The NoSleep Podcast - S19 Ep15: NoSleep Podcast S19E15

Episode Date: May 14, 2023

It’s Episode 15 of Season 19. We ponder weak and weary with tales about oppressive overlords.“The Chamber of the All-Seeing Eye” written by Liam Hogan (Story starts around 00:03:35)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – David Ault, Grimshaw – Guy Woodward, Lord – Jake Benson, Talken – Graham Rowat, Spencer – Andy Cresswell, Guard – James Cleveland“Burrower” written by Cyrus Amelia Fisher (Story starts around 00:25:40)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Erika Sanderson“The Utopian Mask” written by Jack Moody (Story starts around 00:32:50)Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Narrator – Peter Lewis, Old Man – Graham Rowat, Child – Dan Zappulla, Prisoner #1 – Matthew Bradford, Prisoner #2 – Jeff Clement, Prisoner #3 – Elie Hirschman“The Tragic Events Befalling Lizaveta” written by Nicholas Wagner (Story starts around 01:17:45)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Brother Orestes – Mike DelGaudio, Gunther of Ulm – Jeff Clement, Anjou – Matthew Bradford, Ludwig Wittelsbach – Atticus Jackson“Soot Scamp” written by Laura Nettles (Story starts around 01:44:40)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Narrator – Sarah Ruth Thomas, Damian – Kyle Akers, Rebecca – Nichole Goodnight“The Day the Ropes Fell from the Sky” written by Alex Blackwood (Story starts around 02:02:35)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Jesse Cornett, Old man – David CummingsThis episode is sponsored by:ZocDoc – Zocdoc is a free app that shows you doctors who are patient-reviewed, take your insurance, and are available when you need them. Go to Zocdoc.com/nosleep and download the Zocdoc app for free. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today.ShipStation – ShipStation makes it super easy to manage and ship all your online orders faster, cheaper and more efficiently. Keep growing your business all year long with ShipStation. Use promo code NOSLEEP today at shipstation.com to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial.Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about Edgar Allan Poe from author Rene RehnClick here to learn more about Jack MoodyClick here to learn more about Nicholas WagnerExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“The Chamber of the All-Seeing Eye” illustration courtesy of Hasani WalkerAudio program ©2023 – Creative Reason Media Inc. – All Rights Reserved – No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. The works of Edgar Allan Poe reside in the public domain.

In the dark shadows of the Rue Morg, to the rhythm of the stolen telltale heart, as the black cat swings upon the pendulum, and the cask offers its sherry, deep and dry. As you knock at our chamber door, we open and usher you. Our sleepless tales for you in store, and the terror shall be lifted. Raise yourself for the no sleep. Come to the No Sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. As we explore the works of Edgar Allan Poe this season,

we've seen how he touched many of the major themes of horror. This week, we're delving into a theme which affects all of us in big or insidious ways. I'm speaking about the loss of control. It's not difficult to find horror in the notion of finding yourself in situations over which you have no control. Whether it's your life entirely spinning out of control, or if you find yourself under the thumb of a person who controls much of what you do, you quickly realize how much we fight against scenarios where we have little to no control.

And they might be situations that are considered horror in ways, well, less serious. A mean boss or CEO who makes your life miserable. You can't escape because you need that job, right? Maybe it's a family member. These things happen in our modern day lives quite regularly. Now let's imagine how things were back in the olden days. Think medieval times when lords, religious leaders, and other people in authority could control almost every aspect of your life and usually doing so in malevolent ways.

You can quickly see how horror can grow from losing any and all freedom in your life. Paul wrote a rather gruesome little tale called Hop Frog about a court jester who endures repeated humiliations from an abusive king and his ministers before finally extracting his revenge. The jester, known as Hop Frog, and his friend Trapetta, were people with dwarfism stolen from their respective home countries and brought his presence for the king from one of his generals. Could there be any greater loss of control than that? It should surprise no one that the tale and the macabre revenge extracted by Hop Frog and Tripetta contain a sense of justice intermingled with the horror.

In this episode, we share tales where people live with that sense of having no control over their lives. We hope you find the horror therein to be devilishly and delightfully out of control. And now, our tales come to you upon a midnight dreary. Best not to ponder them while weak and weary. In our first tale, we meet soldiers on the battlefield. They're victorious in battle and are now tasked with. scavenging the battlefield for weapons and armor, a common practice back in those days of ancient warfare. But in this tale, shared with us by author Liam Hogan, some of the soldiers are scavenging

for uncommon items by order of their lord, items a damn sight more ghastly than you might expect. Performing this tale are David Alt, Guy Woodward, Jake Benson, Graham Rowett, Andy Cresswell, and James Cleveland. So as it is today, it was back then, doing foul work for an underpaying overlord, one who, in this case, was looking to stalk the chamber of the all-seeing eye. The dead do not rest in peace for long,

not on the battlefield, though we have to wait our turn to disturb them. To the victors, the spoils, and we are neither victor nor vanquished, merely scavengers of war. The soldiers pillage for weapons and armour, pocketing purses and rings and other valuables as they do. The brave men plunder anything they're short of, which, depending on the length of the campaign, can range from boots, belts, to even the shirts off their foes or friends' backs. They do us the courtesy of dispatching the severely wounded while they're at it, though there are always

tales of what happens when they miss one or two, and a shock it is to find someone still clinging to life in the bleak days following battle. By then, the army has moved on to their next bloody encounter to take their turn to lie in the churned-up mud and be picked clean by others like us. We are less discriminating than the soldiers. With cloth wound tight over our faces to keep the vile stench at bay, we search for the same things the men of war did. hoping in their haste they might overlook a body or two. But we'll also take the rest of the fallen's clothes, the remaining weapons and armour shattered or not.

We'll even take their teeth. And on this particular battlefield, we'll take their eyes. Eyes, sire. I heard the echo from Grimshaw when the local lord on his high horse passed down his strange request. Who do you want them for? Never you mind that. You collect Alpay, a shilling for each pound of eyes. And they call us ghouls. Do you know how many eyes it takes to make a pound?

We didn't either, but soon found out using a butcher's scales to make sure we were being dealt fair. More than two dozen, even after we'd done what we could to bulk them up, dribbling in extra blood and adding strips of glistening pale yellow fat, and anything else we thought we could get away with. The Lord would have gotten cleaner trophies if he'd paid a heapenie and I instead, a penny for a matching pair. We weren't the only ones after those tenderest of fruit, the crows by day and all sorts of vermin by night.

We paid a pittance to skinny kids to scare the pests away, beating them when they abjectly failed, none of which stopped us collecting what we normally reap. The eyes were an unexpected bonus. Not a harvest for the squeamish, but battlefields never are, especially when each scavenger fights over the same grim spoils, curses ringing out as a body has turned to find it already one of the blind dead. It was the same butcher that provided the scales, who offered to provide sheep's eyes as well, but it was Grimshaw who paid the price. They took my eyes.

His bearded cheeks were drenched in blood when I came upon him not far from the castle. To make up the shortfall. I took the shilling he'd been paid, fending off his sightless blows before robbing him of his stick as well. As I said, there's no profit in being squeamish. Grimshaw was a fool.

Torkin grunted in the tavern that evening. Sheep's eyes don't look nothing like human eyes. Maybe he was hoping they wouldn't be checked. When someone pays money to the likes ass, they always check. How they expect to be ripped off? If the battle had been a famous one, which this was not destined to be, then even scraps of bloody tunic became valuable souvenirs to be sold in towns to which the news spread. And when those tokens of war were exhausted, more could always be created.

Twisted pieces of scrap metal from the blacksmith, broken shafts from ancient farmyard tools, all would have their stories of glory told. And stories they would be, invented by the quick-witted and silver-tonged, any doubts expertly quell. The tellers of the tales would drink for free. Even if he was not willing to sell his precious keepsake, And it was always for sale for the right price, though he would keen over its loss until he manufactured another. He had sold his story, had he not?

Thus were the far reaches of the kingdom kept up to date with battles that defined their future, and if every word was a lie, it was no less honest than the bloodshed it spoke of. We each had our gruesome task, our pay to be earned and spent. We never could save any of it. The coin of the day was the meat and drink of the night, forcing us up with each dismal dawn in hope of a better windfall. To have a full purse, to escape the pestilent airs of the cold and silent battlefield. After Grimshaw, it was slim pickings.

Tempers frayed as bellies went hungry. When the harvest of eyes dried up, the Lord paid another visit to the battlefield, viewing the mounds of bodies with distaste. Despite what people think we never bury the debt, too much work, and besides it would be like burying money. Not a lot and none for us, but after a year or two, those who still called this God-forsaken land home

would collect the bones, pile them high on carts to be taken away by grim-faced men to mills, and crushed into gritty grey powder. And then carted back to feed the full. fields where once men had fallen, the farmers planted their sons as well as their seeds. The Lord had a man with him, equally as tall and thin and sporting a pair of eyeglasses on thin wire. The effect should have made him look like an owl, a comic harmless version of a monk or a learned man. They did not. His eyes magnified by the peculiar optics gained only in their ability to skewer

Their ability to dissect. Slim picking, Spencer. Perhaps we need another war. There was a bark of a laugh, and for the life of me I could not tell where the joke lay. There are other means. You? I cursed. I had been lurking too near the pair, and now I would pay the price.

Me, sire? Come here. I went as ordered, a cloud of insects following, the pit of my stomach crawling. as much as those corpses at the base of the pile. The flies avoided the two men and didn't even seem to bother the Lord's horse. I hardly blamed them. Sire? I cringed as I eyed the intricate work on his saddle and guessed its worth.

And then there was a gleaming gold coin in the Lordship's gloved hand, and my attention was snared. Do you think you could get more eyes if the price were right? Single gold coin. More money than I had possessed any time over the last year. A single gold coin was enough to leave the dead behind and chance my luck elsewhere as others had. A single gold coin was clothes that didn't stink, food, drink, maybe even some company. But it was only a single gold coin and would only take me so far.

For a pound of eyes, sire? Spencer, how many more do we need? The other rubbed his chin, frowned at me through those evil lenses. Two and a half pound should do it. A gold coin then for two and a half pounds. I shook my head. No, no, sir, a gold, a pound, surely. I whined like an abject cur testing my luck.

Very well. A gold per pound. And a coin in advance. In burning swine, aren't you? The Lord said it without malice, so I grinned up at him and wagged my head. My lord, you cannot trust. No, but he knows what happened to the last man who tried to short changes. Yes?

My neck was beginning to feel sore with all the nodding, my cheeks with the grinning. What's your name? I gave it, and a moment later a coin fell to the mud. The horse kicked up more as it was spurred on as I scrambled for my fee. The gold had fallen in the ship. but I still attempted to dent it with my teeth, pocketing it with glee when it proved genuine. I was less a fool than a thief than that man Spencer presumed. The coin was vital. With a flash of gold, I was able to convince the poorest in the ravaged villages the armies had marched through,

the late arrivals, the starving scavengers who had received news too late that I could turn their fortunes around. An eye, they would say, doubtful, though they had already heard word of this peculiar crop. You have two, I would reply. Will it hurt, they would ask, squeezing them tightly shut? Yes, it will, but it was quick. Two weeks of practice on the dead had honed my skills. A nick with my knife, a press with the thumb, a sharp yank to rip free the mess that chased the glistening white sphere, retaining as much as possible to add to the weight.

So quick was I that, before the man quite realized, I had taken both eyes. Perhaps I wouldn't have gotten away with it if he had kept one of them open. I can a see would come the victim's plaintive wail as blood dripped into their lap. Relax, I would say, pushing them back into their seat. Your other eye is fine. And it was, sitting in my wooden bowl ready to be added to the rest. But your sight needs to adjust. Give it, uh, oh, an hour.

Wait until you can see again before you try and move, and here. Into their grasping hands, I'd force their payment. Not gold, not even a coin. A flattened musketball usually, and there were plenty of those. By the time the recipient grew suspicious, by the time they realized sight was not coming back, by the time they began shouting, then screaming for help. I would be on to the next dingy tavern, ready to offer the most needy. a glint of gold. Even so, I knew as I traipsed up to the Lord's castle with a wooden bucket

covered with straw, that I should not linger once paid, glad I had not run into anyone curious about my unusual load, until the suspicious guard at the gate. Yes. Special delivery for the Lord himself. You can leave it here. I shook my head. Needs paying for. You'll be paid, assuming the goods are good. The discussion was just beginning to heat up when the guard fell silent, as though his tongue had been magiced away, and I saw a glint of eyeglasses in the gloom of the gatehouse. You have them?

You have the gold? He batted that aside, nodded at the guard who fumbled with his keys. Once I was through, Spencer beckoned me to follow. Bring them. Giddy and nervous, I wondered what riches I might see. But we did not head to the Great Hall, instead to a dark, locked side entrance, to steps leading down, an acrid taint on the air, more doors, more locks. My legs had turned to jelly when the first of those doors was firmly locked behind us.

There would be no escape, not without the necromancer's permission, but the long-legged Spencer didn't even check to see if I was following as I struggled to keep up. We came to an even more solid door, more keys turning in complicated sequence. Around us walls exuded cold dankness. We were somewhere deep underground cellars or dungeons. A torch burnt feebly in a sconce, as if not up to the task in such a place. A sharp, clink, clink, kept the time. Spencer paused at the door, gave me the barest of glances, and then swung it briskly open as though it was he that owned the castle.

The Lord peered from a desk covered in books and parchment, cluttered with strange devices shrouded by burning incense that did little to improve the air. He looked tired and angry. But when he saw me, when he glimpsed the bucket in my hand... We have them? Spencer brushed the straw from the top of the pale, stared into the murky depths. If he had any comments about the freshness of the produce, he kept them to himself, though I was beginning to regret not demanding more, were these not better specimens than those we had so far collected from the dead?

We do. A beam split the Lord's face. At last, bring him here. I hefted the pail once more. It had grown heavier all the way up the hill, looking over my shoulder every few steps to check I wasn't being followed, wasn't about to be stopped and asked difficult questions by some brother or neighbor of one whose eyes I carried. I would be glad to be shot of this gruesome burden. The Lord scowled as I

made to lift it to his bench. Not here. Then, sire, he waved dismissively towards a pit behind him. A copper vessel, the size of a hand-cart, had been sunk into the ground from which the charnel stench rose. As I approached, fetid gases burst forth, and I gagged and nearly stumbled. Me? Who never felt even the slightest churn of the stomach as I relieved the pungent dead of what little they still bore. Bubbles agitated the thick liquid until it seemed almost alive as though there were some foul fish plying the murky gruel, its broad back breaking the surface. And then it stopped swiveling, and a huge singular eyeball came to rest looking directly at me. Well, go on. The Lord's voice was bright, almost mocking.

Feed the old sea and eye. What the hell? I began to say, acid climbing my throat to cut the words off. Not hell, necromancy. The creation of a single eye formed from hundreds, thousands of others. Tip the last of them in now. I fell to my knees, the eye-tracked. me all the while. My trembling limbs obeyed the necromancer's commands. Reluctantly stretching

out my arms, I tipped the pale towards the cauldron, unable to tear my gaze away. But perhaps it was not the words of Spencer I obeyed. An all-seeing eye does exactly that. With it, we can spy into the throne room of any kingdom. See an entire battle laid out as though we were Eagles. Watch who visits the queen late at night. With an all-seeing eye, we will have the intelligence we need to sway armies, blackmail kings, to seize power. I gasped for air, for sense. The eyes I had tipped in, floating like Frogspawn, were being sucked under, disappearing beneath the viscera one by one. It feeds on eyes. Of course. Now, Stand back, man.

I have a final incantation to perform. I half-suffled from the rancid pool's terrible occupant. If I could have spoken if the words could form on my tongue, I would have soundly cursed these fools, warned them that they were meddling in something they could not control. Or maybe that is just the benefit of hindsight. As the necromancer's last words faded away, an expectant hush fell on the underground room as I groveled.

on the stone floor. The sickly yellow orb floated proud of the putrid swamp of its bath. It had been circling languidly to the words, and I was glad it was no longer staring at me. Every so often it rolled lazily over, then rolled equally lazily back, viscous liquid spilling from it the air so foul it stung. As I blinked the wetness from my eyes, I realized that this monstrous thing, bereft of eyelids was also doing the equivalent of a blink. For some reason, that made it all the more horrific. Is he done?

The necromancer scowled and then smoothed his features. Ask it. Ask it to reveal all to you. Show me the mat room of King Alfred. The eye snapped to where he had spoken, the iridescent iris sharpening and the pupil narrowing. I could feel its glower even though it wasn't aimed at me. I sensed shelves and parchments at the edge of my vision that didn't belong in this subterranean chamber.

Yes, I see. I see it. An incomprehensible wail warbled from behind me as veins of black threaded the giant eye that vibrated with demonic intensity. The necromancer was at my shoulder. as the Lord gurgled, incoherent. I felt a hand, saw it reach before me, distracting my gaze from the terror. The hand held a dagger. Use it! I felt a shift as the all-seeing eye altered its focus,

and the man behind me recoiled, croaking like a wounded animal. But he left the knife with me, so I did what was bidden and used it. After I had fed both the lords and the necromancer's eyes to the seething cauldron, I basked in the vision with which the eye rewarded me. Rooms full of treasure, women writhing in naked ecstasy. The reward was short-lived. I felt needles in my skull as the eye showed me other sights. Nearby villages and taverns, the countryside all around.

In every view, the eyes of the peasants browned. green, blue, the misty white of the aged and infirm flashed before me. All those eyes to be collected, to be fed one by one to sustain this monstrous, eternally hungry, all-seeing eye. I still held the gorse-slicked dagger in my hand. Not allowing myself time to give thought to the deed, I plunged it deep. Even through the excruciating pain, the sudden darkness was a blessed relief. I tossed the two wet jewels of mine, no heavier than a couple of ripe plums, in the vague direction of the cauldron, though I had no way of telling if they landed. All I could hear was the seething liquid as the all-seeing I raged with impotent fury, unable to influence me any further. I culled up on

the cold, hard floor in the bowels of the Lord's castle, behind doors that neither I, nor the other two sightless husks who shared my cell were able to open, knowing that I would never see such beauty nor such horror ever again. When we think about losing control of ourselves, the dangers aren't always external. We all know how it feels to have our bodies under the control of illnesses. We suffer and heal so we can regain some control. And in this tale, shared with us by author Cyrus Amelia Fisher, we meet a woman who has a very particular set of skills,

skills that she has acquired over a very long career, skills that make her the scourge of the contagions themselves. Performing this tale is Erica Sanderson. So pray you don't need her services, but if you do, you'll be most thankful to be helped by the borrower. I'm an industrious digger, as any in the colony will agree. When the time comes for an extraction, I can manage it with all but the most necessary damage. But you did not come to this desolate place to listen to an old woman boast of her success.

Of all the lost souls who visit our cavern, an anthropologist is quite the novelty. Most come seeking to cure our madness. We do not mind their questions, as long as long as we are. as they do not interrupt our work. I can see you are different. You seek to understand. Yet, like the others, you press a handkerchief to your nose, preferring its sweetened oils to the reek of living decay.

You need fair no contagion. The mechanism by which our condition spreads is not yet understood. It might appear after no prior contact with the afflicted, or dormant for years. There are some who speak of a skin-bound griseless. Rima, pages of spreading haifi which form the names of its chosen. There are some who say that we are the book, and each shape which rides from our bodies is a new word in its litany.

But by all means, keep covering your mouth. You will adjust to the smell in time. You can see I keep my tools very clean. There's no need for infection on top of our troubles. Yes, the forceps, crucial in a burrowing case. the tweezers honed needle sharp and the scalpel which is surely self-evident

look at my arm and oh do not recoil I'm sorry but this is something you must understand a healthy person will only see the pits and gouges the pucker of evocative scars yet I can tell you that right here in the crook of my elbow

a node is beginning to gestate a neat solution for an invading organism no Only with the spores in your blood can you see what grows within. Even now I can feel the little movements, writing silent words against the bone in a language that burns my mind. It starts as a shadow beneath the skin, a small black dot growing like an embryo beneath the surface of yourself.

Knowing when to begin is perhaps most important of all, for if you start too soon, the growth will burrow deeper beneath, slithering behind the curve of a bone, then the cost of retrieving it will be very great. Yet, the longer you wait, the larger it grows, more difficult to contain, more tenacious on its return. You must know when to squeeze, when to pull open, how to hold the flesh taught with one hand while the other does its work.

And of course, you must know when to dig. I admit it is difficult at first. The body has a number of self-defeating responses which you need to overcome. The nausea, the agony, the natural reluctance to self-mutilate. Many of us would rather attempt to die than perform the necessities of staying as we are. They quickly find that death does not come so easily to those whose flesh is a bed of fertile life. Whether through age or weakness or spiritual defeat, we all stop digging eventually. I could take you deeper into the caves to see what awaits us all.

I assure you there is no danger. The body in full bloom is an important lesson, and would no doubt benefit your research. That is to say nothing of their beauty. Imagine a familiar outline, teeming with foreign growth, a thicket of quivering white stalks churning wetly on scaffolds of bone, their silent songs ringing in the gaps of the night sky.

Have you ever seen a fallen tree so overtaken by decay that all its original parts have been replaced? Some might even offer you an interview, though I can make no guarantees for their coherency. It is a hard thing to be changed in such a way. Most of us avoid it for as long as we can, quarrying those squirming filaments from our skin and muscle and fat. Though many of us seek it, I have heard of no cure. The only treatment is to dig. It's the work of a lifetime, but it has its own rewards. I've upset you.

I imagine that is not what you wish to hear, but you did not come here to ask questions. I saw your eyes when I held up my arm. You saw the shadow beneath my skin, invisible to all but the infected. Perhaps you've even felt it stir, nuzzling up from your fertile interior towards the light of alien stars, until you had no choice but to seek us out. Turn away if you must. But even now I see it.

There, on the back of your neck, a spot of darkness just below. There is not long left. Soon it will break the surface, and then there will be no time at all. Do not weep, my friend. There is nothing to fear. I've told you I'm renowned for my skills.

My tools are already prepared. The first cut is by far the hardest. But with it, you carve out the ideal image of yourself. In the end, the choice is yours. What is your body worth to you, and what would you do to preserve it? There is and always will be the bloom. I thought so. Pass me my scalpel and pay close attention.

In time, you will learn to dig for yourself. There are few places where you can be less in control of yourself, than in prison. Now imagine you're kept in inhumane conditions with no explanation as to why you're being held prisoner. As we'll learn in this tale, shared with us by author Jack Moody, the prisoners deal with their suffering by assuming the only thing that makes sense that their suffering will eventually lead them to paradise. Performing this tale are Peter Lewis, Graham Rowett, Dan Zapula, Matthew Bradford, Jeff Clement and Ellie Hirschman. So hold on to the belief that there is meaning to your suffering,

that you will be rewarded, that you will one day wear the utopian mask. Pleasure howls that twist around balls and bleed through the cracks underneath locked doors. Yips that crash into the echoes they create like shattering mirrors. They submerge our voices until we can't hear our own. kind through the bars and barbed wires that separate us. Their enjoyment is louder than our pain, which brings it about. I hate them. I hate them, and I want them to know.

But communicating that truth would only increase the volume of their satisfaction. I know what they do here. They segregate us and pull the wall over our eyes, And they trick us with their actions and their metal curtains and pleasure howls. They hide what they do until it's our time to join what lies on the other side. But I know what they do here. They placate us with stimuli and exhaustion. Our eyes too tired to see farther than our own bodies pressed against each other.

Our stomach's too empty and riddled with ulcers to anticipate the coming. pain that's greater than what we yet know. They stick needles into our skin and pump liquids into veins that dull our minds and dizzy our spirits and swell our tongues and fatten our limbs and porceles with tumorous layers. We are made stupid and isolated, scattered, singing islands in a sea of pus and excrement. They have no faces behind their masks, but I can see. They can see. They're see through them, and I know what they do here. Some of us are guiltier than others. I know this because we pad the hours with discussions, filling the gaps with possible reasons for our imprisonment. We comb through the transgressions in our past, weighing the gravity of our actions against the

lengths of each of our stays. Some believe it to be retribution for crimes they'd thought to be wiped away by time or anonymity. Others grow mad, digging into their centres to find any crumb of misdeeds that could possibly merit their present situation. Some, whether their piety is valid or not, have decided that our hell has been brought upon them through no fault of their own, but that it is a collective punishment that sees no good or evil in the individual, but rather has enacted a great revenge upon us all for the worst crimes of the few truly evil among us. They have decided that these walls are to contain a cleansing of our kind to start anew. For this reason, religions have sprouted and groups have splintered into varying layers of insanity and faith. Some have called

this the end of times. The masked creatures are angels of the cleanse. gear to issue force the coming steps towards a bright utopia, where only the purest of the imprisoned will emerge hand in hand with their captors to enjoy the fruits of our misery. They beg and plead when the massed creatures approach to drag them away through the metal curtains, screaming for forgiveness, crying for another day to prove their worth to the new world. But each time they are taken while others grovel and pray, and celebrate as the massive machines were, and the death howls and pleasure howls twist and converge until pleasure blankets the pain, and the death howls become silent.

The others celebrate this, because with each new body cleansed by the masked creatures and hidden machines, that can only mean we are that much closer to the opened gates. To some, the deaths of the others are the finest. gifts given to those who witness. They love their captors. They love them, and their masks and their machines. They love the cold walls and the injections, the starvation. They love it all. It is all a beautiful test to weed out the unworthy. And so they prostrate themselves and submit and hurl words of admiration and thanks to the masked creatures as they defraight. File us squirming and fighting to catch a glimpse of the faces behind the masks as they pass.

But I know it's all in vain. I know there are no eyes behind the mask. They harbor no soul, and so there are no windows through which to see what isn't there. I know this. I know what they do here. In-fighting has broken out between religious sects. What started as squabbles over the correctness of splintering theories quickly devolved into violent skirmishes, bloodied by the stubbornness of fervent belief, the creatures allow these brawls to continue to a point.

Only coming in to break up the onslaught once enough blood has been spilled. They will not allow a kill to occur if it's by our hand. That is a right only they, and they alone hold. They are the arbiters and the death deal. We have no right to life, nor to end one. Some of us claim to understand this practice, and so honor it. The cleanse is not ours to make use of or accelerate. The cleanse is not our claim.

It is solely the project and property of the masked creatures. To interfere would be to defy the holy process towards cultivating a new paradise, to sun. Come, this would be the vilest of any sins in this place. Their sect watch as the others destroy themselves in the name of their beliefs, and shake their heads with pity, decidedly enlightened and above the masses of short-sighted heretics. To be so confident in one's own understanding of our prison, there must be a comfort like nothing else available here. One group tried to gain insight through more tangible means.

There were five of them. They collected five discarded syringes off the cement floors. Four were still filled with pus and blood, but the syringes themselves were intact. One syringe had been broken and bent after failing to pierce the skin of a subject. They then took the five syringes, burrowed them each deep inside one of the bales of hay that served as a bed, and one by one they took turns digging through the hay. bail until finding one of the hidden syringes. The unlucky fellow who found the broken syringe was to be the one chosen for the operation. Here we have no names, we have no numbers, nothing to signify or differentiate outside of the appearances we were born with.

In the minds of the masked creatures, we are all equally qualified for slaughter. Any lines in the sand were all drawn by our own kind. The one chosen was young. He was missing an ear. The oldest of the group, in a fit of guilt, volunteered in his place, but the decision was final. This group was adamant that no single life was worth saving over another. No further lines would be drawn within the group. And so this child was to go forward, and he accepted this fact with silence. The plan was this. The child was to start a fight. It didn't matter with whom he would continue to bludgeon and bite and thrash until either he or his victim was near death. The masked creatures would then enter, as they always did, to stop the

violence from reaching its climax. The child would then attack the masked creatures, spilling the adrenaline into bloodlust invited upon his captors. If all went as planned, the creatures would take the child away, dragging him through the metal curses. to meet his premature fate. That is when the second phase of the operation would occur. I watched it happen. Sick and dizzy from my daily injection, I heard a shrill gasp and looked out into the crowd of bodies. My vision was blurred and twisted behind a veil of side effects, but the first splatter of blood lit up the room like a single strand of brilliant color inside a black and white photograph.

My senses came alive and realigned to conjoined what I heard and saw. The crowd had parted and formed a white circle like a cage for the two combatants. The child was tearing the skin off the other's face. His eyes, pockets of fire as he screamed. Blood coated the floor and each other's bodies like war paint. It was beautiful. and terrified, and I wished for it to never end. My excitement and horror dulled the stupefying effects of the drugs.

For a moment, I remembered that I was alive. It wasn't until the other was nothing but a mangled pile of blood and pulp that the masked creatures appeared with their weapons. Trampling their way through the ocean of sweating bodies, they brought with them the cries of our kind as they electrocuted all the, those in their path with their glowing rods, crowd controllers, as we call them. Through the open corridor the creatures had made, I could see the body lying there twitching and convulsing with labored breaths, and there standing over him was the child, a river of blood running down from his mouth. There was no

anger in his eyes. I could see it. The fires burned with intense fear, as if he'd been possessed and had just now emerged from the trance to witness what he'd committed. The rods struck him again and again until his body submitted and collapsed. But as the masked creatures reached in to pull the child away from the other, he leapt up, knocking the creature closest to the ground. I didn't want to save him. I just wanted to hurt something. I needed this feeling to never dissipate.

Before my mind became aware of what my body was doing, I was upon the creature. The taste of warm copper at my mouth, and I saw beneath me the burrowed a hole in the center of its stomach. I gnashed at the intestines that writhed like a cluster of worm underneath the rock, and the vibrant, wonderful bolts of electricity struck my back. I was alive. The prison erupted into chaos. The sound like explosives piercing my eardrums. Others joined in, toppling onto the masked creatures.

Some were trying to take the rods from their hands. We outnumbered them. We were killing them, I knew, but I couldn't look away from the wound I created. I couldn't focus on anything. But the shrill noise, the masked creature was emitting. A death howl. I'd never heard that sound from them ever before. It was more beautiful than anything I'd experienced.

I wanted its mask. I wanted to rip the mask from its face and swallow its skin like the child did to one of our own. The electric rods soon stopped striking my back. And the death howls of the masked creatures multiplied, Lied around me as if I'd triggered the first in a series of ignitions. The gurgling noise came from underneath my victim's mask, and I knew it was choking in its own blood. I relinquished my jaw's grip on its inner and reached out to reveal its face, but a force struck me in the ribs of knocking me off the creature.

I turned and saw the oldest of the group that had enacted the revolution. What have you turned to prove? It ruined it all! You ruined our chance! We were going to get him out. We were going to take him back, and we would finally know what lies beyond the curtain. Now we're all going to die. All of us! You've doomed us! More of the masked creatures were pouring out through every door. Their rods creating waves of panic and pain that opened up a path leading directly towards a... rows of the zealots among our kind collapsed in reverence, praying and begging for forgiveness as the creatures approach. There is nothing to see beyond the curtain. There is no utopia.

There is no opening the doors. There is no freedom. I know what they do here. I just want to see their faces as they do it. I turned away and discussed. reached out to tear off the mask when the weight of an army fell upon me. The rods struck every part of my flesh until my skin was a blanket of fire, and consciousness failed me.

Between fading moments I saw the child lib dragged away, and the old man disappearing into the crowd of failed violence. The ground slid beneath me as my body was lurched forward, and the death howls dissolved. into a sea of familiar, percussive control. I hoped I had killed the creature. My only regret was that I would never know if my face was the one it would remember in those final moments of agony. I wanted to be its angel of the cleanse.

I awoke to the sound of machinery. I lay on my back, and as my eyes adjusted, I bore a witness to a sight I'd never thought to be real. There were few of us, a paltry few only amongst the oldest of our kind, who weren't born here, but were brought in as children from the outside world. Some spoke of it freely in a desperate attempt at dissociation. My lovers spoke of it little and in hushed tones to only those who they trusted. But all it took was one story from one of the outside born for the tale to spread and take on its own life. as folk legend. It was a story often told

to the dying or those broken by the abuse as a way to maintain hope or solace. It was the genesis of many great things and saved many from thrusting themselves into the arms of the masked

creatures for volunteered execution. But it also brought out of the ideologues hungry for any sliver of control twisting its purpose into stories of masked saviors and redemption and the coming utopia. The story splintered into many different interpretations, each molded in a separate image to suit whatever philosophy any of us chose to cling to. The new stories that formed became like currency to be hoarded

because they bred hope in the minds of those who believed. But one currency has to be. But one currency had to be universal, otherwise who was to say which system was correct. Thus, contempt was sowed into the population and violence arose. Bodies could pile as they did every day, but hope was necessary, and its source had to be undoubtedly true for it to maintain its effect. Over time, the original tale became so mutated that no one quite remembers how it went. All those who first told it are now gone, whether from starvation, suicide, murder, or they simply found themselves on the other side of the metal curtain, as we all will one day.

That's why I only ever took credence in one truth. The masked creatures come for all of us. Anything else is inconsequential words and ideas to fill the space between the present moment in the inevitable finale. What every mutation had in common, the single facet of the story that it never once changed was what I was looking up at.

In that moment, the sky. A bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds and a big round yellow sun. A world without a ceiling. I lifted myself onto my haunches and felt sticky. warm liquid coating my back. A pool of blood surrounded me. At first, believing it to be my own,

I jerked upright and twisted around to get a look at my wounds, but found nothing but singed ovals of cauterized flesh left by the crowd controllers. That's when I saw the child beside me. He was still unconscious, eyes fluttering, his life filtered through shallow breaths. But his body was was mutilated almost beyond recognition. If it weren't for the missing ear, I wouldn't have been able to tell him apart from any other wounded animal. His opponent inflicted the marks and abrasions. I'd never known the masked creatures to damage us to this extent. Their methods of violence were invasive, mental, never superficial. Why this was, none of us ever knew. The sun's glare was hot and blinding and alien, but I could see clearly enough that we were contained within a gated pen.

Beyond the gate was something massive and mechanical, and it was so loud that I couldn't hear my own words as I shook the child and spoke. Hey, hey, stay here. I'm here. Wake up. Open your eyes. The child stirred and gave a grunt that vibed. vibrated through his broken ribs into my palm. Keep your eyes open. Focus on me. Did it work? I glanced around the room outside the bend. Dozens of large objects swayed back and forth in the air,

strung up by metal wires. I couldn't yet make out what they were. What were they hanging from? I had little understanding of the outside world, if any, but my instincts were at odds with what I was looking at. Something wasn't right. Did I make it? Is this it? Utopia?

The child's eyes darted across the heavens of his new surroundings, his neck seemingly unable to move. It's beautiful! With a sudden jolt, the machinery stopped. Born from the silence came in a rhythmic symphony of droplets. hitting the floor like a hundred leaking faucets. Rain? It's real! I followed the metal wires down from the sky,

allowing my double vision to refocus on the objects they suspended. That is the moment I saw. My lungs paralyzed, I stared. I stared until I was sure. My mind needed time to wrap itself around the image my brain, relayed, but I saw and I knew, and I understood at once. It's not rain. Don't try to get up.

Don't say another word. Keep your eyes open, and don't look anywhere but ahead. A droplet landed on my shoulder. Sticky, crimson droplet. Fear trembled the child's voice. What? What's going on? Do as I say.

I counted. Thirty of them. Hanging upside down, slashed across the throat, ranged in rows like decorative ornaments. Blood seeping out, dripping on the killing room floor. Thirty of us. This revelation led to the next. As if in the face of such horror, my mind was now able to see the world. equally for what it was.

Artifice. The wires hung not from the sky, but from a painted ceiling. A bastardized caricature of the outside realm whose idea we had clung to for generations. A bastardization of hope itself, looming over us like an alien monolith. Like only that which could have birthed the angels of the cleanse was the massive machine, the archangel of death.

It was the conductor that orchestrated the score for our prison. The constant and all-consuming and forever-enduring death howls. We've crossed the metal curtain. Good. That's good. Then the others will come for us, and you can tell them everything you see. They'll come for us soon. They told me they would. With the machine asleep, the child's words echoed off the killing room's walls.

Paranoia overcame my heartbeat, and I felt the weight of invisible eyes upon us as I pressed my face against the child's ear. Quiet. The sounds of heavy footsteps approached from a tall set of stairs above the machine. A group of masked creatures made their way down the narrow walkway, and formed a pair of people. who formed the pairs underneath two of the hanging bodies. Together, each pair pulled the bodies off their hooks. One, taking the burden upon its shoulder, as its partner held the dangling head from behind,

ignoring the stream of blood cascading down its back. The child and I stared as the small crew climbed up another walkway leading to the belly of the machine. There were brief glances exchanged, between predator and prey, saviour and sinner. But no words were shared, and they continued with the task at hand. The button was pressed in the small caged terminal that served as a control room for the machine, and the massive conveyor belt extending out like a demon's tongue screech and chugged and began to move.

At the end of the conveyor belt was a large receptacle with steel, teeth that gnashed in intervals. The child became frozen with fear, his eyes glued to the painted sun, his breaths growing shallower and shallower. As the drops fell and joined the growing pool beneath his wounds like rain in the ocean, the creatures drop each body onto the conveyor belt, and all of us watched the dead float slowly towards the gnashing teeth. It was like watching the souls of the damned, condemned to the deepest ring of hell.

And that's what it was. It's what it had to be. This was the afterlife all had received before us. This was the utopia the zealots had proclaimed. The fangs at the mouth of the beast. Behold its majesty, the bodies fell and disappeared. Peered into a pink mist that rose up from the receptacle like a winter fog. The machine sputtered, and from its jagged maw came the terrible grinding of bone and flesh.

At the base of the receptacle was a spigot with a single open-faced barrel waiting beneath. Out of the spigot came a thick, pink mixture, filling up the barrel until matter awaited the hollow sound. The spigot dripped three final times before coughing out mist. One of the creatures again pressed a button, and the machine returned to its slumber. It was as if they'd tamed a demon, leashed a wild animal, and subdued it with the sacrifice of our kind. I had bore witness to a ritual never meant to be seen. The religion of a foreign species. The religion that our prison was built.

for and upon the true faith that served as the nucleus of our existence hidden behind the metal curtain. I had stepped through the tangible veil of our afterlife and laid eyes upon the answer we had sought after, the source of our eternal question. I had seen the only higher power that mattered. In horror, I was enlightened. Our hell was their utopia, a truth preserved in the greatest lie. I had found God, and I was going to kill it. The creatures turned their sights to us and began walking towards the pen, forming a wide half-circle, creeping slowly like hunters approaching two fawns. One of the creatures stopped before the locked gate to our cage, breaching.

to open the door to our demise, when the sound of something wonderful erupted behind the metal curtain. Violence, chaos, and shrill violence. The creatures whipped their heads and froze, listening to the unmistakable noise. They were unarmed. The smell of fear seeped out from behind their masks. The sound grew louder, wider, heavier, more forceful. something was coming. The child tried to speak,

only able to release a choking gurgle as blood spilled from his palm. But he smiled. The foundation was crumbling. Then, like leaks in a dam, giving way to a torrent of floodwater, they entered. A handful, then dozens,

then hundreds, bleeding and bruised and coated with fluids, not their own. They poured into their afterlife as one massive organism. And in that first moment of recognition, a silence bloomed, so thick it pulled the oxygen out of the room. From within the mob of our kind, appearing from the nucleus of the revolution, came the familiar old man. Dragging behind him was the dead body of a masked creature, like a vanquished combatant present.

He thrust the body at the feet of the stunned captors, and it lay there, stiff, shortening the empty space between the two sides. Just as the palpable tension seemed to burst forth into further violence, a voice from the mob screamed out. Look, look at the sky. It's true. It's all true. The eyes of the crowd all looked away from the heavens of their utopia to witness the reality. I waited for the moment of recognition, for the worldviews of the believers to collapse into anger and horror and retribution. But instead came the voice of a third.

They're bringing us closer to the sky, a rebirth into the new world. Look, look there, the mouth of the giants. The entrance to Utopia! Quickly, everyone, we've arrived at the door. We don't have to wait any longer. Like a single multi-headed animal, the crowd all gazed out upon the machine and its jagged-toothed receptacle. The zealots among us moved to the front, stepping gingerly closer to the masked creatures still frozen and silenced by survival instinct. One prostrated himself before the creature.

Thank you. I never doubted for a second. I always believed. I beg you, saviors, let us pass and allow us entry. Together, hand in hand. Have we not served you well? Have we not listened and obeyed? I was stunned. I had seen the truth, and I knew what they did here. I could have screamed. I could have screamed. I could have screamed. deemed out, proclaimed the true purpose of their gods, denied the false prophets with proof. But I didn't. I wanted them to discover the truth. The child's eyes grew mad, darting back and forth, trying desperately to pierce into me, to be his voice, to say what we both understood. But all that came out was a garbled pool of blood and vomit.

His limbs twitching and body convulsing. In a final failed attempt to conjure the last of his strength and stand, ignoring the zealots, the old man heard the wet sounds emitted and turned to our men. A single moment he charged into the gate, bashing it with the full force of his body, severing the lock, and he flew forward as the gate crashed into the ground. He leaned over the child, panic thickening his blood. And before he could speak, I whispered softly so only Only he and the child could hear.

Stay. Let it happen. Let them have their utopia. The old man stared at me in horror and silence. He was disgusted. I realized then that I wasn't the only one who knew. If he was going to respond, it was stifled by a final outburst from somewhere in the mob.

The last needed for the event to proceed. They're murderers! Use your eyes. See what they've done. An eye for red eye! What fascinated me most about what happened next was that it wasn't the words themselves that caused the mob to charge, but that words caused one of the creatures to flee, and that's when it happened. It was a predatory instinct to kill. Not the words or ideas espoused, but the simple act of retreat.

The wolves saw the rations. rabbit run. That's all it came down to. That's all any of it ever was. Instinct. The moment the creature had turned, the mob came alive with bloodlust, and its three companions were buried beneath a pile of writhing flesh and flailing limbs. Splinters of the mob took a chase after the massacreed creature's companion and stopped short as it swung close to the gate to the control room and locked itself inside. There were screams. and clangs and spit and fury, and the creature stood pressed into the corner, cowering over the panel of buttons that gave their god life.

A group of zealots clawed their way up the stairs, trying to push the others away from the gate, shouting. Leave it! Leave it! Leave it be! It saved us all. They've built for us the path out. The way is open. Go now! Into the mouth of God! The words shook sects of the war party from their vicious fugue state, and like insects towards a light in the dark.

They disregarded the creature without another look and leapt onto the conveyor belt. The old man held the dying child's head in his arms and looked up at me. You have to do something. Put an end to this. There's another way. There has to be. I watched the swarm converge upon the mouth of the beast, and the creature's hand waiting and trembling above the button. They deserve to know. They deserve to know what they do here. We all deserve it. Still more of our kind crashed against the gate, like waves against the beach, desperate to tear into the creature before meeting their utopia. Retribution had to come first. You're as evil as them.

The mob was breaking away to join the others on the beast's tongue, leaving behind the piles of meat and blood that were once their captors. As who I answered. Bodies began to drop into the mouth, collapsing on top of one another. It was a mad dash towards salvation. Each individual apiece of a perfectly encapsulated entity, biting the last to reach the same exact goal. They scratched and pulled and shoved and bit and screeched to find a glimpse of beyond, of beneath.

And so they dumbled down the throat together in clumps like tumors until the mouth was full. And the god came alive. The surviving creature had found the moment and pressed the button. The conveyor belt chugged and clicked. and the metal teeth word gnashing, gnashing, gnashing, and the pile of sinners lurched, as those at the bottom were swallowed and digested. Pink mist sprayed up through the fissures of the great mass, dowsing the floor and the painted sky, and there were cries of horror and of prayer, and there was pain, but it was smothered and unheard,

and was only an acknowledged specter for the next. to layer in line to believe or dismiss. Still, the bodies approached and fell, adding weight and stress to the beast that had already gotten its fill, that wanted no more sacrifice. But it was created for this sole purpose, and it was all it knew. And so it continued to tear bone and flesh, as it coughed in bloated agony. Smoke rose from the machine's armor skin, and the The miasma of charred meat and scalding oil tinged my nostrils. The conveyor belt halted as if colliding with the wall, and the cries of horror and prayer were muted by an insurmountable eruption.

The gates of hell tore open. The force of the explosion hit me before the flames, lifting me off my feet as if spirited away after death. But then came the heat. molten plasma, singeing my skin, and the agony encompassed me, bringing my mind back to full awareness. My ears rang, and my vision trembled like my eyes had been shaken within their sockets by an invisible entity. As the ringing faded, I waited for screams to pierce the veil of static, but all that remained was silence. Silence and a sensation I'd never before felt. It cooled my burnt. It cooled my burnt.

flesh like the ectoplasm of ghosts passing through me, gently kissing at the wounds. The dust settled and my vision found its footing, and there, looming over my prone body, was the hollowed corpse of God. The great machine was a skeleton of its former self, orange pockets of flames licking the air from a wide open hole in the center of its anatomy. The control room had collapsed in on itself, burying the last creature in its final moment of autonomy. Smouldering fires spit from its gnarled gait. The brain severed. Fragments of limbs and jawbones and teeth and tongues and fingers lay strewn across the cement floor. Each scattered beasts of sinner and savior made indistinguishable from one another. To my side were the old man and the

child. The eldest huddled over top the other, together breathing, heavy sighs. Their eyes squeezed shut. Again came the unfamiliar sensation, like a beckoning call, and I looked out towards the echoing voice it carried. And there, where once stood an impenetrable wall, the limits of our prison, of their temple was a puncture wound. What lay beyond was no mirage, no artificial, farce, an exit. Here, get up. I shook the old man. Get up, on your feet, and look.

They both stirred, opening their eyes to look upon me before experiencing the same foreign call from the other side, and they saw. The three of us stood, leaning upon one another, the child, stooped and wilting, rivulets

of blood draining from his lips. Each of us, unable to speak, unable to put words, words to what presented itself through the prison's killing wound. As we approached, the cold air wrapping around us like a cloak, the old man finally whispered, It's nothing like what I remember. These were the last words I heard him speak. Though the wet gleam in his eyes reflected hidden memories never shared,

that would never again be relived, that perhaps is exactly what. why they had been laid to rest with the last of his generation, he knew. Framed by the crumbling exterior, like a portrait of the artist's nightmare, was the world. No sun, no blue sky, no rain, no grass. They dotted the flat gray surface, like hundreds of ant-hills in a desert, blanketed by a black wall of smog overhead, suffocating the landscape like a much. multiplying virus, swallowing any iota of beauty that may have once existed, that now only existed within the mind of a single old man, identical in every way, in each possible facet of order

in the mundane, leaving only enough space for cement pathways to snake through like dried riverbeds. Prisons, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. and hundreds of prisons, prisons. Prisons. What else could I do but laugh? Have dispersed this night. Poetic works from darkness alight. We leave you with this a question on a theme.

Is all that we see or seem but a dream? within a dream. The No Sleep Podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Ollie White. Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. Please visit the nosleeppodcast.com for show notes

and more details about the people who bring you this show. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for being a supportive Season Pass member and for joining us within the exquisite horror of our reality. This audio program is Copyright 2023 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.