Haunted Cosmos - The Devil's Den, Part IV

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Please enjoy this fourth inter-season episode of our Patreon exclusive show, The Dusty Tome. In this episode, we continue the story of the Devil's Den!Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclu...sive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes, monthly AMA's, and livestreams with Ben and Brian by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!Want to keep nefarious fairy Bigfoots away and also avoid icky seed oils, preservatives, artificial colorants, and other nasties in your daily shower routine? Then check out the vast array of homemade soaps from our friends at Indigo Sundries Soap Co.! Go to indigosundriessoap.com to learn more—and as our gift to you, use code HAUNTEDCOSMOS for 10% off your whole order!This episode is sponsored by New Dominion Design Co. Visit their website here and learn more!This episode is sponsored by Backwards Planning Financial. Visit Joe's website here or give him a call (615-767-2555).This episode is sponsored by Squirrelly Joe's Coffee! Visit their website here to get your first bag free!  Share Coffee. Serve Humbly. Live faithfully.Finally, this episode is sponsored by Gray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order.Support the show

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 everyone to this fourth installment of our off-season special releases of the dusty Tome. And we're just going to dive right in with The Devil's Den Part 4. I hope that you guys have enjoyed this series, this sneak peek of our special Patreon show. And hey, if you like what you hear, then you should consider becoming a patron yourself. We try to provide utmost value to our patrons. And frankly, we can't do that. I mean, without them, the show is not possible. a thank you to all of our patrons. We're incredibly grateful for all you guys. And we hope that
Starting point is 00:00:45 all of you listeners who are not patrons do enjoy this special show. We're looking back to getting to a regular fourth season of Haunted Cosmos here in not too much longer, about six more weeks. And, you know, you guys should rest assured knowing that we're working really hard on that season. In fact, Brian and I, as of the day of this recording, which is Tuesday, August 20th, are about to record season two of episode four. And hey, just so you know, after a few weeks of that recording, it's going to be released early and ad-free, fully produced to our top two tiers of patronage. So if that's interesting to you and you want to hear an early show, another reason to consider becoming a patron. But that's enough of me blabbing on. Let's get to the show. This episode is sponsored by Indigo
Starting point is 00:01:31 Sundry Soap, Backwards Planning Financial, New Dominion Design Co, Gray Toad tallow, and Squirrely Joe's coffee, along with, like I just said, our patrons. So thanks, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Terry's memory awoke, like one experiencing something outside of one's own body. The drugs, the sedation, the hypnosis. All of it was working to suffocate him in a world full of events he had already lived before, but had totally forgotten about. Despite the forceful push of all factors, coaxing him to fully let go and sink into the deep but
Starting point is 00:02:22 active slumber of memory recovery, Terry held on to the finest sliver of presence of mind, just enough to have some level of control over himself, just enough to have a hope at remembering it all once he was finished. He slipped in and out of the semi-permeable lucidity many times, but felt confident in his ability to maintain the balance overall. The first act had begun, and Terry was on the edge of his seat. He had known the space people for most of his life. Only now could he recall and connect the dots of woe and torment that he suffered in silence and seclusion as a child.
Starting point is 00:03:04 He watched it all play out in front of him, the scared boy cowering in his bed, unsure of whether or not to trust the four smiling monkeys that stood before him, beckoning him to play. The fear of the dark, striking him to the depths from such a young, age. The desperate mother and father who dearly loved their son but did not know how to handle his fears,
Starting point is 00:03:26 weeping over having lost their boy's heart. It all walked before him like a carousel of long-forgotten scenes from some familiar movie. Terry began to sob as he finally studied what happened to him once the monkey men had successfully lured him away in those early waking dreams. While they gleefully carried him to some unknown place, the boy's heart grew more and more frantic. and petrified until he remembered barely being able to breathe for the fear. The beings set him in a room filled with strange toys and other children with whom they allowed Terry to play. A womanly figure stood by to observe the children and watch over them. She was very nice to Terry. He watched in horror as the monkeys removed their smiling in symbiotic masks to reveal monstrous faces of untold horror,
Starting point is 00:04:17 ugly and old beasts from hell whose form would haunt Terry forevermore. They were no friends of children. They were stealers of youthful joy and faith and innocence and hope. It had always and only ever been a tortuous and evil relationship that these things had to the little boy that was so excited at the prospect of space aliens and UFOs flying over his backyard. But in too short a time, these first memories had run their course. and Terry was only left with mounting questions. Act two approached, like an inescapable phantom stalking down a narrow corridor to one's bed.
Starting point is 00:04:58 Terry must remain. Brian, I got bad news. The other day, I was using one of the big box soap products to wash myself, and I got this weird urge to go buy a Stanley cup and fill it with iced coffee, and it started to feel a little cold in the house. I just wanted to wrap myself up in like a heavy wool blanket. and then also, I started Googling ticket prices to Taylor Swift concerts. Ben, what are you doing?
Starting point is 00:05:32 Don't you know that these big box soap companies just jam all their soaps full of hormone-disrupting chemicals? They're probably turning you into a girl. Well, I know that now, but what am I supposed to do about it? Ben, you ignorant normie. All you've needed to do is go to Indigo sundry soap.com and support a great Christian family business that's making all sorts of soaps that are completely free of hormone disrupting chemicals and other NASA. Okay, I am literally going to indigo sundry soap.com right now. Tell me what to buy. Ben,
Starting point is 00:06:01 what I would recommend doing is clicking on bundles and then selecting the best one for you. You could get the men six-pack. You could get my favorite, the clay bundle. Ooh, I like the pipe and jug bundle. That seems cool. Or a men six-pack, because that'll make me feel like I have something that I actually don't. So true, King. And you know what else I heard? Because they're such good friends of the show, Indigo Sundry Soap Company is offering 10% off your order. If you just use all caps, discount code Haunted Cosmos, no spaces. Wait, Brian, you're going way too fast. I didn't get all that.
Starting point is 00:06:31 Is that information in the show description? Ben, you ignorant normie, it's always in the show description. Okay, so I'm going to go to Indigosundrysoap.com. I'm going to pick the men's six-pack bundle, and I'm going to use code Haunted Cosmos at checkout, all caps, no spaces. And if I forgot all that, it's in the description of the show. Of course, Ben, and if you just do that, then you will stop wanting to do all of those girly things, and maybe you'll, I don't know, maybe want to buy a classic car to restore or something dignified.
Starting point is 00:06:59 We are living in the beginning of a new Reformation. Christian content is being produced at a rapid rate. Art, businesses, publications, ministries, and a thousand other mediums are acting as agents to get us out of our current anti-Christian world. And all of these mediums are going to need marketing to help them get more eyes and ears on them. New Dominion Design Co is ready to provide that help. Unashamedly Christian, New Dominion Design Co exists to labor alongside fellow members of the body of Christ as we engage in this great work of Reformation.
Starting point is 00:07:29 With over 15 years of design and marketing experience spanning across multiple industries, New Dominion Design Co was launched in 2024 to help like-minded businesses, ministries, institutions, publishing houses, and other content creators around the globe raise the bar of excellence in our Christian culture. If you're ready to build, New Dominion Design Co is ready to work with you. Visit New Dominiondesignion.com, that's new dominiondesignco.com,
Starting point is 00:07:58 and reach out to Jenkins for all your graphic needs. And as always, that link will be in the description. If you have a young family like me, then you work hard every day to ensure that you care properly for them. Providing for a young family is challenging with rising costs, and it doesn't look like things are going to change in the nearer. future. Maybe you've thought like I have that I wish I had started investing years ago. Maybe then my family would be in a better financial position. Well, like they say, the best time to plant a tree
Starting point is 00:08:27 was 10 years ago, but the second best time is today. Don't let the benefit of time go to waste on your financial planning for retirement or inheritance for your children. Joe Garrison, with backwards planning financial, works hard to help families achieve their goals. He's a Christian who works with one of the largest and most trusted financial service companies in the world. Whether you have millions and assets or are just starting to invest, Joe Garrison can help you reach your goals to grow the kingdom and leave a good legacy for your generations. Visit backwardsplanningfinancial.num.com. That's backwards planning financial.n.m.com. Or call Joe at 615-767-2555-255-5.com. to prepare for the future.
Starting point is 00:09:16 The testimonials presented may not be representative of the experience of other clients and are not a guarantee of future performance or success. Brian, you know what's a bummer? There aren't many skin care products that are both good for you and also not super flowery or feminine in how they smell. Sometimes I want to smell more earthy but still good, you know what I mean? Totally my guy. But actually, our friends at Grey Toad Tallow just dropped a new option for their skin product
Starting point is 00:09:43 called sandalwood and vanilla that ticks those boxes to perfection. Dog, please tell me it boasts a less aggressive scent that doesn't smell like pot-pery. And can it be used on sensitive areas like your face? Of course it can. Just head over to graytoed tallow.com. That's graytoed tallow.com to explore this new product and more, including their brand new tallow sunscreen.
Starting point is 00:10:07 What? Enter code Cosmos 15. That's COS M-O-S-15, all caps, for 15%. off your order. It was another one of the short ferrying trips Terry had taken at other times in the space people's saucers. They moved so quickly and yet with such incredible subtlety. It was like sitting on a monorail train that is particularly comfortable and smooth. One could sense the immense acceleration and agility, but only just. He knew where he was going. He had been there before. The saucer whirled around the world's great satellite, Our Lady Luna.
Starting point is 00:10:49 after only a few minutes worth of travel time, Terry could barely make out the dark edge of the moon, against the thin and vye onyyx black that painted the cosmos behind it. As he strained to look more carefully, he saw lights as those of sprawling and sleepless cities peppering the surface of the moon's dark side. Such life there was in the universe. He later learned that these peoples mine a special type of rock that's only found on our little companion through space and time. As the saucer turned for its final approach, Terry straightened his body once more and desperately tried to relax. He knew what was coming.
Starting point is 00:11:30 The ship was vast. It stretched out before his eyes flatter than flat with bright light and clean air. Still, the other end could not be discerned by its being so tightly concealed in the focal point of vision. It was so big that it all eventually shrank down to a single dog. But still, Terry knew that there was more activity in that dot than in an entire city on the earth. Silent and gliding vehicles made their way hither and yawn all around Terry, like people carriers in an airport or droids in some dystopian novel. Walkways moved, undulating smoothly under the feet of any who trod upon them, enabling the inhabitants to cover great distances in very little time.
Starting point is 00:12:16 with some instinctual, an almost animalistic tinge of discomfort, like the phantom pain of a limb that has been removed. Terry looked to see a group of taller beings walking toward him. They had hurt him so many times before. Their insect-like forms and overwhelming sense of cosmological superiority over Terry made him feel like no more than a worm before them. Indeed, that is precisely how they saw him, too. But just before his trepidation evolved to complete panic, his guide and companion pulled his attention
Starting point is 00:12:52 away from the tall things and towards one of the enormous windows, painting all sides of this flying civilization. The companion, who had known Terry since his earliest years of boyhood, had become a sort of mother to him whenever he found himself brought off the world again. She was not a human, but she was most definitely a she. Indeed, at one point she told him that she was half of a human. The other half was always unknown to Terry, but it must have been something seriously grotesque, or so he thought. Despite her being half of a monstrosity,
Starting point is 00:13:29 she was nonetheless a sincere and maternal comfort, one Terry cherished as his only place of rest on these voyages of his. They gazed down on the moon together. After a period of silence that didn't feel long enough, She told Terry that the ship he was on was one of their biggest, one they could not even take in front of the moon. If she did, they claimed, even a child could notice the oddity with the naked eye and expose this great galactic conspiracy.
Starting point is 00:13:59 As the two spoke, Terry had a brief moment of existential cognitive awareness that's akin to a normal man thinking too long about the name of a mundane and everyday thing. Like if one thinks about why we call a fence, offense for enough time, the name will start to sound like it just doesn't quite fit. In this similar instance, Terry suddenly remembered that he and his companion were not actually talking to each other. Rather, they were communicating to one another via messages in their heads and nothing more. The brief moment of realization passed as suddenly as it came, and Terry thought nothing more
Starting point is 00:14:38 of it. As they continued to study the labyrinthine lights painting the moon and white and orange, Terry asked his guide where she and her people were actually from. She informed him that their home was very far away, and placed with two suns and many moons where nothing like our conception of night-time ever occurred. She told him that things grow well there, and that the whole planet is exceedingly beautiful with no deserts of either ice, sand, or stone. Terry finally ventured to ask if it was possible for him to go and see her world,
Starting point is 00:15:15 but this request was quickly and even sternly rejected. He recovered his deflated spirit and inquired further about all the things clearly happening down on our moon. The woman told him that many of her own people were always there, but they were not alone. Terry learned that the humans mined the moon as well, a great number of them, in fact, and they had been for many decades. This revelation shocked Terry to his core, but as with most other things that struck him in this place, it quickly faded to apathy and disinterest. Like fog struck by a warm sun, these memories faded like the first,
Starting point is 00:15:54 and Act 3 finally started to form in front of him. This was why he was here at all, why he had been put under in the first place, to recount the incident that night at Devil's Den. Are you a Christian struggling to find companies, align with your values and beliefs? Well, Squirrely Joe's has you covered for at least all of your coffee needs. All of their coffee is hand-selected and roasted fresh every day by a family of fellow believers.
Starting point is 00:16:30 Try them out and you'll savor exceptional coffee while knowing that your investment supports a company committed to following God's teachings and upholding truth and righteousness, ensuring your hard-earned money contributes to the growth of God's kingdom. So stop giving that hard-earned money to pagans who support evil. instead buy Christian. And right now, Squirley Joe's has a fantastic offer for our listeners. You get your first bag of coffee for free. What?
Starting point is 00:16:56 All you have to do is cover shipping. Are you kidding? What? So head over to Squirleyjoos.com slash haunted cosmos. That's Squirleyjoos.com slash haunted cosmos to claim your free bag of coffee. Let's flip and go. Link in the description below. I'm a poet. Didn't even know it.
Starting point is 00:17:20 Terry jerked his handout to find and grab the one. belonging to the Air Force Major who was administering the hypnosis, an eccentric fellow who insisted on being called just Brad. He found it and squeezed it out of a sudden onset fright that was completely crippling to him. He felt as though he had just jumped into icy water. He struggled to breathe at all, let alone speak. In a nurturing voice akin to a father, talking to his infant child, Brad reassured Terry that nothing could hurt him anymore, that all of all of what he was seeing and was about to see wasn't really happening again. This helped little. Brad did not know the extent of the torture. Terry was reliving. He saw the truth flash in front of
Starting point is 00:18:05 him like technicolor neon, sharp against the black backdrop and unmistakable. Their strange obsession with the trip idea once they had committed, the mutual understanding that they should both definitely not camp in the mainstream spots, but should find a place that's higher up, wild. It all made sense now. These things, these beings, had somehow told Toby exactly where to go. This was no coincidental encounter. It had been planned all along. They wanted he and Toby there and then. They orchestrated the abduction weeks, perhaps months or years in advance. The two had fallen right into the twisted games of some higher power. Terry recounted how they had eventually found the spot given to them to camp at. The car had to be parked right at the edge of the meadow, lest the craft's landing be disturbed by it.
Starting point is 00:19:06 As the vision continued, Terry was shocked to remember he and Toby hiking on that first day of arrival, trudging far deeper into the wilderness than either of them were quite comfortable with. They had found a rock punching through the side of a bluff and stopped there before turning back, but low. All at once they grew inexplicably tired and dozed off to a deep sleep. This was the first of two abductions that day for Terry, but at this one they left Toby behind to rest. They had big plans for him later. Despite the potent effect of the hypnosis and the drug that almost seemed worthy of sacerdotal reverenced Terry now, he still could only remember very little from the first abduction. There was minimal pain. They stole his
Starting point is 00:19:52 bodily fluids in a shameless and undignified fashion. Presently, Terry found himself back on the rock, waking from the strange stupor at the same time as Toby, and frantically following Toby back to the camp to set up their tent and get a fire going for the night. The night blurred its frames and dizzying succession before Terry's eyes, until he was finally lying on the air mattress once more, watching the three strange stars rotate about themselves and slowly rise from the horizon until they lingered directly above their solitary meadow. Devil's Den and Devil. Presently the massive black craft, for that is what it proved itself to
Starting point is 00:20:31 be, descended from the stars, until it hung like a chandelier that felt only just outside of the two men's reach. Terry recalled the inexplicable apathy and recurring fatigue both he and Toby felt. Fear was far from them as they lazily pulled their mattresses into the tent to fall asleep. After a short rest, the ship continued its slow descent until it was only just above the trees dotting the perimeter of their idyllic meadow. The air remained still and all around them no creature dared to make a stir or a sound, save for the white beams of light emanating from the black triangle in the muted hue of sky blue reflecting off their tent.
Starting point is 00:21:14 The night was free with any signs of life. Terry and Toby were cloaked under the cover of dark star power and felt nothing more than weariness. The silent lights on the silent obelisk from Nix shone with unflickering power at the corners, while little dots of other light peppered the sides of the vessel like a skyscraper in a sleepless town. It must have been five stories tall.
Starting point is 00:21:38 Upon the further prodding of Brad, to feed more information to him from the visions, Terry snapped at the major as if offended at the uncouth and wanton behavior of a man who ought to know better. There are some things we're not supposed to talk about, Brad. I'm not supposed to talk about them. You know that. It's a secret, and there are consequences if you disobey. They'll make us both pay. We're in danger now.
Starting point is 00:22:03 Through the fog of noise and light, Terry heard Brad reassure him. that they had received full permission from the space people to hear all that Terry had to tell. Somehow this worked, and Terry pressed on in spite of his own misgivings and apprehension. He watched, as he and Toby were woken from sleep, only to be swallowed up in a cold and white light that flowed like viscous oil around their bodies.
Starting point is 00:22:30 It was a light with mass and momentum, with pressure and strength. Terry took the largest breath he could in and let out with a mighty scream. But there was only silence. His mind predicted rage and noise, but all it registered was an uncanny hum. There was no hope now. Once it had enveloped them entirely,
Starting point is 00:22:52 they vanished from the tent and were carried up like particles of sand in the ocean, into the craft that brooded over them with such evident malice. He rediscovered himself inside of the craft and quickly noted how large it was, and yet how it was still dwarfed by the larger moon base he could still faintly remember from just moments before. Three silver and supple saucers sat in a hanger off to his right. To his left he saw a crowd of people, real people, humans just like him.
Starting point is 00:23:23 They were destitute, emaciated, injured, and held emotionless expressions on their faces. Men and women, boys and girls. They all waited for their turn on the great white table, that was rooted like the pillars of the world itself at the end of their line. Screams rang out from the table. As Terry tried to keep his wits about him, he scanned the rest of the vessel and could see more humans, only these were not victims like he and Toby in the crowd,
Starting point is 00:23:53 no, these were evidently fellow workers and passengers of some dignity on the craft. They wore gray suits with orange insignias of rank on the shoulders. At this revelation, Terry could hear Brad, and another OSI officer in the room curse under their breath. He was not supposed to notice that part. He turned again, and his glance met death itself. One of the tall, insect-like creature strode toward his group, with uncaring pomp before quickly turning to look on Terry.
Starting point is 00:24:24 His look was unlike anything he had conceived of before. It was like being looked at by your maker himself, by one who seized through your skin and sinew and bone and marrow, and blood into the very life that makes you, you, but with no benevolence. In a moment, Terry understood that this monster had gathered ever thought and feeling and action and word Terry had ever had or done or experienced in his life. He felt spent and violated at just a second's glance from these things. What must he expect from their coming torment?
Starting point is 00:25:02 He and the little cluster of people were shuffled like lab rats, along a narrow corridor, were walled and sealed with a stainless steel-like metal that had been brushed white, or perhaps it was white naturally. Terry glanced up to see that they were passing massive pink and orange-colored panels on one side of the hallway. As he focused his eyes, he saw that they were not solid panels after all, but were rather windows peering into translucent liquid. It was like being a kid again and traipsing through the glass tunnel at a local aquarium
Starting point is 00:25:34 with mouth agape at all the marine creatures. How he wished it had only been that. For what he saw in these tanks made even the most inhuman of fish look like a familiar friend in comparison. The monsters within the water were writhing in what was apparently a burning and endless pain. They twisted and twitched,
Starting point is 00:25:55 and their love craftian eyes begged for a death that refused to come. They were serpentine in form, lizard-like demons. But they behaved as anything other than a mindless brute. They were intelligent. In that moment of terrible realization, Terry reeled back and disgust and heartache. These things had human features. What insanity from Dr. Moreau's lab has infested and tempted these beings?
Starting point is 00:26:23 What dark and necromanic breeding had been done between man and whatever this other godless evil was to produce such ugliness. Terry noticed his breathing began to quicken and spiral out of control. He looked away from the faces and composed. posed himself once more. He looked straight ahead to see that these tanks continued as far as he could see. Hundreds, thousands of tanks filled with dozens of inbred and half-bred horrors from hell. The walk of shame passed the tanks of torture concluded, and Terry stood in the midst of his group in an open room, still toned with silver and white. Most of the people around him were nude
Starting point is 00:27:04 and held their clothes shamefully over themselves but did not dare put them on. All at once, Terry noticed the familiar profile of his guide, his alien mother, his friend, at his side, and he grew immensely more calm. Neither spoke a word. Her presence was enough for him. In a sudden transition, the woman was gone, and dread had recommenced, claiming its rightful place over the entire scene. Little gray humanoid things were undressing everyone, including Terry, The room was cold. Terry's boots were still on as he was led and nudged and fully pushed towards the great table. It stood like a chalk obelisk, turned on its side where druids might spill blood for the sake of the gods, venomous hunger and lust. Ominous. The table seemed to be self-aware and alive, but in such a way as to project a power and superiority that surpassed that of even the tall beings. The effect was so that as Terry lay on it, he knew full well,
Starting point is 00:28:03 that he was still surrounded on all sides with enemies and shadows. He could no longer move. No straps held him, no weight pressed him down. He was just stuck. Perhaps the table's own gravity is what kept him. In the short distance but muffled as through some walls, Terry could hear the wailings of a woman. They were not of physical pain, nor of any earthly panic,
Starting point is 00:28:28 but were instead, like unto, the desperate cries of a mother who has just watched her nursing child die at the hands of merciless death itself. Terry's body was still, in all his will to strain against his imprisonment, waneed away until he was limp. The tall ones supervised as the little gray things scurried here and there, poking and prodding with shocking strength, following the orders of their overlords. Finally, Terry understood that it seemed as though these little gray things were not only
Starting point is 00:29:00 not people, but they weren't even alive at all. They're more akin to an undead android with some minuscule judgment overpowered by a robotic calculation and will to obey. They struggled with Terry's bootlaces. He could feel the nervousness rise from his gut until it stuck fast like a knife in his chest. Layton and subconscious memory served to warn him that this torment he had so often undergone in life was set to begin again very shortly. He tried to scream again, but no sound escaped him. The tall one bent down to look at his face in the same way Terry might have looked upon a trout he had just caught and was preparing to gut. He begged in his mind for the creature not to look at him, to at least have mercy on him in that regard and spare him from its piercing and
Starting point is 00:29:51 knowing study. The creature did not care for these pleas, though. But not because of some sadistic pleasure in what he was doing. There was no hate for Terry to be found in this creature. On the contrary, there was only what seemed to be an academic interest, an appreciation, you might say. All in a single second, Terry deduced this thing's desire to study and know him, how he works, in an effort to better produce more of those amphibious hecatongarees he had witnessed earlier. Would that Cronus would slay this false god with an adamant sickle? Without hesitation, and without any thought for numbing the actual areas that would soon beg for it, the evil, tall one simply began to cut at Terry's flesh,
Starting point is 00:30:36 peeling it back to stab and poke and move all manner of things around in order to gain some insight into the work of God displayed in man. Elabrat indeed. Terry is shot through with unimaginable pain and finally understood why these things have always been so careful to make him forget. For who could experience this sort of thing and remain sane, remain willing to live at all. The blade and other contraptions of pressure and cold force
Starting point is 00:31:07 moved to his chest and began to inflict a new wave of torment on the man. His silent screams availed him not, and yet they did somehow seem to irritate the one performing the procedures. Terry started at a voice echoing through his head. Stop screaming. We are not harming you. You know us. You will go back and you will not remember.
Starting point is 00:31:30 Why do you scream? With that, the cold and uncanny finger of the creature reached out and touched Terry on the head. He lost consciousness. He was back in the tent. He had watched in his mind's eye as they crudely carried he and Toby into the tent and positioned them as near as could be recalled from their abduction back on the mattresses. Terry watched dimly and with choppy lucidity until he finally woke up and looked over to see Toby sitting on his knees and staring out of the tent at something. His friend was crying.
Starting point is 00:32:06 He shuffled over to him and watched as the little gray things ran like moths to the light and swam within it before dissolving and floating back up into the ship. The harrowing experience played out once more before Terry, and also via him, had concluded with the familiar image of his lost friend, weeping in front of him and aching all over from the torments, pains, experiments and burns that he hadn't endured at the hand of these fallen gods from the stars. Brad interrogated Terry, asking him if he was sure that he had not taken any pictures of anything that they had seen that fateful night. Terry, truthfully, said no, and that seemed to satisfy everyone in the room. Immediately after this questioning, and while
Starting point is 00:33:06 still holding on to Brad's hand, Terry walked back down the stairwell of his mind that he had ascended to recapture these suppressed memories, turning off the light of illumination that Brad had instructed him to imagine and then turn on when all of it began, and Terry started to count down from ten. When he reached one, he opened his eyes completely exhausted and discovered that Brad was already gone. Though drained, Terry was also elated, for he had cheated the Air Force. you see. Terry could still remember everything, despite Brad's best efforts to wipe his memory permanently of these experiences at the very end of his hypnosis. He had foiled the end game, and now owned these memories and visions as something that no one could ever take away from him.
Starting point is 00:33:55 Soon, Terry Lovelace was reinstated to his old post and endured the remainder of his days in the Air Force with his head down, doing good work, and never getting into any trouble. didn't reenlist. As he exited that testing an overwhelmingly dark chapter of his life, he was left with just one singular question. What would he do with all these memories? Some years later, he would have his experience with missing time on a Saturday morning motorcycle ride. All of these things would be drudged back to the surface, demanding his attention and study. And eventually, after some careful thought, Terry knew what he would have to do. more Haunted Cosmos, then make your way over to Patreon, where you can get early access to our content as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with Brian and myself.
Starting point is 00:35:53 So go to patreon.com slash hauntedcosmos and sign up now.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.