Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know when or if anyone will read this. I suppose I’m leaving this as a record in the hope that someday – somewhere – someone will find it and learn from our mistakes. On July 4th, 2024, the legendary Necronomicon was unearthed in Damascus.
For those who don’t know, the existence of the Necronomicon has been debated for decades. The fabled tome was first mentioned by H.P. Lovecraft in the 1922 story The Hound. Those who denied the authenticity of the book claim that it was nothing more than a product of the demented imagination of Lovecraft. However, at this point, we can finally say that they were sorely mistaken. The book, once titled Al Azif, was written by the “Mad Arab,” Abdul Alhazred. It is an account of “the old ones,” their history, and how to summon them. Alhazred worshiped Yog Sothoth and Cthulhu in the early 700s C.E. from Sanaa in Yemen. He visited the ruins of Babylon, the “subterranean secrets of Memphis,” and the empty quarter of Arabia. In his remaining years, he lived in Damascus, where he wrote Al Azif. He died suddenly and mysteriously in 738 C.E., which, according to Ibn Khallikan, happened when he “was seized in broad daylight by an invisible monster which devoured him before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses.” In subsequent years, the book gained considerable yet surreptitious circulation among the philosophers of the age. In 950 C.E., it was translated into Greek and named “Necronomicon.” It was given the new title by Theodorus Philetas, a supposedly fictitious scholar from Constantinople. This version of the Necronomicon “impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts” before it was suppressed and burnt by Patriarch Michael Cerularius in 1050. In 1228, it was translated from Greek to Latin by Olaus Wormius before being banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232.
This wretched book has been the source of much rumor, innuendo, and misinformation. However, some of the rumors have now been proven true. It was indeed written on pages made from human flesh. Though it has long been known as “The Book of the Dead,” it does not instruct the human mage in the art of necromancy. Instead, it allows one to call upon and summon the elder gods. There has been no greater calamity in human history than its recent discovery. Why, in the name of all that is holy, someone would read aloud from the summoning section is beyond me. There are multiple warnings in the early section of the book. Yet, modern sensibilities and hubris took over in the “pursuit of science.”
The hard facts are this: The book has been found. The book has been read from, and the elder gods have now returned.
It began how you would expect an apocalypse to begin, plagues, locusts, and rivers of blood. Still, our scientists scrambled to explain the unexplainable. They refused to believe the evidence. Then the darkness came. The sun has forsaken us. We have lived in a state of perpetual night since July 10th. People began to go mad, some running, screaming into the night, never to be heard again. Then their herald arrived. Nyarlathotep, “the goat with a thousand young,” and messenger of the elder gods. Upon his arrival, he somehow made the darkness thicker, viscous. He appeared both in the sky and telepathically in all our collective minds.
The message that he transmitted was this: “Rejoice! The elder gods awaken and claim dominion once again. You face a future of subjugation and death. Hear my message and despair! You have no future. Rest in the knowledge that you are now sustenance and entertainment for your betters.”
The collected military might of the entire world bent its collective power against this being. Even nuclear weapons didn’t make a scratch.
This was not a battle. This was a slaughter.
With a simple wave of his hand and an exhalation of air, the “faceless god” decimated every world power. Within hours, people were being dragged from their homes, screaming in the street for a savior that would never come. After all these centuries, we were finally equal. We were now viewed as a weak biological mistake that came into power over this world by an accident of fate. Apparently, the old ones now seek to rectify this mistake. Yog Sothoth and Cthulhu have yet to make an appearance, and I would be hard-pressed to explain how things could get worse, but there is terror in the air and a foreboding of things to come. The lesser demons continue to make preparations for their arrival.
I am barricaded in my office in the hopes I can finish this. But even as I type, I can hear them in the building. The endless chittering and scratching sounds are slowly robbing me of my sanity. They are in the outer office now. They are here… They are here… They are here… I am found.
