‘No, Henriett, wait!’ the girl said, suddenly no longer laughing, but Henriett didn’t wait because now he was a boy, a man who waits no more: he punched the girl in the stomach and held down her hands. He inserted himself into her and they fucked among the worms, next to their own shed flesh, crying and screaming and laughing because it was a new sort of ecstasy and a new sort of pain; they were young again, ready for the next lifetime of pains and joys and sorrows.

The Servant laid its many eyes on us, so we decided to move on quickly.

The end of the road

The journey never ends well. Anyone considering going on this trip should take this into consideration. Whether you’re happy with the outcome of the trip depends on the extent to which you’re happy with your own everyday life. The more you find joy in what you have, the less you’ll like what you find at the end of the road, because the journey always ends in tears.

When we reached the gate, it was already open to welcome us.

Nora squeezed my hand. Her skin was hot and damp with fever.

‘Never let go of my hand!’ she asked.

The Frenchman was whining and trembling behind us. He had been scratching his face; his skin was full of bloody stripes. He had gone mad hours ago.

The gigantic gate was built of flesh; here and there you could make out a face, an eye, a few teeth. I turned around because for a second I thought I might have a choice, but I quickly realized I didn’t. My journey, even if I couldn’t see it earlier, had led me here, to be with Nora at the gate that was our final destination. I should have been excited, or terrified, but I was neither. I was beyond all that. I was empty. A piece of nothingness, like I had always been.

I entered, together with Nora, the halls of Askatoth, where one of the Nameless Lords lived. As we stepped in, the Lord looked upon us from his throne.

It’s important to know that the gaze of the Nameless Lords cannot be tolerated either by the human mind or the human body. This should be taken into account by those whose sole purpose on this trip is to get a glimpse of the Lord. It won’t work. Although we established direct eye contact with this Nameless Lord (inasmuch as you can call that nightmare an eye), I couldn’t give a physical description of it.

A red fog darkened my mind. I think I must have had a brain hemorrhage, and I died. I fell to the floor, lifeless; the last thing I saw was Nora dancing ecstatically. Maybe she was having a seizure, I thought, then I faded away.