My Scareuary 2024, Entry #9: Completing "The Star Seal"

My Scareuary 2024: Completing "The Star Seal"

I'm cutting it a bit close - it is the 30th of January - but here's what I hope will be the last Star Seal-drafting post of Scareuary, because I'm determined to complete this short story and get one more short story completed tonight. 

 

I'm not going to beat around the bush much. Let's just get started with a 10 minute sprint:

His lungs struggled to fill with air - air which had been sucked out of the room as soon as they had rewound the security camera footage and watched what he almost believed had been nothing more than his imagination. Almost. And then, there it was, on the screen - undeniable evidence of the monstrosity which had faced him in the archives of the museum. 

He shuddered, head in his hands, and tried to focus on his breathing. It had broken through the walls - it had turned them to rubble, as though it took little to no effort on its part at all. Its tall, angular frame loped out of the building and onto the carefully manicured lawns which surrounded the sides of the museum. Even from the grainy footage he could make out its talon-like claws where its feet should have been, attached to long, hardened stalks for legs - like a vulture, or a raptor, but the comparison ended there.

The wings, seen from the vantage point of the camera, were large, almost dragging against the ground as the beast stalked by. At the edge of the camera's view, it unfolded these and began to flap them, raising itself from the ground, and lifting off - the wings like bat's wings, skin taut and stretched from bone to bone. And its head - its grotesque, humanoid head, with its strange, beast-like features. There was something human in that face - something familiar - and this revolted him all the more. 

Seeing it on the screen had a double effect. On the one hand, it confirmed his story; so, he wasn't mad, and he hadn't imagined anything. On the other hand, it brought back, in fine detail, the encounter he had had with the monster which could have evidently destroyed him with a mere flick of its scaly arms.

He was gasping for air, but if the others noticed, they didn't take time to comfort him. Instead, a flurry of activity followed the tense silence which had stifled the room while they'd watched the video. Now, calls were being made. Screenshots were being taken and sent. Authorities of all kinds were on Lines 1, 2, 3, and so on. All the while, he sat there, eyes closed, and tried to shut it all out. 

There was a terrible, dreadful understanding that grew within him, from deep within the marrow of his bones and out to the hairs standing on his goosebump-ridden skin. 

The certainty that he had done this. 

He was responsible. 

It had been the statue - and he had released the beast encased within.  

Ten minutes are up! Okay, I'm happy with how things are progressing. I want to keep going, so I'll take a couple minutes' break and then continue to what will hopefully be the last part of this short story.

He had nothing else he could do; after regaining control of himself, he lumbered our of the security office and found his way through the familiar halls of the museum he had worked in for almost two years now, until at last his steps became heavy, and it became difficult to push himself forward, towards that scene--that room, right there, right in that open doorway on the left--

But of course the monster wasn't there anymore. 

Instead, a gaping hole led in the chilly winter air and caused his body to shudder violently. He stepped forward, the star-seal in his hand, and bent over to lightly trace the edges of a shard of what had once been the odd statue. It was a thick shell, almost two inches in depth. The inside of the stone statue, which on the outside had been quite rough - polished just enough to pass general inspection, he supposed - was smooth as glass. 

Upon touching it he was overcome with a terrible image - a vision of himself, encased in this hard rock shell, alive, struggling against the confines of it for millennia while the world around him carried on, unaware that within this rock was a living being. He retracted his hand with a gasp. That was what had resulted in the polish - the smoothness of the inner part of the shell. 

Over the next hour, he worked to decipher the words on the cylindrical seal. Written in Akkadian, they were challenging to decode and translate, but ultimately he was able to make out what seemed to be a relatively accurate translation. To his disheartened disappointment and horror, it said nothing about how the beast had been imprisoned.

Instead, it had only the following ominous words:

Woe to ye who have awoken the beast

Woe to ye who have forgotten

Take shelter, take heed

For the ravenous shall feed.

And that's another ten minutes! I think I'm happy to end the story here. Feels a bit like a quick wrap-up, but this is a first draft, and I hope to edit it and perhaps add a little more to the story another time. 

In the meantime, that's the third story completed for Scareuary's Coppe's Webbe challenge! Now to go on and write another short piece.