I see the shadow man
I feel the phantom dark

What's that noise?
What's that I can hear?
Is that the ringing of a servant's bell?

In twilight I wandered the nightmarish desert landscape
From hot dry sands erupted dust devils
Malevolent and wild twisters
Like banshees they screamed
A harrowing howl they did make.
Circled all around me in countless revolutions manyfold
Savagely blinding me in blizzard grit
Ripping at my clothes
Into the air my garments thrown
Shredded and torn
Leaving me to my nakedness
Bare as the day I was born

These cyclones of my torment
Then rushed to crash together
One dark and mighty tornado formed amidst the deadly squall
In the throes of this chaos my strength was almost severed
The fury of this torrid beast threatened to consume all

Then from within the densest core of this maelstrom
I discerned a crackling unhuman voice
A shapeless figure I spied a-twisting
A spectre without form

"What year is this for thee?" the discarnate rasp did demand
The question reinforced with a stinging lash of sand

I answered with a cry into the mouth of the monstrous gale
"Have mercy upon me! The year is 1812!"

The turmoil before me began to screech, to wail
Like detritus I was lifted up
Then the tempest spat me out
Upon my knees with arms outstretched
I found the will to shout

"Foul spirit begone, leave me be!"
And as if in answer to my plea
Eerily
Silence all around
Except for the echo of a dying whisper
"You are the one"

Then woefully I looked upon my weary body
Confused as to my concern
That was when I first became aware
Of the burrowing of the worms

Twisting stretching coiling
Slipping through my skin
My arms my legs and torso
In slimy putrescence
I felt the worms digging eating revolving
Sinking their way in.

In undulating ripples
In rhythmic waves a-moving
Into the flesh of me
Burrowing burrowing tunneling in
Devouring all thin membranes now so porous made
Flooding through the bloodflow of my swollen veins
Towards my defenceless heart
Swimming, wriggling, writhing inside
The very ventricles of my life

Parasitic vermin eating me alive
Bursting from my blood soaked eyes
Tasting the air in multitudes
Like many vipers' tongues
Waving like tentacled anemones
Thrashing from my face
Threading up through oesophagus
Their putrescence I could taste

I fell back to the ground a clawing maniac
Constricted in my body
Choking in my throat
Convinced that I would vomit up my own maggoty ghost

Then the worms swarmed over me
To slide me beneath the sand
Dragging my perforated body
Dragging my pitiful soul
Down into the deepest darkest unholy pit

A forever spiralling downwards

        Tarry

        Black

        Hole

... Deep within the vortex spins
... I'm caught in it's spiral arms
... The universe intrepid dark
... Casts all astral charms
... Hypnotised and paralysed
... I find no place to hide
... I call to you, hear my cry
... The all seeing eye be blind

... It may only be moments
... Or maybe a million years
... I must not lose focus
... I have to face my fears
... Trying to reach out to you
... Through the sands of time
... to stop the doomsday project
... Approach the speed of light

... Deep in the heart of quanta
... something dark does stir
... Deep in the heart of it
... In the shadow of the worm
... Scream if you're feeling it
... The abomination twists and turns
... Deep in the heart of you
... Feeds the shadow worm

... Deep within for all my sins
... A task I set for thee
... Seven seeds of seven sons all begat from thee
... A cradle grave letter writ from thy poison quill
... To pass it down to shut it down
... Use it as thy will
... Take my sorry testament and use it for thy will.

Lathered in a fevered sweat I awoke
Entangled by tightly wound twisted sheets
That rescued me from the grip of somnus
On this macabre nocturne of restless sleep
An illusion of varied shapes danced upon my bedchamber wall
Cast as a spell from the failing flame of candlelight
I had hardly the time to express my relief
When things started to stir
In this empty house
In the dead of night

Suddenly appearing at the foot of my bed
A twisting dark vortex made manifest
Only a whimper escaped my lips as I fought to scream
I drew on my senses to not faint away
Cursed to face this horror
Or slip again into that terrible dream

A dour form in the heart of this dread
This spirit within whatever it be
Did then hence make to counsel me
To write down instruction from its dictate

With trembling quill in my trembling hand
The staccato voice amplified in my head
Issuing forth its equations

I wrote the commands
Numbers and formulae to me unknown
The voice from the bowels of this tempest
Started to break up, began to groan

It quickly bid me to seal the chronicle tight
Mine eyes tired from this hazy hypnotic vibrant light

I was assigned the task to pass it on
Down seven generations of seven elder sons
I remonstrated with the vortex fiend

"No heirs have I for I am not yet betrothed!"

Came the immediate insect-like reply
"YOU WILL HAVE AND SO SHALL YE BE.
KEEP THE CHRONICLE SAFE.
PASS IT ON WHEN YOU DIE!"

The message continued with intermittent bursts of noise
like the buzzing of a billion demon flies

"Begat from thee all hope depends
Fail in thy duty and everything ends
I was ripped from time and reality
My existence shredded and torn apart
For I am a prisoner trapped deep
In the Wormhole Heart"

The noise increased in volume
The whole of the room shook
Then the vortex vanished

It simply ceased to be

Sitting a bewildered wreck upon my bed
My chamber darkened
Befitting of the living dead

Never so lonely have I ever felt
Save for the red ember
Sitting aloft its derelict wick
Waning upon its waxy melt

This tale I have just told you
I am forever challenged to tell
Maybe it's my imagination
But did I not just hear a faint ringing?

The ringing of a servant's bell . . .