Not A Fairytale At All
May. 10th, 2011 07:03 pmThe desks. After all of it I remember the desks. It shouldn't be, but it's them that stand out. It's because you could tell. You could tell a lot of things by the desks. You could tell that they needed the water. They'd broken open a main to keep the water flowing. They'd jumbled the furniture up in a section - but a lighted section, they could bear the light of day - that was news, unwelcome news. And they had the desks set up facing the podium. They were learning. They could learn. And plan.

After the desks it has to be the spiderwebs. There aren't spiders that make webs like these. Not any spider that lives on the land that I've ever seen. Are there undersea spiders? Fishers with nets? They'd be big, thick nets, stronger than the webs you usually see. Maybe they're black from the mold, maybe they're black because deep enough in the sea everything is? Maybe they're black because it's supposed to be frightening. It is.

When we had to run the courtyard seemed like the best idea. Not because we had thought about it but because there was light, and a door, well - glass anyway. I bounced three times before I broke through, my arms won't be the same, but whether from the glass or the barbed wire or the bites. All the bites. I don't think I'll ever know.

The tanks. Sometimes there is a sign that tells you that people have done the wrong thing. You'll see a fallout shelter sign with the trefoil on an elementary school and you can tell that something in the world has gone horribly wrong for this to be the case. The tanks were a good sign. How did they think they could keep it? Display it? Study it? How did they not think to keep it a secret. They must have known from the beginning what it was, what it was capable of.
We crept through this section, wary. Off in the distance, we couldn't see it, the camera shows it, but I never saw it while we were there. The camera shows a lot that we didn't see. That I didn't see rather. They brought it ashore, put it in these tanks, and they didn't even know what it had in store for them. But it was the master, it made them do what they did. It made them into what they became.

There were a lot of signs too. Signs of how it couldn't be held. Signs of how foolish they'd been trying to keep it there. They must have thought that since it came from deep in the lake that it couldn't survive in the air. The wrecked ceiling suggests that it could even fly. But I've seen it's strength - and their strength too - they could have thrown someone through this roof just as easily as burst through it themselves, bodily.

She was with us and I can't remember her name. It was quick for her, but bad, still bad. The others. Some, maybe most of the others didn't die. I'm sure they didn't. They were carried off screaming to see It. To be changed, like they were changed. They worshiped that thing and I can't decide if I shouldn't too. Maybe we all should. The god from the lake. Maybe it's the best god, maybe it's the only god. It's probably the god we deserve. They tore her head off and stopped to eat the rest of her. She didn't stop screaming. After her head was ripped off, maybe it was just the air in her lungs flaring out her ragged neck. It's a sound people shouldn't hear.

The courtyard had seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't. It was death for most of us. Most of them. I won't pretend I was brave. I'll tell you the truth, I climbed over women and I would have thrown my own children to them to escape. Anything. The bites, or is it the barbed wire, or the glass - it still hurts, probably infected. I don't think a doctor knows how to cure me though. I don't think stitches will fix it. I think I just need to go to the lake, go to the lake and bathe in it. It's beautiful. The Most Beautiful.

We must have been crazy. Hoping to find something there. It'd been empty for so long, but none of the notes had been transferred away. Nothing. They hadn't boxed up any of their reports, not even their equipment. We checked and there was never a record of it closing. It just closed one day. And all their information, everything about the Monster - the only real records of the Monster were there. For all we knew. So, a simple errand, just pop over, flashlights in hand, see what's left. See if we can find something of their research to puzzle together with our own.
You know, now I can't even remember the first time I heard about the Monster, or how any of us knew to look there for it.

When I took this picture the room was dark. This light? It wasn't there, not that I could see. The camera didn't even show it like this. Not till later. A lot of the pictures look different. You can barely see the creatures in most of them - but they were there, in a lot of the pictures.
That light.
I think they called the light to them, to the chair. I don't know why. It could never sit in a chair, never be... Maybe they made one of them their leader. Maybe they put them in the chair to punish them. Maybe this is how It turns people into them. Into the claw-things. The Fish-Apes.

I don't remember who thought it was smart to look at the typewriters. It was smart, but I don't remember who thought of it. Someone. Look and see, why are those keys missing? The strike-bars were worn down and on the rubber carriage there was a strong impression of one word, or maybe a lot of words - something - typed over and over and over. XZAZXAZXAZXAZXAZXAZXXAZXAZXAZXAZX I look and I feel like I know what it means. It means something. I'll think of it later, at the lake.

This is the only picture I have of them. This must have been where they kept the young, maybe the nymphs? They kept them in tanks, like we kept the Monster. Grew them in broods. These were only as big as my thumb, each one, and each one spoke like a grown human, each one deserved to be destroyed. Had to be destroyed. After they started biting, it was all we could do to burn them.
The poor little children, how could we have burned them. I need to go to the lake, I need to wash myself, clean these wounds. You should come though. You should all come with me. To the lake.


After the desks it has to be the spiderwebs. There aren't spiders that make webs like these. Not any spider that lives on the land that I've ever seen. Are there undersea spiders? Fishers with nets? They'd be big, thick nets, stronger than the webs you usually see. Maybe they're black from the mold, maybe they're black because deep enough in the sea everything is? Maybe they're black because it's supposed to be frightening. It is.

When we had to run the courtyard seemed like the best idea. Not because we had thought about it but because there was light, and a door, well - glass anyway. I bounced three times before I broke through, my arms won't be the same, but whether from the glass or the barbed wire or the bites. All the bites. I don't think I'll ever know.

The tanks. Sometimes there is a sign that tells you that people have done the wrong thing. You'll see a fallout shelter sign with the trefoil on an elementary school and you can tell that something in the world has gone horribly wrong for this to be the case. The tanks were a good sign. How did they think they could keep it? Display it? Study it? How did they not think to keep it a secret. They must have known from the beginning what it was, what it was capable of.
We crept through this section, wary. Off in the distance, we couldn't see it, the camera shows it, but I never saw it while we were there. The camera shows a lot that we didn't see. That I didn't see rather. They brought it ashore, put it in these tanks, and they didn't even know what it had in store for them. But it was the master, it made them do what they did. It made them into what they became.

There were a lot of signs too. Signs of how it couldn't be held. Signs of how foolish they'd been trying to keep it there. They must have thought that since it came from deep in the lake that it couldn't survive in the air. The wrecked ceiling suggests that it could even fly. But I've seen it's strength - and their strength too - they could have thrown someone through this roof just as easily as burst through it themselves, bodily.

She was with us and I can't remember her name. It was quick for her, but bad, still bad. The others. Some, maybe most of the others didn't die. I'm sure they didn't. They were carried off screaming to see It. To be changed, like they were changed. They worshiped that thing and I can't decide if I shouldn't too. Maybe we all should. The god from the lake. Maybe it's the best god, maybe it's the only god. It's probably the god we deserve. They tore her head off and stopped to eat the rest of her. She didn't stop screaming. After her head was ripped off, maybe it was just the air in her lungs flaring out her ragged neck. It's a sound people shouldn't hear.

The courtyard had seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't. It was death for most of us. Most of them. I won't pretend I was brave. I'll tell you the truth, I climbed over women and I would have thrown my own children to them to escape. Anything. The bites, or is it the barbed wire, or the glass - it still hurts, probably infected. I don't think a doctor knows how to cure me though. I don't think stitches will fix it. I think I just need to go to the lake, go to the lake and bathe in it. It's beautiful. The Most Beautiful.

We must have been crazy. Hoping to find something there. It'd been empty for so long, but none of the notes had been transferred away. Nothing. They hadn't boxed up any of their reports, not even their equipment. We checked and there was never a record of it closing. It just closed one day. And all their information, everything about the Monster - the only real records of the Monster were there. For all we knew. So, a simple errand, just pop over, flashlights in hand, see what's left. See if we can find something of their research to puzzle together with our own.
You know, now I can't even remember the first time I heard about the Monster, or how any of us knew to look there for it.

When I took this picture the room was dark. This light? It wasn't there, not that I could see. The camera didn't even show it like this. Not till later. A lot of the pictures look different. You can barely see the creatures in most of them - but they were there, in a lot of the pictures.
That light.
I think they called the light to them, to the chair. I don't know why. It could never sit in a chair, never be... Maybe they made one of them their leader. Maybe they put them in the chair to punish them. Maybe this is how It turns people into them. Into the claw-things. The Fish-Apes.

I don't remember who thought it was smart to look at the typewriters. It was smart, but I don't remember who thought of it. Someone. Look and see, why are those keys missing? The strike-bars were worn down and on the rubber carriage there was a strong impression of one word, or maybe a lot of words - something - typed over and over and over. XZAZXAZXAZXAZXAZXAZXXAZXAZXAZXAZX I look and I feel like I know what it means. It means something. I'll think of it later, at the lake.

This is the only picture I have of them. This must have been where they kept the young, maybe the nymphs? They kept them in tanks, like we kept the Monster. Grew them in broods. These were only as big as my thumb, each one, and each one spoke like a grown human, each one deserved to be destroyed. Had to be destroyed. After they started biting, it was all we could do to burn them.
The poor little children, how could we have burned them. I need to go to the lake, I need to wash myself, clean these wounds. You should come though. You should all come with me. To the lake.
