CreepCast - Dagons Mirror | Creepcast

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

The lads connect to the elder deep one with this tasteful homage to lovecraft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we are going Lovecraft in, my friends, and I am foaming at the mouth for Dagon's mirror. I've tried to get him to read this story for a while now, and he's been like, Oh, because I thought it sounds cool. But then he has that intro. So he did think it sounded cool this entire time. He just didn't want to show me enthusiasm for the thing I was interested in. That's fine.

That's fine. We're reading it anyway. So it's whatever. But yes, today we are reading Dagon's mirror. I do sound like a baby. And I will always sound like a baby. And I won't apologize for it. Did you like that?

The story was written by Nick Lowe. It's hard to find any information about him because every time I search Nick Lowe, It just brings up stuff related to the songwriter. But it seems that the author, the story came out in 2024, so it's a little over a year old. He has this story. He has one called the House of Dead Gods, which sounds really cool. And another one called the shambler in the attic, which also sounds cool. What is a shambler?

Is shambling like when you're like to shake, right? Like you're shambling? No, no, no. Like it's like a limp kind of like. like a I'm shamble yeah like a like a slow like you can't really walk right but you're trying to like work over to something yeah so it's like dragging itself around the attic a guy with gout in the attic pretty much so he has these three stories and they're all recent they're like the oldest one the house of dead gods is from november of 2023 so this seems to be an up-and-coming writer

so if this story is cool uh you all certainly check him out and uh hopefully continue nick continues to make these kinds of things. But first of all, let's check out the story. It's got an 8.7 out of 10 on creepypasta.com, which is pretty good. Do these even have,

are the rating system on creepypasta.com is it actually, is it something to take seriously, I guess? You know what I mean? Well, it depends. If it's a famous story,

no, because then people will vote it highly or lowly for the meme, right? Like Jeff the Killers, like nine stars or something, right?

Or why it's because it's funny. But if it's not super popular, then typically the ratings are more legitimate because people are rating it in earnest. So if you go to like binge around, it's got like thousands of 10 stars because people are, you know, being the people. But something like this,

having 8.7 is probably pretty close, pretty close to the bar. I mean, February 28th, 2024, last year upload. Yeah. My word. So pretty, pretty recent, especially like older stories on creepypasta.com, too, have been around there long enough that people have like voted willy-nilly on stuff.

But if it's this recent, most people who are still reading the website, mean it right i don't think so we'll see we'll see we'll see nick low is he going to be you know is he going to do hp lovecraft justice we'll see you know what's your what's your uh opinion of like love love love love craft and how much stuff of his are you uh like familiar with i love i love i love love love love love love love love love love love love i know i say love crafty a lot it's a fucking meme that needs to die on this channel okay i like saying it all right it's applicable in a lot of ways. I just want to say that. But I love it. Also, I love all of the Arkham House

publishings. Like there's a lot of great stuff from his publish house and stuff. A lot of him and his buddies, those are the guys who made the publisher with him. They published a lot of stuff even after he died and stuff too. But the, there's a lot of great stuff from like the 50s and 60s and stuff. I forgot that Arkham House was Lovecraft stuff originally. So I always think of Batman whenever I think of Arkham. Yeah, I know. Arkham, asylum. I think that's been totally taken over by like Joker memes and stuff. Yes, of course, yeah. The inmates are running the asylum. I'm curious to see if he holds up. Is he going to even maybe Niccolo himself is a little like HP Lovecraft? Maybe he's a racist man

who's staying in his mother's house. I don't know. This is great things to say about an author we're just now introducing to a large audience, I think. So very good. Good on you for that. I will say I like Lovecraft stuff a lot. I've made a video about Call of Cthulhu, which is his most famous work, but Lovecraft has all kinds of interesting stories and topics, like, and I really love the way a lot of his work gets adapted, like, probably my favorite season of television ever, True Detective, you know, season one, of course, is like based off of like Lovecraft stories and theories and stuff like that. So it's all very cool. Yeah, if you're not familiar, it's all very, it's the fear of the unknown. It's like ancient civilizations and people going mad, and it's like,

incomprehensible things that the human mind can understand very influenced by his time and providence and stuff which is usually why a lot of the stuff is from the ocean very inspired by the ocean and also he's in he was literally afraid of immigrants that's like a actual thing oh he was deeply xenophobic also be sure to check us out on audio platforms such as spotify apple podcast be sure to leave us a nice review there it really does help a goddamn i am ready to get in with agon if there's not people in this? I'm going to be furious. Better be fish people. That's all I got to say. I hope there's fish people. I hope there is as well, buddy. We'll see. Or this could also be based

off another thing about the old like Old Testament God, Dagon, but whatever. We'll see. Dagon Smyr, are you ready to begin? Oh, I'm ready. Uncle Marsh had always been the black sheep of our family. A thorn in my father's side and a constant reminder of how corrupt and decayed our ancestral roots truly were. Sebastian Frederick Marsh was my mother's elder brother. A genetic throwback, a deviant. If the rumors surrounding him were true, a man acquainted with the most hellish

of sins. His appearance was enough to make the most stoic of hearts skip a beat before its shambling gate. Flat-headed, thick-lipped, and possessing the largest, glassiest bulging eyes found in the sockets of any earth-bound creature. Is this how you would describe me?

That's a fucking awesome description, actually. I love thick-lipped and possessing the largest glassiest bulging eyes. just like perpetually about to cry, basically. Just like wet, just wet sockets. So he looks like a giant fish. Yeah, I mean, it would have to be, like a giant trout or something. Yeah, his appearance was nothing less than outlandish.

He would stumble along the cobbled streets of Barton Village every Saturday morning and his weekly sojourn to the local stores. His journey caused his neighbor's great unease and passerby across the street in an effort to avoid exchanging even the simplest of pleasantries with the man. I was particularly disturbed by my uncle's visage as I unfortunately shared a few or more loathsome traits myself. Thankfully, however, these were less pronounced and shocking than those found on my uncle's grim face.

My mother, too, shared what was known in Barton as the Marsh Look, although her deviant features, like mine, were softer and even less obvious than my own. she got away lightly indeed with large watery eyes her only obvious heritage of the tainted marsh bloodline i wonder if this angle of this story is going to go into like a teen wolf vibe here's see teen wolf the movie with uh i haven't seen it but it's about like the whole family's werewolves right yeah our guy like i think it's like something to be maybe not necessarily puberty but at a certain age he basically turns into a werewolf and he finds out that like dad is as well and stuff and i'm wondering if this is going to be oh i'm finding out that i'm a fish person so so far he's saying that

all member or at least it's his mom's brother right so his mom has some traits and they're pronounced in himself the author but his uncle's the one that looks like a fish person yeah well she kind of does too she has a lot he says watery eyes the watery eyes softer features but i'm wondering if um if there's like a maybe they transform or something i don't know the watery eyes just being a reoccurring theme makes me think that may there's something uncle marsh lived alone tucked away in a rotting abode that lurked and leaned queerly at odd angles at the back of the gunner's cloth a feral grotto that skirted the cemetery at the south end of the village there's a lonesome stretch of sepulchre woodland home only to the witch elms the creeping moss my gloomy uncle

Many an odd tale was attached to the gunner's cloth. Strange lights and raised voices were often heard from the depths of the woods on those days leading up to the nights of Hallows Eve and Walpurgus. It was not unknown for local pets and occasionally even children to go missing turn up dead on the mornings after those nights. And the frogs croak loudly and the owls hooted their omens of warning. Yeah, I'm just not to immediately glacial. is this guy, but I love his riding style, at least so far.

Like, it feels very fairy tale, you know? Well, I mean, it's a clear homage to even a Lovecraft, the way that Lovecraft does very similar shit where it's like excessively detailed, like instead of just being like, it was a dark hallway. He's like, the crimson dark peered over, you know, like it's the same kind of vibe. And I feel like it's very intentional. It's nice. It feels, it's nice whenever someone is taking material from somebody else or like,

not material, but inspired a story from Lovecraft, and then they include some of his mannerisms or some of the, you know, like it feels like an extension of his work. It feels very genuine. It feels like it's almost, you know, like a type piece. Like there is a story here we don't know about yet, but the author's determined to let us know it. And that's also kind of the joke with Lovecraft, right, that he'll say something as unexplainable or what's the one he says all the time, incomprehensible, and then he will

comprehend it for seven pages straight. Yeah. I do think that you're I think saying fairy tale also fits this very well too because it does feel does have kind of like a grim fairy tale. Yeah, especially like at the cemetery at the gloomy and witch elms on the edge of town. Yeah, it's very

like setting up a little folk tale of like oh people are known to go missing, whatever. Yeah. I remember when I was very young, my mother issued me a warning to never enter the gunner's cloth, despite my uncle living there. And I often wondered, just what witchcraft was being played out in secret underneath the skeletal trees.

These warnings were ubiquitous among all Barton children, and with good reason. Before I was born, a local child had been found dead in the woods, half submerged in the black slop that had once been a stream passing through the cloth. Little was done about the matter. It was assumed that the child had fallen into the muck and drowned, and every Barton resident was quick to attribute a more sinister conclusion, to the life of little Maggie Hagen. Despite the macabre reputation, or perhaps because of it, the whole area was the haunting ground of young boys during the summer months. And sadly,

and with great embarrassment, my uncle was seen as something of a local boogeyman by my peers. As a result, he suffered relentless taunting at the hands of Barton's children. There was precious little else to do in the village during the school summer break, and the taunting of my uncle became something of a local sport. Boys approved their medal by hurling rocks at the windows of the Gunner's Clough cottage where my uncle resided, or knocking on his door only to flee as the frog-faced resident cautiously answered their call before sinking back into the dark of his home. God, how sad.

Jesus. It's depressing. I'm like getting carried away with the flowery language, but at the same time it's like a guy looks ugly and they're like, idiot, throwing rocks at his window and stuff. I mean, but very true to. childlike harassment or whatever. Freak! And they're like,

and they run off. What does every kid do when they see a guy with a disability at the grocery store? Point and laugh. Point. Why is it like that? Mom, why does he look like that?

Mom, what's wrong with him? Mom, why doesn't he have two? Why him to his other arm? Has it said also, I was going to ask, has it said, what year is this? I don't know why, but I keep picturing like 50s.

It hasn't said a thing about it yet. I don't think. No, it hasn't. But just like the way of like being like a guy living down in the like I don't know like by the marsh or the bog or whatever I don't know why my my mind is putting me in like a 50s era kind of thing I don't know why you that well he said village so village makes it sound older than that yeah European therefore older yeah but he also said high school so right he did say high school I think high school boys I'm pretty sure

but that's that's also what made me think of like high school guys to have like varsity Young boys. Oh, okay. He just said young boys, yeah. But he says, okay, that's what he says. He says, summer break. So it has to be a time period where schools have a summer break and also a village. So it feels it feels almost anachronistic, right?

It's almost like you get modern details mixed in with like old Grimm's fairy tale stuff. You know who does that kind of well too, not to sidetrack it? The movie it follows feels very ambiguous in its time. You know what I mean? That movie feels like. It could be in the 70s, 80s, 90s. It's so ambiguous. I think that's what makes it so evergreen, too.

Another movie that does a great job of that is the substance. Oh, yeah, dude, definitely. Because everything's 70s, everything 60s, like all the cars, the furniture, the store. But then they pull out an iPhone, you know. Yeah, it's all super Stanley Kubrick shining kind of like homages and stuff. So everything feels like it has that 70s color palette and stuff. lot of the oranges and browns and stuff you know uh that's that's another thing too i think i like with sci-fi is whenever it feels ambiguous like it almost feels like older technology that's

presented as new anything that feels like analog i think it's just it's going to stand the test of time more you know i really hate when shit's like super sleek and clean it's like give me the fucking bulky wiry shit you know it's like what the best example of that uh the original alien oh yeah like the cockpit in there of just all the dials and buttons and like the white yeah yeah give me dials and buttons dude give me those buttons i want i want to slam my hand into them in here i would want to press a couple buttons i love pressing buttons light up the button let me press it i love to touch stuff all the time whatever it is oh absolutely absolutely i love touch things uh being the nephew of mad marsh meant that by proxy i too suffered from the

attentions of my uncle's tormentors and i tried desperately to make myself invisible in and out of school. I succeeded in this endeavor to such a level that I had successfully alienated myself from everyone outside of my family in just a few short years. One year, on Halloween, the onslaught of abuse directed towards my uncle reached such feverish heights that it culminated in a planned mass egging of his home. Only one boy in town possessed enough bravado to see this task to conclusion, however, Jamie Burtle. Man, this does feel like such a, uh, fairy tale we're reading about. That's great. It was Jamie alone who entered the gunner's cloth on that dreadful night. Chest puffed out in a box of rotten eggs held confidently in his

hands. The boy finally returned many hours later. The circle of children crowning the edge of that necromanic woodland. Waiting in anticipation for their champion, he was forever and irreversibly changed, transmuted, transformed, and left not but a shell of what was once alive. heavenly child, he staggered out of the woodlands a dumb and silent specter. Poor Jamie Burtle, the terror of all children younger than himself, said nothing about what he had seen in the dark that night, nor would he ever speak a single syllable again his whole miserable life. Fuck.

Eventually, the glassy-eyed mute was taken away from his parents and moved to Byron House, home for the mentally disadvantaged. There he stayed for many years, banging his head against the wood. wall of his cell to a silent alien rhythm until fate gave him the opportunity to escape his confines and leap to his death. Exactly 13 years since he first lurched out of the shadows of the witch elm trees. I love all that, dude. That's so fun. This is a ton of fun. I'm bought in already. So he goes out there and he comes back. The only description gives us his, is he's glassy eye to mute, right? Yeah, he goes out to the woods. We don't know what happens.

stumbles across something, see something, whatever, unexplainable. If it's Lovecraftian, then it's probably, I mean, it could be anything, a statue, like an obelisk, anything that is just like, it has such unknown horrible powers, you know, that it drove him mad or like it destroyed his brain or his psyche or something.

Yeah, yeah. My uncle was questioned about the incident, of course, but denied ever seeing the boy, let alone speaking to him or causing him harm. This event left me even more. isolated from the other children. Before that night, they might have included me in their torments, but once Jamie had been forever silenced, they avoided me completely. I very rarely saw Uncle Martian person. Occasionally, he would show up at a family get-together or function

to make a token effort to remind us that he still existed in this world, only to disappear just as abruptly as he had arrived. My father, in particular, despised the man. He hated the appearance of his brother-in-law, and he hated that his wife and son were kin to the man. Most of all, he hated the way Marsh collected queer objects and strange, moldy tomes. Marsh was something of a scholar, at least of a certain sort, and loved to devour information from his astounding collection of books. His library consisted of a mass of sprawling grimoires and papers scattered around his living room in no discernible order.

Chaotic, crumbling mass of ancient and esoteric knowledge. Many of those decaying musty volumes were written in languages unspoken in the isolated villages and hamlets of northwest England. The Cape German, French, Latin, Greek, scripts so wholly alien in structure that they must have been impossibly extraterrestrial in origin. Other bar stranger items dotted the cramped rooms of the cottage that Marsh called home. Warped, bent skulls, exotic stuffed birds, crystals shaped in geometric arrangements, that were maddingly complex. This was the legacy of my Uncle Marsh, a repulsive, isolated semi-antiquarian,

semi-human recluse, obsessed with the forbidden and in love with the wicked and strange. It's like the guy lives in an oddity shop, and he himself is also like a functioning. Exactly, like a functioning piece in this museum. At the edge of a cemetery in a swamp on the corner of town, yeah. Yeah, I mean, just like a resident evil house. It really is.

Well, you know what kind of made me think of was the Resident Evil Village House a bit? Like out in the swamp land, you know, and stuff. You're talking about, you're talking about Resident Evil. Or Biohazard. My apology. Yeah. Yeah. Biohazard of just a weird family being out in the middle of this swamp, except it's one guy.

And then just to think of like, you know, going out there, the smell of like moldy paper. Like I would imagine the whole house is damp constantly. Yeah. Just weird shit like that. Yeah. It's like it's constantly humid there. It's like a swamp bubbles up. everything stinks, yeah.

And I don't know how familiar you are with goosebumps, but dude, my mind, all I can think about is a werewolf fever swamp. Oh, yeah, I remember that one. I remember that one. Yeah, I just think of like the weird hermit dude, living out in the woods.

I love that, I love that episode too, because the dad's just like, we're dear scientist. And he's like, okay? And he's like, the old man, the old crazy son of a bitch

who lives in the swamp. Just leave him alone. He's like, well, he grabbed me and put me in a net today. Ah, he's eccentric. That's what they do. Look, they're old.

Do you want him to not put people in swamps in the swamp nets? Well, son, you're in his swamp. You might get netted a couple times. It happens. He bought the net. Do you want him to not use it? Okay. So I guess he's just not supposed to use it.

Okay. If you want him to not use it, you should have talked to him before he bought the net. Yeah. Then I think that you should have sent out some kind of memo or you buy the net from him. If you're going to be that inconsiderate it, look, if you're willing to make a deal, that's fine. But to just ask him not to do it. He keeps kidnapped me. Okay.

Now you're being a bit of a cry baby. I love those 90s, those 90s, the 90s parents in media where they're just like, God, you're being irrational. You're being so meaty. It was at the tail end of like parents recognizing that children can die. The children can die and they can also like have a functioning mind. That's like they don't like lies. Every parent thinks that all their children are just like Archie or something like or some like comic strip character.

Oh, Jay Willers comic, mom. Yeah, I'm going to go paint a fence. You're like, cool. Get the fuck out of here, Archie. Yeah, stupid idiot. But that's like around like the 80s and 90s, it was like, man, people keep taking these things. Like, we could maybe do something about that. Yeah, no shit.

Well, maybe the, maybe the hermit living in this, which in this case, the hermit ends up being a pretty cool dude. But still, creepy, weird. In real life, you should probably call CPS. No, I would not be messing with the hermit living in the swamp. No, absolutely not. I'm with the kids. I'm throwing eggs out of his house. yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I'm just going to piss him off to where he comes and fucking slits my throat in my sleep. I would love an excuse to use my stinger ground doctrine to eliminate this freak from the earth. You threw eggs at my house, just like driving a knife into the kid's stomach.

He's like, this is a bit excessive. All these memories and thoughts flashed vividly in my mind as I set opposite the stern, cold face of Mr. Fisher, a family's long, suffering solicitor. Just seconds ago, he had impassionately read out

aloud the contents of my uncle's last will and testament, in which a man I barely knew and had good reason to despise had left me all his earthly and unearthly possessions. Uncle Marsh's death had been as singular

and strange as his life. In the early morning of July the 24th, 1954... Oh my God, bear trap moment. Absolutely fucking bear trap moment. Holy shit. What?

What? What do you mean bear trap? Didn't they say, I said it wasn't going to be in the 50s. You know what? That is a bear trap. That one was pretty good. That one was that one. I will say I was not getting 50s at all.

I was getting like 1800s. Really? Did you actually think it was going to be like 1800s? Something about the reading and the early part made me feel like this was like an old village. I mean, it reads like fucking Hansel and Gretel or something. Yeah.

That's what gave me the idea of like Grimm's fairy tale. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it has that vibe. Until he said, He said high school, or not high school, he said summer break, and I was like, okay, maybe not then, but you, you say in 50s, I was like, no way. And that, all right, you know what, you can have this one. Fine, whatever. In the early morning of July 24, 1954, he had stood naked on the sands of Seascale Beach, Copland, Cumbria, and walked slowly and deliberately into the waiting maw of the churning Irish Sea. Trill of large flat footprints in the sand

And a pile of scattered clothing Were all the dead remained of the man Yes He became a fish person I love the idea of it's just like It's time He's like walks his big goofy flat foot ass Out to the beach

He's just like Actually he's probably like gasping Water He needs to get to the ocean But I love that People were like oh he just killed himself And he like went You know walked into the ocean

But it's like no He probably like discarded a shit And swam on You know what this feels like a lot to me? This feels like it would be an Edo story. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, Edo himself is, I mean, a super lovecraft, you know, I mean, like, so much of his stuff is lovecraftian, you know, Ouzimaki and all that kind of stuff. It's all fear of the unknown, uncanny.

I can almost see in my mind this being like an Edo comic, like a large, glassy-eyed man who like, you see him transform into a fish as he's walking stuff. If it was an Edo story, it would be a girl. And it's like, that's her neighbor. And he's like, he walks every day. you see him like walk around and then he would like jump scare in her window and he's like but he was gone it's a lot like that vignette from uzumaki the kid that becomes a snail yeah yeah yeah very similar although a body was never found he was declared legally dead some years after and had left instructions with mr fisher that i his only nephew was to receive all he had ever owned the significance of

the location of his demise was not lost upon me for decades ago my family had lived in the town of sea scale. See, it always been in the family's blood. Many a marsh had took to the waves as fishermen, sailors, and even pirates. At least if one was to believe the various myths and legends surrounding us, the marsh blood was

tainted. So the story said. This is, dude, I feel like cozy right now. Like the... You know, it kind of feels like a sea shay too. Yeah, yeah. Like, the way it's worded and like my family comes from the sailors of the sea and it's like they got a curse at some point.

that made them like enough fish people or whatever it's like this is jim he said the irish the irish right where did you say turning irish sea yeah yeah so is that which i mean i'm dumb and i'm fucking super dumb where where is the north sea at because that's like the one where it's like you do not go near that shit right the north sea i think that's the same area i'm pretty sure what i was going to say if it is i'm like i'm wondering if it's if it's connecting to that to where like that's like the most treacherous which obviously he's not like um i know that you have to go out a bit but still if you're like localized a little bit near it i don't know if it was going to connect with that but it might be i'm honestly done to it as well especially i'm surprised you've never

done a video on like the norsey i feel like that would be like a like a con like a idea up your alley crazy mysterious shit that goes on out there like yeah you know it's i kind of touched on before and like other videos i've talked about like the um because a lot of that relates to like the idea of like the wool like the lost country and the the ice wall and stuff like that and all you know maps and things like that so I've kind of touched that a little bit but not specifically the North Sea but yeah you're right that would be

that would be something interesting looking to the original branch of the family had come to England from the United States where a great deal of my relatives had lived in the decaying and damned port town of Insmouth Massachusetts there it is there's you there's your tip of the cap sir there she goes

for those that don't know Insmouth is a city that's mentioned a lot in Lovecraft's words. Shadows of Enzmouth is where Dagon comes from even. The fish people. Innsmouth itself was a nest of horrid myths and repulsive witch lore.

We had come to Cumbria under a cloud of dark suspicion and dread chased out by the locals as warlocks and werewolves. Forced across the bitter Atlantic and finally ejected upon the shores of old blighty. Whatever is was that had said, oh, this language, whatever is was,

oh, Whatever is was that had segregated us from the other branches of the family. For many, Amar still resided in rotting in his mouth. My grandparents certainly would not discuss the matter. My own family had made the move away from Copeland and into the small village of Barton, Cheshire, due to a chance meeting between my mother and father during a blistering hot summer holiday, which my father had chosen to spend by the seaside. Oh, he was by the sea and fell in love with the mur.

mermaid. Is that where this is going? I'm wondering if it's going to be something like that. Yeah. It has almost a vibe of like the, uh, it almost has a vibe of. Yeah. I mean, it's not that I was just say siren. I'm just, I'm really similar. I love like, I love like pirate folklore and stuff and like sea creatures. You know, it's always, it's so weird. And also, it's so hypnotic and creepy, like the songs they sing and shit. I always like it because for one, she say, see shanties are beautiful and stuff like that. But I always like these, like pirate lore and stuff like that, because I am terrified at the ocean. So I love

the idea for one of monsters being it, but I also love the kind of person that would like best it, that would want to conquer it, you know? Yeah. I think that's why, yeah, so many like stories like Moby Dick or all these like crazy like fishermen, like, like not antagonists, but

these men driven mad by these things in the ocean. Because I agree. I think you're a psychopath if you don't have a fear of the ocean. If I've been honest. 100% it's terrifying but that's why there's such a it's so cool to have stories that people like wanting to sail to it like you know conquer them would you rather spalunk or would you rather go deep sea diving this is that's a horrible question isn't it isn't it actually you know the only thing i can do is it depends on the intensity of either well i would say you'd have to go the most intense which i mean i'm gonna have i would not have to say deep sea diving because my fat ass could not fit in any hole but i was just going to say like the openness there's Something so scary about the openness of the ocean, but I don't think it's a terrible. I have not tears about it. It's the most, I think the bottom of the ocean is the most terrifying concept in the world to me. I'm also incredibly claustrophobic and could it.

Don't even, I don't even like thinking about this. They say it isn't the bottom of the ocean? That's like being in deep space, isn't it? Like dealing with the pressure and stuff like that, you mean? Well, let's just say you, let's say you, the pressure thing wasn't an issue. I'm just being like the, the absence of light sound. Well, actually, there'd be weird. sounds that's like it'd be a creepier version of space basically yeah yeah because you know for

effect there are things in there well yeah things are looking at you and they can move through it way better than you can and your visibility's lower so it's so insane to be so deep that light cannot has never touched anything there that's yeah you pass an area called the midnight zone where there's zero light particles like they just quit you would probably just go insane like i just don't think that the human brain can comprehend that then you hear like a far distant like, oh, yeah, exactly. Or like just you, like, feel something braced past you. You know, you would

fuck that, dude. Shut up. Let me read this. I'm getting it out. I'm getting it out. I'm going to start throwing hands. I'm at my limit. My father had been a keen lover of architecture. From ancient Roman ruins to Georgian estates, he had traveled the length and breadth of Britain in search of historical adventure.

During such a trip that he learned of sea scale in its magnificent Victorian hotel, the scafell. During his stay in the town, he had encountered my mother on the beach. She collected various seashells, live crabs, and bits of driftwood. Trapped by her large green eyes and raven black hair. Father spent much of the summer with the strange girl who had become my mother. I quickly became close friends of confidence.

I was talking about sea girls, black hair, green eyes. God damn, dude. Hell yeah. Woo! Get me to the beach. Let's go, brother. Some months later, two young lovers were in beautiful. engaged, made the move to my father's home village, marrying at the parish church before buying a home in one of the cramp, sloping alleys of shadow-haunted Barton. Fortunately, there had been an

unwelcome catch to his otherwise auspicious joining. Sebastian, my mother's elder brother, would also be making the move to Barton with them. My grandparents, you see, were sadly in no fit state to look after the man, who was himself somewhat mentally disadvantaged, or bad. backward, as my father would say, wholly ignorant of the many social norms we often take for granted in this day and age. The elder marshes were hopelessly advanced in age, too, and it was clear that they feared for their son's well-being when the inevitable shedding of their mortal coil take them to the cold and unwelcoming grave. So with great reluctance, but also out of love for his wife, my father agreed to take Sebastian with them to Martin, where he lived with them for several

months before finally acquiring the decomposing cottage in the woods behind the cemetery. Not long after my parents' marriage, my marsh grandparents succumbed to a kind of wasting disease. I never actually seen either of them, nor had my father encountered them more than a handful of times, as they did not even have the strength to attend their daughter's wedding. Sebastian and my mother both attended the funeral in C-scale, in which a few gray, shadowy strangers appeared, and of them also bearing the odd marsh look. It was during this time that my uncle acquired the vast bulk of his blighted library and bizarre trinkets from my grandparents' home, nestled as they were in the boarded-up attic bedroom, which they had queerly spent the majority

of their latter years in total seclusion. Years passed by and bartered, and while my parents had a home for themselves and started a family, my uncle continued to live alone in the woods. his collection of fungal books, stuffed animals, his only company. As I have already mentioned, I was by no means close to my uncle, and although I did not hate him with the burning vitriol, my father had reserved for the man, he had still unnerved and nauseated me on the few occasions I was unlucky enough to be in the same room as him, and I was genuinely taken aback by being made his whole air. All this, no doubt, accounted for the puzzled look that must have graced my face,

and to which roused Mr. Fisher to once again break me away from my daydreaming with a short, deliberate cough. Snap it out of my thoughts, I focused upon the solicitor and smiled a weak, apologetic expression, and he proceeded to inform me that the cottage was in a cankerous state of decline and would be unsafe and unfit for habitation and advised me strongly from entering it. Instead, suggesting I hire a few locals to fetch me whatever items I desired and deposit them at my own home. He assured me that any effort made to restore the cottage would be nothing but a cash sink and a complete waste of time. It was decayed even by the standards of the other groaning properties that dotted the woods. Truth be told, I had no desire to enter it.

Gave me a few more details about various bits and pieces my uncle had left me. A few pounds whirled away in a bank account and also the residence that my grandparents had lived in back in Seaskell, which I simply asked him to put up for sale on my behalf and to sell as cheaply as possible. As luck would have it, he managed to sell it quickly to a distant relative, a marsh cousin who still resided in the seaside town and wished for whatever reason to acquire the property. After leaving Mr. Fisher's paperwork, I left the office and headed straight to my parents' home to talk about the matter with them both in full. My father seemed quite dismissive of the whole affair,

assuming wrongly that I would have no interest in anything that had belonged to his deceased nemesis. My mother, on the other hand, seemed greatly ennerved by the matter. first probing me to see what my intentions were regarding my uncle's belongings. Upon hearing that I would be taking them all to my home and cataloging them at my leisure, she could hardly contain her anxiety. This confused me greatly. I assured her that I simply wished to see if there was anything of worth to be sold to collectors, and this seemed to calm her briefly.

Finding some local strong arms to move the immense hoard of junk from my uncle's cottage and to my home proved to be quite difficult at first. Most men of labor in Barton proved to be stupefying in their reluctance to enter gunner's cloth and superstitious regarding the marsh name. In the end, I was able to hire a few Polish laborers who, despite being superstitious themselves, were strangers to Barton and ignorant of the mark upon my family's name. I busied myself with work during the week or so it took to ransack my uncle's cottage and at first barely noticed the horde of books, stuffed animals, skulls, crystals, and various other brick of brack that. that I had the worker's stack as neatly as possible in my cellar. By the time they had finished, the once vacant space beneath my house had become a labyrinth,

worthy of Crete, a tartarus of crinkled yellow papers and moaning, saggy shelves. Fortunately, I had fitted the old cellar with electricity when I moved in, but the feeble light provided by that one naked bulb hanging in the center of the room seemed to cast more shadow than light, and gave the various glassy-eyed dead animals a haunting quality that kept me away from the collection until I could. could find someone to take the whole ungodly collection off my hands. The whole collection

stayed well out of my mind in life for some weeks to come. As work kept me busy, and I put off my once-planned mass cataloging in favor of working towards a promotion at the office where I worked as a minor clerk. However, when that promotion passed me by, I took a few weeks leave from my job and decided to see how much money I could make from selling my uncle's grim treasure trove. Working through the collection proved to be a lesson in patience, and it took what seemed to be a lifetime to separate my uncle's notes and diaries from actual printed books and handwritten manuscripts. When I finally did so, I had before me a collection of wicked and unwholesome tomes. Musty, fat, and swollen with hundreds of pages of information, some of the books dated back centuries. The volumes before me threw me into a state of excitement at the possibility of how much cash could be coughed up by a willing collector.

I wrote down the names of as many of the books as I could. There was Coltis de Gullis by the Comte de Eerta. Dermiss Misteris pinned by the necromancer Ludwig Prynne and Eunus Precklican Colton by Frederick von Jontz. There was also an English translation of a book called Things of the Water, its original title, Cathaut Aquadingen. Ha ha, Kathaat. The thing.

Chip of the hat, my lord. Chip of the... Erm, your gold, sir. Presented on the inner pages in a sprawling, spidery pinmanship that I suspected to be of my uncle's creation. The latter was filled with pages of notes written by my uncle.

Various rites and rituals underlined in pencil appeared sporadically throughout the interior. I tried by best to skim the book, being one of the few written in English, but its contents were so haphazardly laid out and unorganized that I simply could not digest any significant information from within, instead relying upon various words underlined by my uncle. He's included Father Dagon, Mother Hydra, Cthulhu, Ubo-Sathla, Azatoth,

and other stranger arrangements of letters. Admittedly, I was totally ignorant of the contents of all the books presented before me and dismiss them as either works of fiction or loose fantastical treaties of witchcraft and the occult. Neither of these topics interested me in the slightest, so I decided to write down all I could think of as interesting to collectors such as titles, authors, dates, and strange names of pseudo-gods and prehistoric peoples put them in a letter that I sent off to several rare booksellers in London. It did not take long for a reply to reach me. One Dr. Artemis Harlan Glass, a collector and bibliophile, have been put in touch with me via one of his contacts

and wrote me a fevered response. His excitement barely contained within his beautifully worded letter, he offered to buy the entire collection from me for a king's ransom. It was a six-figure sum, so high that I had to sit down immediately upon reading it in order to finish his letter in full, had to reread it several times to let its contents fully sink in. Dr. Glass had also made it clear that he wanted any and all personal notes made by the book's previous owners in full, which I understood given the gibberish contents contained within the tomes. However, I decided that I would not hand over my uncle's diaries for whatever absurd sentimental reason I may have attached to them.

In my reply to the doctor, I simply say that the collection had come as is and that no notes had been found among them. I did, however, smooth this over by stating that several of the books had pages underlined with a few scribbles here and there, denoting other manuals and page numbers where other notes and information could be found. It wasn't quite the spider web of information the doctor had sought, but it appeared to please him nonetheless,

and he organized to come and collect the books in person at a prearranged date just a few days after his reply to my offer. And for my parents over some afternoon tea of what the doctor had offered me for the books, and too much humor, my father nearly sped out a mouthful of Earl Gray upon hearing that his son was to become so fabulously wealthy. He seemed overjoy to the news.

Not for any dreams of personal gain. He had always been the non-materialistic type, but at the life, such money could provide for me. I knew that he was also secretly happy that being related to Sebastian March had actually paid off in the end, and the money was at once a source of sweet revenge for him and an ointment to smooth over the wounds left by their various clashes.

My mother's reaction was somewhat similar to my father's, but I could not help but think that it was all a put on, an act, and that she truly did not want to see my uncle's library in the hands of a stranger. If she had but voiced her concerns, I may have changed my mind, or at least sold perhaps only half of the collection left to me. I informed her that I intended to keep my uncle's diaries and personal notes, but she simply shrugged whilst nursing a lukewarm cup of tea. My father made a comment about how they would best be used to kindle a fire,

and we quickly moved on to the topic of what I would be doing with the money that was soon coming my way. I'll admit that when the day came for the doctor to collect the books, a cloud of regret had fallen over me. Despite the ludicrous amount of money that he was offering, I felt somewhat reluctant to part with my uncle's collection. These feelings of doubt, however, were quickly dispelled as a series of brisk wrapping penetrated the quiet of my usual afternoon routine, and I opened my front door to welcome my visitor. Dr. Glass had an appearance wholly shocking and disturbing to me, despite my familiarity with the grotesque and misshapen. He was both painfully thin and shockingly tall. Despite being bent over at the shoulder, he still towered over me by a clear foot.

He had the complexion of a fresh corpse, blood drained a transparent, while his head was crowned by a thick head of bushy hair, Raven Black, despite his obvious advanced age. Clothes, too, were as distinct as the man himself, for he clearly dressed in the manner of the gentleman, many decades removed from the current age we occupied. These fine clothes were, however, somewhat lost on the man, as his willow-like frame caused them to hang off him like folds of dark, dead skin. This scarecrow of a man stood at my threshold, nodded, and extended a withered, wrinkled hand, which I met, almost in a trace with my own. I tried my best not to be repulsed by the doctor's winter-cold skin and long nails as our hands clasped, but I feared that a modicum of my discomfort must have been made apparent to the man as a cruel smirk broke across his features as I stepped aside to let him in. I watched as the vampiric form of the doctor entered my home, another wave of anxiety

washed over me. The man who I had just invited into my house was so far removed from what I imagined a cultivated millionaire scholar to look like, that I have fancied a cruel hoax being played upon me. I'd already prepared the collection, and they stood on the table in my living room, wrapped in brown paper and string. Upon saying the pile, the doctor turned to me with his pale gray eyes and spoke to me in a voice so frail and hollow that I had to strain to hear the shriveled syllables that emanated faintly from his thin lips. Weren't you mind, sir, if I took the liberty of confirming the contents of those packages?

I nodded automatically, as if hypnotized by the man's voice, and watched in fright as he glided over to the table and used his long, gnarled talons to cleanly remove the brown paper, barring him from presently underneath. I watched the grim spectacle of the doctor using his sharp nails like some kind of organic letter opener and then greedily scooping up the books in his hands, flicking through their contents, with the hungry gaze of the wild predator. Happy with his lot, he turned to me in without even looking me in the eye, sharply withdrew a folded check from his waistcoat, pocket, and handed it to me. Unfolded it and was once again taken aback by the amount written upon it, along with my name, quickly placed it in the top drawer of my study desk with an obvious, avaricious salarity.

Our business seemingly concluded, I regained my senses and offered the doctor some refreshment, which he took thankfully, as he singled out of seat in my lounge, and with great effort lowered his mummified body down on to. As I poured us both a cup of tea, he continued to plump through his new acquisitions with the look of pure joy. It was a look that seemed out of place, and it was disturbing to see it grow upon his cold, rigid face.

We talked at length for several hours, during which time he made several inquiries as to where I had acquired my collection, and I felt that he was trying his best to gauge just how much I knew about it. Be one of the world's worst liars. I couldn't bring myself to deceive the man who had given me such a huge fortune for some old books and decided instead to tell him exactly where I'd acquired the collection.

I told them all about my uncle, the Marsh family and our insomouth origins along with the legends surrounding the gunner's cloth and the horrible fates that had befallen several of Barton's children. The latter of which he did not seem entirely ignorant of, and he listened with interest as I reeled off the collection of even stranger relics that still sat waiting in my cellar to be cataloged. Upon hearing this, Dr. Set aside his TNS politely

if he could be permitted to look over these objects. To be knowledgeable of such things, he could quite possibly put me in contact with several antiquarians of his acquaintance who might be interested in purchasing them from me. I saw a little reason to deny the man who had so generously secured my future and helped to lead him gently down into my cellar

by one of his spindly arms. Upon reaching the bottom of the creaking stairs, said adjoined the cellar to my house, stood back as he picked through the objects like a carrion crow looking for the juiciest parts of a rotten corpse. He ignored most of the artifacts before him, picking up several crystals and tossing them back dismissively, before making his way to the back of the cellar where, covered in a dusty sheet, stood a tall object that I had yet to bother with, which he revealed at once dramatically with a swift, sharp tug. As the dirty grade sheet felled in knobbly to the ground, a spectacle before us caused us both to pause slack-jawed for its horrid resplendence.

For resting gently against the wall, there stood an object so magnificent and terrifying that neither of us could barely speak a word for several minutes, frozen as we were in complete awe. It was a mirror that stood some seven feet tall, three feet one. A perfect rectangle that was framed by the most amazing display of carved golden creatures, the like of which I had never seen. The frame was a collection of fish, crustaceans, octopods, and amphibians, all carved beautifully out of a spectral white gold.

At either end of the mirror, there said a large carving of what at first appeared to be a mermaid and a mermaid. On closer inspection, the faces of these characters were not fully human, being instead a horrible amalgamation of fish, frog, octopus, and man. They danced and froliced along the mirror's edge, such a vivid manner that they appeared to sway, as if caught in an invisible breeze, causing my head to spin slightly if I looked upon them for too long. The mirror itself was equally bizarre.

A green-blue tint was washed over the glass, and even in the dim light of the cellar, it was obvious that it did not fully reflect the room back at us. Instead it distorted our reflections in a wavy, sloshing manner that made it appear like we were instead looking upon our faces from a murky pond or pool. The doctor stood forward and ran his hands over the gold frame, and shockingly, he gripped the tail of one of the carved merman with great ease, simply bent it and pulled it off. The metal fin he then worked over in his hands, rubbing it between his fingers, where it molded and distorted like clay, and not as any earthly metal should have. The plastic metal he then rolled into a ball and placed in one of his pockets. He then bent down with a grimish gesture and picked up the sheet to cover the mirror once more.

He turned to me with clear concern, etched over his gray face, suggested that we leave the cellar immediately and make for the lounge. Upon seeing himself back down, It's a fresh tea bid me to sit with him. Bro, this story. I'm like, so hooked in. I'm in, yeah, this is, this is so fun. This is just the way it's worked, the way the mystique of it. Just to go in, does it feel like the artifacts are changing people into things?

Like it seems like the dad knows that it changes people to things. He's pissed off by it. The mom is just kind of like, well, you know, you didn't throw it away, did you? Or, you know, she's upset because she doesn't want pieces of her history and, like, I guess, like amphibian family. It could be, but it could also be that the dad's just dumb to it and didn't like how weird and like the shame that his brother-in-law brought on the family.

That's true. But maybe the mom knows and knows that there's a power to this kind of thing. And that's the kind of curse that's affected their family. And that's why it's now been passed off to him. But there's like maybe the mirror, it says it looks like you're looking into water, like you're seeing your reflection in water. Maybe it can summon things.

Maybe it can change you. I think the doctor's about it explain, so I'll keep reading, but yeah, just want to comment. The reason I'm so locked in is because this is dope. I'm loving this. We have not got a story like this, I don't think, yet. This is great. The doctor then proceeded to tell me such a fantastic

and cobb story that I became dazed, swooning on occasion at the strange mysteries he was inducting me into. He spoke as if my uncle's collection of books were factual, containing within them all the lore of mankind and the millions of years that had rolled on before our race made the slow climb down, from the trees. He spoke of extraterrestrial invaders who had once called the earth home,

creatures that had seeped down from the stars and held dominion over our world while man's most distant ancestors were still billions of years from appearing on the cosmic stage. These dreadful beings, gods compared to humanity, had experimented with life and an accident had given birth to the ancestors of the human race. He spoke of the elder things, the old ones, the dreaded fungi of U-Goth, as well as the great race of Yith. All visitors to our small and lonely blue planet, he spoke also of the few remnants of this horrid mythology that could still be found swimming and plotting in the darkest reaches of our planet's oceans.

This last point, he spent much of his time elaborating upon, bringing out quotes and page references from Things of the Water, uttering those unspeakable names I had once glanced over myself, Cthulhu, Dagon, Hydra. The last two of which had their images carved into the mirror's frame, represented by the frogfish thing seated at either end of the disturbing object. A whole race separate from humankind, but also disgustingly intertwined with it, that lived undying in the dim reaches of the ocean bed,

swimming through the slowly dissolving ruins of dead sunken cities, such as the tread Yunthalae, where the sun's rays failed to penetrate through the salty gloom. Oh, brother. Oh, Hunter. Oh, baby. What do we do? What do we do and deserve all this? Oh, it's so good. Oh, it's just so cool. It's so cool. I love so much. That's one of my favorite things about, like, Call of Cthulhu, like how it talks about there's a city that, like, it's so big we can't comprehend it and it lies beneath the ocean. Things like Cthulhu seem dead or they seem gone because they're just sleeping, but eons to us are a second to them. Yeah, oh, so good.

Time is completely different. Yeah. He spoke of an ancient pact made with these deep ones. There resulted in a mixed heritage of humans and something. And of the twisted families of New England who carried this taint within their blood. Marsh was being but one. He spoke too about the mirror in my cellar. Occasionally the deep ones had made such a gift to the tribes of humans who had worshipped them

and their old gods as a means of contacting the people below the waves. Should they ever be needed in dire times or upon the approves, approaching times of their disgusting unholy rites. By the time the doctor had finished spinning his tale of antiquated horror, the hour had grown late, far too late for him to catch the last train back to London, and so, with a little reluctance, I assured him that a bed would be available for him in my guestroom.

He retired long before I did, or I found it difficult to sleep at all after hearing about the so-called marsh taint how it connected with things written down centuries ago within the books my uncle had kept and adored. Is Uncle Marsh looking for something within those books? He's looking for cured his condition, perhaps? Whatever he had uncovered from the tome,

it had caused him to calmly walk beneath the waves at the freezing Irish sea without so much as a second glance back at the life he once lived. I do not know exactly what time I had fallen asleep on the couch. A half-empty glass of brandy still cradled in my hand, but I was aware of what had stirred me from the depths of my slumber. It had been a crashing sick, like something. heavy, falling down, and it had greatly disturbed the silence of the house. Blinking the fatigue from my eyes, I immediately thought of the doctor and imagined, aged as he

was, that he had left his bed in the night to make use of the facilities and had fallen in the dark. Dancing up the steps lightly, I found the door to my guest room opened widely, and upon inspection, found no occupant within. Indeed, the bed looked like he had not been touched at all. I continued my investigation, finding no one in any of the upper rooms. Hurrying back downstairs, I made for the kitchen and was greeted by a source of light emanating from under the door leading to the cellar. Pausing as I touched the door handle, I took a moment to collect my thoughts. Just what was the doctor doing down there? I quietly opened the door and winced as it made a light creaking noise.

Whenever misdemeanor the doctor was performing within my home, I was eager to catch him at it red-handed and without excuse. So walk slowly down those rickety wooden stairs, I noticed that the light coming from the cellar, was not from the bulb I had fitted, but instead from the far corner, that it was no ordinary light, but a curious green gold that bathed the various artifacts and boxes in a sick phantom glow. Seeing that greeted me was at once mesmerizing and terrifying, for the glow appeared to come from the mirror itself, which was lined flat upon the floor and not up against the wall as we had left it. The light immediately began to wane as I drew closer until it finally extinguished altogether, causing me to retreat to the stairs and turn on the electric light.

As the orange bulb hummed into life, another scene invaded my senses and caused my heart to fly into a panic. As bundled up against the wall before me, there lay the doctor. His limbs stiff and his face frozen and agonizing, bulging-eyed fright. The doctor's lifeless hands were clawing at his own throat, A strange smell like that of the rotting debris found on the beach penetrated the whole room. With ultimate horror, I noticed a set of wet inhuman footprints leading from where the mirror lay to where the doctor had expired. Carefully, I made my way down to the floor where the terrible prints lay. The water that composed them was thick and gluey and possessed an awful stench of the sea that made bile rise in my throat. Suddenly, the mirror caught my eye, and I half-haired.

fancied I saw the surface of it ripple like disturbed water, as if something had just decided to spy upon me before quickly retreating. I must have then fainted, for the whole room around me slowly disappeared in a cloud of gray and merciful oblivion, took me away from the cellar, Dr. Scorps, the smell of rotting driftwood, and the odious presence of the mirror. Oh man, that's so, that's so cool, Hunter. The mirror, the mirror looked like water when it was on the ground and there was something that surfaced in it. There's a great scene. I love when the movies do that. Makes me think of that great spot

in uh, uh, at the mouth of madness uh, with, uh, the John Carpenter movie where at the end, like the mirror, she like puts her hand in it. It's like water, but they filmed basically like, it's a black void of space, whatever. It's really great.

We should play a little piece of it here, but it's so fucking good. Such a great visual to, to mirrors are so, so creepy. The idea of something behind, them is terrifying, right? Yeah, of course. Because they give the perception of space, even though nothing's there.

So to imagine that there is a space, it's just one we can't see. It's like a, it plays on natural human-like experience. Like, I see things through there. I know they're not real, but what if they are real? Right. Like, it's fine. Of course, an investigation was carried out

by the local constabulary, constipillary, whom I had contacted as soon as my consciousness. I think it's supposed to be consciousness, yeah. whom I had contacted as soon as my consciousness had returned from whatever restful place it had been slumbering. I was deeply worried that I would come under suspicion of foul play, but upon hearing that

the doctor was paying me close to a million pounds for some antique books, a fortune I would no longer be getting due to a dispute with his estate that I later became embroiled in, I was cleared of any wrongdoing. It was ruled that the doctor had suffered a heart attack and died of natural causes while looking around in the dank of my cellar. For whatever reason, the police force decided to conjure up. in their follow-up report. I did not mention the mirror and lied when informing the police that the light of my cellar

was on when I found the doctor's body. In truth, I had returned the mirror to its position, complete with covered sheet before I had called the police and had also taken the pieces of gold from his pockets. I did this in order to deprive the police of a motive, but also because I simply had no desire for the mirror to come under anyone's scrutiny. And I told a single living soul about strange, glowing, and disgusting seaside stenches attached to the grisly scene in my cellar, I had little doubt I would have been carted away and given a new home at Byron House.

Thankfully, I still had plenty of time left before returning to work, so I was able to come to terms with the loss of my dreams and ambitions that the doctor's money would have afforded me. It was particularly crushing to have had such a fortune laid before me, only to have it cruelly snatched away, seemingly by one of my uncle's possessions. I'd purposefully kept the thought of the mirror and of those dreadful. footprints far out of my mind. But try as I might, they returned again and again to me, mainly at night when lost in the abyssal embrace of hypnosis. Again and again, the grotesque pantomime

played out in my dreams, occasionally with extra details that had either been omitted from the original memory due to shock or added anew from the depths of my disturbed imagination. Sometimes the doctor was still on the cusp of life, sputtering out a blood-drenched warning and pointing at the mirror desperately in his last thrashing moments. Other times I witnessed his body slowly being dragged into the mirror as its glass surface splash and rippled like water. Finally, one terrible night,

I had seen what I thought to be a huge flabby claw sinking back into the surface of the mirror with deliberate lugubris, what is that? Is that lugubrious, lugubrious? Lugubrious. Ligibrious? Ligubrious? With deliberate lubrious intent.

Lugubrious. Lugubrious. I have never heard that word in my life. Lugubrious. Lugubrious. Lugubrious. Lugubrious. Lugubrious.

Lugubrious. Lugubrious. Lugubrius. Okay. Lugubrius is an adjective that means causing or marked by an atmosphere lacking lacking in cheer. Red Bull. Cause your markfront asks for a lacking in cheer.

Red Bull. It's like, Red Bull, thank you. It gives you wings. Lerubrius. Loz, he gives you Luigi, Ligubris for his wings. It gives Luigi Brieus wings. Red Bull. Gives you.

Monster. This dream sickness soon became an invading presence in my life. And even when the time came for me to return to work, I would often be so fatigued. from the stress of my nightmares that I would finish work early or call in sick on the days after I had experienced a strange session of the feverish night, haunted imaginings. I consulted my family doctor who simply dismissed the dreams and prescribed me sleeping pills, which I soon discovered, made my dreams more vivid, forcing me to discard them after just two nights.

Yeah, great time. Desperate to starve off the midnight illusions that plagued my dreams, I took to consuming copious amounts of black coffee and spending my nights sat in my garden, cigarettes. However, this due did little to alleviate my condition. As the glowing stars looking down upon me took on a far more sinister meaning since my talk with the doctor, and I quickly grew fearful of their incessant twinkling. This period of restlessness lasted for nearly a month and resulted in me being fired for my job and losing what little human contact I had in my lonesome life. It was an irregular visit from my mother, however, brought me out of my malaise

and sharpened my focus once more. I confided in her all those things the Dr. Glass had told me on that fateful night and watched her face remain unchanged throughout the entire revelation. Not so much revelation for her, I felt. Surprisingly, she said very little and simply made a comment while sipping a cup of tea in my garden. Such things had been said about the Marsh family for years, as well as cursed insomouth from which our family came. She did admit that she knew very little of our family's roots and had almost no contact with relatives.

She had practically raised herself, and it was my uncle who had cared for spent most of his waking hours with their decrepit parents before they died. She then casually reminded me that a marsh had bought my grandparents' house not long after I had been left in my uncle's will, and I realized that I could perhaps alleviate myself of my uncle's possessions and the hopes I would calm my mind. Quick visit to Mr. Fisher, and I was furnished with the name Eli Marsh, some kind of distant cousin on my mother's side who had bought and moved into the rotting home my grandparents had dwelt within, and to which my uncle was left when they passed away.

Not wishing to travel to sea scale on the chance that I would catch this relative at home, I instead sent a simple note detailing who I was, some details about Uncle Marsh's books, and a description of the mirror. I asked if you knew any other details of our family's history that could help to shed some light on the strange occurrences that happened to Dr. Glass and detailed the strange effects that the mirror had played out in my cellar that dreadful night. In response to my inquiry, a sparse letter arrived asking me to come visit him at my grandparents' home at my earliest convenience.

I wasted little time in heating the summons and boarded the train from the nearest station and east-wish towards sea-scale the next day. At Ely's request, I had things of the water securely tucked away in a briefcase along with many of my uncle's notes as I could carry. The train's journey was pleasant enough, with changes over at Manchester Piccadilly and then Barrow in Furness. Despite the usual overcast weather of northwest England, countryside was still an open beauty to behold,

and I allowed myself a few hours of respite as I drank in the dark green essence of its untamed rolling hills and feral woodlands. Eventually, the scenery gave way to the various villages and towns that precipitated the train's arrival in sea scale, and the greenery disappeared amidst the dull gray buildings and hotels at the seaside resort. Eli had no intention of meeting me at the state,

and had instead given me instructions to call upon him at any time of day at my grandparents' home. He had expressed a dislike of the daylight, and I imagined that he, too, must be a victim of the sinister wasting disease that had afflicted my mother's parents in so gruesome a fashion. I had intended to make more of a day for myself in town whilst visiting Eli, but the autumn clouds and light rain do little to vitalize a tourist hunger, and after a short 30-minute stroll around and lunch at one of the many seaside cafes, I instead decided to make my way straight to the house on Reed's Avenue and see exactly what light my distant cousin could shed upon the macabre conundrum

that had made its way into my life. Reed's Avenue was a street crowded by various bed and breakfast establishments and other tall, narrow buildings, nothing more than a simple row of heartless Edwardian constructions that overlooked the crumbling coastline and rolling sea. I paused several times and overlooked the benches on my way, allow myself to fantasize morbidly over my uncle's suicide and final. moments. That plump, naked, flabby body making its way to the water's edge with as much momentum as its master could muster, and then a simple wade out to see until his body finally

gave into the cold grip of the sea sank beneath the water. The wind around the coast was particularly ferocious, and it not only chilled me, but also carried upon it the seaside stenches of rotting crustaceans and slimy rocks, an aroma that caused my nighttime tears to resurrect momentarily and persuade me to finally move along towards the home of Eli Marsh. The house was sandwiched in between two beds and breakfasts. A tall three-story building painted in a washed out white with a rusting iron fence crowning the outside. Every single window visible was either boarded up or concealed with thick curtains. It appeared that Eli was a man who valued his privacy. Some simple stone steps led up to the red painted front door, the only source of

color found in the entire building. This was somewhat offset by the peeling paint that revealed a dull, cracked brown beneath. I was about to knock. I noticed a piece of card on the ground, held in place by a bottle of milk that had most definitely soured. Short message or more accurately in order, scribbled upon it in a poor but strangely familiar script. Pulling up the card, I opened the front door, which was unlocked as per the note's description, walked into the gloom of the narrow hallway. notes had to be written by the uncle, right? That's what I think. Because he's been looking at the notes and stuff for so long

that he's like, oh, looks familiar. The uncle might be alive. Oh, the uncle's definitely alive. I think that he emerged from the ocean, left that thing, went back probably. Yeah, yeah. Like the outside, the interior of the home was much taller than it was wide.

And the staircase presented before me appeared to lean oddly at the top, giving the illusion that the house was fatigued and resting upon its neighboring establishment for support. It was difficult to see much in the dark of the hallway. I tried to turn on the lights with a few flicks of the nearby switch, but to no avail. A doorway to my right led into what must have been a downstairs living room and I proceeded to investigate. A bare wooden floor and not a scrap of furniture to be found.

This coupled with thick sheets that had been crudely nailed into the window frame and were doing a superb job of keeping out the feeble light was all the living room had to offer. I quickly established that this was not a home, it was a mausoleum. I was about to enter another room leading off from the back of my current whereabouts, kitchen perhaps, when a series of loud, sharp knocks startled me and immediately made me look upwards at the source of their location. I will admit freely, that this disturbed me greatly, and I wondered if I had perhaps left reality behind

and stumbled onto the pages of the apocryphal ghost story. You were 100% right. This reads exactly like Lovecraft. Yeah. Like the way things are described in moments and stuff. A hundred percent. Nail on the head with that one, yeah. I froze like a rabbit confronted by the side of a predator and waited in silence to see what would happen next.

Again, the thumps pierced the silence I stood within, but this time I followed their source and stood at the bottom of the staircase. It's thin decayed carpet doing a poor job of concealing the dry rot beneath. Whatever courage I summed up must have come from the realization that I was here to see a member of my own family, not some moaning spirit wrapped in chains. I smiled to myself in an effort to banish away the fear that it coiled its way into my heart. Surprisingly, stairs made little noise as I ascended them as quickly as possible, jumping two steps with my stride until I arrived at the landing. Several doors lay before me. Only one was open.

From the room within, I could hear a series of low wheezes and finally a sickly wet cough. More than a little reservation, I knocked and gently pushed the door inwards. What greeted me was similar to the downstairs, bare floorboard, underfoot and a covered-up window frame. Although, that was not all to be found. It's two chairs, large and crimson, covered in dust, been placed in the center of the room. And sitting in one of them is a shadowy bundle of rags, worn clothing, and worn clothing that at second glance contained the body of a man. It gestured towards two. It gestured towards the vacant chair opposite. I reluctantly obeyed, placing my briefcase down, taking off my hat.

I could see very little underneath what I presumed to be my cousin's clothing. Even his face was concealed with a scarf and a flat cap balanced. Ignobility upon his somewhat misshapen head. Words issued forth from my host's mouth, impossible liquid words that were punctuated with wet coughs and struggled breaths. There was movement beneath that scarf, but not the simple parting of lips, A series of movements from the neck area. A restless movement of something opening and closing to the rhythm of his speech.

The only part of his body visible to me were the eyes. Huge bulging eyes and stared at me unblinking it with focused malice. These bloodshot globes were not so much sat within his head as leaked out of their sockets. Some unseen force keeping their jelly from outright streaming down his face. Despite their obvious vulgarity, these repulsive gillow. latinous fears were at once familiar and alien to me. The martial look was obviously something I knew all too well, but to see it in such an advanced state and up close horrified me to my core, took me several moments to recognize the words that Eli was forcing out of his mouth.

Have it the book. He spoke, bandaged hands outstretched before me like a begging child. I nodded and picked up my case, clicking it open and passing him things of the water along with my uncle's notes, produces a pencil and started right on the back pages of my uncle's diary, checking over the tome for some kind of unspoken reference and occasionally looking up at me with his flowing frog-spawn eyes. As he finished whatever notes he had written, he handed the books back to me and we both simultaneously jumped as another series of bangs issued forth from the room above ours. He reached down to the side of his feet and produced a broom and lifted himself with a great effort off the chair.

With the bare end, he then struck the ceiling in response. I have fancied this some kind of coded message, but the series of strikes did not appear random, some kind of perverse hidden code. When another set of bangs responded to this, the suspicion was confirmed. Eli, seemingly satisfied with this waddled back to his seat and slung his body back down in a way that was also somehow sickenly familiar to me.

Leaning forward, far too close from my comfort, he pointed upwards with his hand and gave a simple explanation. You must forgive my sister. She has succumbed to our family's condition and is confined to her bed. I think I gave a nervous smile and a few words of sympathy, but I was far too transfixed upon the awful fish oil smell that secreted from his breath with every word. Perhaps noticing my discomfort, he leaned backwards awkwardly into his seat. Sit, cousin, sit. We have so much to discuss my time in this world is fleeting. No doubt you have a dozen, maybe a hundred questions dancing around the brain of yours. But you'll have to make do with what I tell you today.

You got some answers from that doctor friend. But what does a stranger know of the affairs were Mars? Only a marsh can help a marsh. Maybe a gentleman or a Walt or Hells, even an Elliot might be able to tell you what is in store for you. But you have me instead. I bet you're curious as to why our family left Inns mouth behind and came back to our ancestral home, aren't you? Well, you have these books. Books like these things of the water to thank you for that.

A great granddaddy was a sorcerer, you see. Oh, and you may laugh at such a thing, but I tell you it's the truth. A great sorcerer who could conjure up all manner of gods from the sky and the sea and have the angels of Cthulhu answer his cause. Others grew fear full of the power he had. Other masters who had little power themselves, as wanted this for themselves. Only interested in paying service to Dagon or Hydra or any other God. Glenn Daddy Mask used the names of the great old ones himself without any priest of Dagon present.

They forced them out, chased him with his deep one bride, out of his mouth along with their children, and forbid them to have a return. Why didn't the order of Dagon have them killed? Well, who knows? Maybe they fear this power. Maybe they thought old Degot himself would come to collect his due or the traitor, but it never happened. Okay. So, first of all, you are an incredible voice actor. Oh, thanks, man.

That was so stupid. That entire time I was like, I just like went into a trance and I was like, I was like, I was looking at the fish man under the rags. Oh, sick, man. Yeah, I tried to get a gurgly thing going. That was so stupidly good. To follow up on that, how is it that you have trouble reading a text message if you have to just read text? But if you adopt a character's voice, you can read the cult and pragmatians of Cthulhu and the granddaddy of March.

Without a single break. I don't know. I think I was pretty immersed myself if I'm being honest. You were so into it that you couldn't fathom saying a word wrong. For one, okay, yeah, again, this story's awesome. I love this. But to clarify what was being said there, so their family comes from a line of people who worshipped Cthulhu, right? Yeah, obviously some kind of fish kind of people, whatever, that were practicing in some kind of religion.

And some people would seem to be they were greedy and all you worship. Or sorcerer, sorcerer, but they were only worshipping certain gods and not Cthulhu as well or whatever. So basically just Hydra and what, you know. Others grew fearful of the power he had other Marshes who had little power of themselves and won this for themselves. Not interested in paying service to Dagon or Hydra under the god. Grand Eddie Marsh used the names of the old ones without any priest. So I assume he was supposed to use a priest. They forced him out, chased him, and his deep one bride out of his mouth.

So why didn't they have him killed? Who knows? Maybe they thought Old Degon himself would have come to collect his due on the traitor, but it never happened. So that's where their family comes from. And then you've got some more to go, so I'll shut up.

But yeah, okay. I can show him on the same page. He paused momentarily to catch his breath, and I watched as he struggled for several minutes for continuing his hoard, mom of life. The mere could be another reason. Grandaddy had made the thing. thing himself as a way to commune with the gods of the sea, and to lock in on his family

who had made the change, and swam beneath the waters outside Innsmouth. Who knows what the bargains he had made with the deep ones? I reckon Zinsmouthfolk, and the order feared another uprising like the war in 1846 should they act against him, and just let his and his can be. So the sea scale he came, where he kept his books and set his prayers spells to day gone in Cthulu, every hollow mass, and well purchased and carried on the marshes line, making new deals with the deep ones, through the mirror, bringing in other families to mix blood with them in the old sea devils. Oh, and you'd be surprised by how many round these parts carry the blood of the deep ones in them,

and how many make the change and swim to the depths of the anthel to dance and frolic with Dagon in the dark. I'll be making that truce trip soon myself. Me and my sister will walk down to the water and keep out walking, just like your uncle. My dad he did those years ago, I could see you looking more confused, cousin. Did you think that Sebastian Marsh had no kin other than you and your mother? He's a Mars after all, and had to take a mate among the deep ones just like we all too. Just like your mother did. Your mother was already carrying you.

Oh, that's kind of sick. Your mother was already carrying you in her when she met that man calling himself. your father on the beach all those years gone by, you'll change, just like I'm changing, just like your uncle changed. Your mother doesn't seem to be making a change, but the blood of Daegon is stronger and now made like us. You just say those words I've wrote down in that book, and you say them, when and where it tells you to say them, and you get those answers you seek.

That's fucking sick, though. So his dad isn't even really his dad. That's not his dad. No, his mom took a father from the deep ones. Yeah. So that's also why that's also, he's probably a bastard. And he knows that he's going to figure out that he's not his kid. That's why the dad's pissed.

Probably. Okay, so here's the thing. We've got the, um, we have like his family from insmouth was a sorcerer that called upon these gods, right? And then one time he did the ritual, one time. his ancestors, great-grandfather, whatever, did the ritual wrong, was forced to run away, but he made bargains with the deep ones.

So it sounds like these bargains are that we will continue on your line, will continue on your people. So they begin to have children with the deep ones, make more kids for them, then eventually those children grow up and then return to the sea.

And it seems that's what's been happening to the family. That's what happened to his uncle. That's what happened to our narrator. So, yeah, his mom knows all of this. His mom is, you know, had a child with one of the deep ones. I think she wants him to, though. You know, I think she wants him to turn.

I think that's another reason why, too, she was so like, oh, well, you're not going to sell them, are you? Because inside of that book is the knowledge of how he can transform, you know, and the spell can be completed to where he can return to the family. I think that's important to her. Well, she also has to know that her son is half deep one, half like a person. Well, exactly. I think that she definitely knows. Yeah. Yeah.

Because also I think that, or sorry to interrupt us and say, I think that because men, it seems that men transform much faster than women. So what I'm guessing is more pronounced than the men. Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm guessing is she's like, oh, I need you to go because one day I'm going to join you whenever I'm fully changed as well. Yeah. That's like, man, what a the way. This is the kind of a thing across Lovecraft, but it's very well done in the story.

I'm forgetting that we're reading a creepy pasta that was written last year and not like a Lovecraft story, right? I just, this is the kind of flavor and shit I love. But, like, the, uh, the phrasing there is so good where it's like, uh, you'd be surprised how many around these parts carry the blood of the deep ones. How many make the change and swim to the depths of Yant Philly to dance and frolic with Dagon in the Dark? What a way to describe walking to the bottom of the ocean, you know? Yeah. Dancing with Dagon the Dark is so hard. Also, too, just seaside towns, beach towns, especially this Irish water if they're in Ireland.

Yeah. wherever it's these things of like people reentering their actual world from the beaches of like these landlocked towns and stuff really fun or ocean locked towns whatever do you think Sebastian Marsh had no kin other than you and your mother so that would be that would mean that's a bad okay yeah yeah yeah and multiple kids is what I assume yeah and he took he had to take a deep one wife to have these kids yeah interesting Hunter you're on a beach fish girl comes up to you. Would you do it? Oh, 100%. 100%. If she looking tall, dark-haired and green-eyed, she'd be looking, however, dude, I'm saying, wet and glistening, dude, she's just coming out, you know, she opens her mouth and there's all kinds of like Eldrick. Eldrick sounds coming out. I'm just like, my ass is the literal first beginning beats. I'm seeing that. She's singing some kind of like hypnotic siren, right? Whatever.

I'm thinking, dang, dang, dan, d'an, d'an, d'an, d'an, d'an, d'an, and I'm thinking, one, two, three, four, five, everybody in the clubs with the bullets, rat. I'm just mongo number five the entire time. I'm going to start dancing, like I'm with Lou Bega. Dude, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, you got, you got to be out there.

You got to start singing with him. You're going to be like, oh, I bid farewell to the force and the lands. And you're like walking into the ocean. And my bones in the ocean forever will be. like you're just going after that scaly that scaly oh man i'm trying to count them scales i'm trying i'm trying i'm trying to see if those scales talk back you know what i am dude i'm playing tic-tac toe on those things is right i'm doing some morse code i'm pushing some buttons away we're pushing buttons again is what we're doing we're flipping switches

whatever they got going on we're we're going to figure that we're going to crack the code Start speaking Cthulhu by the end of it. Oh, shit, yeah, exactly. I'm going to be rolling R's and all kinds of stuff, dudes. It's going to be unbelievable. I'm going to be wrong. Okay. Anyway, he said nothing more, and I waited for several minutes,

just in case fatigue had caused him to pause for breath. He did not say anything more on the matter. Perhaps knowing that what he had added to the diary was all I truly needed to know. As I pondered the last few months of my... my life, a series of horrid realizations began to creep over me and I suddenly wished to be outside, away from the bundled menace before me. I managed to muster enough will to lift myself off the chair and pick up my belongings. You watched my every movement as I backed my way towards the door. As I slowly exited the room and began to descend the narrow staircase, one final

sentence barked out at me from the obnoxious, fish-stinched room and chilled me. Marsh blood is thick in your veins, cousin, and you best prepare yourself for the change. These last words were met with more wheezing and coughing, but also guttural and mock and laugh. By the time I regained my senses, I was outside the house and underneath the gray clouds once more. I staggered back to the train station like a piece of debris caught in the breeze, and once the train was in full gallop back to Barton, summed up the courage to look over the additions Eli had made to the diary. The instructions were clear, but also baffling, a ritual of sorts.

I hoped, perhaps vainly, that following through on my cousin scribblings would grant me some measure of peace and closure. Upon returning home, I started to make the necessary preparations for unearthing the truth about the marsh look, gathering the notes and formula outlined in Eli's notes. I had no wish to visit the gunner's cloth, to walk beneath the witch elms as the silver light of the full moon bathed all around me in a chilling glow, but I didn't. I no desire either to stumble or struggle through the mud and filth of the woodland on all hollows Eve in the direction of my uncle's home. But this too, I did. I had made all the preparations as instructed to me by Eli Marsh, whose handwriting had been so oddly similar to my uncles. The mirror, Dagon's mirror, had been removed

from my cellar and once again brought back to the crumbling cottage, placed on the floor of the large room just as it had been on that dreadful night that still haunted my dreams. The significance of the moon and date been clearly set down for me. Although I had the option of waiting for Alpergis night in April to work the old magic of N's mouth, simply could not wait that long for the truth. It had to be tonight. The moonlight was strong enough to illuminate my path to the cottage, but regardless, I brought along my torch and supplemented Luna's gaze with my own feeble cone of light.

Through the blackness I shambled, making no effort to conceal my coming from the various woodland beasts who hunted during the hour of the wolf and beyond. I have fancied all manner of specters and phantoms awaiting me in the woods, ghost of little Maggie Hagen and Jamie Burtle, along with every other miserable soul claim by the cloth formed before my vision, dancing in and out of my side among the trees. Suddenly the cottage came into view, a leaning, rotting husk that looked more like a disused garden shed, than an actual home. Surrounded by leaning witch helms and sitting in a circle of black, blasted

earth, my uncle's home stood in defiance of the repugnant nature that desperately sought to reclaim the wooden structure. It was crowned with strange, diseased orange fungus and furry rugs of crawling moss. Insects gathered all around the cottage, feeding with indignity upon the fleshy pulp of the clinging mushrooms, occasionally pulling themselves away to dance frantically with the illuminated cone of my torch. The entrance to the sagging structure was not barred, and I entered into the main room of the cottage and was immediately greeted by the golden mirror lain flat upon the decomposed floorboards.

Above, a crude skylight had been fitted into the flat roof. I say skylight, but it was nothing more than a trap door that had opened readily and eagerly once a single-rested iron bolt that held it in place had been relieved from duty. The ceiling door swung open, freaking like a walking corpse, and eventually came to arrest after a single-rested. swaying for a few seconds. A wash of moonlight came streaming

through the opening and hit the mirror's surface. Rather than reflect off the glass, the light instead beamed directly into the mirror, drawn into it by some unseen force that then expanded the light, illuminating the whole cottage so much that my torch lay forgotten on the ground

by my feet. I dropped to my knees in horrid awe and unconsciously crawled closer and closer to the mirror's glowing edge. Once more the terrible forms of Father Dagon, Mother Hydra, carved in gold and glaring menacingly in my direction, came into view and I hesitated slightly before finally resting my gaze upon the vision that had patiently been waiting for me. A vision hinted at by Dr. Glass and my cousin, a terrible legacy that even now

must be swimming through my veins and transmuting my form with languid but irreversible taint. Had this been what Jamie Burtle had stumbled upon all those years ago? Had he seen the truth of Uncle Marsh's heritage, and as a result, suffered a mental shutdown caused by his feeble lizard brain rebuking the awful reality of the Marsh look. It is difficult for me to write down exactly what I saw in the mirror that night. For the sake of all humanity, and for those who will come after, I will try. Now, that is Lovecraft. That's right.

I do not know if I can describe it, but I'm about to describe it. This is totally indescribable, but here's a description. It's an incomprehensible horror was actually quite comprehensive. I'm apprehensible. Yours would reach on the house. Point by point, starting at the beginning of then. By the time anyone finds and reads this,

I will no longer be a resident of Barden. I'll be changed and at home among the briny depths and salt-soaked stones of the deepest gulfs of horror imaginable. Oh. Huh. For I kneeled, perplexed, transfixed at the same. Man, is this just a Lovecraft story? Just to read out of this point. I mean, to be fair, he's like, this is, he's definitely taking language and stuff.

And this is all textbook. Lovecraft. You know what I mean? This is a start. Yeah. Yeah. All right. For I kneeled perplexed, transfixed at the scene playing out before me in the ocean grotto

where the fished things froliced and swayed amid cyclopean ruins. Dancing blindly and madly to a silent alien beat, the fungoid flabby creatures prostrated themselves before the eroded edifices of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra and to the colossal statue of Lord Cthulhu that towered over the whole sickly affair. Except the statue. was not a statue, he was alive and moving, overseeing its banning subjects into their chaotic worship, a tentacular titan, pleased with the spectacle around it. They danced and copulated and tore each other to pieces as the assembly reached such hideous heights

of frenzy that I was sure I would be sucked through the mirror and into the icy saltwater of Yenthaliq. But this disgusting pantomime being played out before my senses paled in horror compared to the that one of the creatures possessed a visage so familiar to me that I mercifully passed out as my mind recalled its likened for the newest addition to the throng of the fish things were the face of my uncle Sebastian Marsh. He had sought the embrace of the Irish Sea, not in order to end his life, but instead to take his place among the deep ones, as all men who bear the Marsh name must one day do. That is Dagon's mirror!

awesome i you know this is the thing day gone's mirror is a complete and total love letter to lovecraft i mean this could be lovecraft this could be lovecraft himself i mean this already reads a lot like you know even uh shadows over ins mouth or like you know call the cathulu all that kind of stuff but i do think it's fun that's that but the thing if you know anything about lovecraft is that the necronomicon and you know these things that he the catholic universe It's all like him and his buddies writing this. And it's like collaborating in ways of people. It's showing up at other people's work and stuff.

So to see this is something that's like, it's cool because it adds to that tradition of adding on to the universe and like the kind of lore that is the like open ended nature of love of of Cthulhu, you know? And the reason that I love crafty and HP loves craft stuff so much too is that which I think Niccolo does really well is. This story could have been 10 minutes long, realistically. It's like it could be way, way punchy or way to the point. But it's all about the like almost nauseating sense of like flavorful sweet verbiage that gets added into describing very minuscule things that makes the story so rich. Like it works very well in these day gone things where things are kind of sickly and they're so unimaginable. You know, and that's kind of the meme too. They're unimaginable.

but he's helping you imagine what it would be, you know, in some weird way. So all these towns, which even the town itself are, you know, going back to his uncle's house, they almost feel like ruins in the ocean as well, right? They're all dilapidated. They're worthless landlocked buildings that don't have any love because they're like, why would I give a fuck about upkeeping this place? You know, they, but even the fungus growing on them is almost like moss in the ocean growing on something. It's really nice.

And one thing I love to, just for my own personal taste, I just love just like artifacts, relics, things that are cursed or totally, you know, in this case, the mirror and that, you know, things that you see back and it like just reflects back in some weird way or drives you mad. They're so incomprehensible. The madness just takes your mind immediately, I think is just awesome. And I love this shit. But I can see how people would be like it was just grading, like it's too wordy, you know. I think that there's, it's very, I feel like it's very divisive or decisive. If someone does not like this, I don't want to talk to them.

I mean, I get it. If people are like, I just, it's, it's so, and also to lovecraftian stuff can be, I wouldn't say one note, isn't it? But that's just like, it's my favorite note, you know, I love it. That was so fun. I love it. Like, yeah, sure. It's not like there was super deep character arcs and there wasn't like a ton of like

highs and loads and stuff, but Lovecraft's original stuff. But Lovecraft's original stuff isn't that way. It's about the theme. It's about the concept. What I love about Lovecraft so much is most of his horror comes from the insurmountableness of it, that there is an entity that we can't even hope to understand, much less beat, right? And this entire story, Dagon's Mirror, is about a guy discovering that one day he will become this monster and go to, he is all, from the day he was born, he was set to walk into the ocean

and become a part of this ritual of darkness, right? And he sees it before it happens and he is powerless to stop it. That is where the horror of it comes from. And it's everything that is pushing him in that direction that proves fighting against it's fruitless. That's where a lot of Lovecraft's horror comes from. And I think this story did a great job encapsulating that. Yeah.

I mean, I think that a story about basically it's following in your family's footsteps is undeniable. Like you can't escape it. It's much like the movie Hereditary. It's like you're kind of, your feels almost at times your life is already pre-planned you know everything that's happened which is just kind of horrifying within itself but even he has no i think that one thing i like to is that our main character didn't he doesn't really try to fight it he's just kind of like it is what it is

you know i think he understands that which is nice but i do like that niccolo here because one thing lovecraft is too is i would say more often than not a short storywriter and it's and it's nice i'm glad that it's like in the year 24 that there's a guy still writing like an homage short story piece that would feel something similar that maybe Lovecraft would have written in the 30s or whatever really, really fun. I mean, I just

I love this shit. It's up my, it's like everything I love. Recommendations movie wise, if you guys haven't seen any of Stuart Gordon shit like reanimator fucking, you know, from beyond. Even they have a day gone movie. It's horrible. It's so cheesy, but I love it so much. It's great. Tons of fish people

if you like that. And even like movies like The Voice. and that kind of stuff. There's so much great. It's influenced so much of media. And not even just storytelling music, all kinds of shit. It's really, really cool. So a big, big two thumbs up for me. I had a great time with this one.

I'll also say this. I went to Nicola's Screepypasta and his two other story shamblers in the attic and the House of Dead Gods are both set in the town of Barton. Okay. So it's all tied into each other's stories. Sure. So that. We'll let's read this someday. Yeah, well, we need to read this.

those, I think. If you all like this at all, I think we need to read those. I love that story. It was awesome. It caught the vibe of Lovecraft so well for me. And I love that kind of horror. And I think it's so fun. It's so well done. It's like it's like a modern mythology. It's great. Yeah. Well, it's like it's modern. It's more modern fairy tales. Like that's really like a lot of the time. That's what, you know, you really hit the nail on the head earlier, I think by saying that it reads like a grim fairy tale because it is. And even like it reads a little bit like Edgar Allan Poe stuff. too, you know, that kind of like very grim dark. Well, that's really like the, uh, the early, yeah, Gothic, exactly. That's really like the earliest versions of Gothic or like, you know, macabre literature. It was taking like the tones and like themes of fairy tales and then making them morbid. Uh, and that's what like Lovecraft did for a large part. But then he gives it this bigger mythos and lore and stuff and the old ones. And it's like such a, it's, I mean, it is what cosmic core is right.

That's where it comes from. Yeah. And I mean, even looking at Edgar and Poe, which, Lovecraft was heavily inspired by Agron Poe and Lovecraft. It's kind of funny. It's like this is going to sound so cringe, but it's like, it's so cringe to say, but they were doing like essentially what online horror stories are doing now. Like they were the little bite size things that you would read and get scared in in public,

like public, like magazines or papers and stuff, you know, like stuff like that to where it's just interesting. It's like history repeats itself in such a fun way. And it's cool that the Cthulu mythos and just the, the vibe of this unknown thing that even today after you know a hundred years later the ocean is still so horrifying such a fun and it's way to adapt it and it's just such a thing where i feel like it's it's so evergreen it'll stand the test of time more than a lot of stuff so huge huge shout out nick low really fucking love this one man for real i can't wait to read the other stuff i i was

totally hooked sorry for my lack of commentary on this episode too man i was just so no no i mean i was i was i was hooked in too i was i was clocked in for that one yeah That was great. Once we got going on it, it really got going. That was great. I loved it. Well, cool. Well, guys, thank you so much. Like once, as always, if you're, once again, if you haven't been listening audio-wise on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, please consider checking us out there. It really does help us out and give us a nice rating. It means the world. Until next time, y'all, stay creeped. Stay creeped. And if you find out that you have to be a fish person at the bottom of the ocean with Kathulah forever,

that sucks. But, hey, if you see a girl watching up on the beach, who's a fish person, Okay, bye. P. Thank you.