"Pleasure to me is wonderβthe unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability."
- H.P. Lovecraft.
"Beyond the horizon of perception, vibrate the streams of Essence.
They reveal Lusst'ghaa, the Land of Eternal Ecstasy, to Seeing Ones.
We will follow it's glow until we run out of breath."
-The Book of Lasih.
~o0o~
"Yv'h, lauv'abrarc, yv'h lusst'ghaa..."
My ears were filled with song.
It was dark, dark and wet. The air was hot and humid all around me, muggy as a summer's day, but with the comforting smells of fresh-cut grass and blooming wildflowers replaced with something I couldn't identify, something that somehow smelled both of heated crotch sweat and... salt? The sea? Heated metal? Blood? Whatever it was, it was heavy in my nostrils, both revoltingly strong and yet almost... arousing? No, no, I couldn't be aroused, that would be disgusting. I tried to shake my head clear of the strange thoughts, but my head wouldn't move.
I lay in what must have been a pool of my own sweat on something that felt molded to my form and oddly warm. Not like a warm bed is warm, whatever it was felt almost organic. It even seemed to pulse slightly beneath me, like I could feel it's heartbeat. Like I was being held by something alive. Not a very encouraging thought.
My arms were bound, I think, or- no, I couldn't feel anything holding me down, I just couldn't move. Sleep paralysis? Was I still in my bed, and just hallucinating this whole thing like some sort of alien abduction? Was I about to get probed by Roswell Greys? I would have laughed hysterically, I think, except my mouth seemed to be as paralyzed as my arms and legs. I think I panicked a little then. I tried to sit up, to kick, to scream, anything. But I couldn't. I could only lie there, frozen stiff, my only movement the steady in and out of my breath.
The song came again, an almost Gregorian chant sung by what sounded like men and women both, the highs and lows blending into a single haunting chant. It was almost ethereal, and would have been peaceful and pleasant to listen to if not for the circumstances.
"Yv'h, ah'maahnda. Yv'h lusstghaa."
It must be a dream, I decided then. People in real life didn't get kidnapped by singing cults like something out of a bad cosmic horror movie, paralyzed, laid on some sort of pulsating altar, and sung to; ergo this wasn't real life. Well, that was a relief to figure out; if this was all a dream, then there was no sense panicking.
What the hell language was that, anyway? It wasn't a language I spoke, or had even heard before, but it felt strangely familiar. Like something from a dream I had had when I was a child, or the face of a friend I hadn't seen in decades... I didn't know it, and yet I couldn't quite say I didn't know it. It wasn't Latin, that's for sure, even though the singing sounded like plainsong. It wasn't any occult or cultic language I'd studied, like Enochian or Reverse Latin, or even fictional occult languages like Aklo. I couldn't recognize a single word, but it felt more and more like I could almost understand it.
'Yv'h'. The way they sang it, maybe it meant 'hail' or 'praise'? Like ftaghn, but with less phlegm. 'Hail lauv'abrarc.' A god? A concept? A place? An event? And what was kLusst'ghaa"? What a bizarre sort of word- it sounded like 'lust,' but that had to be a coincidence. As I lay there trying to puzzle my way through an alien language for lack of anything better to do, the darkness was lit, slowly, from all sides, in slow throbbing pulses.
The light was dim, a dull white glow that in normal circumstances probably would have been too dim to see by, but after the complete darkness the light stabbed into my eyes like knives. A thin groan came from between my lips, the first sound I had succeeded in making. I tried to form words, to ask them to turn the lights off and let me go, but all I could manage was a faint 'Nnnngh,' that sounded like little more than an escaped breath.
As the lights pulsed brighter and dimmer, I heard a low sound accompanying them, an almost mechanical drone or whir, or maybe pulse-whir, that sounded more like a musical sting from a sci-fi soundtrack than anything I'd ever heard in real life. It sort of sounded like 'vhoom.'
Vhoom. Vhoom. Vhoom. Vhoom.