Ebrugh Report 10: The Encounter in Siberia

In this Ebrugh Report, a group of KGB agents sets out to find out more about a meteorite that came crashing down in Siberia.

## Ebrugh Report 10

Photo from around the area where the Witness supposedly appeared.

## Summary

In the desolate Siberian Wastes, a team of KGB agents embarks on a perilous mission to locate and recover a crashed meteorite of unknown origin. As they delve deeper into the unforgiving wilderness, they stumble upon an eerie and unsettling presence that radiates fear, not only affecting the agents but also the wildlife in the vicinity. A creeping dread settles over the team, prompting them to reconsider their mission.

Retracing their steps and heading back to their base, the agents' journey takes a peculiar twist as they encounter a shamanic woman deeply enmeshed in the ancient traditions of the region. She shares cryptic dreams about a mysterious entity known as "The Witness," believed to have arisen from the very heart of the meteorite they seek. The entity's purported origins and powers remain shrouded in myth and legend.

As the agents make their way back, they grapple with the lingering sense of foreboding brought about by their encounter with "The Witness" and the shaman's ominous dreams. The wilderness seems to conspire against them, and they suffer further losses as they attempt to navigate the treacherous landscape.

Upon finally returning to their base, the remaining agents are met with a chilling sight. The once-familiar outpost is now devoid of human presence. Puzzled and alarmed, the agents are left to grapple with the unsettling reality that their colleagues and comrades have mysteriously vanished.

## Ebrugh Report 10

### Rumoured Origin

*This report was sent by a person that supposedly worked for the KGB during the Cold War. I did at first not believe it, though I noticed some parallels to things from other reports I have found...*

### Report

It was long ago when I worked at station 13 in the deep Siberian wastes. Station 13 was a soviet outpost and the Cold War was still brewing. What we did there, I will not elaborate on, as the expedition I want to tell you about is disturbing enough as it is.

On a day in late autumn, six days after some shooting stars had lit up the dark night, one of our supply planes brought news of a village some day's walk away. The little settlement had seemingly been attacked, as there was white smoke rising from the wooden houses and no people were to be seen anymore.

Therefore, some of us decided to get to the village and look for survivors and the cause of the catastrophe.

The Siberian landscape is not easily passable in many parts, so we had to use horses instead of cars for traversing the rocky, wild areas. Our small group had started the journey in the early morning hours, slowly fighting its way through a thicket of coniferous trees. Despite the green all around us, the surroundings had felt bleak and barren. All the tree trunks lying around halfway rotten reminded us of the mysterious explosion from half a century ago, a graveyard of once mighty plants.

It had already become noon when the forest was finally behind us and we managed to move on a bit quicker. The village got close when the sun had already started to set, sending down its cold light. Passing by a clear creek, we made for the hillsides were plants grew rampant and my gaze wandered across the many trees in the distance, looking for survivors of the happenings we had set out to investigate.

Russian summer days are comfortably warm and therefore we were not forced to wear thick clothes or traverse frozen lakes or snowy hills. A smell of fresh and healthy nature was in the air and I almost started dreaming whilst my horse carried me onwards. It slowly got cooler and the terrain got rougher and rougher. I still searched the horizon, looking for hollows or caves where some poor people in need might have hid themselves. The predatory animals around those hills were nothing to underestimate and they smelled blood over long distances, making a wound all the more dangerous for possible survivors – if there were any to begin with.

People from around here would normally know how to deal with the wilderness, but in shock and terror knowledge is easily forgotten.

When we had almost reached the village, I spotted five bears, charging towards our little group. The horses had been restless for a while already, but the view of those big predators made them panic and we had a hard time not to be thrown off. One of us – a man from the KGB like me – had taken a shotgun for emergency situations and pointed it at the charging animals, ready to pull the trigger. I wondered whether agitating them with a shot was a good idea, but I also trusted in my colleague to not do anything rash. Indeed, I was right. The man waited patiently as the others tried to get their horses back under control. The bears had almost reached us, darting towards us at terrifying speeds. My heart was beating heavily. I tightened my grip around my pistol, ready to aid my colleague.

"Stop!" one of the others suddenly screamed.

His voice was trembling, confused.

When the bears had come even closer, I noticed that something was wrong with them. The moment I realized what it was, I wished that I had never joined the expedition in the first place. I looked at the animals, disturbed by what I saw. The bears ran right past us, not even giving off a sign of having noticed us. Their eyes and their motions were radiating a bottomless terror.

They... were fleeing?

Soon, I spotted smaller groups of animals nearby, also running across the ridges and hills, squeaking and screaming like a frightened swarm. The horses suddenly started to lose it as well. They rose up and I only narrowly managed to hold onto my saddle. The others reacted quickly enough as well and all of us barely stayed on top of our animals. There were flocks of birds, flying past and towards a horizon far behind us.

Beyond the hills and trees were all the animals had come from, I suddenly sensed an alien presence that made my skin crawl. The taste of acid filled my mouth. Never before had there been such terror in my mind. It was like a slice of hell had descended upon the world behind the ridges, making a bottomless fear resurface deep inside all living things that had gotten too close to it.

Carried by our horses we fled, fled far away across hills and stones and creeks, through thorns and vines and small patches of Siberian trees, until the terror had faded away and the horses fell to the ground in exhaustion.

That evening, we set up camp on the slope of one gravelly hill nearby, close to the rim of a small forest of pine trees. When a little fire had been lit, we finally found some time to rest and process the strange event we had been a part of. Despite some alcohol, sleeping was out of the question for a long time, as I was aware of something being out there between the hills, some entity of malevolence, lurking around. The madness that crept into my mind and the intoxication made sleep a horrid display of terrible dreams and I was thrown into an abyss of nightmares.

In the next morning, I woke up shivering and hung over, as the night had been cold and long. I was not the first one that had woken up and it quickly became clear that something was wrong. Some men were sitting around a campfire, cooking juicy beans. They slowly told me that many of the horses had not lived through the night. The flight had driven them to the brink of death and the freezing temperatures under the moon's gaze had pushed them over. With sadness, I looked at the cadavers of our companions close by. The terror still echoed through my mind, but the presence was gone and there were also no animals fleeing anymore.

Soon we sat together around the fading fire. Nobody knew where we were, as our flight had been without direction. I could only estimate that on foot it would take us days to get back to the station. Many cursed at the fact that we could not really call for help in this no man's land. There were also arguments about whether we should try and find a way back towards the village or whether we should flee as cowards. Most did not want to go back and in my head the fear also warned me against it, but there were some protests.

Were we this cowardly, this meek? Not a single man denied the panic that had gotten its hold on us, but some played it down and were intent on heading back.

The debate was getting more heated minute by minute, when a woman stumbled out of the branches, about forty years of age and judging by her clothes belonging to one of the shamanic tribes living here in the Siberian wastes. She seemed insecure, exhausted and was heavily shaking. We were quick to ensure her that no danger was stemming from our group. As some men wanted to tell her about the event of the day before, she interrupted, lost in thoughts:

"You felt it as well, didn't you? That... entity?"

"We do not even know whether it was an entity yet," someone immediately interrupted, but without much conviction.

"I am sure of it. I saw it. On one of my journeys. In my dreams," she muttered.

She sat down and we hurried to give her something to drink.

"In your dreams? Is that a part of your tradition? Dream walking?"

I was a bit sceptic, but also curious. I had already seen things before that defied all logic.

"It is. I was out there. Close to it."

Her hands were shivering, tightly grabbing onto the old cup one had given her.

"You were there? Please, tell us! That might make planning our next move easier," someone said hopefully.

"I do not believe such drivel," another one groaned, but we quickly told him to shut up.

The woman took another sip and her eyes started to drift off, but she soon snapped out of it.

"As you might have guessed by my clothes, I am a shaman. Some of you will think of me as a charlatan – fine by me. But our culture is spread across these lands, as you will know. It has been for ages. My skills in dreaming were never the best, even though my people expect that from me. My nightly strolls and visions were always crazy and ambiguous and save for one or two nightmares always harmless.

But when those fires crossed the sky and rained down upon the earth, everything changed. The night after those falling stars, I found myself standing in a village that had been struck by the stones from the heavens. It was dark and the moonlight was held off by clouds, but I still could see some things. Four cabins had entirely been destroyed and only scorched stumps were coming out of the ground in their place. I could smell death, could hear the cries of the people who had lost their friends and families. The road was bumpy and I had to walk some steps to get a better look at the impact crater. It looked like the ground had just been ripped away.

Then, there were piercing screams.

They came from the houses close by.

Suddenly, I stood in a living room, where a family had by the looks of it just started eating dinner. A man, his wife and two boys. They were lying down on the ground, shaken by spasms, suffering the pains of oncoming death. I just stood there, looking on as their skin started to become strangely white and coarse, turning into a lime-like substance. Their panicked eyes turned red as their veins started to burst. Their throats went silent and a terrible quietness made my ears go mad. Then there were other screams. Louder and louder the chorus of voices grew, begging for their lives and for their god to save them. Soon, however, that was over as well and left was only a dead village, left were only the remains of its citizens, looking like statues, slowly turning into white dust..."

The woman started crying.

"After having woken up, I told my mentor of the dream, but he just fell silent and ordered me never to visit that place ever again in my mind. I immediately told him that I had not done so on purpose and that a strange power had placed me there, but he just advised me to take some herbs for better dream control before sleep."

"That sounds insane! And you think that what you saw was real?" one of the men asked.

"I think so, yes," the woman replied hesitatingly.

"So the presence is a disease from space?" I asked, my hairs standing on edge.

She looked into my eyes and I spotted a fear beyond everything I had ever seen.

"No. That was not my only dream."

The woman took another sip from the cup and continued:

"In the next night, I found myself standing in the village again, but the situation had gotten a lot worse. The houses had gone white and begun to fall apart in some places. The corpses I found in the houses had almost entirely turned to dust, slowly covering the floors of all those ill-fated houses. In the third night, the mist started to rise."

"Mist? What mist?" someone wanted to know, but the woman already continued her tale.

"It was a white dust and I think breathing it in would immediately kill any living thing. My body wandered through the empty streets and I saw the houses falling apart, almost as if centuries were eating away at them. It did not get worse, for a while, but yesterday...

The mist got more dense, started to taste sour. It felt so real...

And then, I saw it for the first time..."

She buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath. When she had calmed down a bit, she continued.

"What did you see?" I asked her.

I was getting sick.

„That dream, it did not come at night, but suddenly at noon. I got sleepy all of a sudden.

Barely managing to lie down, I lost consciousness and dove into the dream.

Everything was as in the visions before, thick mist, fading houses...

But there were no corpses anymore, just pieces of clothes, covered in white dust. However, most of the substance had gone. The street and the houses were barely visible and I had to concentrate to see them.

The white fog covered everything and then... a shape appeared in the distance, closing in on me, until I could see it.

I... it is strange, I can't describe it precisely.

It was neither man nor woman, neither old nor young. Its skin must have been white, white as the dust, but... do you know that feeling, if you see something in the corner of your eye? Like a veil, ungraspable? Well, it was like that. I can see it in front of my inner eye, its... smile that can not be from this world. But describing it seems impossible, the words are not forming, my mouth can't speak them, can't let them echo through our air. Perhaps because I suspect that they could lure it here," she said with a shiver.

"It's alright. You don't have to be afraid. It was just a mirage," I tried to calm her down, but all of us knew that those were empty words.

The men around me shook as well, pale, looking to the ground, trying not to think about the being we had been close to the day before. The woman was still crying. The cup slipped from her hands and fell down. Her voice had grown very quiet and she muttered:

"It had gotten close and was just smiling at me.

'What are you?' I wanted to know, completely disturbed.

It just looked at me, its lips pressed together, and said:

'I am... god?'

The words left its mouth as if they were obvious, but they ripped every last shred of calm away from my mind.

'That is not possible!' I cried.

It continued looking at me, not changing its expression.

'No, I am not god. I am the witness,' it corrected itself, almost sounding pleased.

'Witness? A witness of what?' I asked.

'A witness of their arrival. Their deeds,' it answered.

The dream faded and I awoke, covered in sweat."

When she repeated the entities words, it was as if I could hear them in the howling of the winds, in the rustling of the bushes and even in the core of my soul. Everyone else might find them silly, but our little group was shaken to the bones. We considered that the woman was lying to us, that there was another explanation, but there was none. Time passed and we sat in silence, until someone spoke up.

"We should get back to the station. This is futile. We just say the village was burned down and that there were no survivors. That isn't even a complete lie."

"No, it might be better to..." another one started, but he was suddenly interrupted.

The winds had started to wheeze louder and the howling sounds of predatory animals soon joined in. My throat got dry and I sank to the ground, trying to breathe. Some others had already fainted, or crawled across the gravelly ground. The last horses went mad and got free, running madly away into the distance, away from our camp.

Then came the cold. It felt like freezing up from the inside, as if my veins were slowly shrinking, making me an easy target in the Siberian wilderness.

The feeling of pure panic.

I struggled to get up. Two others had managed to get on their feet as well and searched the area for signs of danger. I spotted the woman, lying on the ground.

"It is coming," she whispered.

"We have to leave, now! Go!" one of the others screamed and started to run, away, into the forest behind us. Those trees looked like a wall of protection against the danger of death and madness.

We had to hide, get to safety...

Many were already gone and fainted, we had to leave them behind, what would them slowing us down help anyone?

Together with another man who looked at me with determination, I moved towards the forest. All that were standing did the same.

They jumped into those trees, away from this hellish hill, and I prepared to follow them, when suddenly a hand got a hold of my wrist.

I almost fainted out of fear, when I heard a desperate voice calling for me.

"No, not that way... *That is where it is coming from*!"

I froze and looked back.

The woman was holding me in place. She must have gotten up and run over to me.

Her eyes were full of determination.

"Look at the fields beyond the hill! There is nothing! We should be able to see it already if it was coming from there!"

She pointed at the grassy hills opposite of the trees.

Two others awoke from their petrification and got up.

"Then... We have to go there, to those hills. Run! Away from the trees!"

They must have heard her words as well.

I did not hesitate for long and soon us four were running across the brown plains, onwards, not looking back, not listening to the terrible screams coming from behind us, giving us more reason to sprint faster.

I do not know how far we had gotten, because as we had left the hills behind, there was another forest waiting for us with leafless trees and dead shrubs. Without a doubt, we were lost, but we also were alive. Exhausted, we dropped down next to a little pond that was sparkling in the midday sun. We hadn't managed to take any rations or water with us, as all our instincts had made us escape in blind panic. The water from the pond tasted bad and sour, but it was more than nothing. I could not believe that only four people had escaped with their lives. The woman probed the horizon with her gaze, looking for the entity that was in all likeliness still following us.

"How did it get into the woods? Wasn't it approaching from the other direction before?" I finally asked.

„I do not know. And who would?" the woman said.

"Probably no human. What is your name, anyway?"

"Darya, just Darya", she introduced herself.

We others gave her our names as well.

"How on earth will we get back to the station now?"

The question echoed back from the trees, almost mockingly.

"I know a little bit about the area. Where exactly are you from?" Darya asked.

When we described the location of our base, she seemed to have a rough idea about where to go. That was the first thing in a long time that brought us relief. Perhaps there was a way out of this hell?

After a short break we made our way into the forest and hoped that the station was located in that direction.

But... was it safe there? And what did that being even want? Why did it kill our kind?

I had to remember the other things I had seen, the things in the depths of station 13 itself, and doubts about the nature of our world pierced my mind again.

The ground was full of thistles and other ugly plants, the flowers looked rotten, old and dead. Stones blocked our way countless times. When evening finally came, fear crept back into us.

What if it was still behind us? What if it was still closing in on us? It had to be faster than us, would it just cut us off?

We rested at a gloomy clearing and felt that station 13 was close, perhaps another day's walk away? After some discussion, we decided to stay and gather some more strength to finish our journey. That way we could at least run again in case it got close to us once more. We drew lots and determined the order of people guarding our little camp. A fire was out of the question, even though we all knew deep down that it would find us anyway, if it so chose. Dinner had only consisted of berries and a little river had provided us with more or less fresh water.

I was the first on guard duty, soon being the only one of us left awake, staring into the darkness. The air was unnaturally arid and strangely spent, or was I imagining things? My eyes had slowly gotten used to the dark and I was able to see the shapes of the bushes and trees around us. The wind was blowing coldly around my body and the air was filled with the chirping and humming of insects.

But... had there not just been a hand?

Between the trees?

No, I must have been mistaken. I got sick but had to pull myself together. The bushes were rustling evil and foreboding.

If it suddenly broke through?

What would I do?

Could anything even be done or would we die, squished like bugs?

I imagined to hear high pitched laughter in the distance.

Or was it just the wind?

Was it in the end... just the wind?

Did the air not taste strangely acidic? Sour?

Now it was gone. Or had the taste never been there in the first place?

Were not creatures sneaking through those bushes, gaping, lurking?

Did not the shadows dance around strangely over there?

I heard a loud thumping noise, like a big drum.

My heartbeat.

Soon, I buried my face in my hands. Time passed slower and slower.

Again and again I imagined hearing or seeing things in the dark, smelling or tasting something in the air.

But nothing happened.

Finally, my time was up and another man took my place as a guard. I slept away faster than I would have expected.

A scream woke me up. I rose from the ground, looking around in confusion. It had come from Darya. She had awoken in tears.

"What happened?" I asked fearfully.

I did not feel its presence, but maybe it was hiding.

"Another dream. I was in this forest, deep inside this forest, somewhere. It was brighter than here, a lot brighter, but perhaps I was just seeing differently than with my normal eyes. I ran through trees as dead as these and soon I noticed the white dust hovering close to the ground of the forest. And then it rose from the dust, as if it was breaking through the surface of an ocean. This entity... the witness.

It looked exactly like the last time, smiling this terrible smile, looking at me from half-dead eyes...

'Why are you following us?' I asked in desperation.

It didn't move. I thought it had not heard me, but then it made a step towards me.

'I need you. I need substance to walk this earth,' it said with no emotion in its voice and its strangely bent lips.

'What do you mean? Substance?'

'The carcasses at the place of arrival. The creatures running into the forest, into me. I emerged from their dust. I own their substance. Carried by the winds. I am from you. I see your race. Without purpose in this cosmos, a cosmos that reaches farther than you will ever get. Without fate in a dark sea of blackness. Made as cattle, ending as cattle. I testify.'

It took another step.

I wanted to flee but knew it was futile.

Then, suddenly, it turned around and walked away from me, towards all the dust. Slowly, parts of its body crumbled off, almost like a sand castle in a storm.

'I know where the others are. I have to bring them the glad tidings.'

'What tidings? What are you talking about?' I screamed, but it already fell apart and disintegrated into the white dust it had been born from.

After that, I awoke."

„Was it heading for us? Is it coming?" I asked.

"No, it went the other way, I think that we might be save for now."

When I had digested those words, I started to panic.

"It is heading for the station! It is heading for the station, we have to warn them!"

"Too late. It is faster than us," Darya said quietly.

The world turned grey and meaningless when I realized that she was right. What if the being reached civilization? Cities? Would it end us all? What did it even want? Wanted it anything at all? I was devastated. We would soon reach the station ourselves and see what the entity had done. Despite the danger, that was the only place were we might find any help at all.

Two days later around noon we finally got back to station 13. Sweaty and hurt by thorns we broke through the final bushes, let our gazes wander and finally froze in terror and disgust. Death had visited the station. White dust was lying everywhere, covered the concrete, the grass and clothes. Nobody had survived. Even the dogs in their cages had turned to heaps of dust, slowly being blown away by the winds. It appeared as if some had try to escape with jeeps, but they had not come far. The alarm systems were still howling. We made our way into the main building, but no one was left inside either. Just warning lights flashing bright through cold corridors of concrete.

We were still full of panic and adrenaline.

Was it still here?

In these corridors?

No, probably not, we would have noticed by now.

Nonetheless, again and again I imagined seeing shadows flickering in the corners of my eyes. Perhaps it was still here after all? Would it grow out of the dust and disintegrate us as well?

My thoughts were trailing off when we got into the command centre. The walls inside were covered in deep scratches and dust.

I had to inform my superiors of the situation, the KGB, somebody!

They had to close off this area!

I quickly grabbed the phone and dialled the number of the central station in Moscow.

"What is happening over there, station 13? Firstly this... message and then radio silence? What experiments did you do exactly?", someone answered the phone, furiously shouting at me.

But when I had made my report and given them my identification, the fell silent.

Until today I do not know whether we had lead the entity to station 13 or if it had already been headed there. I also do not know what happened to it after the attack. Had it reached its goal and just faded away? Or was it still wandering across the Siberian wastes while draining the life from the surrounding environment?

Station 13 was given up. The loss of nearly all people stationed there was covered up with greatest efforts and was counted as one of the biggest failures of scientists inside the Soviet Union. Darya and the other two had fled into the woods as they feared being buried together with the other information on the incident. I did not tell on them and reported that I was the only one surviving the terror. My official statement was full of lies, but I think they knew and didn't care. I had made a name for covering up things before and thus even ascended in the ranks of the KGB due to the events. They needed good people that could look after unpleasant information.

Some helicopters were sent to the village, but neither an impact crater nor white dust were ever found. The houses had just disappeared as if they never had existed in the first place.

And almost nobody had ever heard the message that had been sent by station 13 to the central station. The message that caused the young woman who received it to have a psychotic breakdown. The message I myself have heard only once.

The humming, the wheezing... and the voice. The voice that sounded neither young nor old, neither male nor female. The voice that spoke calmly and quietly and said:

*"I am the witness. I have witnessed their arrival."*

## Characters

* KGB Agent
* Darya

## Possible Connections to the Ebrugh

* The shadows are mentioned to be "dancing around strangely". This might imply a connection to the Shadow People or the Deep.