands and then made his way back to his desk, stumbling around in the dark.
Refreshed and relieved, Anton regarded the panicked expression of Troy Burgess with a pleasant smile.
"Alright, Troy," he began. "Show me what you've got."
Chapter 6
Text Transcript from F. Romani and D. Hawkins
D: Hey Boss, whatcha doing?
F: Nothing much, Digs. Just sitting around. Watching the game.
D: What're you wearing?"
F: Nothing but my jockstrap and socks.
D: Can I see?
F: <<Sends picture>>
D: Damn, Boss. You hard as a diamond!
F: You gonna come over and do something about it?
D: Shit, man. I'm already in my car when you said 'jockstrap'.
F: I'll loosen up and get ready for your sexy dick.
D: Don't cum without me.
F: Better hurry then. There's a reason I wearing a jockstrap with easy access to this ass.
D: Fuck you.
F: That's the idea, boy.
******
Interview #3
"Thanks for indulging me," Troy began. "I know it all sounds crazy but if you've made it this far, then I've at least piqued your curiosity." Once again, the clearly stressed and somewhat frustrated engineer held up a page with that same 'S' symbol on it. "When you know what you're looking for, this symbol appears everywhere_. Even more concerning is what is hidden amongst the symbols."_
Anton tilted his head slightly, curious but at the same time very skeptical.
"In my last message, the weird placement of the letter 'Y' is what led me to this symbol." Troy pointed at the page he held up. "When you transpose this symbol over other images, you'll find there's a clear connection. I found letters everywhere. There were letters in the cracks on the wall. Letters in promotional videos. Posters. Even the positioning of certain buildings on the site is explicitly placed to look like this symbol."
"Now that's just stupid," Anton sighed. Pinned to the wall on his right was a large bird's eye view of the entire site. Just on a cursory glance revealed that the the structures were scattered and placed in a rather uniform position. There was nothing to suggest that this symbol was everywhere.
Deciding to humor Troy, he took a red marker from his desk and circled one of the building on the far right hand-side of the picture. A glance over at the screen and he realized that Troy was still speaking. Once again, he had forgotten to pause the video. This worked to his favor as he was able to rewind the recording until it once again showed an image of the symbol Troy was so obsessed with. Trying not to roll his eyes as he turned his gaze back towards the site image, he absently drew a line from his circled building to another one not too far away. One glance back at the frozen image of Troy and, if he stretched his imagination, it might be possible to see the startings of the symbol.
"What the hell?" he sighed with exasperation and finished his drawing, linking the lines together through arbitrary buildings in what he thought might be a rough estimation of the symbolic 'S' that Troy displayed. Once done, he rolled back his seat and lifted his eyebrows.
"What the hell...?" he repeated, this time with a different, more astonished tone.
With both the video and the site in view, there was no denying that the symbol was suspiciously the same. Near-perfect in accuracy. He had to lean forward towards his drawing again and make sure he wasn't imagining things.
No.
He had drawn everything right.
"God..." he mumbled, rubbing temples. "I'm going crazy." He spun back towards Troy and hit 'play'. "Let's hear your explanation."
"I can't explain it," Troy immediately said, as if reading his mind. "It's just everywhere_. I don't know what it means but it's not... natural."_ The engineer set down his page. "Speaking of unnatural. Have you noticed that all the employees here in Underide are male? Not a single woman in sight."
That caused Anton's brow to furrow. This time, he did remember to pause the video as he looked over the staff records. Sure enough, only men had been sent to Underide. Other mining operations run by Blackscript had an even split of genders but Underide was entirely male Looking back at the records of staff members that had let confirmed further that not a single woman had stepped foot on the site.
"What does that mean...?"
He hit the 'play' button again.
"And what's weirder is that everyone here is gay."
Anton's face fell. It took a lot of effort to avoid the knee-jerk reaction of accusing Troy of being homophobic. Forcing that feeling down, he waited for Troy to continue to explain himself.
The engineer leaned forward and seemed to grab the camera, slowly and quietly titling it towards a nearby window.
"I don't know what it is. But every guy that comes on board here either leaves almost immediately or gets roped into sleeping with another one of the guys." Troy shook his head as he set the camera by the window. "Not me though. I've managed to resist but... it's hard. Really hard. The guys here are really friendly. Charismatic. You're drawn to what they say and... and fuck... I'm getting hard just thinking about them."
Perhaps that was a reason for the turnover. Inclusiveness usually meant opening one's doors to all walks of life but it could be possible the openly homosexual environment made people uncomfortable. It was possible that after months of being away from other people, these guys started sleeping with one another and, eventually, they formed a sort of 'gay club' that may have inadvertently excluded straight people.
Anton had heard about it happening before. It wasn't intentional or malicious in anyway. Some in-jokes that would not be shared. Invitations falling on the wayside. Distance given when walking out of respect. Such things could eventually wear down on one's mental health especially if there was no alternative company provided. Maybe the very same reason none of this was brought up was because those who left were afraid of being labeled homophobic.
"That doesn't make sense, though," mumbled Anton. "No one has stuck around long enough to really make that 'club' stick."
"Need proof?"
Troy's words suddenly jarred Anton back to the screen.
"There," Troy accused, focusing the camera on a scene within an adjacent cabin. It was the middle of the night and it was a little hard to make out the figures but as the camera came into focus, it became evident that there were two _male_figures hurriedly stripping one another's clothes in the adjacent cabin.
"Oh no," Anton breathed. "Troy... What have you done?"
Housing was provided for the miners given how remote the site was from the rest of civilization and Blackscript didn't ask what happened in those cabins so long as they were maintained and well-kept. If the miners decided to fuck in those cabins, they were free too as long as it didn't hamper their work or damage the site and it wasn't out in public where anyone else could see.
Spying on someone like this, though, was cause for termination.
Anton almost felt pity for Troy. The guy was clearly not mentally well and now he would lose his job when he was just trying to do the right thing.
"That's it for now," Troy said. "I'll tell you more in the next video."
Anton wasn't exactly sure why he did it but he rewound the video to the point when Troy just settled the camera on the window. He had missed the start and most of the recording as he was lost in his own thoughts. There was no need to actually watch the two men having sex but a whisper in his mind told him that he needed to watch it through. Perhaps it was adhering to his principles as a result of his past or maybe he wanted to learn who was fucking in the cabins so Troy didn't have to fall alone.
Regardless, he ultimately didn't care as soon as he saw the hairy back of the site foreman lifting the slimmer, leaning figure of Digby Hawkins into the air while they passionately kissed. Clothes were flying off within moments, their impassioned lovemaking coming straight out of a porn video. Digby skillfully undid the buckles of Fabio's overalls and the much larger foreman stepped out of the denim to throw Digby onto the bed. From his angle, it was impossible to tell what happened next but a shirt was removed and within moments, the two of them were fully naked with Digby pressed against Fabio's impressive, hairy chest, suckling on his nipples while the foreman was rolling his eyes and head back and forth, clearly moaning.
Anton's mouth went dry and once again, he could hear his own heartbeat bounding in his ears. Some part of him knew this was wrong; it was obscene! But the majority of him argued that no one else was here, it was dark and the cameras wouldn't be able to catch him watching what was effectively softcore-porn.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Digby skillfully and slowly worked his way from one nipple to the other, kissing the hard ridges of Fabio's hairy pectorals before tracing the lines of the foreman's abdominal muscles through the dense body hair down to his crotch. Like some cruel cosmic censorship, it was impossible to actually see the foreman's dick as it was well below the window sill. Anton found himself wishing to see that cock.
Before he could fully comprehend that wish, however, Fabio suddenly grabbed Digby's shoulders and pulled him up. Lifting him by his armpits, Fabio flipped Digby over, holding him upside-down and pressing his bearded face against the geologist's crotch. At the same time, Digby hungrily dove at Fabio's still-out-of-view cock but the bobbing motions of his head clearly indicated what he was doing. Anton finally found his desire of cock sated as he saw Digby's member slide in and out of Fabio's lips.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Anton, eyes fixated on the scene, subconsciously reached for his now painfully erect cock, squeezing the member through his tight slacks and panting like a dog in heat. He didn't tear his gaze away from the scene even when both men pressed up against the window, giving the clearest view yet of HR policy violations. If it wasn't for the fact that Anton could clearly see Fabio's hairy but very muscled back, it was the fact that they were literally shaking the glass with their gyrations.
"Oh fuck..." Anton moaned softly, gripping his cock and shaking in his seat.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
The two moved out of view, much to his disappointment and Troy interjected with, "That's it for now. I'll tell you more in the next video."
As if a spell had been broken, Anton gasped and released his cock. Frightened and horrified at what he had come so close to doing in his own cubicle, he got up and glanced around the dark office. Like the many times he had checked, there was no one around. Even the quiet honking of angry motorists could barely make it through the glass of the office. His racing heart would not calm down, however, and he sank slowly back into his seat, his cock still aching with need.
Puzzled as to how it was even physically possible for him to be erect after having just ejaculated violently in the bathroom not fifteen minutes ago, Anton regarded his tented crotch with a mixture of confusion and fascination. With how much his dick was pressing up against his slacks, he could swear he looked bigger.
His thoughts were interrupted by the deep, accented drawl of another man.
"Americans not lazy," said Aleksandr Smirnov. "Just opportunists."
That accent, the tough features, bright blue eyes, square jaw and craggy features of the miner made Anton moan. Unaided by his hands, his cock twitched and spewed a short burst of precum into his slacks, staining the fabric with evidence of his arousal. Anton had to hold onto the edge of his table as he was mesmerized by another sight; this immense, muscled man that could easily be a bodybuilder.
Addled by all the blood rushing towards his crotch, Anton could barely think and what thoughts he could muster were about what this viking from the north looked like beneath that miner's shirt and what his rough, calloused, working-man's hands would feel against his skin. He barely registered how Aleksandr explained that morale was low amongst newcomers but those already established here were fairly comfortable. Vetting people who were loyal to the company and genuinely enjoyed mining and hard work would crush the rumors and make the mine profitable again.
But he wasn't listening.
His cock craved release.
Unable to resist its call, he bolted out of his seat and half-stumbled, half-ran back towards the bathroom.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Chapter 7
From the Diary of T. Burgess
Dear Diary,
I know I've been keeping a diary for years - since I was 10 as part of a writing exercise for middle school - but I had always filled it with mundane entries that rarely mattered. But today... well... Today was different. Today, something really weird happened.
A new guy arrived today. A Russian immigrant by the name of Aleksandr Smirnov. When you think about a 'Russian', he pulls up all the stereotypes. Box-like head, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall and built like a tank. Speaks with this low, accented drawl that is both intimidating but at the same time adorable.
That's the weird part. I've never been attracted to a man before but the moment I saw Aleks, as he likes to be called... I guess something just stirred in me. It's strange. These feelings inside of me are... they're just weird. I don't think they're natural.
I'm starting to think this site is finally getting to me.
I need to look into this.
*****
Anton
Images of that titan of a man invaded Anton's mind. He barely made it into the stall before he collapsed to his knees and had to unbuckle his belt and pull down his pants until they were resting around his knees. His cock was fully erect, standing at an impressive nine-inches. A thick, slimy white fluid was already pouring out of the tip and soaking into a pool beneath him. He didn't need to grip his pulsating cock as the ghostly, calloused hands of Aleksandr Smirnov were already sliding its large, firm fingers up and down his shaft, stimulating both his imagination and member.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Both his hands were used to press against the walls of the stall, quivering as he used all of his strength to try and maintain his upright position. The increasingly dwindling sensible part of his brain was struggling to understand what was happening. The only time he had ever been this attracted to anyone before was back when he was a teenager struggling with his hormones and coming to terms with the changes in his body.
This wasn't mere attraction. The symptoms were the same. Heart racing, sweat dripping down his body, cock erect, heavy breathing and even a bit of blurred vision, dizziness and difficulty concentrating. But the intensity of each symptom was magnified to a hundred. This wasn't just attraction; it was raw desire, lust and a primal need to mate.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
The sensation permeated every fiber of his being; soaking into his bones, seeping into his muscles and infecting his organs. Almost immediately, said organs began to reacting to these familiar commands. His testicles were the first to truly succumb, bulging against his sack as they grew into immense lemon-sized orbs that slapped against his thighs with each of his fevered convulsions. They went into a near constant state of semen production, pumping precum all up his increasingly thickening and lengthening shaft.
Thick, purple veins radiated from his crotch, creeping all over his waist and thighs. Muscles and bones cracked with a sound like breaking timber. His pale flesh was stretched taught by the rapidly expanding mass. Abdominal muscles pressed up against his skin, now clearly visible as they were highlighted by his sweat. The expanding mass of his frame seemed to give the illusion of his public hairs shrinking as, strangely, the bush did not grow. Against the backdrop of his widening thighs and his now ten-inch-cock, he almost looked fully shaved.
Extra power flooded into his legs as his calves and thighs expanded, ensuring that his slacks would now be fully filled and stretched. This power was immediately put to good use as he thrust savagely into the air, imagining Aleksandr's mouth around his member, sliding up and down the shaft while his warm precum poured down the sexy Russain's throat. Ethereal hands wrapped around his but, his glutes tightening and firming up yet at the same time spreading open wide to admit the imaginary fingers into himself.
Anton let out an audible gasp, throwing his head back and drizzling the stall's walls with sweat. Cracking noises rippled up his back. Hard curves and deep crevasses scrawled all over his torso from his deepening abdominals to his swelling lats. The mounds of his pectorals inflated like twin balloons, the valley between them growing increasingly cavernous. Buttons came flying off his collar, popping alongside the crackling of his spine and revealing the shockingly defined chest.
Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump.
The phantom that was Aleksandr Smirnov changed positions. Suddenly, Anton could feel the Russian's breath on his neck, those chiseled cheeks brushing against his ear. The fingers that had been penetrating him transformation into a single mass of throbbing, vascular man-meat that pushed deep into him, pumping into him at the same pace that he was thrusting hard into the air. The Russian's lips moved, mouthing something, whispering an unknowable name.
Consumed by the pleasures of his growing body, Anton offered no resistance and let that name wash through him, branding itself into his very being. Syllables were forming between each of his guttural grunts.
"Come..." Aleksander whispered in his thick accent. "... come...!"
A tightness wrapped around his arms, becoming increasing uncomfortable as the seconds passed by. Like iron cords tightening against his biceps and forearms, he fought against them with what little of his consciousness he could muster. All this lust was trying to suffocate him, trying to squeeze the last vestiges of higher thinking from his body by restraining his arms. He refused to submit and with all his might, he pushed back.
The sound of tearing fabric spelled his doom. Light-blue, pinstriped cloth tore and hung uselessly against his inflated forearms. Great fissures split across his biceps, exposing to vascular mountains of his biceps beneath. Too late did the rational part of him realize he had fallen into the trap and he had inadvertently freed the beast within, fueling the growth into his now monstrous arms.
Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump. Bu-bump-Bump.
Weakened, the moment Aleksandr gave his command, Anton could no longer hold back.
His foot-long dick shot forward, erupting another inch to an impossibly long length while simultaneously widening in girth. Ropes of thick, white seed splattered across the back of the stall, somehow missing the toilet entirely and covering the wall in a Pollock-style display. Anton managed to stifle his gasps somewhat, letting out a choking, guttural gasp that was twisted by the wide smile that was creeping across his features.
"Nyzda'Kumyr," he whispered.
Exhaustion quickly sank it's cold claws into him and he finally released the bathroom stall walls, vaguely registering that his explosive growth had caused large indentations into the structure. He barely held himself up on his hands and knees, his cum dripping from his cock which still stood painfully erect. Wearing that same grin, he waited patiently as the gift of the Cast Down King worked its way out of his system. What followed was the all too appealing waves of afterglow and relaxation that came with having orgasmed multiple times in such rapid succession.
The call of surrender, the siren song of relinquishing himself entirely to the melody of eternal bliss through sex, grew strong enough that he could now feel it physically tugging him. Its words were still muffled like hearing his favorite song through the thick walls of a house or like he was hearing a song from his childhood for the first time in decades. His body knew the tune, remembered the rhythm and could vaguely recall the words but still _couldn't_quite sing along just yet.
This distortion of the song was enough for Anton to recall his personal promise. He still had a job to do.
"But why...?" he asked himself, smiling dreamily off into the distance and at the mess he had made against the wall. "Why do I need to do that... thing... again?"
It was getting hard to remember exactly why he needed to go back to his desk but he recalled that he just had to. Figuring that it would come to him eventually, he groggily got to his feet once more and tried to pull his pants up. It was with a grunt of disappointment that he noticed his slacks wouldn't even go up past halfway his thighs. Not that they could fit his enormous genitals anyway. Not caring for societal norms, he left his cum-stained slacks there on the floor and just tucked his cock and balls into his straining boxers. Discomfort restricted his breathing. Almost without thinking, he unfastened the last button holding his shirt together and let the two halves of the tattered garment fall from his shoulders like a thin vest.
Skin glistening with sweat, he turned to leave the stall and made his way back to his desk. He only stopped long enough to look at his own reflection over the sink mirrors. For a second, he though there was a strange, silver spot sitting on his forehead like someone had buried the head of a spoon into his skull. It was a brief vision but it burned itself into his mind. There was nothing there, of course, but he couldn't sake the feeling that it was important.
He lumbered back towards his desk, his legs strangely wobbly and weak despite being so much thicker and wider. About halfway there, he recalled that he needed to finish some sort of audit.
"Underride," he concluded triumphantly. "That's right. I've got to finish watching those videos."
With a satisfied grin, he sat back down at his desk in nothing but his underwear. Recalling the image of Aleksandr, he eagerly brought up the next video. It wasn't the sexy Russian, sadly, but it Fabio again. Still, recalling how attractive the man had looked fucking Digby, Anton could not help but lick his lips. The video must have been taken some time after the first one because the foreman was looking much bigger. His entire figure took up the screen with his neck having long been swallowed by his traps.
Hard work at the mine, Anton reasoned.
Before he started the video, however, the 'S' symbol emblazoned on his cubicle walls caught his attention. Troy's words of warning about the symbol appearing everywhere came through the dull, distant symphony of the Idiot with Nothing's mantra. Taking a random piece of paper from the stack of reports, he began drawing that same symbol across the sheet. At the key vectors, he noted what letters of semblance of letters formed each intersection.
"Z," he mumbled loudly. "I... T... K... H... L..."
Combined with Troy's 'Y', Anton did a quick search on the internet for any word that contained all those letters. Nothing came up. What he did realize, much to his curiosity, was that those same letters occurred in countless reports and images consistently. Whenever he transposed that symbol onto an image, each vector always had one of those letters or at least something that resembled those letters.
There was definitely something there.
What was the Cowardly Pauper God trying to tell him?
His curiosity sated for the moment, Anton pinned all the images he had marked over his cubicle walls and hit play on the recording.
"Hi, Fabio again."
Chapter 8
Personal To-Do-List from F. Romani
1 - Find away to make the mine profitable again - TOP PRIORITY
2 - Go on an actual date with Digby
3 - Submit Aleksandr's immigration forms so he's actually legal
4 - Get Troy a psych evaluation. He's been acting weird lately
5 - Learn how to play the flute
*****
Interview #4
"By now ya've heard from both Digby an' Aleksandr," said this hirsute foreman with an easy-going smile. "Ya know this mine's got potential. If not fer coal, then gold. Management ain't the only one that thinks so. Aleks says th' same thin'."
Anton nodded in agreement. The mine had to remain open. It was just as he always felt. Finding the reason to keep it open and submit it to the higher ups in a convincing manner, however, was entirely different. Gold and promises of maintaining staff was all well and good but Blackscript had invested in this site for nearly a decade. They probably heard the same thing over and over again each quarter.
What was so special about Fabio's crew that would change things?
"But I know ya still need convincin'," continued the foreman. "So I've gathered some people 'ere ta tall ya that we're all committed to keeping this mine goin'. We're committed to staying."
The video suddenly cut to the face of Digby Hawkins, the geologist looked noticeably bigger as well. Much fitter. One could clearly see the mounds of his deltoids and his pectorals were pressing up against his shirt as clear square-silhouettes.
_"We're committed,"_Digby reaffirmed.
Another change and this time it was Aleksandr.
_"We're committed,"_grunted the Russian who was now standing in nothing but denim overalls, no shirt beneath. His bare muscles were out to be seen. Anton didn't even hesitate and pulled down his boxers to allow his cock to rise up in salute to the handsome man.
Again, the image changed and this time, it was the face of someone he didn't know but like the previous three, he was a miner and looked incredibly handsome.
"We're committed."
More faces flashed before his eyes, each one uttering the same words over and over again.
"We're committed."
An emotional plea. From a business stand-point, it was a weak argument. No board would ever invest millions in a site that was hemorrhaging money on the whimsical promises of a few people. But Anton sat there, watching each face flash before his eyes, utterly transfixed with each handsome, muscled man that came across his vision. He barely blinked but when he did, he could swear he could see the red markings of the letters he had plastered all over his wall.
"We're committed," said a young, All-American stud.
Y.
A stunning African-American miner gave him a million-dollar smile. "We're committed."
Z.
An Asian-American bodybuilder flexed an arm at him. "We're committed."
I.
A stunning red-head with a lantern-like jaw leaned over and winked at him. "We're committed."
T.
"We're committed," intoned a brown-haired, blue-eyed Adonis.
K.
"_We're committed,"_repeated Digby.
T.
"Dah," agreed Aleksandr, walking onto the same screen as Digby and wrapping an arm around the slightly smaller man's shoulders. They couldn't have been the same high. Could they?
"We're committed."
H.
Fabio walked into the same frame as the other two, placing himself in between the two men. Digby and Aleksandr rested their hands on his shoulder in a motion that was far more than what one would extend to a foreman or a boss.
"We're committed."
L.
Suddenly, the screen went black and for a few seconds, Anton could swear that 'S' symbol was emblazoned on screen again. Then, he found himself staring at Troy Burgess again. The disheveled features were off-set by the man's impressive physique. Troy was standing only in a pair of boxer shorts and seemed to be in a hurry as he set down the camera.
"Yzitkthl," Troy uttered, sitting opposite the camera and staring straight at Anton with fearful eyes. "That's the name of... of the thing living in that cave. The Tongue that Writes. I don't know what it means. It just popped into my mind one night and I just know that's what it's called."
That felt right. Yzitkthl, the Unspoken Speech. Anton's eyes drifted to the various symbols etched in the walls all over his cubicle. Not a single patch of gray felt that made up the actual wall was visible through the pages and photographs that he had pinned and drawn all over. It could easily be construed as the scribblings of a madman but... Anton wasn't afraid.
The Lord of the Screaming Hill wasn't something to be afraid of. Not really.
His eyes drifted back to Troy. Though he hadn't paused the video, he just knew the poor engineer had been sitting there sobbing for a good long minute before mustering the strength to speak again.
"In... In my dreams..." confessed Troy. "I saw it. The Alltaker. It was... horrifying. It... it came to me. First it looked like millions of bright red slugs, all of them writhing and crawling over one another and oozing_this black slime."_ Troy's horrified eyes met Anton's again. "Then I realized those weren't slugs."_He leaned forward, nearly nose-to-nose with the camera. _"They were tongues. Millions of tongues. It's this... blob of tongues that has these six arms made entirely of these tongues, somehow forming limbs that had three fingers on each hand."
Troy shook his head, slumping back into his seat and taking a few deep breaths.
"But... But that is it's broken form. It's a First One. A sort of... demigod, I guess? I don't know. It felt like it should be worshiped or something but at the same time not. I felt it... telling me that it helped create us." Troy made a scratching motion to the side of his head. "It made... language? Communication? I don't know. It just let us somehow talk to one another. But then it was broken. There was a war or something and it was broken. That's why it's also called the Broken Language."
Troy's eyes widened. "It tried to show me what it really looked like. It's supposed to be this huge sphere with this black flesh stretched all over it like a thin membrane or something. It has no eyes, nose or mouth. It's just this orb with this single, circular mouth that looks like a leech's. One, large tongue with barbs lashes out from inside it's endless maw. A halo made entirely of tongues writhes and curls above it. Maybe a mockery of it's divinity or something."
The engineer gripped the sides of his head and let out a loud wail. "I... I'm so sorry. I'm fighting. I really am. But this... this thing is corrupting the people here. I'm pretty sure Blackscript is feeding it." He lifted his gaze with intense ferocity towards the camera, towards Anton. "I've looked into this disgusting mass of tongues. It is known as the Alltalker. It was broken into different pieces and scattered all over the world. I think... I think every piece of it actually started to influence mankind in different ways. Each language we speak, every dialect we develop, is all tied to Yzitkthl. I think... I think every time we make up a different word, come up with languages or even create new slang, we break apart_Yzitkthl even more."_
Troy let out a bitter laugh, pressing a hand against his head and leading back in his chair. Anton could not help but notice the very large erection that the engineer was trying to hide, that thick sausage was creeping down the man's shorts, tauntingly just stopping short of truly poking out of the leg.
"It's funny," continued Troy. "We try to unite the world in so many ways. There have even been talks about using a single language for international talks and maybe even creating a single, unified speech for everyone. But... but I think if we were ever to do that, we would finally piece together the Dread Speaker and he'd finally be free." He turned a mad grin towards the camera."It's weird, isn't it? The one true cage for this unholy beast isn't some mystical seal or something. It's literally our inability to come together as one."
Even as raved about Yzitkthl, Troy was inadvertently rubbing his crotch, running his fingers along the silhouette of what had to be a foot-long cock. Dark stains was appearing at the tip of that outline and Anton found himself licking his lips in anticipation.
"I know this all sounds crazy. Especially since I have no evidence. But..." Troy grunted and rubbed the side of his head with the same hand that he had been using the stroke himself with. For a moment, he was stunned at the gooey substance that was on his fingers and then regarded his own raging boner for a moment. "Fuck... This place is getting to me. Before, I was disgusted when I caught the other guys fucking. But now, I can't stop getting hard all the time. I have to 'relieve' myself away from their prying eyes because I just know they'll pull me into having sex with them and I don't think I have the strength to say 'no'."
"Why would you say 'no'?" whispered Anton.
"Listen," pressed Troy, scrambling forward towards the camera. "I don't know if I'll make it out of here. I know I sound crazy. But you've seen what this place is doing to people... to me_. You've got to take up the mantle and keep digging! Please. Don't let all of this be in vain."Troy squeezed his eyes shut and gasped. He used both hands to hold down his cock like he was trying to wrestle a snake from breaking free. _"I'll keep trying. Keep trying to help and send you what I can. But... But I don't think I'll last."
He let out a soft laugh. "You know... I could probably leave. Leave right now. Turn my back on all this. Resign like the others but... But I think that's just as much a death sentence as staying here. Don't believe me? Look at the people who left. Look for them. You'll see what I mean."
Then the video cut off, switching to a scene where Fabio stood in front of the mine entrance alongside all the staff there.
They all turned towards the camera and, as one, uttered, "We're committed."
Chapter 9
Text Transcript from A. Smirnov and T. Burgess
A: Troy, Fabio wanted me to check on you. Are you well?
T: You want me to join you, don't you?
A: What are you talking about? You wish to come to drinks tonight?
T: You know damn well what I'm talking about! You want me to come worship the Dread Speaker! You want help putting back together the Broken Language! Well I won't help you reassembled that thing!
A: Hahaha.
T: Don't laugh at me! I know the truth and once I get it out, you'll all be sorry!
D: I feel sorry for you. You who search for the truth and came so close but have become blinded by your own sense of heroism and superiority that you cannot see the truth beyond the truth
T: What? What am I missing?
A: The likes of the Cast Down King had no need of us and yet we willingly throw ourselves at him. We expose ourselves to the seals that keep his kin at bay. We are insects that mean nothing to his grander design but since we are here, we might as well be of use.
T: Cast Down King? Who? Don't you worship the The Tongue that Writes?
A: Of course not. If you want to learn more. Come to my cabin tonight. I will show you all.
T: How do I know this isn't a trap?
A: Nyzda'Kumyr does not lie.
*****
Anton
"Look at the people who left."
Those words cut through the heady haze that seemed to stem from his throbbing erection. Anton took an entire minute to stare through bleary eyes at his blank, empty screen, struggling to understand what those words meant and why they were so important. The more he tried, however, the more the seemed so insignificant and a distraction from the more pressing need pulsating between his legs and currently leaking precum all over his desk; mercifully avoiding his laptop.
"Come..." he could hear the voices of all the site workers whispering in his ear. "...Come... here..."
In this stupor, a pleasant smile pulled against his lips. Eyes glazed over, his hands instinctively went to wards his beer-can-thick tool and he had already gotten to the point of gripping the base of his member when a single word popped in his mind.
"Michael," he whispered.
A light in the dense fog of his mind, that single name caused him to blink several times and shake his head. It was enough to spark the curiosity again in his heart, lightning a blaze that kept the haze back and brought to mind Troy's words once more.
"Look at the people who left."
What was he looking for? What was he doing?
A glance at the scribblings all around him and he slowly pieced together his purpose. Underide. An audit. People leaving in droves.
"Right, right," he mumbled to himself, leaning forward at his laptop.
Ignoring the raging erection that was slapping against his rigid abdominals, he brought up a list of all the employees and miners that had left the Underide site in the past year. Starting with the first one alphabetically, he did a quick search for him - for they were all guys - on all the social media platforms. It seemed that this guy had a rather active online presence... up until a month after he left Underide. After that there was nothing. The account was still active but nothing had been posted for a while by the user. Some people were expressing concern but nothing else beyond that.
"What the...?" he mumbled softly.
Then he looked at the next person. The same thing occurred. About a month after his departure from Underide, he stopped posting any status updates. It was the same with the person after that and the person after that. Anton even tried looking at random people on the list and the behavior was the same. All of them seemed to just drop off the online map one month after they left Underide and ultimately the employ of Blackscript.
Cogs were once again turning in Anton's head. It was slow going like a rusted machine that had just been turned on months after it had been shutdown. As his brain began gaining momentum, he started recalling details of what he was doing here. He also recalled Fallihd's warning.
Go home. Leave it for Monday.
But he couldn't. He couldn't just drop it, not when he knew he was so close to something big. It occurred to him that perhaps Fallihd's words were less about looking after his employee and as a means to sweep this all under the rug personally. Perhaps his supervisor was part of this grander conspiracy that Troy had uncovered. Anton's digging was exactly what Fallihd wanted to prevent and that was why his manager had asked him to step aside.
"Can't stop now," Anton growled to himself. "Can't stop. Have to do it for Michael."
Filled with a sense of determination and purpose, Anton began sending commands to the nearby printer. After a few minutes, he got up from his seat, half-stumbling and half-running towards the printer which sprang to life. Photographs of each of the departed employees. Red marker already in hand, he began scribbling down the dates of when each of them left and the last time they had made contact to the outside world. It didn't matter that there were thousands of employees. He knew the dates of their departures and the last time they had posted something online. He worked about just as fast as the printer an within half an hour, he had a year's worth of photographs marked with his red ink.
One blessing for having such bulging arms was that he could carry the entire stack of papers easily with him back to his desk, only occasionally spilling a few on the way. Once he was once again seated, he spilled the photos over his laptop, momentarily burying the device. With hurried hands, he plucked a photograph from the pile, a thumbtack from the small container beside his desk and pinned it to his cubicle wall. One by one, he placed the photographs, complete with their markings all over his wall. Within minutes, he was forced to overlap some of the pieces even over the other papers he had posted.
The red markings soon started to connect with one another, forming a collage of some sort. A shape was quickly forming and Anton's hands were driven to complete that shape. Would it be the writhing mass of tongues that Troy warned him about? The haloed orb with the barbed tongue that was the Lord of the Screaming Hill's true form?
Anton pinned the last piece of paper on his desk onto the wall. Every piece; even ones that he hadn't originally marked. A feverish artist struck by inspiration, Anton sat back in his seat, gazing upon his work with wide eyes all the while grinning from ear to ear.
"Oh my god..." he whispered.
It was not Yzitkthl the Dread Speaker.
Bump-Bump.
Before him, outlined by his own red markings, was the stunning visage of the Smiling Silent Echo. A featureless face grinned at him, showing perfectly straight teeth and bright, red lips that split from one side of the skull to another, nearly consuming the entire bottom half of the deity's face. There was no hair, no nose, not even any ears. A humanoid skull divided in half by pallid, blue-gray skin and a huge, toothy smile. But his depiction of the Idiot with Nothing was imperfect. There was something missing. His small, human mind could not understand what was wrong...
Bump-Bump.
... until a single vertical slit opened in the middle of the creature's face above that grin. Within was a single, silver eye; no pupils, no sclera, just an endless silver orb that stared straight at Anton and reflected the office worker's smiling features.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
The red lines of his mosaic melded together, perfecting the glorious image of the Cowardly Pauper God. Its thick neck was nearly swallowed entirely by its tremendous, muscular traps which sloped perfectly into immense shoulders. Arms that were as detailed as champion bodybuilders but the size of mountains sprouted from its torso, flexing and tantalizing Anton into stroking his own cock in an act of worship towards the Maddening Self-Loathing Mirror. Another pair of arms - equally as big and powerful - sprang from somewhere behind its shoulderblades, stroking the crevasses of his arms and neck in sultry, seductive motions.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
A single pair of pectorals that were as broad as entire mountain ranges was attended to by a third pair of arms sprouting from somewhere halfway down its back. The thick fingers caressed and pinched the black, erect nipples, causing milky, blue-white fluid to pour from the glands and rain down onto the floor. Whether he realized it or not, the goo being pumped out of Anton's crotch obtained the same coloration and the fluids he was pouring out of his dick quickly joined with the fluids of the Cast Down King beneath him, forming an almost reflective pool right beneath his feet and chair.
Stacks of muscles that formed perfectly shaped and deep abdominals led the eye towards a hairless crotch. A single, immense, tapered cock jutted out from above a sack containing four, jostling testicles. The single, alien cock twitched in tandem with Anton's own pulsating cock.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Powerful legs slipped further out of the mosaic of his cubicle walls, allowing the alien creature to hover over him. No fur or hair clung to those legs, revealing every vascular detail up and down those impossibly immense quads and broad, flaring calves. These legs ended in cloven hooves that somehow managed to stand upon Anton's desk despite the god being so much bigger than him.
Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump. Bump-Bump.
Some part of his mind couldn't understand how this titan that could easily dwarf mountains could be standing in front of him and somehow fit in the cubicle. The maddening contradictions of size and space swirled around Anton's mind, crashing together in a maelstrom of conflicting facts and sensations that he couldn't make sense out of. The grin on his face grew strained, tears streaking down his eyes.
He couldn't understand. How could he? How could anyone understand such an unfathomable beast?
Anton could feel the clashes of ideas and concepts reaching critical mass, a nuclear reaction rising to a meltdown deep within his skull that was ready to explode!
Bu-Bump-Bu-Bump. Bu-Bump-Bu-Bump. Bu-Bump-Bu-Bump.
Then, Nyzda'Kumyr, the Cast Down King, lifted one of its fingers towards his face. The god pressed that finger against Anton's lips. Again, there was a moment of insanity-inducing confusion as he knew that one limb should be as tall as skyscrapers and yet somehow, it managed to fit perfectly against his lips. But the First One complimented this movement be pressed another finger against its own lips.
And then it uttered a single noise.
"Sssssh."
Anton understood. Silence. That was all the Cowardly Pauper King wanted; his silence. Like all the miners and even Troy before him, had stumbled or been exposed to something that was beyond their comprehension. The hero of mankind, the Idiot with Nothing, just wanted him to keep silent, to keep him from exposing others to this maddening experience.
Troy had been stupid.
This was a bombshell that would've driven others insane if it ever got out.
Anton knew what he had to do.
It seemed like the grin of the Smiling Silent Echo grew broader and the divine entity straightened itself, squeezing its pectorals with its immense hands. That milky-blue ichor dripped from its nipples, cascading down its rigid abdominals and seeping down into the reflective pool of liquids gathered beneath Anton. Totally enraptured by the god before him, Anton tilted his head back and stuck out his tongue so that he might taste just a little bit of divinity.
All it took was a single drop.
The salty-sweet taste of the Cast Down King's divine juices sent every nerve in his entire body firing. Anton's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slumped into his chair, his arms spreading wide as if he were baring his chest to the entity before him. Muscles convulsed and twitched, flexing and relaxing at such a speed that they almost looked like they were made of gelatin vibrating uncontrollably. New, thick veins pulsed all over his body, feeding the the newfound power of thee Idiot with Nothing into every cell in his body.
Blood changed, transforming from the deep red of life to the same milky-blue substance that the Cast Down King excreted. At first, his body rejected this alien substance; his stomach twisting and a fiery pain shooting through his limbs. Then, faced with conversion or utter destruction, his cells welcomed the substance into themselves, embracing the changes. No mere mortal could even come close to the raw power of a First One and though all he had ingested was a single drop, it was too much for his mortal form to contain. So his body expanded to accommodate.
His pectorals surged upwards, two mountain peaks summited by permanently erect nipples that rose in the glory of his new god. Remnants of his shirt exploded off his body as his torso widened, shoulders spreading to become boulders and his traps swallowing his neck entirely. His voice naturally became deeper with his thickening neck. Eight perfectly square buns popped against his stomach, forming a powerful wall that could protect his precious internal organs. A tapered waist was supplemented by the broad, muscular back that caused the backrest of his chair to groan in protest thanks to his weight alone.
Bu-Bump-Bu-Bump. Bu-Bump-Bu-Bump. Bu-Bump-Bu-Bump.
Above him, Nyzda'Kumyr lifted all six of its arms in a flexing motion. Anton's arms mirrored the gesture. His biceps exploded with sheer mass, swallowing almost the entirely length of his upperarm in a peak that was bigger than his head. His triceps retained a permanent horseshoe shape even when relaxed. Each forearm ballooned out to twice its size, looking like hams with big, broad hands attached to them. A complex lattice of veins curled around his arms, not a single break occurring in their lines until they began to vanish around his shoulders.
If one mortal man could do nothing to stand against the might of a First One, a single pair of boxers stood no chance. The sheer size of his inflating balls started the fissure right down the middle of the garment but it was his rapidly expanding thighs that tore the fabric completely in half and sent the shattered fragments down onto the cum-stained floor to dissolve into the blissful nothingness that the Cast Down King promised.
Surprisingly, Anton was still wearing his shoes and he became aware of this fact when his feet began straining against their stubborn frames. All it took was a single grunt before his toes burst from the tips of his loafers. The relief was short-lived as the width of his feet began straining against the rest of his shoes. A resounding _ripping_noise that echoed throughout the rest of the office heralded the freedom of his body from any human clothing.
"Need... to... cum..." Anton moaned. "Need to cum here!"
With a cry and without ever touching his cock, Anton Heinrich's massive fourteen-inch cock gurgled before unleashing a torrent of seed with the force of an out-of-control firehose. The blast of seed had the faintest tinge of blue that was barely visible in the dimly lit office. Splatters of his corrupted seed struck his cubicle walls, causing them to shake but, more importantly, smearing the red ink and dislodging the photos and reports that he had scribbled all over. Each leaf of paper struck by his rocketing cock sank into the pool beneath him, seemingly dissolving into the reflective pool.
Another roar erupted from his lips with the force so strong that he was spun around in his swivel chair. Convenient as it struck everything he had posted on the walls behind him. Some of his seed even splattered out on the hall. Anton came and came again, producing inhuman amounts of his twisted seed in honor of the Cowardly Pauper God. All the while, he bore an unsettling grin on his face, flexing his biceps and bouncing his pectorals to the melody of the deity that had called him to task.
When the flood finally subsided, Anton gazed wearily at his cubicle, now dripping with his seed. The image of the Maddening Self-Loathing Mirror was gone. All that was left was his workspace dripping with his work. The gray walls were completely wipe of any evidence of his investigation. No trace remained that he had ever dug into Underide, saw those symbols, unwittingly summoned the Cast Down King and realized the truth.
All evidence was gone... except one.
His laptop.
There was still one more thing left to do.
Perhaps it was design that Anton still retained some level of human shape albeit one that was hyper-masculine. He still needed his hands and limbs to finish his work. Mercifully, his laptop was mostly spared from his onslaught of cum and it was still working.
The first thing he did was draft a letter to Fallihd informing him that he was resigning. Smiling all the way, he cited a need to take care of personal matters, saying that this experience with the Underide account had taught him that he needed to find some way to find that perfect equilibrium between work and life. Polite, cordial and thankful to both Fallihd and Blackscript for his years with the company and the experience. There was no need to ask for references. He wouldn't need them where he was going.
Once he was done, he went to work deleting all evidence of the Underide account. Every file he worked on, every report he had put together and every email he had sent on the matter was deleted from his account and the hard drive of the laptop. There was also the matter of the details on the server but, guided by the divine inspiration of the Cast Down King, he somehow managed to find a way of deleting them off the servers.
One by one, the files disappeared from all of Blackscript's servers.
All trace of the audit was eliminated.
He even watched as each video that had watched was wiped from his desktop.
That was, until, he realized that he hadn't watched everything. He stopped the process despite the urging in the back of his head to continue. His cock throbbed, begging him to ignore his ideals and just finish the job. There were just two more videos to delete and then he would be done. He could leave and enter the welcoming, rewarding embrace of the Cowardly Pauper God.
"Michael," he mumbled.
That was all the convincing he needed and he started the second to the last video, curious what Troy would have to say.
Chapter 10
Audio from a lecture from A. Z. Thoth
"Language has always been both a great force of unification and division. Many wars and prejudices were started because of language barriers. Lives have been lost, kingdoms fallen to ruin and entire histories forgotten simply because we could never understand one another.
"Isn't it curious, then, that after all this time, no one has ever _attempted_to make a single, unified language? Some would say it's because doing so would erase the identity of an entire culture. Others would argue that it's impossible as some things just cannot be translated form one language to another. But the truth? Well, put simply, it is because of the First Ones.
"It isn't clear which of the First Ones first invented language but it is clear that the idea of language and communication came from the First Ones. Call it divine inspiration or cosmic meddling, either way, mortals developed language thanks to their intervention. Mortal beings, human or bestial, all have different forms of communication whether it be through speech, body language or even pheromones. Even creatures of the same species could have variations of language.
"Call it circumstance, call it nurture versus nature, whatever the truth, the First Ones constantly divide us through our reliance on language for their own nefarious designs."
*****
Interview #5
This video had no introduction. No pretense and not context. It was just a gray image of what appeared to be one of the cabins in Underide. It looked like the camera was hidden atop a dresser or something as it was elevated and could clearly see the door, a large bed, bedside tables and a desk. From the lack of light, it must have been fairly late in the evening. Shadows passed by the window and within moments, the door sprang open. Sound was absent but it was possible to make out the immense, burly figure of Fabio Romani and the slimmer figure of Digby Hawkins.
One of the men moved towards a lamp and switched it on, revealing their sweaty, muscled bodies barely contained by their clothes. Fabio was already removing his clothing but before he could fully pull down his pants, his gargantuan cock came bursting out of the crotch, shredding it entirely and springing up like a third arm. In response, Digby's own member came bursting out of his own pants, sliding up the underside of his shirt before that too gave way to the enormous member. The lovers seemed to snicker at their near-simultaneous salute to one another before Digby sauntered over to Fabio.
Both men were enormous, bigger than any average human could be. They had to be standing at _least_seven feet tall with builds that would make bodybuilders blush. Fabio had a much more stockier build reminiscent of a powerlifter; not nearly as much definition as Digby who was so shredded that his muscles were pressing up against his flesh and he looked like he had nearly 0% body fat. Fabio's hairy form added to his appeal and Digby seemed to grow more aroused as he buried his face into the foreman's hairy chest and grind into the bigger man.
Still standing, Fabio began wantonly thrusting into Digby, his cock sliding in between the man's legs and grinding back and forth between those muscled thighs. Streaks of precum shot from his long dick with the force of a full-blown orgasm, painting the opposite wall with his juices. Perhaps sensing that such delectable fluids were going to waste, Digby extracted himself from Fabio's chest, grinning broadly at his lover. He closed his eyes and guided by his sense of touch alone, navigated the forest of the foreman's hairy torso before burying his face into the forest of pubes. Once he found the base of that gargantuan cock, he gripped it with both hands and began lavishing every inch of its length with his saliva.
It took an entire sixteen seconds - one for each inch - before Digby reached the top of the foreman's member. He opened his mouth wide, wrapping his lips around the tip while simultaneously convulsing with each shot of precum that blasted down his throat. Somehow he managed to swallow a few inches of that broad cock before his natural limit was reached.
All the while, Fabio's lips seemed to move, uttering a mantra that Anton knew in his very soul.
"Nyzda! Nyzda! Nyzda'Kumyr."
Even though he couldn't say it, Digby's very essence was chanting along with the foreman. The moment Fabio uttered the glorious name of the Cast Down King, both men orgasmed. Hot streams of milky-blue semen burst from their cocks; Digby's spilling all across the wooden floorboards and Fabio's bursting down Digby's throat. Somehow, Digby managed to swallow every drop but perhaps that was because of his rapidly changing anatomy.
Right before Anton's eyes, Digby's features were pulled forward. His nose flatted into diagonal slits while his face broadened and jutted forward inch by inch. This allowed him to start bobbing up and down the member he was suckling upon, each repetition adding an extra inch to his lengthening face. The hairs on his head slithered off, falling upon his shoulders and giving a full view of his skull rapidly transforming. His ears was dragged into the triangular shape of his head, vanishing to become dots behind his eyes. Those same eyes were closed in utter pleasure but a third, vertical eye sprang open on his forehead; revealing a single, silvery lens.
"Nyzda! Nyzda! Nyzda'Kumyr!"
Again, both men orgasmed and with that orgasm, came a swelling of muscle and strength. Fabio's form ballooned upwards and outwards, the hairs on his body seemingly shrinking with his widening form until all that was left was a thick, almost fur-like patch on his chest that led down to his crotch. The expanding muscles all over his body just seemed to hide the body hair on his arms and legs. At the same time, Digby's evolution continued as he arched his back. His traps and lats flared out, hardening but also offering some strange level of flexibility that allowed him to swallow even more of Fabio's dick. A human spine should not be able to curve at nearly right angle like that and yet Digby did so without issue, sliding up and down that monstrous member with easy.
"Nyzda! Nyzda! Nyzda'Kumyr!"
Another orgasm. Anton watched, utterly fascinated as their seed spilled all over the floor. Even Digby's rapidly altering physiology could not contain all of that seed at once and Fabio's corrupted cum dribbled down his new serpentine head onto the floor. As this happened, his legs twisted and lengthened. Upon instinct, he crossed his calves. Some unknown force pressed the two separate limbs together, merging flesh and bone into one. Toes lost their flexibility, fusing into one another to form two tapering tips that eventually curled around one another to become a single, point. This point pulled further and further away from Digby, slithering out from underneath him before eventually curling around himself to provide support for his surprisingly flexible upper body. Powerful thighs were eventually pulled together, following the example of his calves to form a long, muscular, serpentine lower half.
For a moment, Anton had to wonder what had happened to Digby's cock and balls as the same transformation was quickly overtaking Fabio. The foreman's feet became pressed together and despite how massive his legs were, he was still unable to maintain his footing as the shift from human legs to serpentine tail overtook him. Both men toppled to the ground in what Anton could only assume was a loud crash as it shook the lamp right off its bedside table. The room was cast with odd shadows as the lamp remained intact but the light was now skewed towards one wall. Still, Anton could make out the figures of Fabio and Digby, the bigger, hairer foreman curling his new lower half around his lover and using the strength of that tail to pull Digby closer and closer to him, swallowing more and more of his cock.
"Nyzda! Nyzda!"
BAM!
The door suddenly opened.
"Troy...?" gasped Anton.
The last ghostly cry from Fabio echoed in his soul. "Nyzda'Kumyr!"
The biggest cock Anton had ever laid eyes on came bursting out from a pair of overalls, spearing right through the denim and sending a shower of seed right onto the half-transformed men. The man that member belonged to was barely visible but what Anton could make out, he was bigger than the doorframe itself. This very same man grabbed his training clothes and tore it clear off with a single motion. Then, he ducked beneath the doorframe, stepping into the cabin with the unsettling grin that belonged to all disciples of the Idiot with Nothing bore.
It was Aleksandr Smirnov.
Anton moaned loudly, nearly letting loose another blast of cum right there and then over seeing what the handsome Russian had become.
Without a word, the titanic man who had to hunch down just to keep his shoulders from brushing against the ceiling strode boldly over to where Digby was writhing on the floor. With his massive hands, he spun the geologist over, placing the man on his back and pivoting Digby around Fabio's cock. It was then that Anton could see that Digby's member was jutting out of what appeared to be a reptilian genital slit that was swollen with the silhouette of the man's engorged testicles.
Still bearing that frightening grin, Anton angled himself down towards that genital slit and pressed the tip of his cock right into the opening. Digby visibly squirmed, arching his back unnaturally and spurring his transformation all the more. The geologist's already meaty arms inflated and seized Fabio's waist. Without ceremony, he pulled Fabio deeper into himself. It was actually possible to see the outline of the foreman's cock pressing up against the length of Digby's throat while Aleksandr's own cock was making its way through the spitroasted man's lower half.
In unison, both Aleksandr and Fabio uttered the magical words that would spur their transformation on.
"Nyzda! Nyzda! Nyzda'Kumyr!"
Fabio's torso shuddered and for the first time, the foreman's eyes shut. His hands dug into the floorboards, the sheer power of his grip tearing the wood. His skin took a strange sheen to it and the closer Anton looked, the more he came to realize that _scales_were creeping their way up from the tips of the foreman's fingers and rapidly spreading their way all up the man's body. Though he couldn't tell the color, Fabio possessed a dark primary color while the underside of his arms and his belly seemed to be a lighter color. These scales rushed all up his arms, spread over his torso and spread down his serpentine lower half. As they advanced upon his features, Fabio let out a silent cry. His face shot forward, taking on the same snake-like features Digby had already donned before they were completely covered in scales. Strangely, he maintained the thick beards that helped define his square muzzle.
Beneath him, Digby was undergoing the same transformation. Those same scales spread all over his body but he seemed to have a single color instead of the dual shades of Fabio. His tail snaked up Aleksandr's body, pulling the bigger Russian closer and closer to him even as he continued to greedily guzzle Fabio's cock and cum. Were it not for his imagination, Anton could swear the two men spitroasting Digby would have touched dicks inside the snake-man.
Then, Aleksandr suddenly stopped. He looked up, peering out of the window before his broad grin returned. He extracted himself from Digby, cock dripping wet with both his cum and the geologist's juices. Without a word, he headed towards the door, ducked beneath the doorframe and disappeared into the night.
As for Anton and Fabio, they continued their mad love-making. Now with added flexibility, Fabio was able to curl himself towards Digby's own still-erect cock without ever pulling his own dick far from his lover's throat. They thrust into one another, two snake-men sucking each other's members in an endless cycle of pleasure.
The video abruptly ended but not before the whispers of the chant echoed in Anton's mind.
"Nyzda! Nyzda! Nyzda'Kumyr."
_ _
Chapter 11
Letter from Silas Haart
I am a weak man. But what man can stand up against the Smiling Silent Echo?
I stand here on the threshold of returning to my life as a con-artist or turning back into a life of indentured servitude to an unknowable God. I am not a religious man but upon gazing into the very essence of the Maddening Self-Loathing Mirror, I can see where I stand in the grand scheme of the cosmos.
I am nothing.
I am a parasite that feeds on other people's success. I grew fat on deceiving those who worked themselves to the bone to achieve their riches. I never contributed anything to society and only took for my own selfish gain reasoning that if they were foolish enough to fall for my bravado and inflated sense of self-worth, they deserved to be robbed.
Were I to turn around and heed the call of my brothers, to return to them and become a guardian under the earth against the Alltalker, I would be doing something for the betterment of humanity... even if it means losing my humanity in turn.
What choice do I have?
I am a weak man, though. I cannot collapse this cave as my God wants for I am simply not strong enough.
I pray someone will do it for me.
Or join me in the silvery gaze of Nyzda'Kumyr
*****
Anton
Time was running out.
Anton knew that he would soon succumb to the call of the Cast Down King and the only thing that was preventing him from fully submitting was that one, last video. With a shaking hand, he progressed his delete command so that the previous video was purged from the system before kicking up the final interview. The moment he hit 'play' his hands immediately snapped towards his dick, stroking the engorged 14-inch member in a motion that wasn't entirely voluntary.
When the video started, it showed Troy except... he was grinning. He was naked, his own massive, engorged member throbbing against his stomach and kissing his plump pectorals. Standing in a bathroom of some sort, the engineer looked more like a bodybuilder that had just finished working out and was now ready for a post-workout orgasm.
"I was wrong,"_breathed the man, regarding the camera and Anton apologetically but at the same time bearing a satisfied grin. _"I thought I was saving you. I thought I was working for the greater good or being a hero but I was wrong."
Troy grunted and his cock throbbed, droplets of precum oozing out of the tip. For a second, Troy closed his eyes, spreading his arms wide as if accepting his fate. Then he shook his head and regarded the camera gain.
"I thought I was being clever by finding all of these ciphers, all these symbols and all these patterns but that was part of the trap. There are... there are some things in this world mankind isn't meant to know and there's a reason for that. Reasons that we shouldn't know and it should stay that way."
He grunted again, lunging forward and barely supporting himself on his hands. His lips moved and Anton's eyes widened.
"Nyzda... Nyzda... Nyzda'Kumyr!" Troy gasped
Immediately Anton's cock spasmed and streaks of hot, bluish-white cum came shooting out of the tip of his dick. Anton did nothing to hold back. He screamed in joy as he accepted his fate. Toes crackled with the sound of snapping wood. A great sense of relief and euphoria burst from each toe knuckle as his ankles snapped together. Skin merged together, opening the pathway for muscles to knit into a singular organ, using their strength to force bones to kiss and start their transformation. Veins fed into the new network, connecting across what had once been separate limbs. Sensations vanished from each individual toe but in their place was the overwhelming sense of oneness that came from controlling a single, tapered point with increased flexibility.
"I thought..." panted Troy. "I thought that my enemy was Tzitkthl. And it still is but the true force behind this all is... is the Idiot with Nothing. The Cowardly Pauper God. The Smiling Silent Echo." He grit his teeth together, bracing himself for the inevitable orgasm. "Nyzda'Kumyr."
The moment the name was uttered, both Troy and Anton orgasmed.
That sensation of oneness spread up Anton's calves. It was like someone was wrapping his legs together and as they did so, the heat of his blood, the sensation of his skin pressed against each other and the pulsing sensations in each limb was meshed into one. Already beefy calf muscles fused into a single limb, their mass adding to the tapering point of his developing tail and allowing it to slide longer and farther away from him. The tip of his tail snaked into the pool of reflective liquid beneath him, bathing in the juices that he knew he would soon be exposed to almost every minute of his life.
"The Cast Down King usurped the Lord of the Screaming Hill's powers," continued Troy. "Tzitkthl is language itself. Every time we communicate with anyone, we invoke him. But the Cast Down King imbued every language with his power. That's why sex transcends all boundaries. Even animals know how to fuck_."_
Troy slammed his forehead against the table. Through gritted teeth, he uttered the mantra again.
"Nyzda! Nyzda! Nyzda'Kumyr!"
Both men came and Anton gasped as his knees knocked together. There was a moment of pain, of discomfort when bone clashed against bone but it was then replaced by a great sense of relief and rightness as his thighs merged together, quads becoming a singular muscular lower half that cradled his balls. His very erect cock was embraced by his thighs, leaving a warm, fleshy opening from where his member erupted from while his sack fused with his tail, leaving the two melon-sized orbs jutting from his lower half as a clear sign of his masculinity.
Anton hissed in pleasure, running his hands down from his hips and over his new serpentine lower half. Where his hands touched, his flesh prickled. Any hairs there immediately fell off, quickly being replaced by deep, sandy brown scales that were soft to the touch, flexible enough to give him mobility and strong enough to protect him from harm. He couldn't help but push one of his fingers into the genital slit, moaning in ecstasy as a sensation like being penetrated shot through his body and caused his cock to squirt thick precum all over his bare chest.
"I... The symbols I found,"_whispered Troy. _"They were supposed to be Tzikthl's tools to lure mortals like us into making some sort of unified language. If we all spoke the same language, we'd resurrect him. Make him whole. But... The Cowardly Pauper God doesn't want that. The Cast Down King is the jailer of the other First Ones. So he found a way to use the very means that the Tongue that Writes hoped to escape to keep it imprisoned. Nyzda'Kumyr - FUCK!"
Troy realized his mistake too late and he shot another load, his body shuddering and ballooning at the same time. For a moment, he lifted his head, eyes closed and bearing the same grin that Anton bore as he too shot what felt like his hundredth load - the hundredth load that still felt as good as the first. Anton rolled his head as the warmth of the orgasm spiraled down his spine, adding newfound flexibility and length to it. Despite the alien shape of his serpentine lower half, he immediately knew how to use it. Pushing back his chair and letting it roll out of his cubicle, he 'sat' on his coils and gripped his cock lovingly with both hands as the scales spread up his torso, defining his abdominals all the more and firming up the valleys of his pectorals.
Anton watched with fascination as those very scales spread over his arms, somehow allowing the network of bulging veins to still be visible past the protective, natural armor. He licked his lips and bent his arm towards his head, running his tongue over the mound of hot, firm muscle that was contoured by bulging veins. His scales felt smooth against his tongue like he was licking strangely soft metal. His fingernails blackened, looking more like large, ebony scales as opposed to nails itself. His palms became covered in softer, more flexible scales, his fingerprints vanishing into the natural armor.
"I'm sorry," wept Troy despite having that broad, unnerving grin on his face. "I'm so sorry. I hoped that you could show my message to the world. Expose Blackscript for what it was. But all I did... was damn you to the same fate as me. I... I just..." He squeezed his eyes shut but as he did so, a vertical slit on his forehead split open, revealing the silvery eye that Anton was all too familiar with.
The auditor of Blackscript Investments closed his eyes as the scales crept up his neck, closing in on his features and pushing his hair back. His nose and mouth jutted forward, nostrils becoming slits while the corners of his grin remained rooted where they were even as the tip was followed by his lengthening skull. His hairline receded to a single mohawk that was framed by his sandy scales. The moment those scales closed in around his forehead, his own silvery eye sprang open, gazing right back at Troy.
"I just wanted to be special," sobbed Troy, his eyes still firmly shut. "I thought I was special. That I was a genius for finding all this stuff and that I would be a hero for exposing Blackscript. But... but..." His voice grew harder, the stammering sobs fading and his posture straightening. Behind him, the immense form of another snake-man emerged. Even without context, it was clear that this creature that consumed the entire screen was Aleksandr Smirnov. "But I was wrong."
Strong, scaled hands much like Anton's own rested on Troy's shoulders and the engineer straightened, resolve and confident radiating from his posture.
"I'm not special,"_intoned the suddenly grinning, herculean man. _"None of us are. There are no heroes among us. We don't need heroes. All we need is to come here. We need to come here. You need to come here."
"Nyzda'Kumyr!" roared Anton and as he did so, his eyes sprang open in tandem with Troy's. Irises, pupils and sclera were gone, completely replaced by a silver orb that was featureless and yet could see more truth than any mere mortal.
With his triumphant cry, Anton came, shooting ropes of blue-white seed straight into the ceiling with enough force that it jostled a ceiling light. His cry rattled the windows but didn't break them. The last vestiges of his humanity faded as the scales completely consumed his face and his cock turned a bright, fleshy pink. Gripping it with both of his scaly hands, the newly made creature pumped every last ounce of cum out of his body, a glorious declaration of his undying loyalty to the Cast Down King. He even aimed his dick right at the laptop just as the video cut off and the deletion program finished it steps, wiping the last shred of evidence from the Blackscript servers. Just in time as Anton's stream of cum shot right through the monitor of the laptop while his seed rained down on the keyboard, rendering it completely inoperable and useless. His cries of orgasm shook the office as he came again and again, soaking his cubicle and flooding the floor around him with his seed.
There was no sense of afterglow between each orgasm, no rush of relief or flood of chemicals that lulled him to sleep. The call was strong. His brothers were calling him. They were drawing him to Wyoming, to Underide. Bearing that same grin only now it sat on his reptilian face and was supplemented by long, dagger-like fangs, the creature that had once been Anton Heinrich uncoiled himself from his cubicle and slithered upright down the hall, leaving a trail of his cum along the floor.
He passed the cubicles of his former coworkers, none of which would ever know what happened to him.
He slithered past the copy machines and printers that he would never use again.
He didn't even spare a glance at the break room that he once believed someone was hiding in to prank him over the videos that had caused his ascension.
Finally, he reached the doors to the office floor. After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed the doors open, ducking beneath the door frame and finally left.
Instead of going down, however, he took the emergency fire steps all the way to the top of the building. The biting midnight air did nothing to stall him as he brought his immense figure out towards the waiting helicopter and shipping container. Without a word, the silver-eyed snake-man entered the container while men in black bodyarmor and wearing face masks sealed it behind him.
The creature continued grinning broadly for each second, he was drawing closer and closer to the source of the call. His lips moved, hissing the call over and over again.
"Need to cum here. Need to cum here."
Moments later, the helicopter lifted off and made its way to the nearest airport.
"Needtocumhere. Needtocumhere."
His cock grew erect once more, slithering out of his genital slit. He leaned back, gripping the fleshy baton with both hands and quickly approaching one of the countless orgasms he would experience for all eternity in service of the Cast Down King.
"Nyzda'Kumyr!" Nyzda'Kumyr!"
And so the creature that had once been Anton Heinrich came.
And again and again...
Chapter 12
Mantra to Yzitkthl
We hear him with every word we speak.
We listen to him with every letter we write
We pray to him with every sentence we hear.
Should he be one again, we will be united
Should he be whole once more, all will be known
Should he be reforged anew, we shall all be reborn
Holy is the Lord of the Screaming Hill
Holy is the Tongue that Writes
Holy is the Dread Speaker
Yzi-Yzi! Yzi-Yzi! Yzi-Yzitkthl!
******
?????
Another defeat. So close this time.
So close only to be denied once more. The fragment of Yzithtkl had hoped that the message from that paranoid human would reach far enough to begin the inevitable chain reaction that would eventually make it whole once more. But the disgusting hands of its brother, the Cast Down King, had corrupted the very words that it had implanted into Troy Burgess, turning them into contaminated viral agents that would quickly draw those foolish enough to pursue their alluring mystery.
Too late did the Tongue that Writes learn of this. It had allowed Troy to be swept up by the Cowardly Pauper God like so many others before him but it had hoped that Troy's ingenuity and hidden message within the videos would call out to some curious soul and draw them to the Written History Society, the historical society that was currently pursuing legal action against Blackscript to keep the Deepguard Mine open.
Beyond the concerns of these mortals was the truth behind the old Deepguard Mine.
So long ago, Yzithtkl had drawn in a disciple by the name of Silas Haart and through this willing tool, convinced several other mortals to carve his word into the very earth itself. It would be a hidden temple to the Broken Language, a secret place of worship that would slowly expand its influence and act as the epicenter for the reunification of all the pieces of the Dread Speaker.
But Nyzda'Kumyr had sunk his foul fingers into every fiber of that plan. The very symbol that the miners had dug into the ground stank of the foul sexual perversions of the Idiot with Nothing. The moment it was completed, all the miners and even Silas himself became drawn to one another, staining the walls of the mine with their disgusting seed and twisting the Alltalker's budding temple into a villa of vile primal congress. Silas had attempted to escape but, like so many others like him, the Broken Language's chosen was turned to the stare at the Maddening Self-Loathing Mirror and lured by its primal urges. For these mortals were just animals. All animals craved sex.
Since then, Yzithtkl had attempted so many more times to salvage its temple. Humans came to the site, drawn by the inherent use of language and communication that was the very core of the Dread Speaker's essence to the site. It was a subtle call. The faintest tug, the slightest compulsion, the softest of whispers. The moment a sentence was started in some casual conversation, the Lord of the Screaming Hill implanted the image of this one location out in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness. Most ignored the call. Many answered still. Of those that answered, all eventually succumbed to the myriad of traps that Nyzda'Kumyr had created.
Troy Burgess was one of those that had been receptive. Yzithtkl had tried subterfuge this time. Used Burgess as a scapegoat to get the true message to someone else, someone that could have influence in Blackscript to close down operations and thus allow the WHS to excavate Deepguard and restore it to its true glory.
But that failed.
It felt the moment that Anton Heinrich began his descent into the clutches of the Cast Down King. Yzitkthl had underestimated the extent of its brother's influence over language itself. Even the subtle clues it had Burgess put in his messages were enough to twist Heinrich's mind with an irresistible addiction. The one person who could have ended Blackscript's blockade fell like so many others, his body and mind twisted to the machinations of the Smiling Silent Echo.
If only the Alltalker had more to work with than these mortals driven by the base compulsion to birth offspring.
The Lord of the Screaming Hill debated whether to continue its pursuit for this twisted temple. A problem, however, arose. Yzithtkl was not whole. It did not possess a single train of thought, a single goal. Whenever someone spoke with another person, even whenever a human conversed with an animal, so long as there was some level of understanding in communication, the shards of Yzithtkl could converse. But each shard had its own agenda, its own pursuits, its own machinations.
One shard voted to abandon Deepguard as it only served to empower the Cast Down King all the more.
Another vehemently defended it as it was one of the few major artifacts that was in such an advanced stage of development.
Another still abstained from the vote and wanted to devote more resources to its project in Mexico.
Thousands of pieces of the Lord of the Screaming Hill arguing and debating with one another, never truly reaching a consensus and doomed to never be whole unless they could all agree.
But such was the nature of the Tongue that Writes.
Thus, as Blackscript quietly shipped the writhing and monstrous being that had once been Anton Heinrich to the Wyoming wilderness where he would join his brothers within the tunnels of Deepguard, forever desecrating the mine with their sex, Yzithtkl remained paralyzed by indecision. The Wyoming Historical Society would continue its endless litigation against Blackscript and Blackscript would always stand guard.
All to Nyzda'Kumyr's design.
Chapter 13
Excerpt from A Critical Analysis of the Fictional First Ones b** y Anonymous**
Chapter 7 - The One True Language
The followers of Yzitkthl are as varied as their deity and that is part of their identities. As with other First Ones, they exist in a paradoxical nature who both want divide but at the same time are united in their worship. There are many theories as to why this is and the most prevalent is simply that this is the way the defeat and subsequent imprisonment of the Tongue that Writes is kept from the mortal world.
To better understand the Unspoken Speech, one must understand that each of the First Ones had a purpose save for the Cast Down King who was rendered redundant by the mere fact that everyone else fulfilled his role. For Yzitkthl, he was a weapon of division against the superior deities. He is discourse, misunderstanding and disagreement personified. A weapon against the Gods, Yzitkthl was designed to disrupt everything that the Great Old Ones or Elder Gods were to throw against them and keep them in the dark about the upcoming rebellion for as long as possible.
Only the Dread Speaker and the other First Ones know who amongst their adversaries inflicted the cruel and unusual punishment that is Yzitkthl's fate. Turning the Lord of the Screaming Hill's own powers against himself, Yzitkthl was shattered into countless pieces. These pieces are more metaphorical than physical for Yzitkthl is the very concept of communication. Language itself is part of Yzikthl and there is an underlying drive in each mortal to be understood by someone else. Communication ultimately compels us to find some way of understanding one another and this is driven by Yzikthl's desire to be made whole once more.
Fortunately for us, the Alltalker's imprisonment and very nature is to cause division so there is always a level of miscommunication, distrust and chaos added to every language on our planet. This naturally prevents us from ever unifying under a single speech and thus reforming Yzikthl. In that contradictory manner, Yzikthl wishes nothing more than to be made whole but in order to do so, it must go against its very nature of causing division which it simply cannot do. Thus, the Lord of the Screaming Hill's imprisonment is absolute.
Of course there have been attempted to somehow bypass this punishment but they always lead to disaster. You may have heard of one of the more famous instances. The Tower of Babel, perhaps?
******
Fallihd
Rowan Fallihd sat at his desk, quietly reading Anton's resignation letter once more. It was well-constructed and very lucid. Anyone would never have guessed that the hands that wrote it had been twisted into the form of a hyper-masculine snake-man with a single-minded drive to pleasure himself and others all in the name of the Cast Down King. One could even say that the letter was 'divinely inspired'.
Fallihd chuckled at his own little joke and filed away the letter. Undoubtedly questions would soon be asked. Anton had family so they would soon come looking for him. While not socially active, his face would be missed especially after the erratic behavior the auditor displayed in the two weeks leading up to his ascension. Police would be called, interviews held and palms would be appropriately greased. Eventually, the missing person case for Anton Heinrich would be considered a cold case.
That would buy them quite a few months with the board of directors. No one would want to continue to audit while there was an active investigation towards someone who could be _theorized_to have stolen valuable data on one of Blackscript's investments and defected somewhere. Given that Anton had deleted all the relevant data as well, the audit would have to start from scratch. That would be another year or so before Blackscript's board of directors would even _start_to think about closing down Underide again.
Then they would begin the dance again.
Maybe they'd instead of an employee going rogue and stealing data, they might hit a 'toxic gas pocket' that would cause all the employees at Underide to 'die' with their bodies needing to be immediately incinerated to avoid decontamination. They hadn't used the old 'mine collapse' excuse in a long while so that might be an opportunity to brush up on that.
No matter the case, Underide will remain open even it meant the sacrifice of dedicated individuals like Anton.
"Sorry Anton," he sighed softly. "You were an excellent employee but just a little too... obsessive. That's the kind of thing that'll get you... 'promoted' around here."
A knock came to his door and he glanced up at the frosted glass. He waved at the figure on the other side and his door opened to reveal one of the few men who knew the truth about Blackscript. The door was closed and the man sat down in front of Fallihd.
"So how'd Anton's transport go?" Fallihd asked.
"We got him to the site without much issue," answered the burly head of security.
"'Much'?" repeated Fallihd.
The man shrugged. "Some guys were watching him a little too closely. Didn't notice that as he was cumming all over the container, his tail was actually drawing the same patterns that the Tongue that Writes uses to entrap others. They were enthralled and started to ascend. Had no choice but to let them join Heinrich. Not that they seemed to mind by the end of the trip."
Fallihd frowned and sighed heavily. "That's a pity. We'll have to make up cover stories for their sudden 'retirement'."
"Could just use it to perpetuate the lie that Heinrich is some sort of corporate spy or Russian defector. Seemed to really love that Aleksandr Smirnov guy based on the transcripts. Seemed he really started hid ascension that moment Smirnov came into the picture. Maybe my boys were his backup. He stole the data and they got him to safety."
A plausible lie. Might attract some unwanted attention especially if they were talking about international espionage but that would certainly buy them more time than a simple theft of corporate data.
"You realize, if we go down that route, we'd likely have a federal investigation," pressed Fallihd.
The head of security grinned broadly, an unnervingly wide, toothy smile. "I know. It'd probably tangle up Blackscript for months if not years. At least until the next administration steps in and decides to forgive whomever we put the blame on. We'd look like the victims. The foreign nation will, naturally deny everything. We can disseminate some lies to perpetuate the narrative and the Board of Directors will be paralyzed by this. Hell, if we're lucky, we might even get some resignations that'll keep investigations and audits off Underide and our other sites for years to come."
Fallihd chuckled softly and wagged a finger at his friend and occasional lover. "Clever. Ambitious and clever. Let's run it by the others. Again, it's very ballsy to involve the government in these things but if it works, the payoff will be astronomical."
The head of security nodded and got up. "Before I go," he began. "Why Heinrich? I know he asked for a new assignment but why did you give Underide to him? He was looking for redemption, right?"
The financial supervisor leaned back in his chair, gazing out the window wistfully. "Everyone makes bad calls. Anton made one with the Michael's account. He's been kicking himself about it for years. But he's more than made up for it since then. He just doesn't realize it. It's his driving force. It's what forces him to complete a task with near-blind obsession to the exclusion of all else."
"So what? You sent him to gaze upon the Maddening Self-Loathing Mirror because he couldn't get over that glaring character flaw?"
He gazed upon the security officer. "No. I sent him to the arms of the Smiling Silent Echo because I knew he would be perfect for the job. Upon the first sight of something being wrong, anyone else with any sense would have immediately reported the issue, potentially exposed others to the material and then spread the infection. You know how the Tongue that Writes works, yes?"
The Tongue seeks to unify people into a single language, a single form of communication and in doing so, make itself whole. If someone else had reviewed the video logs and reported them before seeing everything in its entirety, more people could've been exposed and that could cause a chain reaction. Even if every symbol, word or image was embedded with the will of the Cowardly Pauper God, if everyone in the world was transformed into a sex-crazed snake-man, that would still fulfill the Lord of the Screaming Hill's desires.
"So you preyed on his obsession," the head of security accused. "Played on his need to see everything, to compulsively examine every detail so that he could be fully integrated into our God's embrace and do what was necessary." The man tilted his head slightly. "Why not just come to me if you suspected something was wrong? I could easily have deleted those files as if they never existed."
Fallihd gave him that same, unnerving grin all followers of Nyzda'Kumyr held at one point in their life. "Then we would not have this fantastical story of a corporate or even international spy that stole the data, leaving us merely the innocent victims of espionage. If we had done it, then it could be us being shipped off to Wyoming or our other sites writhing in sexual bliss. But as you and I both know, someone has to enact the Cast Down King's will upon the masses."
The man nodded and turned to leave. "True. Glad it all worked out well. Though I cannot help but feel a little bit jealous. It must be nice to be sucking cock all day and cumming all for the greater good."
"One day, my friend," Fallihd said, turning back towards his desktop. "One day, we shall all cum in the name of our god. We will come."
"We will come," agreed the man said before leaving.
Afterword
This report concerns the missing person Anton Heinrich.
Anton worked as an internal auditor in the financial department for Blackscript Investments. For context, Blackscript is a broad investment company that focuses predominantly on investment opportunities in infrastructure. They are an international company with assets in the United States, Europe, Asia, Russia and Africa. Their portfolio include mining investments, farming technologies and fishing ventures. Their total wealth is estimated at about 1.5 billion USD. While far from the best in terms of competing investment companies, they are nonetheless competitive in their rates and opportunities known for doggedly sticking with anything they pour money into despite what other investment firms would argue.
Anton had been with the company for 5 years, having started as an intern right out of college. His official rank was 'Senior Analyst'. While having a somewhat mediocre career, Anton was noted for his failure concerning a company known as 'Michael's Mining'. Michael's was a a mining concern out of Brazil that was invested in mining for gold. Anton had recommended through his audit to cut off ties with Michael's. Blackscript agreed and they pulled their analysts and staff from Michael's. Consequently, Michael's struck out on their own and became a very powerful figure in the gold mining industry within just three years. Blackscript fired all those involved in the Michael's account save for Anton, saying that it had been up to the account managers to make a decision based on his input and the responsibility fell on them.
Mr. Heinrich was subsequently reprimanded and made no major splashes until about a month ago when he asked his supervisor, one Rowan Fallihd, for a challenging account. Rowan was initially hesitant but he gave Anton the Underide account to review. The Underide Mine is a large coal mine in Wyoming that has been noted for being a notorious money sink for Blackscript. True to Blackscript's ethos, however, the investment company did not close down the mine despite nearly a decade of profit loss.
Curiously, Underide and Blackscript have been clashing horns with a local Wyoming historical society, the Written History Society, over a recent discovery near the mine. Apparently, miners stumbled onto an unfinished tunnel from the Deepguard Mine. Again, for further context, the Deepguard Mine was a mine developed under the supervision of known conman Silas Haart back in the height of the California Goldrush. He swindled the Wyoming government for funds to start a mine where Deepguard was situation before disappearing with the money. Oddly enough, no records exist of Deepguard reaching so far as the mine was at least a hundred miles west of Underide. This conflict between WHS and Blackscript has basically caused Underide to run at half-capacity contributing to its profit loss.
This would naturally have proved to be a simple matter for any auditor. The continuous strain on Blackscript's resources, conflict with WHS and an apparent issue with turnaround at the mine would have made it a simple matter to close the site albeit impacting the hundred or so workers that worked there. Anton, however, persisted and worked diligently to gather all the evidence for his case. It was noted by coworkers that he was acting erratically leading to the deadline of the report to his supervisors.
Fallihd noted a call he received from Mr. Heinrich on the Saturday before the due date, stating that Anton had found someone had tampered with the video testimonies from miners at the site. That was the last time anyone heard from Mr. Heinrich. All documents pertaining to the Underide mine were removed from Blackscript servers. Physical copies have gone missing and any digital documents were corrupted or utterly destroyed. One can only assume that Heinrich took the documents for himself to sell it to some other bidder.
No one has seen or heard from Mr. Heinrich since his disappearance.
Due to lack of evidence, the Underide continues to function and remains open.
Another audit was scheduled for six months once the documents that were destroyed are collated once more and sent to Blackscript but due to the current investigation, this is postponed indefinitely. Proposals to close down the mine by order of the FBI have been rejected.
Report from of Agent Christopher Winters
Federal Bureau of Investigation