Obelisk of Torment

Matt Letkeman sought out a local antique store in hopes of finding something creepy to decorate his porch with for Halloween. He pushed the store’s door open and noticed the shopkeeper was occupied by a client. Matt asked the shopkeeper if he can look around the store’s goods. After receiving a positive answer, he went around the shop, seeking something creepy or horror related to use it as a part his décor.

The young man shuffled around the shop; looking at antique weaponry, tools, and even posters but nothing could match his desired object.

Matt’s eyes darted around the room, searching for something befitting his tastes. That’s when he found it; an old wooden Micronesian mask. It’s elongated frame and caricature-like facial features appealed to his sense of morbidity. A moment of Eureka occurred inside Matt’s mind. He had found what he was looking for. He then slowly made his way towards the mask, to inspect it from up close but something caught his attention.

A tiny wooden object, stationed on a shelf to the man’s right next to old books. There it stood, an awkward silhouette carved in fine wood. Matt turned to face the curious object that sported the shape of a humanoid with a myriad of arms surrounding its frame, along with a sea of heads at its center.

*Touch it*, the little statuette had almost called Matt as he looked at it.

Matt became enamored with the object from the first glance; he slowly changed the trajectory of his steps to his right, making his way slowly towards the small object.

It had an aura to it, there was something magnetic about this little thing. It just drew Matt like a moth is drawn by a flame.

*Yes… Touch it…* It had a magnetizing feeling to it; it began overwriting Matt’s common sense as it drew him closer, as if by some sort of magic.

Matt reached out for the small wooden object, and just as his fingers touched the solid wood, he felt a sharp throbbing pain shoot through the back of his head. He managed to let out a small sigh before he felt as if he was being submerged underwater and the world around him grew alarmingly dark. He did not have the time to scream or move. He just felt himself fade.

*That’s right… Good boy…* he heard inside his own head before everything went completely blank.

Matt Letkeman opened his eyes to find himself in a very dark space. He tried recollecting his thoughts but then came to notice he was staring directly into a fisheye-like object above him.

The sight made Matt tense up as he tried moving.

He could not move his body, not even an inch.

A storm of emotions began brewing inside of Matt’s mind as he tried with all of his might to move his body but nothing budged, not even a finger.

Panic began setting in.

He tried screaming, but just as he felt the air inside his lungs rise towards his mouth, a pair of hands wrapped themselves around his face. A feeling of dread began coursing throughout the young man’s body as he tried wiggling his way out of whatever was restraining him.

Nothing came of it; he was stuck in his place.

He kept trying to escape his bounds for a while, but after the lactic acid had begun to settle down in his muscle tissue causing each attempted movement to be more painful than the last. Matt gave up and quietly began sobbing all the while two hands groped his face.

In his panicked state, Matthew had failed to notice the orbital object above him was slowly moving away from him, but once he had stopped struggling he was forced to watch it move away in a painfully slow manner.

The man’s head ran to the worst possible places, causing his body to tense up, even more, sending him further down a never-ending spiral of panic and pain.

He was trembling with fear.

Another fish eye-looking orb appeared in the space above Matt, this one along with a putrid smell; one so awful it burned at Matt’s nostrils literally, causing him to once more try and escape his bounds.

Another pair of hands clamped on his head, pushing it down and causing pain, a great deal of pain.

He was instinctively closing his eyes as a result of a rancid smell, but another pair of hands grabbed his eyelids forcing them open. Shocks of terror ran down Matt’s spine. He began thrashing his body violently and screaming at the top of his lungs. As he did, a pair of large arms emerged from the ground below him and wrapped themselves around his torso.

He could feel the wind being knocked out of him as he heard the sickening cracking noises of his broken ribs. An agonizing pain quickly followed suit as his resistance slowly died down forcing pure despair down his throat.

The screaming ceased, it hurt too much to scream.

It hurt too much to move.

Matt’s psyche was about the shatter from the amount of pain his brain was bombarded with. He even managed to forget about the horrendous smell. While the young man could slowly feel himself slipping out of consciousness, he noticed that a whole host of yellowish orbs circled in the space above him as everything was darkening around him.

That’s when a sharp pain shot through his ribcage once more, producing another sickening cracking noise jolting him wide awake.

He screamed so loudly that even the hands around his face could not muffle the sound.

His screams echoed throughout the surrounding space, fading away into a seeming nothingness.

Matt was now wide awake as if something or someone had forced him to watch the spectacle before him.

A macabre spectacle in which a pulsating mass of fleshy matter unveiled itself in its full glory to Matt.

Slowly.

Painfully.

The fleshy blob began growing rapidly. Quickly enough it was towering over a mortified Matt. All the while he was forced to watch its maddening transformation while endless sprouts grew out of the vaguely shaped twitching mass, wriggling in random directions awkwardly.

The young man could not scream anymore.

He could not fight his restraints anymore.

He simply let the deranging image of the host of orbs sliding down the fleshy, pulsating mass etch itself in his brain.

By the time the bubbling mass achieved a disfigured mix between an arachnid and humanoid form, Matt could almost see the putrid odor. It felt like a combination of a fish fermented in its own pus-laced blood. He could almost see the pale green cloud of odor hover above him.

He simply stared at the skinless beast covered in a tangled web of black and yellow veins running across its surface.

He stared at it while not having a real idea of what he was staring at anymore, it was like he stared into space.

Soon enough, a deep wailing sound began rising out of the abomination and it grew in volume by the second. Eventually, it became so loud it felt if Matt’s whole body was being pressurized by the bombardment of sound waves crashing down atop his frame.

He could hardly feel the pain.

He could hardly feel anything at this point.

The man could only stare at the gargantuan monster standing before him. An ocean of arms and joints sprawled from its fleshy pulsating core in various directions grabbing and grasping at the void around it while a horde of fish-eyed visages decorated its disturbing shape. These visages were staring everywhere and nowhere at once while their mouths wailing in an unheavenly agonized unison.

A cracking sound erupted inside Matt’s own head and suddenly everything around him became dull and quiet, darkness followed suit.

Matt reopened his eyes in the antique store he had been before, his hand resting on the small wooden silhouette.

He could not remember what he was doing.

He had no clue where he was.

He did not even know who he was.

His breath became quick and shallow as he looked around frantically, noticing the antique weaponry and the various oddities of old.

He didn’t have the slightest idea of where he was, but something inside told him to run away. With a racing heart and a clouded mind, Matt Letkeman looked around, everything looked so familiar and yet so strange. The voice in his head rung again, *Run!*

He quickly made his way of the antique store, dazed and confused as the world around him began spinning uncontrollably, he ignored the calls of the equally confused shopkeeper.

Matt began running once he made his way out of the store, looking around frantically he as he runs. Not a single thought crossed his mind while he ran. In fact, he couldn’t see or hear anything that made sense to him. He could only conjure up the image of a hundred-handed skinless monstrosity in his head.