05 Dec No Udthimoal Thext

Posted at 11:00h in Cosmic Horror and Lovecraftian Stories by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on December 5, 2024

“No Udthimoal Thext”

Written by J.P. Netherane
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 12 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 1 vote.

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It was on an October evening, marked by a peculiar stillness in the air, that I first encountered the text which would seal my fate. The day had been unremarkable, save for an inexplicable compulsion that had driven me from my usual haunts to the alleys of Old Arkham—a maze of dilapidated tenements and leaning brick facades that seemed to breathe with a sinister vitality. Though I cannot say with certainty what led me there, I recall the unshakable sense that my steps were not entirely my own, as though some unseen will guided me.

The shop, if it could be called such, was scarcely visible among the derelict surroundings. Its sign, devoured by rot and time, bore no legible name. A dim, flickering gaslight above the warped door cast an eerie glow that seemed almost to repel rather than attract attention. It was precisely this unwelcoming aura that drew me in, for as a scholar of the arcane and the forbidden, such places had always promised treasures of unspeakable antiquity.

Inside, the moldering scent of decay permeated the air, mingled with the faint, acrid tang of mildew. Shelves buckled beneath the weight of ancient tomes, their spines cracked and faded. The dim light barely reached the far corners of the room, leaving parts of it shrouded in stifling gloom. Yet it was not the shadows that unnerved me, but rather the silence—an unnatural stillness that seemed to muffle even my own breath.

I had been scanning the shelves, fingers brushing over bindings whose languages were unknown to me, when my attention was inexplicably drawn to a small, nondescript table in the corner. There, lying apart from the other volumes as though deliberately removed, was the book. Its cover, bound in what appeared to be aged leather, bore no title—at least none that I could initially discern. Yet as I moved closer, faint embossed markings came into view, shifting and rippling in the dim light. When I adjusted my angle, the letters became unmistakable: No Udthimoal Thext.

A peculiar chill ran through me, as though I had spoken the words aloud without meaning to. My hand trembled as I reached for the book, feeling the rough texture of its cover, which seemed almost warm to the touch. It was then that I noticed the faint vibration—a barely perceptible hum that seemed to emanate from the object itself, as though it were alive.

“You don’t want that one,” a voice croaked behind me.

Startled, I turned to see the shopkeeper—a gaunt, hunched man with sunken eyes that seemed to smolder with an inner fire. His presence was so sudden, so silent in its approach, that I could not suppress a shudder. His gaze bore into me, filled with a strange mixture of pity and fear.

“What is it?” I asked, struggling to steady my voice.

“A mistake,” he replied. “One that has claimed many before you. Put it down, sir, and leave this place.”

But I could not. The book’s pull was insidious, a silent compulsion that overrode reason. Even as the shopkeeper’s warnings grew more frantic, I found myself clutching the tome as though it were the most precious thing I had ever held. “If it’s so dangerous,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt, “why have you not destroyed it?”

The man hesitated, his expression darkening. “It cannot be destroyed. It is not of this world, nor bound by our laws. The words upon its cover…” He trailed off, shaking his head as though to banish the thought. “They are not meant for human tongues.”

Ignoring his protests, I placed a handful of crumpled bills on the counter, sufficient to cover the cost, and left, the book tucked beneath my arm. I told myself it was mere curiosity that compelled me, that the man’s warnings were nothing more than the ravings of an eccentric relic. Yet even as I stepped back into the chill of the evening, a sense of foreboding settled over me that seemed to stretch far beyond the confines of my imagination.

The journey home was a blur. My thoughts churned with questions I dared not answer, and though the streets were empty, I felt an unshakable sense of being watched. By the time I reached the sanctuary of my apartment, my unease had solidified into dread. Yet even that did not dissuade me. Setting the book upon my desk, I lit a candle and sat down to examine it further.

As the flickering light played across its surface, the letters on the cover seemed to alter once more, aligning into a form that was not quite readable yet tantalizingly close. My fingers traced the edges of the binding, feeling the peculiar warmth that now seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat. I knew then that I should have listened to the shopkeeper, but it was too late. The book’s spell had already taken hold.

* * * * * *

For a long time, I sat before the book, merely observing it. My hands trembled, though I dared not yet open it. The embossed title—No Udthimoal Thext—seemed alive in the candlelight, the letters shifting with an almost imperceptible fluidity. Despite my misgivings, I felt an undeniable compulsion, as though the book demanded to be read, its secrets straining against the confines of its aged leather binding.

At last, unable to resist, I eased it open. The pages were rough, their edges brittle, and the text within was unlike anything I had seen before. The characters twisted and contorted in ways that defied linguistic norms, their forms reminiscent of no human script. Yet as I stared, they seemed to coalesce, as though accommodating themselves to my comprehension.

My lips moved before I realized what I was doing. The phrase No Udthimoal Thext spilled forth, unbidden, the syllables alien yet disturbingly natural to my tongue. A sudden chill swept through the room, extinguishing the candle and plunging me into darkness. For a moment, the silence was absolute—and unnervingly alive.

Then came the whisper.

It was faint at first, a sound so subtle that I might have dismissed it as the wind were it not for the profound stillness outside. The whisper grew, resolving into something intelligible, though not in any language I could name. It seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, curling around my thoughts and nestling into the deepest recesses of my mind.

I recoiled, slamming the book shut and fumbling to relight the candle. When the flame returned, its light seemed weaker, and the shadows it cast writhed unnaturally. My eyes darted around the room, searching for some rational explanation, but there was none. Still, I felt the presence of something frightful, which I could not name yet instinctively feared.

Over the next few days, the whispers did not leave me. They came in waves, faint but persistent, growing louder in the quiet moments when I was alone. At first, I attributed them to my imagination, the result of overwork or perhaps a lingering effect of the strange events in the bookstore. But when the whispers began to form distinct words—words that mirrored the alien script from the book—I could no longer deny their reality.

I avoided the book, hiding it beneath a stack of papers as though that might diminish its influence. Yet its presence remained, a subtle but unrelenting force that seemed to bleed into every aspect of my existence. Objects in my apartment began to shift of their own accord—a chair out of place, a drawer slightly ajar. The symbols from the manuscript began appearing, faintly etched in the frost on my window or scrawled in ash upon the walls.

And then came the dreams.

Each night, I found myself transported to an alien, grotesque landscape—a realm of cyclopean monoliths and shifting geometries that defied earthly physics. The sky was an abyss, its darkness punctuated by flickering lights that moved with a malevolent intelligence. In these dreams, I was not alone. A figure loomed at the edge of my perception, vast and incomprehensible, its form obscured by swirling shadows. I could not discern its features, but I felt its gaze upon me—a countenance that stripped away all pretense of humanity, leaving me naked before its inscrutable will.

I would awaken, my bedsheets soaked through with perspiration, the whispers louder than ever. Each time, the phrase No Udthimoal Thext echoed in my mind, its meaning tantalizingly close yet maddeningly elusive. I became consumed with the need to understand it, to grasp the nature of the entity whose name I had invoked.

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the murmurs grew to an unbearable crescendo, I could resist no longer. I retrieved the book, my hands shaking as I opened it to the first page. The symbols seemed to shift and writhe as I read, their meanings unraveling in my mind with an almost painful clarity. I began to speak, my voice trembling as the words poured forth.

The whispers ceased, replaced by a low, resonant hum that seemed to emanate from the very fabric of reality. The shadows in the room thickened, consolidating into shapes that defied description. And then, for the briefest moment, I saw it—the figure from my dreams, its form vast and terrible, looming just beyond the veil of my perception. My mind recoiled, unable to comprehend its enormity, its wrongness.

I slammed the book shut, gasping for air as the hum subsided and the shadows returned to their rightful places. Yet I knew I had crossed a threshold. The presence I had felt before was no longer distant; it was here, lurking just beyond the edge of my reality, waiting for the moment to fully step through.

* * * * * *

The days that followed were a blur of fear and obsession, my mind consumed by the alien presence that now seemed to haunt my every waking moment. I became a prisoner in my own home, too terrified to venture beyond its walls, yet no safer within them. The whispers had grown louder, their cadence rhythmic and purposeful, forming words that I understood but could not accept. My attempts to drown them out—with music, conversation, even my own frantic shouting—proved futile, for they came not from my surroundings but from within my own mind.

It was in this state of desperation that I turned to my collection of esoteric texts, seeking some clue as to the nature of the entity whose name I had unwittingly summoned. For days, I poured over brittle pages filled with forbidden lore, tracing inscrutable references to entities and dimensions that should not exist. My search was not without results, though each discovery plunged me deeper into a pit of dread.

The name Udthimoal appeared sparingly, mentioned in cryptic passages as a being of immense power and incomprehensible form. One text, The Testament of Lhozren, described it as “a sentinel of the void, bound to a threshold where the fabric of dimensions frays.” Another, the dread Codex Maldictus, suggested that Udthimoal was not merely a guardian but a prisoner, sealed away by rites long forgotten.

The word “Thext,” too, held significance. In the archaic tongue of the Maldictus, it referred to a boundary or threshold—a point of connection between realms. To speak the phrase No Udthimoal Thext, I realized with mounting horror, was not a benign utterance but an invocation, a key that could unseal the very boundaries the entity was bound to guard.

The implications were staggering. My curiosity, my arrogance, had weakened a seal that had endured for millennia. Each time I repeated the phrase, I had drawn Udthimoal closer, tethering it to my world and to myself. The whispers, the visions, the shifting shadows—they were not mere hauntings but the early manifestations of its encroachment. If I could not stop it, I feared it would fully cross into my reality, bringing with it horrors beyond my wildest imagination.

As I delved deeper into my research, the phenomena around me escalated. The symbols from the manuscript now appeared with alarming frequency, etched into the condensation on my windows, burned into the wooden floors, even carved into my own flesh as I slept. My dreams, once fleeting glimpses of alien landscapes, became full-blown odysseys into realms of madness. I wandered among monolithic structures whose surfaces writhed with life, their impossible geometries shifting with each step. And always, in the distance, loomed the figure of Udthimoal, its vast form obscured yet undeniably present.

I awoke from these nightmares drenched in sweat, my mind teetering on the brink of collapse. My waking hours offered no solace; the whispers had grown into a deafening chant, a cacophony that drowned out all rational thought. I began to question my own reality, doubting the solidity of the walls around me and of the ground beneath my feet. Objects in my apartment no longer stayed where I left them, and the shadows cast by my meager candlelight seemed to dance with a life of their own.

Driven to the edge of madness, I resolved to confront the book one final time. Perhaps, I reasoned, it held the key to reversing the damage I had done. I retrieved it from its hiding place, the leather cover warm and pulsing beneath my touch. The symbols within seemed to writhe and twist as I read, their meanings unspooling in my mind with an almost painful clarity.

The text described a ritual, though much of it was incomplete or illegible. From what I could discern, the ritual was designed not to banish Udthimoal but to anchor it fully to this world—a process that required a willing host. My blood ran cold as I realized the nature of the trap I had stumbled into. The book was not a safeguard but a lure, its true purpose to ensnare the curious and the ambitious, binding them to Udthimoal as conduits for its return.

I threw the book aside, my hands trembling with revulsion, yet the knowledge it had imparted lingered in my mind like a malignant growth. The chants in my head grew louder, their words combining into a single, undeniable command: Speak.

I resisted with every ounce of my will, yet the compulsion was insidious, gnawing at my resolve like a starving rat. The shadows around me deepened until, at last, they swallowed the light entirely. It was then, in the suffocating darkness, that I felt its presence—a vast, unknowable force pressing against the fragile barrier of my reality.

Then, for the briefest moment, I saw it. Udthimoal’s form was neither solid nor ephemeral—a shifting amalgam of shapes and textures defying logic. Its surface teemed with countless eyes and mouths, each feature appearing and disappearing as though caught in a perpetual state of transformation. To look upon it was to feel the fragile threads of my sanity unravel, and yet I could not tear my gaze away.

It spoke, though not in words I could comprehend. Its voice was a vibration, a resonance that seemed to bypass my ears and strike directly at my soul. I understood, with a clarity that was both exhilarating and horrifying, that Udthimoal was not merely an entity but a force—a fragment of some greater, incomprehensible whole. It was not bound by the petty limitations of time or space, and its presence here was but a prelude to something far worse.

I stumbled backward, my mind reeling, and the vision faded. The room returned to its unnatural stillness, yet I knew this was only a reprieve. The barrier was weakening, and Udthimoal would not remain confined for long.

* * * * * *

It is with a trembling hand and shattered mind that I attempt to recount the events of that final night, though I fear no words can do justice to the horrors I witnessed. The whispers had grown into an unrelenting din, their alien syllables writhing in my mind like a nest of vipers. Sleep had long since abandoned me, and my body had grown weak, yet I could not escape the compulsion to speak those accursed words once more. I had become a marionette, my strings pulled by a force beyond my grasp.

I stood in the center of my room, the book open before me on the desk. Its pages no longer appeared static; the symbols danced and shimmered, forming grotesque patterns that seemed to burrow into my consciousness. The air was heavy with the unmistakable presence of something vast and otherworldly pressing against the fragile walls of our world.

In the silence before the inevitable, I clung to a feeble hope that I might yet resist. But the chant within me swelled, an unstoppable tide quelling all defiance. Against my will, my lips began to move, shaping the alien phrase with a dreadful certainty.

“No Udthimoal Thext.”

As the final syllable left my tongue, the room was plunged into absolute darkness. Not the darkness of night, but a void so profound that it seemed to swallow all light, sound, and substance. The very air seemed to vibrate with a deep, resonant hum, a frequency that bypassed the ears and reverberated within my skull. It was as though the very fabric of reality had been stretched to its breaking point.

And then I saw it.

Udthimoal emerged from the void, its form at once vast and intimate, as though it existed simultaneously within my room and in a realm far beyond my understanding. Its presence was a blasphemy against the natural order, a seething mass of shifting geometries and fractal limbs that defied all logic. Eyes—too many to count—blinked open and closed across its surface, their gazes piercing through me as though dissecting my very essence.

It moved with a terrible grace, its motions fluid yet chaotic, like a predator toying with prey it knows cannot escape. As I stood frozen, my mind reeled with the realization that I had become the host, the anchor through which this monstrosity now reached into my world. My body was no longer my own; I felt its influence coursing through my veins, warping the boundaries of my flesh and mind.

Udthimoal spoke—not in words, but in a resonance that bypassed language entirely. Its voice was a vibration, a pulsating rhythm that carried with it an overwhelming sense of purpose. In that moment, I understood the truth: Udthimoal was not merely a creature but a fragment of something far greater, a shard of a cosmic entity whose motives and desires lay beyond the grasp of human understanding.

The resonance filled my skull, unraveling what little remained of my sanity. Images flooded my mind—visions of worlds consumed by shadows, of civilizations erased from existence, and of countless others who had fallen victim to the same accursed phrase. I saw them as they were consumed, their forms twisted and subsumed into the ever-shifting mass of Udthimoal’s being.

I felt myself slipping, my consciousness fracturing under the weight of the entity’s presence. My thoughts, once my own, were now an alien chorus, fragments of countless voices echoing within me. My body convulsed, my hands moving against my will as the symbols from the manuscript burned themselves into my flesh, searing with a pain that felt as though it reached beyond the physical.

In my final moments of clarity, I gazed into a nearby mirror, only to recoil in horror. The reflection that stared back was no longer human. Black voids, endless and unblinking, had replaced my eyes, and my skin rippled unnaturally, as though something wriggled beneath it. I was no longer myself; I was merely a vessel, a husk through which Udthimoal would complete its incursion into this world.

And then it was over.

The darkness lifted, the oppressive hum dissipated, and the room returned to its disquieting stillness. Yet I knew that nothing would ever be the same. My mind was but a fragment, my body no longer a sanctuary. The whispers had ceased, but their absence was no comfort. I could still feel Udthimoal’s presence within me, a constant, malignant force waiting for the opportune moment to emerge fully.

In the days that followed, I became a ghost of myself, avoiding mirrors and shunning the outside world. The book, now inert, sat untouched on my desk, its secrets laid bare but offering no salvation. My story, I fear, is but the beginning. The seal has been weakened, and Udthimoal’s gaze has turned toward this world. I am but its harbinger, its tether, and though I may delay the inevitable, I cannot stop it.

To any who may find this account, heed my warning: if you come across a book bearing the phrase No Udthimoal Thext, do not open it. Do not speak its name. Leave it to rot in whatever dark corner it was consigned to, for the price of curiosity is far too great. I pray that my words may serve as a barrier, though I fear they will instead be a lure for those as foolish as I.

The whispers return now, faint but insistent, and I know my time is nearly at an end. The entity stirs, growing stronger, and I can feel its will pressing against my own. Soon, it will no longer need me, and when that time comes, I dread to think of the horrors it will unleash upon this fragile world.

Heaven help us.