Lore 2

As he neared the completion of his escape Thnift began to grow doubts of what he had believed before. There had been hundreds of doomsday parties, as they were being called now, going on throughout the past few days. The ones who believed but had no means to avoid it brought everything they had together and had mass burnings of gold, egg eating contests and any other thing that would have been thought of as a waste before the prophecies had come. The ones who chose to be ignorant were only there to rub it in their faces that another day had passed where there had been no apocalypse. Many enjoyed this greatly since mostly the ones who believed were thought to be the smartest in this world. Thnift stayed away from all this and continued the construction of his pod. He was not in the mood to have things thrown at him. How could he have been wrong though? The tremors he had felt had not been sensed by anyone, both believers and non, for the past 48 hours. Usually they would be frequent enough to reinforce him that he was not wrong, but since he had not heard of any his beliefs had been undermined and he was beginning to doubt himself once again.

Many days passed without a sign that any of the things he had believed in held any truth at all. He began to attend the “doomsday parties” and to relieve himself of his depression that had crept upon him once again he chose to drown his sorrows in his cup other than face that he was wrong. The time he dreaded the most was when he stumbled home in a stupor, trying to find his way in the dark. At this time he was most vulnerable to the monsters of his mind. His great brain had turned against him and was creating images only he could see. Every night he would find himself attacked by great tall black things with eyes glowing red. They would club him with whatever they were carrying, be it dirt, stone, sand, or any other material they had at hand. He could not run fast enough to escape them and as he screamed out he found himself back in his bed. This repeated itself every night for a month, the visions getting more frequent and realistic, eventually he was unable to distinguish between what his mind was creating for him and what was actually here. His life became a nightmare of tall dark creatures hurting him night and day. His most pressing problem was that, even though he knew that they would hurt him, he still felt a irresistible feeling that these creatures were not really from his mind any more. He felt that they were becoming physical beings, taunting him when they knew that no-one else could see. Eventually it became too much for Thnift to bear. He isolated himself in his escape pod and waited. Hours turned into days and days into weeks. He grew thin and became as substantial as an animated skeleton.  

As Snowfired went through the costs of the last year, he realized he was missing a great amount of money. Then he remembered the deal he had made with Thnift. He made his way to the old professor’s house and found it surrounded by trees that had begun to grow and the grass was a meter high. After making his way through the wilderness that the abode of the once great man had sat. He made a through search of the dilapidated building. There were many holes in the walls and roof and the place smelled of mildew and an cloying smell that hid under the others. As Snowfired continued his search he wondered where the professor was. As he crawled through what was left of the kitchen his knee dislodged something that had probably been sitting on the ground for months now. All of a sudden the smell that he had sensed underneath that of the mildew became overwhelming. A great buzzing filled the air as the carcass of a dead cow ripped open and the rotten flesh spilled onto the ground and over Snowfired. The guts of the long dead animal had fallen out of the whole he had punctured in what was left of the skin. The buzzing was that of the flies that had most likely been feeding on the animal for weeks upon weeks. Snowfired could not see through the wall of black flies that filled the air, each of them the size of Snowfired’s thumb. They were slow since they had been gorging themselves, but still the amount of them was overwhelming. They were already filling his mouth and eyes. He thrashed around wildly as he tried to escape the horrible scene he had created. Once he finally succeeded in escaping, he kneeled down on the ground and heaved, luckily he had not eaten a large breakfast that morning. As he lay there spluttering he choked on the smell that now hit him worse than ever. It was the worst thing that had ever befouled the man. This brought on another wave of coughing and heaving. When he finally finished he was exhausted. He was on the verge of giving up and writing off the professor as dead and gone, when he looked up though he noticed the tarnished gleam of the vehicle he had spent much of his money on.

Thnift inside was at death’s door. He could not feel his extremities and what he could feel were icy cold. He had not moved in days. He would not last much longer. As he was about to give up Thnift heard a commotion outside, and decided that he might as well hang on long enough to find out what it was...