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Posted by: TheCheshireKhajiit Jul 2 2020, 01:54 AM

Here is a little story Khajiit wrote up in honor of our recent visitor, the Saharan Dust Cloud! It’s also a bit of a poorly executed Lovecraft homage! It’s only close to a couple of pages long so it won’t take a lot of your time, though you might feel a bit dumber after reading it, lol. Anyway, for those of you who do read it, this one hopes you like it!

Dust
What strange and antediluvian dreams have been borne hither upon hot Saharan winds. The yellow dust of innumerable ages struck out across the ocean, driven by the malignant wind as if by some unknown intelligence. Upon arriving on our shores, the dust settled in our sky, dimming the sun and hiding the moon and stars at night. And then we dreamed.

We dreamed of a beautiful, and lush land inhabited by strange, and peaceful people who were not unlike humans, yet clearly were not. They lived in stone cities of indescribable architecture, where art and culture flourished. In great temples the people worshipped beings from beyond the stars, exalting their benevolence in their creative works. Sacrifices of their crops and finer manufactured goods were also made to these beings, and the civilization prospered. It appeared to be a true utopia.

As we dreamed, time advanced and we saw that the strange people had changed. Their old gods had been forgotten, for they no longer venerated them in their temples, and the sacrificial altars were bare. The people now worshipped gods with names like “Profits”, “Selfishness”, and “Debauchery”, while the impoverished became the new sacrifices. So it was, that at what the people believed to be the height of their civilization, the old gods returned.

One night, from some unknown point in the inky black void of outermost space, what the people thought to be a star fell to the earth. One of the cities was instantly annihilated and from the destruction rose the material forms of the old gods. In a day, the old gods walked the peoples’ lands and left naught but devastation in their wake. They obliterated the cities, and laid the lush fields and valleys to blackened waste. Of the wayward people, not a single one was left living. The destruction was so complete that it would have been incomprehensible to someone visiting the region that anything had lived there the day before.

After the peoples’ existence had been snuffed out, we who dreamed watched as the old gods returned to their home in the void, leaving one of their number on Earth for some ambiguous reason. It descended down into the catacombs deep under the remains of one of the ruined cities, and there in the darkness it fell into a hibernation like sleep. Time advanced again and we beheld a vast desert slowly creeping across the lands of the former civilization, submerging any of the remnants in an ocean of sand.

Soon after the desert consumed all of the lands of the former civilization, human beings appeared in the region. We witnessed the rise of the pyramids, and the coming of the Romans. After their empire retreated, we watched the westward spread of Islam and then the great North African battles of the Second World War. Finally, the dreams ended with a great wind rising up from depths of the Sahara, and an enormous dust cloud lifting up into the air. Somewhere in the darkness beneath the ancient sands, a thing not of this realm of reality, is awakening.

Posted by: SubRosa Jul 2 2020, 02:51 AM

In his house in Sa'h'ra
dead Cthulhu waits dreaming

I really liked that. The Old Gods FTW!

Posted by: TheCheshireKhajiit Jul 2 2020, 03:07 AM

QUOTE(SubRosa @ Jul 1 2020, 08:51 PM)

Posted by: macole Jul 2 2020, 03:34 AM

Oh this one got me dreaming! I had just finished watching NOVA on PBS describing the Mesozoic Era. As usual it ends with an asteroid strike that sets the sky on fire. So I was thinking what if these peaceful peoples were dinosaur. A fledgling intelligent dinosaur snuffed out before its potential could be realized.

Posted by: TheCheshireKhajiit Jul 2 2020, 05:37 AM

QUOTE(macole @ Jul 1 2020, 09:34 PM)

Posted by: SubRosa Jul 2 2020, 07:19 AM

I was half-thinking of the reptilians from https://youtu.be/zz4Vzq-VKKg.

Posted by: TheCheshireKhajiit Jul 2 2020, 02:22 PM

QUOTE(SubRosa @ Jul 2 2020, 01:19 AM)

Posted by: Acadian Jul 2 2020, 07:08 PM

Welcome to the arena of sharing your writing, Khajiit!

A nicely done post and thought-provoking concept.

Posted by: TheCheshireKhajiit Jul 2 2020, 08:36 PM

QUOTE(Acadian @ Jul 2 2020, 01:08 PM)

Posted by: Renee Jul 5 2020, 03:41 PM

Yeah I also like the old ways in Khajiit's dream. So much mystery. I really do believe there were some sort of advanced civilizations which have been long forgotten. Evidence exists, which is often ignored by modern, close-minded scholars.

I really need to find my Lovecraft book too. I had a huge tome a full of LC stories. Bought it years ago. Went looking for it a month ago, where the heck did I put it? Gr...