3. Duplicated Doom

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Source: .writer/books/5. đź“ť Manuscript/1. Sand Veils/3. Duplicated Doom.org

1. Short Description

In an eerie, spectral landscape, the protagonist received a foreboding message and heads toward a distant beacon, pursued by monstrous, tentacled creatures. Fleeing through a wasteland littered with his own dead duplicates, he faces the grim reality of his impending doom, while struggling to understand his horrifying, bewildering predicament.

2. Notes

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4. Image

3. Duplicated Doom

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5. Content

The sky thundered.

Agony gripped my chest as I pondered the symbols' meaning. The missive struck a nerve, haunting phrases that resounded through my turmoil. The mysterious author appeared to forewarn me of an unutterable horror, a tragedy I knew deep within to be worse than death. I rose, crumpled the parchment, and surveyed the horizon. For no reason, it was there again. Through the fog, squinting my eyes, I glimpsed the beacon mentioned in the letter, a red speck flickering in the distance, even though engulfed by the blurry storm.

Perhaps this light might be my answer, I believed. Without warning, a raucous screech resounded across the sky as deafening as excruciating. A shriek straight from the depths of hell. I clasped my hands over my ears, enduring the torment ringing on my spine. Looking up, a massive silhouette darted overhead just to vanish into a cloud. I could not figure out the shape, but its menacing presence was undeniable. For the Central Algorithm… I gasped. What was that?

Clutching the parchment with white-knuckled intensity, I sprinted toward the light. I yearned to flee as danger seeped into my veins. Lacerating agony tormented my limbs, cutting through the inexplainable exhaustion. I fought for air, yet I refused to relent. I traversed the barren wasteland like a hapless rat scurrying beneath a crystal dome, the beacon always beaming on my front. Then I heard that spine-chilling shriek again, its power magnified as it cleaved into my ears in sheer anguish and rage.

"What is that?" I cursed looking up, but found nothing.

I dashed through the shrouds of cobwebs. All those sinister whirlwinds dancing around me… Blinded by their mantles of spectral veils, I struggled to orient myself. They were denser than I expected, so bizarre in their confusing nature as they moved through their chanting pandemonium. They often brushed against my shoulders like gossamer fabric, yet they seemed thicker, making me sweep past them as if charging through a cornfield. Their melody haunted my mind, but I endured, fixated on the dim light as my only hope. Would I even blink my eye, I feared the beacon would forever vanish within the ever-deepening fog.

The wind howled with increasing ferocity and chill when I heard the enigmatic beast once again.

"Screeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssss…"

I glanced back, my heart pounding. The thing’s haunting presence loomed upon me from above, drawing me as prey. As I searched for my stalker, my vision was impaired in the kaleidoscope of hues from the now sparkling heaven. There were only the violet lightning bolts crackling in their electrified maelstrom and nothing else. Panting, I forced a swifter sprint, as to flee my impending doom.

“What is this place?”

Moments later, I tumbled over an unseen, damp, and spongy hurdle concealed beneath the mist's shroud. Whatever that was, I abandoned it and carried on with my desperate flight. In quick succession, I tripped again, grappling with the same squishy obstacle. That time, I plunged face-first into the sand, but rebounded on my escape. The fog grew into an ominous stench, ignoble. Then I halted, witnessing the ghastliest spectacle of my life.

My world drowned in the abysmal silence of death. Just before me there was… something… feasting upon a human carcass. A dark, viscous mass crouched beside the lifeless body, consuming it with the aid of countless barbed ebony tendrils. Tentacles that protruded from its back, their suction-cupped tips acting as macabre utensils to gather the sprawled viscera from the ground. I gagged at the grotesque meal before me. Cupful after cupful, with hypnotic speed and horrifying efficiency, the appendages conveyed the blood-soaked matter to the creature's maw—or whatever that orifice might have been. The eviscerated corpse, its innards spilling out in a gory mess, was dismantled bit by bit. In its gruesome revelry, the monster disregarded my petrified presence as my eyes quaked with terror. The abomination lasted for a moment, until a whirling veil obstructed my view and concealed the ghastly display.

I was shaking.

Overwhelmed, I bolted. I could do nothing else. The red beacon persisted on the horizon, its image disturbed and distorted like through a warped lens. It appeared larger now, blatant to see that something was wrong with the vista. Later, the light just resumed back to normal. Such deranged circumstances were beyond my wildest nightmares. I endeavored to cling to the few shreds of rationality, yet tears streamed down my cheeks. The sole tether anchoring me to sanity was that red glow, drawing nearer as I raced onward, although always remote.

A new sinister wail echoed throughout the world, rumbling at my nerves. Frightened, I tripped over something plush once more, just to notice that the fog was thinner. On the ground, supporting myself with my palms, I surveyed small hillocks protruding from the terrain, dozens of silhouettes scattered on the soil. An evil mist cloaked the silent, wind-battered field. A shiver coursed through my spine while danger hulked me so close. I lifted, coughing and gasping, and looked back at the object of my fall. Time stopped and my innards turned to ice.

That was me!

Amidst the cadaver, splayed out in a ghastly display, I found a face. I recognized it as belonging to my very replacer. A slimy pool of entrails patched the land as it melted in a caustic hissing. It was as if the flesh had been doused in digestive acid. An odious miasma of death, a cocktail of reeking decay, disoriented me and sickened me into nausea. Then I attested not only one corpse lying there, but a multitude of them, those shadowy figures dispersed across the field that I saw earlier. And all of them were my own!

Another wail tore through the heavens. I gazed upward, shivering and scratching at my skin. A malevolent entity hovered above me, yet again I could not discern its form. It soon vanished as the lightning sparkled blue and yellow. But then a second cry jolted my gaze as I saw, with striking clarity, an ominous shadow of monstrous proportions swooping above me like a raptor. The shriek… I will never forget. Something struck my skull. I was flung to the ground, crashing onto my back with a heavy thud that knocked the wind from my lungs. Suffering, I looked up for my attacker, but the creature was already gone.

I fled.

Now the beacon resembled a sinister lighthouse, its eerie radiance flickering and dancing in an eldritch display. Skyward, there far away, I eyed the tormenting beasts. They circled in the sky like scavengers, wingless and abnormal. Five of them, I counted. Scores of tendrils flailed behind them as they hovered, amorphous obsidian blobs conjured from cryptozoology's darkest abysses. Even at that distance, their remote cacophony reached me, shrieks and howls as if speaking in a cursed language.

A distressed screech redirected my attention to my recent attacker, now closer. I whirled in terror, searching for whatever my enemy was. A massive, evanescent shadow skimmed through the clouds and disappeared, only to reemerge several meters ahead. Aware of the lurking menace, my dread fueled me forward, disregarding the countless bodies sprouting with no end. The more I ran, the more corpses I encountered.

“Heavens!”

I ducked as something hissed over me, soaring skyward in an instant. Another howl, now laden with frustration and pure loathing. I sprinted over the azure, glistening pools, and their viscous substance clung to my feet. "What is this?" I bellowed in rage. The absurdity was crushing me once again. Not only did I suspect to be running on air, as though no ground existed beneath me, but the entire perception of my reality warped even further. I did not perspire despite my exhaustion, and the very sensations within my body were chaotic. I could swear many of them were unprecedented, unfamiliar in all senses. For instance, an anomalous cold warmth burning on the back of my neck, or that mysterious cubic mass heaving on my chest… If this makes any sense.

It did not for me.

The red glow seemed closer, its proximity fluctuating without logic. One moment the light lurked within arm's reach, the next it receded to remote distances. The space's erratic geometry was not normal. Out of nowhere, a black meteor plummeted from the heavens, hissing as it rocketed through the air at a staggering velocity. It crashed before me, raising a dense cloud of dust and pink and red and blue fragments all aloud.

I halted, shielding my eyes with my forearms. A shadowy figure rose from the impact crater, appearing as a malevolent mass of obsidian slime. The entity emitted agonizing wails, bearing thousands, not just dozens, of writhing tentacles upon its back, its terrifying shape towering over me like a behemoth. I froze, confronting the beast, every muscle in my body locked in place. Another scream surprised me from my rear.

I could not see what happened… but I knew I was killed.