Main Story: Chapter Eight - To be Born Again
Here is the last chapter to the "Piercing the Shadow" part of the story.
It starts with *Burial at Sea*, where we meet Kevin Gillman, who is on his way to a Burial at Sea cerimony for his parent. It is also were a shady person named Chancey, Lief, who was in league with his parents in preforming questionable biological experiments.
In *The Fortelling*, after the burial, Kevin and Lief return to were Kevin lives. They have a friendly descussion and then bed down for the night. During that fateful night two things happen to Kevin that will turn his world upside down. He has a prophetic dream in which he dreams of being turned into something like The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The other thing is that Lief Chancey is not just what he appears to be.
There is incidental dialog during the *A Seperate Creation* story arc that ties the flashback chapters (*Voices of Dream, Daughters of Hydra, "Of Mouse" & "and Man"*) that detail what type of an experiment that Kevin's parents, Marsha Waite and Elliot Gillman (named after the formost families in "The Shadow over Innsmouth", by H P Lovecraft) and Lief were doing at the Miskatonic University, Arkham, Mass. Massachusetts is a hard word to remember how to spell, I keep on have to look that one up on a map.
In *Of the Chosen, *Kevin learns what his biological history implies. The dream that he had in *The Foretelling* could turn out to be horrably right. Is he destined to become a creature of the sea? One of the Deep Ones of Lovecraftian Myth?
And now the startaling conclution of the *Piercing the Shadow *story arc:
The Deep Ones Project
By David Reichen
Chapter Eight: To be Born Again
It's hard to perceive
my mind is at ease
It's hard to believe
I don't feel a thing
Am I wrong to feel
such bliss that ain't real
can I keep it from
taking over me
{Chemical, by No One, from No One}
"Damn it, Lief!" I think out loud. "Where could that kid have run off to? I promised the guy's parents that I would look out for him and now he has disappeared too."
I hear the bellow of the foghorn, off in the distance. This town has a harbor or some sort of Fisherman's Wharf. He might have gone in that direction. I follow the sound of the horn, making my way across town. As I pass through the streets, I notice the groups of people helping me search for Kevin Gillman. I pause briefly, as I come to the various parties and ask them what progress they have made and which areas have yet to be gotten to.
I follow the road that goes to the center of town and then on to the docks. I come to a river that goes across town and walk over a nearby bridge. As I step off the bridge, I get a call on my phone, they have found the kid where I thought he would be, sitting on a bench that faces the docks with a view of Plum Island and the Atlantic Ocean beyond it. I hurry to join him there.
As I get near to where Kevin is sitting, I say, "that went about as well as I expected it to."
He slowly turns arround and retorts, accusingly, "you knew about this, Lief, didn't you!"
"Not really, I mean, I did know that there was some sort of metamorphic thing going on but I did not know what the end results are like," I reply, sitting down on the other end of the bench that Kevin is sitting on.
"The only one I saw of your kind before now was just in the starting stages of the transformation, he died right in my arms. With your parents' help, I did find out that there was more to the process than what I had seen. What I did not know was how those missing bits of DNA would affect the transition from the apparently human form into one of the Deep Ones, such as that clerk we meet at the Gillman House."
"Why do you keep on referring me as being of some kind, what kind? What do you mean by apparently human and where do these Deep Ones you just mentioned come in anyway?"
I let out a long breath, compose my thoughts and try as best as I can to tell him what the world that I know of is really like. "You might start by asking what I mean by human? The answer would depend on what should be considered human and how much of a change would be necessary for something that was once human to be declared not human. Evolution is an ongoing process, regardless of whether it is natural or caused by some other influence.
"A few years ago, I discovered evidence of an advanced nonhuman race of beings living here on Earth for hundreds of thousands years, maybe more than a million years. They are a race of intelligent bipeds, just like us humans. They are descended from sort of amphibious fish, instead of primates. There was a catastrophic climate change, the early Ice Ages, which disrupted the environment on Earth, so they retreated to the sea, leaving room for the ancestors of the human race to fill the place in the world that the Deep Ones vacated. Before their retreat to the sea, they made changes in the DNA of the human species though some biological means. This gave them the ability to interbreed with humans when they need to. This is the origin of the Deep Ones, they and the direct descendants of humans who interbred with them.
"I was investigating an incident of a supposed outbreak of the bubonic plage and found out that the group responsible for dealing with this outbreak was the Les Luminous, the same group that caused your parents and I so much grief recently. They have been doing that sort of thing since they were formed in the Middle Ages. They also have been helping in destroying all records that have existed detailing any information about the Deep Ones. Not much still is around of these records about the Deep Ones and it is fearlessly guarded by those who have it and are opposed to what the Les Luminous and their ilk has been doing.
"When Science discovered microbes, they started using them to do their dirty work. They used two major pandemics to help spread what they thought would remove those tainted by the Deep Ones, the crossbreeds. When they released the first tailored strain of Cholera, in 1846, they did not know that it would kill so many untainted humans. They were just trying to interfere with the transition from human to Deep One at the time. They could have stopped with that but used a strain of Influenza, in 1918, to find out just how many more they could wipe out. They figured that it would be a small sacrifice, if a couple of a million people died as a result to their meddling in things that they barely understood at the time. If it would purge the world of the Deep Ones, that was the price that had to be paid. It's the same sort of crap that the supposedly Holy use to justify their means. Personally, I just destroy what does not suit me and don't worry about any sort of justification for doing so, it's a much healthier attitude, if you ask me.
"Their latest scheme is to go to the remaining colonies and inject the populous with a tailored version of the viruses that they use. It mimics the original epidemics they have used in the past but now it only becomes active when it is inside the body and cannot be transmitted from host to host. They are now able to do the same thing that they did before but avoid the pandemics.
"Once the population of a colony has been killed off , their bodies are disposed of, mostly by cremating them so it leaves little evidence of what the victims looked like. They announce that they just saved humanity from another outbreak and boast of the mimicked disease that they used being curbed at the source of the infection and everyone is happy. No one seems to bother wondering if those that died through their help are happy or not.
"It was my hope to develop some method of countering this, by a vaccine perhaps that would immunize those destined to become Deep Ones from this latest threat. Along the way, while at the Miskatonic University, I meet your parents and found out that they were basically working on the same problem that I was trying to solve. We pooled our efforts together and found out which areas in the chromosomes that were being effected from the old outbreaks and what needed to be done to reinsert the proper DNA sequences back into place, to patch things up again.
"This method works during fetal development but does not help the ones already born, like the hotel clerk. The real trick would be in doing something like what frogs do when they change from tadpoles to their adult form and restructure the damaged areas along the way. This would allow those who where not able to go through the transformation process properly a second chance of being reborn into their true form, as a Deep One.
"When the shit hit the fan, I had hoped that your parents would make it here safely, on their own, and I would bring you to them when the time came. I never expected them to be dead but that is how it goes sometimes. The only reason why I am telling you this is because I know that your parents would have told you this, once you reached here and are about to go through the Changing Time. Since they aren't here, it's up to me to do so."
I pause, to give Kevin a copy of the same data disc that I gave his parents that night so many months ago and conclude by saying, "this disk contains both your parents' work and my own information. I would like you to have it. Introduce yourself to the accolades at the Esoteric Order of Dagon and they will be able to make the best use of it. They will also make sure that you are welcomed here.
"I have to leave now, because of things that are happening in Boston that requires my attention. I don't know when or if I will be able to make it back."
"Why do you act as if you will never see me again? Can't you come back? Boston is not that far away."
"The Boston I am talking about is the one in Oregon, not the one here in Massachusetts. It is where the Willamette and Columbia rivers meet. You would not believe it but they used a coin toss to decide whether or not to call the town Boston or Portland. The people that wanted to call the place Boston, won the coin toss. You know, since both states have a Salem and a Boston too, I wonder if they have something like Innsmouth in Oregon?
"Anyway, now that I have finally brought you up to date on what was going on between your parents and I, what are you planning to do now?"
Kevin replies, "I don't know. A lot has happened to me and I have some things to think about. All I fell like doing right now is to be by myself for a bit and try to get things straightened out before I do anything else."
Kevin gets up from the bench that we are both sitting on and walks to the ramp leading to where the fishing boats and such are moored. As I watch him leave me, I also decide that it is a good time to take a moment to think over some things that have been bugging me.
The first thing is the problem with the car that Kevin's parents were found in. It could not have made it out to where they found it unless someone put it there. If they put it there, why was it found and dragged up to the surface anyway. I mean, if you go through that much trouble to hide something, you certainly do not what it to be found again, do you?
Another thing was that the bodies were never retrieved after they were dragged up the first time, maybe they can't find the car or the bodies that were in it again and everyone has stopped looking?
And then, there is this whole setup here. This whole area feels like it is just a large Hollywood movie set, compleat with monsters in makeup.
That's it! It dawns on me that there is more going on than what everyone has been telling me. I get up, quickly, from the bench and I try to run down to Kevin, to tell him what I suspect is going on here. Before I can take a step in the direction of the ramp, I am overcome by a wave of vertigo, I yelp and then faint. Everything stops for me, just like someone turning off the light, and I descend into unconsciousness.
I hear Lief's cry but ignore it for now. I have my own things to worry about. I stand here, looking out at the mighty Atlantic Ocean and feel the Siren's call of the sea, beaconing me to join with it, to become one. If I was not so afraid of that first plunge into that cold, vast and empty water, I would gladly chuck it all away, dive in and leave all of this behind.
Off in the distance, I see a reef. I can just barely see it on the horizon. Occasionally, a deep swell passes by it, exposing some of the things that have washed onto its sharp rocks throughout the long years.
So mesmerizing is the scene before me that I scarcely notice that it is dark now. I feel that I have been standing here for hours, absorbed in the ocean's beauty. Expect for the sound of the surf and the occasional seagull, it is quiet. The stars, in their multitudes, shine in the sky. I am at peace with the world once more.
A light starts to shine, close to where the reef would be, if I could see it. It heads in my direction, gliding across the water, bobbing up and down with the waves. As it swings by me, getting closer to the dock that I am on, it begins to climb in height.
The light reflects off of someone familiar to me, holding a glowing globe. It is the vision of loveliness from my dream of last night. Can it really only be one day since then, so much of what I thought of the world has changed since then? It seems much longer but it is not.
I watch her, compelled by some unknown force, as she jumps onto the dock with me. It is then, as I reach out to her, that my arms are grabbed from behind me. So transfixed was I on the girl in front of me, I fail to notice that we are not alone. I try to scream but can't, I am so startled that I can't make a sound. They pull my arms in back of me and one of my assailants jabs me in the arm with something. I become drowsy and they let me fall to the ground.
I wonder if this is what happened to my parents, turned into fish food, as the two who came at me from behind descend on me with their drawn knives. They remove all my clothes till I am naked, laying there, shivering in the cold of an October night. Surprisingly, I only have a few nicks and scratches on me. I am otherwise unharmed.
As I lay there, on the wooden planks that make up the dock, the girl walks over, smiles and bends down over me. It is then that I notice that she is definitely the girl that I had dreamed of. It was only a trick of the light from the globe, which she was carrying, that made her look human. She put the globe that she was holding down beside her and kisses me on the lips. I can feel her nibbling at me with those sharp teeth of hers. All I want to do is scream and run away from her but whatever drugs they gave me makes it impossible for me to resist.
She picks the globe back up and puts it on my midsection. She then stands up and steps away from me. The globe, still glowing with its ethereal light, starts to collapse, melting around my abdomen. My legs and arms are enveloped. The last thing to be enclosed is my head. As it works its way over my face, I wonder what is going to happen to me now that I am in this cocoon.
My assailants roll me off of the dock and I hit the water, with a splash. They jump in after me, making sure that I do not float off by mistake. The girl, who was wearing some sort of diving suit, like my assailants, pulls the hood over her head, gathers my worldly possessions that are piled on the dock and jumps in to join the party.
What happens next is surely more that anyone is expected to want to happen to them. Long, roundish black things, like tentacles, rise up out of the water, wrap around the cocoon that I am in and I am pulled below the surface, into the ocean. I am in the clutches of a large, grotesquely huge squid. The others with me swim to more of the squids, take hold of them and we descend into the inky blackness of the ocean's depths. I lose consciousness as everything turns warm and fuzzy.
What?What's inside my brain?
What's breaking me down?
What's inside this raging chemical?
What? What's inside my soul?
What's breaking me down?
What's inside this raging chemical?
{Chemical, by No One, from No One}
It starts with *Burial at Sea*, where we meet Kevin Gillman, who is on his way to a Burial at Sea cerimony for his parent. It is also were a shady person named Chancey, Lief, who was in league with his parents in preforming questionable biological experiments.
In *The Fortelling*, after the burial, Kevin and Lief return to were Kevin lives. They have a friendly descussion and then bed down for the night. During that fateful night two things happen to Kevin that will turn his world upside down. He has a prophetic dream in which he dreams of being turned into something like The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The other thing is that Lief Chancey is not just what he appears to be.
There is incidental dialog during the *A Seperate Creation* story arc that ties the flashback chapters (*Voices of Dream, Daughters of Hydra, "Of Mouse" & "and Man"*) that detail what type of an experiment that Kevin's parents, Marsha Waite and Elliot Gillman (named after the formost families in "The Shadow over Innsmouth", by H P Lovecraft) and Lief were doing at the Miskatonic University, Arkham, Mass. Massachusetts is a hard word to remember how to spell, I keep on have to look that one up on a map.
In *Of the Chosen, *Kevin learns what his biological history implies. The dream that he had in *The Foretelling* could turn out to be horrably right. Is he destined to become a creature of the sea? One of the Deep Ones of Lovecraftian Myth?
And now the startaling conclution of the *Piercing the Shadow *story arc:
The Deep Ones Project
By David Reichen
Chapter Eight: To be Born Again
It's hard to perceive
my mind is at ease
It's hard to believe
I don't feel a thing
Am I wrong to feel
such bliss that ain't real
can I keep it from
taking over me
{Chemical, by No One, from No One}
"Damn it, Lief!" I think out loud. "Where could that kid have run off to? I promised the guy's parents that I would look out for him and now he has disappeared too."
I hear the bellow of the foghorn, off in the distance. This town has a harbor or some sort of Fisherman's Wharf. He might have gone in that direction. I follow the sound of the horn, making my way across town. As I pass through the streets, I notice the groups of people helping me search for Kevin Gillman. I pause briefly, as I come to the various parties and ask them what progress they have made and which areas have yet to be gotten to.
I follow the road that goes to the center of town and then on to the docks. I come to a river that goes across town and walk over a nearby bridge. As I step off the bridge, I get a call on my phone, they have found the kid where I thought he would be, sitting on a bench that faces the docks with a view of Plum Island and the Atlantic Ocean beyond it. I hurry to join him there.
As I get near to where Kevin is sitting, I say, "that went about as well as I expected it to."
He slowly turns arround and retorts, accusingly, "you knew about this, Lief, didn't you!"
"Not really, I mean, I did know that there was some sort of metamorphic thing going on but I did not know what the end results are like," I reply, sitting down on the other end of the bench that Kevin is sitting on.
"The only one I saw of your kind before now was just in the starting stages of the transformation, he died right in my arms. With your parents' help, I did find out that there was more to the process than what I had seen. What I did not know was how those missing bits of DNA would affect the transition from the apparently human form into one of the Deep Ones, such as that clerk we meet at the Gillman House."
"Why do you keep on referring me as being of some kind, what kind? What do you mean by apparently human and where do these Deep Ones you just mentioned come in anyway?"
I let out a long breath, compose my thoughts and try as best as I can to tell him what the world that I know of is really like. "You might start by asking what I mean by human? The answer would depend on what should be considered human and how much of a change would be necessary for something that was once human to be declared not human. Evolution is an ongoing process, regardless of whether it is natural or caused by some other influence.
"A few years ago, I discovered evidence of an advanced nonhuman race of beings living here on Earth for hundreds of thousands years, maybe more than a million years. They are a race of intelligent bipeds, just like us humans. They are descended from sort of amphibious fish, instead of primates. There was a catastrophic climate change, the early Ice Ages, which disrupted the environment on Earth, so they retreated to the sea, leaving room for the ancestors of the human race to fill the place in the world that the Deep Ones vacated. Before their retreat to the sea, they made changes in the DNA of the human species though some biological means. This gave them the ability to interbreed with humans when they need to. This is the origin of the Deep Ones, they and the direct descendants of humans who interbred with them.
"I was investigating an incident of a supposed outbreak of the bubonic plage and found out that the group responsible for dealing with this outbreak was the Les Luminous, the same group that caused your parents and I so much grief recently. They have been doing that sort of thing since they were formed in the Middle Ages. They also have been helping in destroying all records that have existed detailing any information about the Deep Ones. Not much still is around of these records about the Deep Ones and it is fearlessly guarded by those who have it and are opposed to what the Les Luminous and their ilk has been doing.
"When Science discovered microbes, they started using them to do their dirty work. They used two major pandemics to help spread what they thought would remove those tainted by the Deep Ones, the crossbreeds. When they released the first tailored strain of Cholera, in 1846, they did not know that it would kill so many untainted humans. They were just trying to interfere with the transition from human to Deep One at the time. They could have stopped with that but used a strain of Influenza, in 1918, to find out just how many more they could wipe out. They figured that it would be a small sacrifice, if a couple of a million people died as a result to their meddling in things that they barely understood at the time. If it would purge the world of the Deep Ones, that was the price that had to be paid. It's the same sort of crap that the supposedly Holy use to justify their means. Personally, I just destroy what does not suit me and don't worry about any sort of justification for doing so, it's a much healthier attitude, if you ask me.
"Their latest scheme is to go to the remaining colonies and inject the populous with a tailored version of the viruses that they use. It mimics the original epidemics they have used in the past but now it only becomes active when it is inside the body and cannot be transmitted from host to host. They are now able to do the same thing that they did before but avoid the pandemics.
"Once the population of a colony has been killed off , their bodies are disposed of, mostly by cremating them so it leaves little evidence of what the victims looked like. They announce that they just saved humanity from another outbreak and boast of the mimicked disease that they used being curbed at the source of the infection and everyone is happy. No one seems to bother wondering if those that died through their help are happy or not.
"It was my hope to develop some method of countering this, by a vaccine perhaps that would immunize those destined to become Deep Ones from this latest threat. Along the way, while at the Miskatonic University, I meet your parents and found out that they were basically working on the same problem that I was trying to solve. We pooled our efforts together and found out which areas in the chromosomes that were being effected from the old outbreaks and what needed to be done to reinsert the proper DNA sequences back into place, to patch things up again.
"This method works during fetal development but does not help the ones already born, like the hotel clerk. The real trick would be in doing something like what frogs do when they change from tadpoles to their adult form and restructure the damaged areas along the way. This would allow those who where not able to go through the transformation process properly a second chance of being reborn into their true form, as a Deep One.
"When the shit hit the fan, I had hoped that your parents would make it here safely, on their own, and I would bring you to them when the time came. I never expected them to be dead but that is how it goes sometimes. The only reason why I am telling you this is because I know that your parents would have told you this, once you reached here and are about to go through the Changing Time. Since they aren't here, it's up to me to do so."
I pause, to give Kevin a copy of the same data disc that I gave his parents that night so many months ago and conclude by saying, "this disk contains both your parents' work and my own information. I would like you to have it. Introduce yourself to the accolades at the Esoteric Order of Dagon and they will be able to make the best use of it. They will also make sure that you are welcomed here.
"I have to leave now, because of things that are happening in Boston that requires my attention. I don't know when or if I will be able to make it back."
"Why do you act as if you will never see me again? Can't you come back? Boston is not that far away."
"The Boston I am talking about is the one in Oregon, not the one here in Massachusetts. It is where the Willamette and Columbia rivers meet. You would not believe it but they used a coin toss to decide whether or not to call the town Boston or Portland. The people that wanted to call the place Boston, won the coin toss. You know, since both states have a Salem and a Boston too, I wonder if they have something like Innsmouth in Oregon?
"Anyway, now that I have finally brought you up to date on what was going on between your parents and I, what are you planning to do now?"
Kevin replies, "I don't know. A lot has happened to me and I have some things to think about. All I fell like doing right now is to be by myself for a bit and try to get things straightened out before I do anything else."
Kevin gets up from the bench that we are both sitting on and walks to the ramp leading to where the fishing boats and such are moored. As I watch him leave me, I also decide that it is a good time to take a moment to think over some things that have been bugging me.
The first thing is the problem with the car that Kevin's parents were found in. It could not have made it out to where they found it unless someone put it there. If they put it there, why was it found and dragged up to the surface anyway. I mean, if you go through that much trouble to hide something, you certainly do not what it to be found again, do you?
Another thing was that the bodies were never retrieved after they were dragged up the first time, maybe they can't find the car or the bodies that were in it again and everyone has stopped looking?
And then, there is this whole setup here. This whole area feels like it is just a large Hollywood movie set, compleat with monsters in makeup.
That's it! It dawns on me that there is more going on than what everyone has been telling me. I get up, quickly, from the bench and I try to run down to Kevin, to tell him what I suspect is going on here. Before I can take a step in the direction of the ramp, I am overcome by a wave of vertigo, I yelp and then faint. Everything stops for me, just like someone turning off the light, and I descend into unconsciousness.
I hear Lief's cry but ignore it for now. I have my own things to worry about. I stand here, looking out at the mighty Atlantic Ocean and feel the Siren's call of the sea, beaconing me to join with it, to become one. If I was not so afraid of that first plunge into that cold, vast and empty water, I would gladly chuck it all away, dive in and leave all of this behind.
Off in the distance, I see a reef. I can just barely see it on the horizon. Occasionally, a deep swell passes by it, exposing some of the things that have washed onto its sharp rocks throughout the long years.
So mesmerizing is the scene before me that I scarcely notice that it is dark now. I feel that I have been standing here for hours, absorbed in the ocean's beauty. Expect for the sound of the surf and the occasional seagull, it is quiet. The stars, in their multitudes, shine in the sky. I am at peace with the world once more.
A light starts to shine, close to where the reef would be, if I could see it. It heads in my direction, gliding across the water, bobbing up and down with the waves. As it swings by me, getting closer to the dock that I am on, it begins to climb in height.
The light reflects off of someone familiar to me, holding a glowing globe. It is the vision of loveliness from my dream of last night. Can it really only be one day since then, so much of what I thought of the world has changed since then? It seems much longer but it is not.
I watch her, compelled by some unknown force, as she jumps onto the dock with me. It is then, as I reach out to her, that my arms are grabbed from behind me. So transfixed was I on the girl in front of me, I fail to notice that we are not alone. I try to scream but can't, I am so startled that I can't make a sound. They pull my arms in back of me and one of my assailants jabs me in the arm with something. I become drowsy and they let me fall to the ground.
I wonder if this is what happened to my parents, turned into fish food, as the two who came at me from behind descend on me with their drawn knives. They remove all my clothes till I am naked, laying there, shivering in the cold of an October night. Surprisingly, I only have a few nicks and scratches on me. I am otherwise unharmed.
As I lay there, on the wooden planks that make up the dock, the girl walks over, smiles and bends down over me. It is then that I notice that she is definitely the girl that I had dreamed of. It was only a trick of the light from the globe, which she was carrying, that made her look human. She put the globe that she was holding down beside her and kisses me on the lips. I can feel her nibbling at me with those sharp teeth of hers. All I want to do is scream and run away from her but whatever drugs they gave me makes it impossible for me to resist.
She picks the globe back up and puts it on my midsection. She then stands up and steps away from me. The globe, still glowing with its ethereal light, starts to collapse, melting around my abdomen. My legs and arms are enveloped. The last thing to be enclosed is my head. As it works its way over my face, I wonder what is going to happen to me now that I am in this cocoon.
My assailants roll me off of the dock and I hit the water, with a splash. They jump in after me, making sure that I do not float off by mistake. The girl, who was wearing some sort of diving suit, like my assailants, pulls the hood over her head, gathers my worldly possessions that are piled on the dock and jumps in to join the party.
What happens next is surely more that anyone is expected to want to happen to them. Long, roundish black things, like tentacles, rise up out of the water, wrap around the cocoon that I am in and I am pulled below the surface, into the ocean. I am in the clutches of a large, grotesquely huge squid. The others with me swim to more of the squids, take hold of them and we descend into the inky blackness of the ocean's depths. I lose consciousness as everything turns warm and fuzzy.
What?What's inside my brain?
What's breaking me down?
What's inside this raging chemical?
What? What's inside my soul?
What's breaking me down?
What's inside this raging chemical?
{Chemical, by No One, from No One}
posted by Unknown at 8:52 PM
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