Abgar's Story
I am unsure of what to say. All I can say is that I am scared. Very scared . My hands shake violently as I hastily scribble down a few words onto the coarse wooden tablet. This is my only hope. *In the month of Tammuz , day 25 of the year 569, I , Abgar, son of abbshamay, navigator have come here , to the country of Nysy: bless the god who brought us here, and you , the man who reads. that is all I am able to write . I an so tired. I am so weary. I set the tablet against a mound, careful that it will not fall down , and go on my way, through the pitch blackness of this grand cave. I have been trapped here for days. It started when i left Plmyra, That great oasis city in the Levantine desert. I was to travel to the city of Aksum in ethiopia to deliver silk textiles. Then i was to sail the vast sea to the lands of Persia and sell similar textiles at the cities of Istakhr , Ekbatana , and Ctesiphon, the Persian capital on the Tigris. Fom there, I was supposed to return to my homeland by caravan and receive payment. However , once I had left Aksum , the storm god , Baalshamin wrought a great monsoon wind upon my vessel and ran us aground at the island of Nysy. It is almost uninhabited , but my friends , Elkud and Zabdibel, had decided to seek out locals for shelter. I was to explore the nearby coastal cave to find food . I was not ten cubits inside when I tumbled down a shaft and into the deep bowels of this cave. I was unable to climp back up , and so i was forced to go further into the tunnels . There were no signs of humanity save for inscriptions of a foreign tongue that i could not read . My hopes of returning to the surface quickly vanished into the moist air around me . I tearfully accepted this futility , crawled into a corner , and let sleep embrace me .
I was awoken at some odd hour of the night . Thw cave was eerily silent , but there wasa pungent odor emanating from the depths of the tunnels . It smelled as if someone had boiled a rotten carcass in blood. I rubbed my eyes and stood up. Then , the sound started . A clicking sound , like somebody picking at their nails . I progressed into the the darkness . I held my hands in front of me , the darkness concealing whatever lay ahead of me . The sound was louder now , but it seemed to be coming from two different directions. That is when I reached a fork in the tunnel . The smell had gone , But the sound had not. In fact , there were two of them now. The same sound was emitted from each side of the fork. I ventured into the one on my right .As I walked , the tunnel seemed to shrink ever s
Then , it abruptly stopped. The smell returned, so overbearing i almost fainted . Slowly , I turned around Immediately , my heart stopped This thing stood before me. I can not explain what it was. t was a hunched down, twisted human- like thing . It had grey skin , and piercing yellow eyes . Its hands and feet were contorted and bore sharp white claws , which were curved like scythes. There were no eyes . Its mouths grinned wider than possible, and this grimace revealed scores of small , sharp sharp teeth in rows. the thing opened its mouth even wider and let out an ear-splitting shriek, leaping towards me like a lion .
I awoke in a sweat. Nothing. There were no sounds , nor any ripe smelling air. once again , I stood up and looked around . The cave was still dark , But the air had become thicker, like the mist hanging over the Efqa spring on a hot summer day . I took one step, and almost collapsed. The floor of the cave had become .... soft .It was like mud , but more dense . It still felt like rock when I touched it with my hands , and yet, it squelched underfoot. The walls of the cave shuddered . Was I dreaming ? It simply could not be . The walls were pulsating like veins . I kept walking. Then , the clicking started again . The smell returned as well. I was mortified , too scared to move on fo fear of death . I pulled a tablet from beneath that mound , and as soon as i do , the floor of the cave becomes softer . My feet sink into it and leave deep imperssions . The clicking sound stops . Light comes from a side tunnel of the cave , and i move towards it . Suddenly , the floor gives way again and i find myself falling for a seconed time. I hit the ground hard and the tunnels start spinning . I an so dazed , i only have the energy to stare upwards at the ceiling. A face appears the thing is back . it is reaching for me . I start to drift off and it smiles. The world becomes back , my eyelids close, and a thousand tiny pins into my skin
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