Drabble–a short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length. Written by Universal Monk.

The Cold Hill

In 1864, upon a nameless knoll, a man quickly slit his wrists and fell.

One last murder.

He could hear the dark red snow under him shift and creak, surrendering to warmth.

Tears blurred his vision as he gazed skyward—inky clouds cradling a crescent moon.

He recalled his grandmother, her tattered Book of Mormon a warm solace. Soon, he’d finally discover if divine forgiveness really awaited.

At dawn, Confederate soldiers stumbled upon his frigid form.

“Press on, men,” said the captain. “I know this man to be a coward. Take his gun and let the animals have at him.”

END

The Beholden of the Shifting Vastness

written by Universal Monk

Part 1

Evelyn strode into the archive room, a hushed thrill tingling down her spine. She’d come all the way from BYU-Idaho for this, having caught wind of a library of lost LDS manuscripts buried deep in the sprawling basement of a university library in Utah.

She would never have known if it hadn’t been for a cryptic post she stumbled across late one night on Lemmy. Tagged by a user long since deleted, the post whispered of "forbidden revelations," secrets buried in the deepest corners of the forgotten library. Hidden manuscripts, it hinted, were waiting to be found—relics of visions too dark to ever reach the public eye.

According to the user, these weren’t ordinary manuscripts—they were penned by early Mormon settlers, writings that delved into ancient rites and visions too unsettling for the light of day. The words seemed to pulse on her laptop screen, tugging at Evelyn with a strange allure, promising secrets sealed away and nearly erased from history itself.

The archive wasn’t well-marked; she’d asked two librarians and followed three different signs before she finally spotted the narrow, dim hallway that led to it. The air grew stale as she descended the staircase, and a faint musty smell mingled with the dust in the air, lending an eerie weight to the room.

Rows upon rows of aging, leather-bound tomes lined the shelves, their titles barely legible from decades of wear. Evelyn ran her fingers along the spines, looking for any sign of the “lost” texts she’d read about.

Most of the volumes appeared to be typical LDS history and theology—interesting, but not what she’d come all this way to find. Then, just as she was about to lose hope, her hand landed on a small, nondescript book wedged between two larger ones.

The cover was a battered, timeworn leather, marred with scratches and age, its surface barely holding onto what once might have been a rich, deep hue. In the dim light, a faded silver symbol emerged—a pair of interlocking circles crossed by a single vertical line, almost pulsing in the quiet room.

Evelyn leaned in closer, squinting, trying to make out the title, but the letters had nearly vanished, rubbed away by countless hands or perhaps by the passage of years. Only one word remained, etched with unsettling clarity down the spine: Testament of the Beholden.

The title almost seemed to hum, as if it alone held the weight of untold secrets, watching her back.

Heart pounding, Evelyn yanked the book from the shelf, a thick cloud of dust puffing into the air, curling and billowing like smoke as she pried it open. The pages crackled under her fingers, fragile and worn to a yellowed, brittle thinness, as if the weight of years had seeped into every fiber. Each line was marked in a strange, spidery script, twisting and crawling across the paper like the scrawl of an ancient, unseen hand.

As her eyes adjusted to the script, she began to realize this was more than just a forgotten theology book. The opening pages were filled with passages blending scripture and peculiar, apocryphal verses, things she had never heard in any Sunday or BYU lecture.

The pages whispered of the group called “The Beholden of the Shifting Vastness,” a sect of Mormon settlers from long ago who, if the author’s fevered words were to be believed, had witnessed “visions from beyond the stars.” They believed they had peered into the void where “the giants of the under” stirred. These beings, they claimed, were not of this Earth.

They were ancient entities who slumbered just beyond the thin veil of reality, visible only beneath desolate desert skies when particular stars aligned. The Beholden wrote of vast shapes shifting in the ground, monstrous shadows that waited, patiently, for those who dared look too long.

In a passage that sent a chill through her veins, the text hinted that the knowledge wasn’t new but came from none other than the prophet Joseph Smith himself. His famed visions had revealed more than the public ever knew. Smith’s encounter with the divine was not limited to celestial angels or holy messengers, as he claimed in the Book of Mormon; he had also seen these giants from beyond, the “Sentinels of the Under.”

He had, the passage stated, uncovered these details from the sacred Golden Bible—the very plates that gave rise to the Book of Mormon. But fearing that such revelations would condemn his fledgling faith, he chose to withhold them, sharing the dark truths only with a select inner circle of believers.

Hidden in his private accounts, this knowledge became the Beholden’s secret foundation, a grim theology concealed from the faithful masses. They believed they alone had been entrusted with the visions too terrible for the public eye, revelations that hinted at a cosmic mystery far older and darker than any church could bear.

A prickling sensation crept over her skin as she read. The words were disturbing yet enthralling. The Beholden, she learned, believed these beings watched over them, protecting some and cursing others, depending on how they were venerated.

Each passage sank darker than the last, layered with instructions for rites, chants, and the strange recounting of visions whispered among early pioneers.

One entry detailed an encounter during the Great Trek, as Mormon settlers journeyed through the vast prairies toward Utah. They spoke of a figure, impossibly tall, as towering as a mountain and as black as the deepest night, emerging across the open plains.

Its shadow stretched over their entire campsite, cloaking wagons and tents, suffocating the firelight. The figure moved with an unnatural silence, gliding over the land and leaving the prairie grasses flattened in its wake. Accounts spoke of entire groups falling to their knees, struck with a primal fear, unable to look away as the shadow passed, casting them in the grip of something ancient and unknowable.

The Beholden insisted this towering figure was no mere hallucination but a terrifying reality. These were guardians of forgotten worlds, ancient entities that still watched from beyond the prairie’s edge, patient and unwavering, waiting for those who dared stray too far from faith’s protective path.

The Beholden took this knowledge as sacred, a warning passed down to those brave enough, or foolish enough, to seek the truth beyond the pages of scripture.

She couldn’t pull herself away from the book, and the room around her seemed to fade, her world narrowing to the aged pages before her.

Eventually, Evelyn tore her gaze away, feeling disoriented. She closed the book and tucked it under her arm, intending to ask the librarian about checking it out.

But as she turned, she froze. Through the tall, narrow windows that lined one side of the basement, she thought she saw something—a faint, shadowy figure that towered against the fading daylight outside. Just as quickly as she’d noticed it, the shape dissolved into the shadows.

Evelyn shook her head, dismissing it as a trick of the light. But as she made her way up the stairs, the eerie feeling lingered. And that night, as she lay in her borrowed apartment, her mind buzzed with words from the manuscript, descriptions of towering shadows and desert hymns. It was late, and she knew she should be sleeping, but she couldn’t resist.

Against her better judgment, Evelyn opened her laptop and searched on Lemmy, hoping to find some connection or insight. Her heart sank as she scrolled—the community threads she’d once found were gone, wiped clean as though they’d never existed. She searched again, this time sifting through obscure forums and half-hidden corners of the internet, but every lead was a dead end, each link leading nowhere.

Frustrated, she glanced down at the book resting beside her, the embossed symbol seeming to glint with an unsettling familiarity in the dim light. She hesitated, then opened it, fingers trembling as she skimmed over the passages that had haunted her mind. The words seemed darker now, the ink richer, pressing into the pages as if bearing the weight of a thousand unspoken horrors.

Evelyn poured over the book, each yellowed page drawing her deeper into its labyrinth of strange words and twisted beliefs. She could almost hear the echoes of the Beholden of the Shifting Vastness murmuring from beyond the veil of time, their chants scratching at her mind like whispers caught in a sandstorm.

The passages were riddled with instructions for ceremonies, prayers in a jagged language she’d never seen, and hymns that seemed to hum with a life of their own, written in curling, unfamiliar symbols that made her head ache when she stared at them too long.

One hymn, titled The Chant of the Sands, kept reappearing throughout the text, hinting at rituals the Beholden had used to summon the "guardians of the endless Under,” figures whose names had long since eroded from memory.

“They offer knowledge in shadows, power in silence, but ask your devotion in whispers…” she murmured, her voice trailing as the words seemed to echo back, resonating against the walls like a ghostly harmony.

As she read more, she saw that the Beholden had worshipped these enormous beings hidden beneath the earth—eternal watchers who slumbered below, only to rise again. Her heart pounded, a thrill mixing with dread, as she realized the text spoke not of God but of immense, indifferent entities who existed on the fringes of reality itself.

She decided she needed sleep. Her mind was a tangled mess of shadows and half-formed fears, each unsettling revelation looping back in her thoughts. Maybe, she told herself, a few hours of rest would clear her head, make everything seem less… ominous.

But as she dimmed the lights, her room cloaked itself in darkness, and the book lay open on her desk like an eye staring back, unblinking. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, her pulse finally slowing.

Yet, sleep would not bring comfort tonight. Little did she know, the strangeness was only beginning.

Part 2

She woke up to a sound like dry wind scraping across dead leaves. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, squinting at an odd detail she hadn’t noticed before: her windowsill was dusted with a thin layer of dirt, dark and fine, as though someone had smeared it there deliberately.

It coated the sill like the fingerprint of some shadowy hand reaching in from beyond.

Her fingers hovered over it, tingling, before she finally touched it, trailing a line through the dark powder. How had it gotten there in the dead of night?

From that night onward, the shadows outside her window began to grow, creeping longer and thicker, twisting into strange forms that shifted and swayed like they had some intention of their own.

She could have sworn they watched her in the quiet hours, unmoving and patient. And sometimes, when the night was still and the apartment felt unnervingly silent, whispers rose faintly outside the glass—deep, guttural hymns in a language that sent chills down her spine.

She couldn’t understand a single word, yet the sounds rooted deep in her bones, stirring an ancient dread that left her frozen, listening in the dark.

“Evelyn,” her friend Nora said one afternoon, pulling her from her thoughts. “You look… terrible. Why are you worrying so much about this stupid old book?”

Evelyn forced a smile, brushing off her friend’s concern. “I’m fine. It’s just research.” She hesitated, her fingers trailing the edges of the book. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Nora’s face paled, her eyes darting between Evelyn and the book. “You’re being really weird.” But Evelyn turned away, already back under the book’s spell, ignoring the warning ringing in her friend’s voice.

That night, Evelyn came upon the last ritual, a forbidden practice known as The Invocation of the Darkest Veil, a rite that promised to draw the gaze of the guardians—those towering beings who drifted just beyond sight, ancient and unseen.

"Speak your words," the text intoned in curling, archaic script, "and they shall answer.”

Each line seemed to slither and twist off the page, whispering secrets that felt too alive, pulsing like veins in the parchment.

She read it in silence, feeling a coldness seep into the room, chilling her from within. Outside her window, the shadows thickened, pressing against the glass like a dark tide rising, silent and unyielding, as though something vast and ageless waited just beyond, observing her from behind the veil of night, its patience stretching back through untold centuries.

The room felt like ice, each corner thick with an unnatural chill that seemed to seep into her bones. Evelyn could hardly breathe. She clutched the book in her trembling hands, its pages a blur beneath her fingers. She didn’t know why she felt the need to open it now or why her lips parted, words tumbling from her mouth in the forgotten tongue of the Beholden.

“Ar-voc, uhn-da-leth,” she whispered, her voice wavering as each syllable left her lips.

The strange hymn rolled out of her mouth, low and guttural, each word woven with ancient intent. As she spoke, the air turned heavy, almost viscous, and the walls around her room flickered, bending and shifting like shadows cast by firelight.

Her bookshelves, her bed, even the light itself seemed to warp, pulled toward the corners of the room as if something else were forcing its way in.

The flickering slowed, and in its place, Evelyn saw it—an endless plain stretching out beyond her walls, a bleak, desolate expanse under an alien sky. The ground was black as ash, shimmering like shards of glass beneath an otherworldly sun that loomed low and blood-red.

Shadows drifted through the dirt, massive figures trudging along the horizon like spirits caught in eternal pilgrimage. And amidst them, a whisper—a deep, resonant hum, like a distant thunderstorm groaning against the fabric of reality itself.

Evelyn couldn’t tear her gaze from the vision creeping into her reality. The land itself seemed to seep through her walls, a pitch-black dirt oozing across her floor like liquid shadow. It spread, thick and consuming, pooling around her feet with an unnatural coldness, clinging to her skin as if alive. She felt it winding up her ankles, heavy and suffocating, as the foul, decayed smell of ancient soil filled the air, darkening the room in a shroud of dread.

The whispers twisted in the air, thick and venomous, curling like smoke through her ears, coiling around her thoughts, wrapping around her bones.

“Seeker,” it hissed, the sound filling her skull like an echo in an endless chasm. “Behold... the gaze of the shifting vastness.”

Then, it rose—emerging from the dirt like a mountain draped in shadow, a single eye vast as her wall, dark as the void, lined with throbbing veins of molten gold that pulsed like a heartbeat.

The eye was ringed with jagged, predatory teeth, gleaming with a hunger that made her skin crawl. From the gaps between the teeth, wiry tendrils of something that resembled iron wool jutted out, swaying like grasping fingers.

And then, skittering among the teeth, spider-like creatures with eyes too many to count darted in and out, watching her with glee, their fangs twitching as if savoring her terror.

The monstrous eye hung there, peering into her, peeling back her flesh in its gaze, as though reading every hidden thought, every whispering fear she’d ever buried. Evelyn’s knees gave way, the crushing weight pressing into her chest, pulling her forward, closer, into its dark and endless stare.

The whispers grew louder, surrounding her, filling every part of her mind until she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. The shadows from the dirt crept closer, sliding across her floor, winding up her legs, pulling her down into their embrace.

Evelyn tried to scream, but her voice was swallowed by the shadows, her cries snatched away as the black filled her vision. The world around her faded, reduced to nothing but sand, darkness, and the unblinking, all-consuming eye of the Beholden.

As her last moments slipped away, the words of the hymn she’d read echoed, wrapping around her like a funeral shroud.

The next morning, her apartment was silent. A faint outline of dirt marked the floor, and on her desk sat the open book, its pages whispering in the stillness, waiting for the next seeker to uncover its secrets.

END

The Beholden of the Shifting Vastness

written by Universal Monk

Part 1

Evelyn strode into the archive room, a hushed thrill tingling down her spine. She’d come all the way from BYU-Idaho for this, having caught wind of a library of lost LDS manuscripts buried deep in the sprawling basement of a university library in Utah.

She would never have known if it hadn’t been for a cryptic post she stumbled across late one night on Lemmy. Tagged by a user long since deleted, the post whispered of "forbidden revelations," secrets buried in the deepest corners of the forgotten library. Hidden manuscripts, it hinted, were waiting to be found—relics of visions too dark to ever reach the public eye.

According to the user, these weren’t ordinary manuscripts—they were penned by early Mormon settlers, writings that delved into ancient rites and visions too unsettling for the light of day. The words seemed to pulse on her laptop screen, tugging at Evelyn with a strange allure, promising secrets sealed away and nearly erased from history itself.

The archive wasn’t well-marked; she’d asked two librarians and followed three different signs before she finally spotted the narrow, dim hallway that led to it. The air grew stale as she descended the staircase, and a faint musty smell mingled with the dust in the air, lending an eerie weight to the room.

Rows upon rows of aging, leather-bound tomes lined the shelves, their titles barely legible from decades of wear. Evelyn ran her fingers along the spines, looking for any sign of the “lost” texts she’d read about.

Most of the volumes appeared to be typical LDS history and theology—interesting, but not what she’d come all this way to find. Then, just as she was about to lose hope, her hand landed on a small, nondescript book wedged between two larger ones.

The cover was a battered, timeworn leather, marred with scratches and age, its surface barely holding onto what once might have been a rich, deep hue. In the dim light, a faded silver symbol emerged—a pair of interlocking circles crossed by a single vertical line, almost pulsing in the quiet room.

Evelyn leaned in closer, squinting, trying to make out the title, but the letters had nearly vanished, rubbed away by countless hands or perhaps by the passage of years. Only one word remained, etched with unsettling clarity down the spine: Testament of the Beholden.

The title almost seemed to hum, as if it alone held the weight of untold secrets, watching her back.

Heart pounding, Evelyn yanked the book from the shelf, a thick cloud of dust puffing into the air, curling and billowing like smoke as she pried it open. The pages crackled under her fingers, fragile and worn to a yellowed, brittle thinness, as if the weight of years had seeped into every fiber. Each line was marked in a strange, spidery script, twisting and crawling across the paper like the scrawl of an ancient, unseen hand.

As her eyes adjusted to the script, she began to realize this was more than just a forgotten theology book. The opening pages were filled with passages blending scripture and peculiar, apocryphal verses, things she had never heard in any Sunday or BYU lecture.

The pages whispered of the group called “The Beholden of the Shifting Vastness,” a sect of Mormon settlers from long ago who, if the author’s fevered words were to be believed, had witnessed “visions from beyond the stars.” They believed they had peered into the void where “the giants of the under” stirred. These beings, they claimed, were not of this Earth.

They were ancient entities who slumbered just beyond the thin veil of reality, visible only beneath desolate desert skies when particular stars aligned. The Beholden wrote of vast shapes shifting in the ground, monstrous shadows that waited, patiently, for those who dared look too long.

In a passage that sent a chill through her veins, the text hinted that the knowledge wasn’t new but came from none other than the prophet Joseph Smith himself. His famed visions had revealed more than the public ever knew. Smith’s encounter with the divine was not limited to celestial angels or holy messengers, as he claimed in the Book of Mormon; he had also seen these giants from beyond, the “Sentinels of the Under.”

He had, the passage stated, uncovered these details from the sacred Golden Bible—the very plates that gave rise to the Book of Mormon. But fearing that such revelations would condemn his fledgling faith, he chose to withhold them, sharing the dark truths only with a select inner circle of believers.

Hidden in his private accounts, this knowledge became the Beholden’s secret foundation, a grim theology concealed from the faithful masses. They believed they alone had been entrusted with the visions too terrible for the public eye, revelations that hinted at a cosmic mystery far older and darker than any church could bear.

A prickling sensation crept over her skin as she read. The words were disturbing yet enthralling. The Beholden, she learned, believed these beings watched over them, protecting some and cursing others, depending on how they were venerated.

Each passage sank darker than the last, layered with instructions for rites, chants, and the strange recounting of visions whispered among early pioneers.

One entry detailed an encounter during the Great Trek, as Mormon settlers journeyed through the vast prairies toward Utah. They spoke of a figure, impossibly tall, as towering as a mountain and as black as the deepest night, emerging across the open plains.

Its shadow stretched over their entire campsite, cloaking wagons and tents, suffocating the firelight. The figure moved with an unnatural silence, gliding over the land and leaving the prairie grasses flattened in its wake. Accounts spoke of entire groups falling to their knees, struck with a primal fear, unable to look away as the shadow passed, casting them in the grip of something ancient and unknowable.

The Beholden insisted this towering figure was no mere hallucination but a terrifying reality. These were guardians of forgotten worlds, ancient entities that still watched from beyond the prairie’s edge, patient and unwavering, waiting for those who dared stray too far from faith’s protective path.

The Beholden took this knowledge as sacred, a warning passed down to those brave enough, or foolish enough, to seek the truth beyond the pages of scripture.

She couldn’t pull herself away from the book, and the room around her seemed to fade, her world narrowing to the aged pages before her.

Eventually, Evelyn tore her gaze away, feeling disoriented. She closed the book and tucked it under her arm, intending to ask the librarian about checking it out.

But as she turned, she froze. Through the tall, narrow windows that lined one side of the basement, she thought she saw something—a faint, shadowy figure that towered against the fading daylight outside. Just as quickly as she’d noticed it, the shape dissolved into the shadows.

Evelyn shook her head, dismissing it as a trick of the light. But as she made her way up the stairs, the eerie feeling lingered. And that night, as she lay in her borrowed apartment, her mind buzzed with words from the manuscript, descriptions of towering shadows and desert hymns. It was late, and she knew she should be sleeping, but she couldn’t resist.

Against her better judgment, Evelyn opened her laptop and searched on Lemmy, hoping to find some connection or insight. Her heart sank as she scrolled—the community threads she’d once found were gone, wiped clean as though they’d never existed. She searched again, this time sifting through obscure forums and half-hidden corners of the internet, but every lead was a dead end, each link leading nowhere.

Frustrated, she glanced down at the book resting beside her, the embossed symbol seeming to glint with an unsettling familiarity in the dim light. She hesitated, then opened it, fingers trembling as she skimmed over the passages that had haunted her mind. The words seemed darker now, the ink richer, pressing into the pages as if bearing the weight of a thousand unspoken horrors.

Evelyn poured over the book, each yellowed page drawing her deeper into its labyrinth of strange words and twisted beliefs. She could almost hear the echoes of the Beholden of the Shifting Vastness murmuring from beyond the veil of time, their chants scratching at her mind like whispers caught in a sandstorm.

The passages were riddled with instructions for ceremonies, prayers in a jagged language she’d never seen, and hymns that seemed to hum with a life of their own, written in curling, unfamiliar symbols that made her head ache when she stared at them too long.

One hymn, titled The Chant of the Sands, kept reappearing throughout the text, hinting at rituals the Beholden had used to summon the "guardians of the endless Under,” figures whose names had long since eroded from memory.

“They offer knowledge in shadows, power in silence, but ask your devotion in whispers…” she murmured, her voice trailing as the words seemed to echo back, resonating against the walls like a ghostly harmony.

As she read more, she saw that the Beholden had worshipped these enormous beings hidden beneath the earth—eternal watchers who slumbered below, only to rise again. Her heart pounded, a thrill mixing with dread, as she realized the text spoke not of God but of immense, indifferent entities who existed on the fringes of reality itself.

She decided she needed sleep. Her mind was a tangled mess of shadows and half-formed fears, each unsettling revelation looping back in her thoughts. Maybe, she told herself, a few hours of rest would clear her head, make everything seem less… ominous.

But as she dimmed the lights, her room cloaked itself in darkness, and the book lay open on her desk like an eye staring back, unblinking. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, her pulse finally slowing.

Yet, sleep would not bring comfort tonight. Little did she know, the strangeness was only beginning.

Part 2

She woke up to a sound like dry wind scraping across dead leaves. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, squinting at an odd detail she hadn’t noticed before: her windowsill was dusted with a thin layer of dirt, dark and fine, as though someone had smeared it there deliberately.

It coated the sill like the fingerprint of some shadowy hand reaching in from beyond.

Her fingers hovered over it, tingling, before she finally touched it, trailing a line through the dark powder. How had it gotten there in the dead of night?

From that night onward, the shadows outside her window began to grow, creeping longer and thicker, twisting into strange forms that shifted and swayed like they had some intention of their own.

She could have sworn they watched her in the quiet hours, unmoving and patient. And sometimes, when the night was still and the apartment felt unnervingly silent, whispers rose faintly outside the glass—deep, guttural hymns in a language that sent chills down her spine.

She couldn’t understand a single word, yet the sounds rooted deep in her bones, stirring an ancient dread that left her frozen, listening in the dark.

“Evelyn,” her friend Nora said one afternoon, pulling her from her thoughts. “You look… terrible. Why are you worrying so much about this stupid old book?”

Evelyn forced a smile, brushing off her friend’s concern. “I’m fine. It’s just research.” She hesitated, her fingers trailing the edges of the book. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Nora’s face paled, her eyes darting between Evelyn and the book. “You’re being really weird.” But Evelyn turned away, already back under the book’s spell, ignoring the warning ringing in her friend’s voice.

That night, Evelyn came upon the last ritual, a forbidden practice known as The Invocation of the Darkest Veil, a rite that promised to draw the gaze of the guardians—those towering beings who drifted just beyond sight, ancient and unseen.

"Speak your words," the text intoned in curling, archaic script, "and they shall answer.”

Each line seemed to slither and twist off the page, whispering secrets that felt too alive, pulsing like veins in the parchment.

She read it in silence, feeling a coldness seep into the room, chilling her from within. Outside her window, the shadows thickened, pressing against the glass like a dark tide rising, silent and unyielding, as though something vast and ageless waited just beyond, observing her from behind the veil of night, its patience stretching back through untold centuries.

The room felt like ice, each corner thick with an unnatural chill that seemed to seep into her bones. Evelyn could hardly breathe. She clutched the book in her trembling hands, its pages a blur beneath her fingers. She didn’t know why she felt the need to open it now or why her lips parted, words tumbling from her mouth in the forgotten tongue of the Beholden.

“Ar-voc, uhn-da-leth,” she whispered, her voice wavering as each syllable left her lips.

The strange hymn rolled out of her mouth, low and guttural, each word woven with ancient intent. As she spoke, the air turned heavy, almost viscous, and the walls around her room flickered, bending and shifting like shadows cast by firelight.

Her bookshelves, her bed, even the light itself seemed to warp, pulled toward the corners of the room as if something else were forcing its way in.

The flickering slowed, and in its place, Evelyn saw it—an endless plain stretching out beyond her walls, a bleak, desolate expanse under an alien sky. The ground was black as ash, shimmering like shards of glass beneath an otherworldly sun that loomed low and blood-red.

Shadows drifted through the dirt, massive figures trudging along the horizon like spirits caught in eternal pilgrimage. And amidst them, a whisper—a deep, resonant hum, like a distant thunderstorm groaning against the fabric of reality itself.

Evelyn couldn’t tear her gaze from the vision creeping into her reality. The land itself seemed to seep through her walls, a pitch-black dirt oozing across her floor like liquid shadow. It spread, thick and consuming, pooling around her feet with an unnatural coldness, clinging to her skin as if alive. She felt it winding up her ankles, heavy and suffocating, as the foul, decayed smell of ancient soil filled the air, darkening the room in a shroud of dread.

The whispers twisted in the air, thick and venomous, curling like smoke through her ears, coiling around her thoughts, wrapping around her bones.

“Seeker,” it hissed, the sound filling her skull like an echo in an endless chasm. “Behold... the gaze of the shifting vastness.”

Then, it rose—emerging from the dirt like a mountain draped in shadow, a single eye vast as her wall, dark as the void, lined with throbbing veins of molten gold that pulsed like a heartbeat.

The eye was ringed with jagged, predatory teeth, gleaming with a hunger that made her skin crawl. From the gaps between the teeth, wiry tendrils of something that resembled iron wool jutted out, swaying like grasping fingers.

And then, skittering among the teeth, spider-like creatures with eyes too many to count darted in and out, watching her with glee, their fangs twitching as if savoring her terror.

The monstrous eye hung there, peering into her, peeling back her flesh in its gaze, as though reading every hidden thought, every whispering fear she’d ever buried. Evelyn’s knees gave way, the crushing weight pressing into her chest, pulling her forward, closer, into its dark and endless stare.

The whispers grew louder, surrounding her, filling every part of her mind until she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. The shadows from the dirt crept closer, sliding across her floor, winding up her legs, pulling her down into their embrace.

Evelyn tried to scream, but her voice was swallowed by the shadows, her cries snatched away as the black filled her vision. The world around her faded, reduced to nothing but sand, darkness, and the unblinking, all-consuming eye of the Beholden.

As her last moments slipped away, the words of the hymn she’d read echoed, wrapping around her like a funeral shroud.

The next morning, her apartment was silent. A faint outline of dirt marked the floor, and on her desk sat the open book, its pages whispering in the stillness, waiting for the next seeker to uncover its secrets.

END

The Grasp of Midnight's Thorn

written by Universal Monk

PART ONE

Blood trickled from the deep gash on his hand, dark crimson drops seeping into the soil beneath his prized rose bushes. The rich earth drank it up greedily, staining the roots of the thorny plants. Derek Ahmaogak winced, disgusted by the sharp sting that pulsed through his fingers. His small spade slipped from his grasp, falling uselessly to the ground. He wiped the sweat and dirt from his face with a grimy sleeve, the scent of iron clinging to his skin.

Being a native from the Inupiat tribe, he often felt the weight of his ancestral roots pressing him to master the land, to connect with it in the way his forebears had, but gardening had proven a fickle and unforgiving task.

The sky above had turned a bruised purple, the sun sinking low on the horizon, casting an eerie glow that made the world seem as though it were on the verge of nightfall. Shadows stretched long and jagged across his garden as Derek sighed, feeling the ache in his muscles from the day’s labor.

“Over it,” he muttered, shaking his head. His gaze turned to the house, where his laptop waited, promising an escape from the frustration and pain.

He had heard whispers about a new, mysterious corner of the internet. For years, he’d lurked in forums filled with conspiracy theories, forgotten lore, and the ramblings of half-crazed prophets. But lately, his interest had spiraled into something more mysterious,

It began with a hidden Lemmy community, buried deep beneath layers of cryptic links, accessible only through a private browser extension. At first glance, it seemed like a strange offshoot of Latter-day Saint theology—a sect of Dark Mormons calling themselves The Covenant of the Obsidian Testament.

They claimed to practice ancient rites long hidden from mainstream followers, rituals that Joseph Smith himself had allegedly sealed away to protect the world from their power.

The posts were a tangle of cryptic phrases, dripping with strange, ancient-sounding words that tugged at the edges of Derek's curiosity. Symbols danced between the lines, and scattered clues teased at the corners of his mind.

There were references to old, long-forgotten writings. One thread blazed out like a beacon in the dark: "The Veil of the Forgotten Seer: Rituals of Eternal Ascendance.” The title seemed to pulse with forbidden promise, pulling him in, whispering of something far more dangerous than he could ever imagine.

He couldn’t resist.

Late one night, with nothing but the dim glow of his monitor lighting his cluttered house, Derek clicked on the link. His heart pounded as he read the post, detailing a ritual tied to an ancient, forgotten text buried deep within the one of the original manuscripts of the Book of Mormon.

It spoke of a plant—no ordinary plant, but a seed said to have been passed down from ancient times, tied to something far older than any religion. The Dark Mormons called it “Xymethra’s Bloom.” A plant that could grant unimaginable insight, but only to those willing to nourish it with their own blood.

Derek scoffed at first, but as he read on, his curiosity turned to obsession. The more he read, the more he convinced himself that this could be his chance. He could finally be someone. Finally do something that no one else had dared. This wasn’t just some online community; this was power—real power, hidden from the world.

He posted a response, half expecting to be ignored. But the next morning, his inbox had a single message. The sender was anonymous, but the message was clear: "You are chosen. The seeds will arrive soon. Prepare the soil. Prepare yourself."

It felt like a dream. Four days later, a small, unmarked package arrived at his door. Inside, wrapped in old parchment, were three small seeds—black as night, shimmering with an almost unnatural sheen. A note was tucked alongside them, written in small neat handwriting: “The soil must be fed with blood. Only then will Xymethra’s Bloom rise.”

Derek’s hands shook as he held the seeds. For years, he had searched for something like this—something to prove that the world wasn’t just a monotonous grind of existence. Now, it was in his hands. The next day, he went to his backyard, an unkempt patch of dirt barely touched in months. He dug a small hole and dropped the seeds into the soil.

With a deep breath, Derek peeled away the bandages from his hand, exposing the still-healing wound. He gave it a squeeze, forcing a few drops of blood to fall onto the soil below. As soon as the crimson droplets touched the earth, the air seemed to shift—subtle but unmistakable, like the world itself was holding its breath. He quickly covered the seeds and stepped back, heart racing.

The wind picked up, carrying with it a low hum, almost like a whisper.

Derek smiled. Finally, something was happening.

PART TWO

Days passed, and Derek found himself returning to the garden again and again, watching the patch of soil where he’d buried the seeds. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and doubt gnawed at him—had he really believed that some ancient ritual would work? Knowing how Lemmy was, it was probably some sort of hemp seed or something.

But on the fifth day, something changed.

A single sprout had broken through the soil.

It was unlike any plant Derek had ever seen. The stem was thin, but it shimmered darkly in the sunlight, almost as if it absorbed the light rather than reflected it. The leaves, black and veined with red, seemed to pulse with a strange energy. Derek knelt down. He reached out to touch one of the leaves, but the moment his fingers brushed the surface, a sharp jolt shot up his arm.

His breath hitched. The plant was warm, alive in a way that felt almost sentient.

The next few days were a blur. The plant grew at an alarming rate, its black vines twisting and curling as they clawed their way through the soil. Every morning, Derek would find it had spread farther, its roots thickening and burrowing deeper into the earth.

He couldn’t stop watching it—obsession consumed him. He barely ate, barely slept. The Dark Mormons on Lemmy had been quiet since sending the seeds, but their final message echoed in his mind: “Prepare yourself.”

One night, as the wind howled outside his window, Derek sat at his kitchen table, staring at the plant through the back door. It had taken over half the garden now, its dark tendrils creeping toward the edges of his yard. The moon cast an eerie glow on its leaves, making them shimmer like black glass.

His phone buzzed, snapping Derek out of his daze. A new PM blinked on his screen—a message from the Dark Mormons.

”Another package coming your way. And instructions.”

The words were simple, but they sent a wave of excitement and unease coursing through him.

Days later, a plain, unmarked box arrived at his doorstep. Inside was a set of cryptic instructions for a ritual called ”The Rite of Xymethra’s Grasp.” To unlock the full power of the sinister plant, he would need more than just a few drops of blood. It required insight—an intimate bond with the dark forces that had given life to the black bloom.

The ritual’s ingredients were strange, almost ludicrous. A small vial of rare wine, included in the package, was to be mixed with a few drops of his blood.

But it was the other bottle that made his skin crawl.

Sealed inside was a spider, desperately clinging to the top of its web, avoiding the thick, sloshing goo that sat ominously at the bottom. The liquid seemed alive, bubbling and shifting, its surface gleaming with an unnatural sheen.

Derek's hands shook as the truth of the instructions sank in. The spider and the thick, sloshing goo weren’t just part of the ritual's theatrics—they had to be consumed together, in one swift swallow, whole and unbroken.

Derek’s hand shook as he read the instructions. He hesitated for a moment, but the desire to see the ritual through overpowered his fear. He needed to know what the Dark Mormons had promised—he needed to be someone, to have the world know him, to unlock the secrets of the forgotten prophet.

Derek arranged everything meticulously on the kitchen table. The chalice sat before him, filled with the dark, swirling wine, while the bottle with the thick goo sloshed unsettlingly at the bottom, the spider skittering desperately on its tiny web near the top, trying to avoid the viscous liquid below. His knife gleamed under the dim, flickering light, poised above his palm.

With a steadying breath, he pressed the blade into his skin, watching as his blood dripped into the chalice. The wine deepened in color, swirling with unnatural patterns that made his head swim. He hesitated for a moment before lifting the chalice to his lips, tipping it back.

The wine was thick and bitter, burning as it crawled down his throat, leaving a searing trail in its wake. He had hoped it would stir some bravery for what came next.

It didn’t.

"Fuck it," he muttered through gritted teeth, eyes shut tight. "Let's do this."

He tilted his head back, uncorked the bottle, and opened his mouth wide to catch the spider. With one swift motion, he tipped the vial back, forcing the goo and spider into his throat.

The spider wriggled frantically against his tongue, its legs scratching the roof of his mouth as he fought to swallow, choking back the urge to gag. The thick goo oozed down his throat, and as the final drop disappeared, a wave of nausea slammed into him, bringing him to his knees.

He heard a noise outside, a low, unsettling rustle from the garden, like something alive stirring in the night. The plant—it responded to him, as if aware of the ritual he had just completed. Heart pounding, Derek staggered to the back door, fumbling with the lock before wrenching it open.

The wind howled through the opening, carrying the sharp scent of damp earth and decay. The once small plant now loomed, its black tendrils twisting and writhing in the moonlight.

And there, at the center of the garden, a bloom opened—a large, grotesque flower with thick, fleshy petals, dripping with some kind of viscous black liquid.

The air felt thick, oppressive, like something ancient and malevolent was stirring beneath the earth. Derek’s mind raced. Was this what the Dark Mormons had been talking about? Was this the power they had promised?

He stepped closer, drawn in by the bloom’s hypnotic pull. The ground beneath his feet seemed to pulse in time with the plant. Something was growing underneath—something large.

And then, Derek felt it. A sharp, searing pain in his chest.

PART THREE

Derek clutched his chest, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He staggered toward the monstrous bloom, the black liquid dripping from its petals forming a slick, oily pool at its base.

The plant groaned. The vines writhed faster now, twisting and curling, reaching out like the fingers of something hungry, eager. The ground beneath his feet trembled, a low rumble that seemed to echo from the deepest recesses of the earth. Derek’s eyes darted across the garden, and that’s when he noticed it—every other plant in his yard had withered, their once green leaves now shriveled and blackened. The life had been drained from them, leaving behind only death.

His mind raced. This was no ordinary plant. The Dark Mormons had never mentioned what lay beneath the soil, what ancient beast his actions had stirred awake.

The pain in his chest intensified. He fell to his knees, clutching at the earth, gasping for air as the movement under his skin became more violent. His veins bulged, writhing like snakes beneath the surface. He screamed, his voice lost in the howling wind, but the garden seemed to drink in his agony, the plant blooming wider as if feeding on his pain.

And then it happened.

The skin on his chest burst open, and something slid out—a mass of wriggling, black tendrils, dripping with the same viscous liquid that bled from the flower. Derek’s body convulsed, his blood mingling with the soil, seeping into the roots of the plant. His vision blurred, the world around him spinning as the grotesque tendrils spread across his chest, rooting themselves into the earth beneath him.

The ground trembled violently now, and Derek’s body sank deeper into the soil, his legs disappearing into the dirt. He struggled, but the more he fought, the tighter the plant's grip became. The vines wrapped around his arms, pulling him closer to the monstrous bloom.

Derek’s breath came in shallow gasps, his body nearly consumed by the earth. He glanced up at the plant—its once-shimmering black petals had shifted. They were no longer just petals; they were eyes. Hundreds of them, blinking, watching him as he struggled. His heart pounded in his ears, terror overwhelming him.

The thing beneath the garden—the ancient beast he had unknowingly summoned—was waking.

Suddenly, the bloom twisted, and from its center emerged a woman’s face— grotesquely distorted, its lips curling into a malevolent grin.

Derek’s blood ran cold. This was no plant. It was a conduit—a doorway for something older, something far more malevolent than he had ever imagined.

The wind died. The world around him seemed to hold its breath.

And then the she-beast spoke.

Her voice was a rasping, guttural sound, like stone grinding against stone. "You sought power, but power demands a price. You are the offering. Your blood has watered the roots of darkness. Let us mate now, become one with the soil, one with me."

The vines constricted tighter, pulling him down, down into the earth. Derek screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the garden. His body, now entangled in the plant, began to wither, his skin turning black, his bones creaking as they were slowly crushed by the relentless pressure.

As the last breath escaped his lips, Derek’s consciousness flickered. His soul, now bound to the ancient power beneath the soil, lingered in the garden. He felt the pull of the earth, the ancient beast's malevolent presence seeping into his very being.

Now, he was no longer Derek. He was part of the garden, part of the monstrous bloom that consumed him. His mind dissolved into the collective consciousness of the ancient creature, lost in an eternal nightmare.

In the center of the garden, the plant pulsed with new life, its black petals glistening in the moonlight. The tendrils that had once been Derek’s body twisted and writhed, merging with the roots of the dark, ancient beast that lay beneath the soil.

The wind picked up again, carrying the faint whispers of screams and laughter, but there was no one left to hear. Only the garden remained, its monstrous bloom waiting, watching.

And far beneath the earth, the ancient beast stirred.

END