Welcome to Night Vale - 109 - A Story About Huntokar

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

This is a story about Huntokar. The voice of Huntokar is Tina Parker. Weather: "Full Metal Black" by The Royal They theroyalthey.bandcamp.com Music: Disparition, disparition.info. Logo: Rob Wilson, robwilsonwork.com. Produced by Night Vale Presents. Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. More Info: welcometonightvale.com, and follow @NightValeRadio on Twitter or Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Nightville, it is Jeffrey Craneer speaking to you from April of 2026 with a couple of cool things coming up. First off, we're going to be in Europe touring our newest Nightville live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest. We're going to be in Edinburgh, UK, on May 27th. We'll be in Manchester on the 28th. We will be in London on May 29th, and we will be in Amsterdam on May the 30th. You can get tickets for these shows at Welcome to Nightville.com slash live, and hopefully we'll have more. shows coming up later this year. Who knows? Just get on our newsletter. Go to Welcome to Nightville.com. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send you emails twice a month to let you know all of the news that you need to know about Welcome to Nightville. One of the big news things to tell you

right now is that our other hit podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, is coming back on April the 13th, written by Joseph Fink, produced by Disparition and starring Jacica Nicole. More episodes of Alice Isn't Dead return on April the 13th. So make sure you are still subscribe to that podcast. Finally, do you want some cool nightbale merch? Go to welcome to nightville.com, click on store, and we have all kinds of cool t-shirts, things for the summer, tank tops, beach towels. And if you like coffee mugs, if you want calendars, if you want backpacks, all kinds of cool stuff there. So check out Welcome to Nightville.com and click on store, click on live. If you want to see our live shows, we will see you in Europe. And hey, thanks.

This is a story about Honto Kar, said a voice on the radio. A voice you had never heard before, though she has been speaking to you your whole life. I am Hantokar, the destroyer. You have already been destroyed. You just don't know it yet. Once, long before this sorrowful now, there was only the mudwum. We gods waiting to be born. The woman from Italy, the distant prince,

so many others. We waited for time and space to begin. In the mud womb, nothing ever happened. Even the idea of action was impossible. In the mud womb, you weren't yet, but you knew that someday you would be. And then history began, and we scattered out into the light and the hours.

How simple and easy everything seemed in those first few millennia. There was only ever one of any, The woman from Italy dipped her hand into the stars, running her fingers through the great glowing coils of the universe. The distant prints explored every far-off cave and every out-of-the-way whole, all of the dark places. A cloud in the corner of the sky glowed, changing colors every second, and dropping dead animals long before animals ever existed. I sat cross-legged in a lake for 10,000 years. But nothing lasts forever. Not even us.

Soon, there were other beings in this universe, and everything changed. The woman from Italy became fascinated at the pain that could be inflicted on these creatures. The distant prince began to shape some of them into wounded servants driven wild by what he had done to them. The glow cloud controlled the minds of any that got too close. And I?

I thought I was the exception. I thought I was the exception. I thought that I would nurture them rather than rule them. I was, of all of us, the only good one. But it was I who would end up truly destroying them. I've spent every moment since my mistake trying to put back together what I took apart, but it is beyond me. Every action that endeavors to improve only causes more suffering and terror. Even my appearance. Once a source of awe is now to them strange and horrifying, nothing fits together like it used to.

Cecil. Sweet Cecil, who I tried and tried to guide toward the truth. But I could never quite say the words. I am the destroyer, I would say to him. But what could he make of that? My cowardice concealed the details of my crime. I couldn't bear to repeat. them until now. I say this in every world at once. Everyone must understand what happened.

This is a story about Huntacar, but is also a story about you and them and every poor soul who hears it. Of course I say Cecil, singular, as though there were one of anything. But as we now know, there is not one of anything. There's a Cecil who would not listen. There's a Cecil who listened, but could not comprehend. There's a Cecil who did his utmost, but who failed. There's a Cecil who was gone long before I came.

There is Cecil and Cecil and Cecil, and then there is me, trying to explain to him over and over about the choice I made. But all that ever comes out is the truth. I am Honto car, I say. I am the destroyer. All true.

All useless. Each of us in those early days chose our domains. The glow cloud in the clouds. The distant prints in the distance. The woman from Italy, everywhere but Italy. We could each of us do whatever we wanted in the places that we chose. There was no criteria from where. my choice. I came across a valley, dry, almost lifeless, save for a few brave people who had worked

out how they could be sustained there. And I chose them. I guided and taught them. And gradually a town grew. Nightvale. The one place in the world that was truly mine. I am the creator. And it was, I suppose, in the moment that I first felt love for my creation, that the fuse for the unraveling of all things was lit. Although it would not happen for many centuries, at the very inception of my greatest satisfaction and happiness, this tragedy became inevitable. Worship of me started as they became aware of my kind presence in their lives. Their love gave meaning to the passing of my years, and in exchange, I gave them a better and better world. They developed ceremonies,

devoted to me, wearing soft meat crowns, and building what would become known as bloodstone circles. And this is how it was for a long time. Nightvale was not a place with any distinction to anyone in the world, except for me, who watched over it and loved it, a love that would spell its end. Now, in this destroyed world, I am forgotten. Still, they have bloodstones and so. Still, they worship, but never does anyone ask, what is being worshipped in those circles? Why do we have all of this meat strapped to our heads? What once was tribute is now a series of gestures,

as human and meaningless as they were before I came along. They see glowing arrows in the sky, dotted lines and circles, and they think nothing up them. Air traffic, space debris, weird birds. They do not, cannot, will not read the messages from their God. The only ones that truly remember me are the oldest ones, the ones that stand outside of time, the faceless old woman who came to this country

trying to find some answer to a long ago betrayal. She remembers me, although she would never speak up for me. Her ways are ways of sorrow, and they only lead her to herself. She is a closed loop of a purpose. person. The glow cloud remembers me but can do no more than flash welcoming colors to say hello. I have no human mind it can control, so there is no way for us to speak. And of course the others, the distant prince, the woman from Italy, the five-headed dragons,

that beagle, they know exactly who I am. And more is the doom of night veil for that. The path to this destruction was laid by the humans. They invented a bomb of utter dread, a weapon so horrible it could never be used and then threatened to use it. They faced across the water, squabbling over misunderstood ideas and announcing in louder and louder voices that they were prepared to end their species' history over a point of pride. Some of the gods encouraged it, enjoying chaos and fear as entertainment, and spreading paranoia as they move through the world. I tried to keep Nightvale calm, but even my children weren't immune to the growing fear.

And then the day came, November 7, 1983. A practice, Armageddon mistaken for the real thing, and so, through this misunderstanding, transformed into actual Armageddon. The power of a fearful thought. The bombs were in the air. there were only minutes left, the people of Nightvale huddled waiting for the end to their story. I could see it as it was about to happen. I could see the flash and the tower of fire, the heat that transforms a body into only its shadow. The slow sickness and the dying of crops.

I could see starvation and a winter that would not end. I could see all of this, as though it had already happened. I looked up into the sky as the people around me wept and said goodbye to each other. And I saw something else. A planet of awesome size lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep, turbulent oceans. It hung so close that it filled the entire sky. And that was the moment that I decided, no.

I would save them. I would save the town I created. I am the Savior. It was a simple idea. I would have to remove night veil from this ending world. I didn't know if it would work. I'd never seen any God try this. But I only had minutes.

And I knew that I must save my only town. I was naive, but lovingly, so. You should not forgive me just because I had loved. in my heart. Intentions never matter. Nightbill would stand alone, disconnected from all of the rest of the universe, but safe. That was what I thought. No action is without consequence. I am the destroyer. What happened next was a horrible cracking noise, a noise like I had never heard before, like no one had ever heard before because this particular thing had never been broken, not in the history of all possible histories.

When I tried to lift Nightvale out of the world it belonged in, I shattered reality. And I did not shatter reality just in my Nightvale, but in all night veils, all night veils that were or could be every possible night veil in every possible universe broke simultaneously and fell into each other. There was a night veil exactly like my Night Vale, but in which on a single day, a single citizen wore a green shirt instead of a yellow shirt. There was a night veil that had grown into a great metropolis, skyscrapers and crowds and little bars where people sat and talked about the great things they would riot when they stopped going out to little bars so much. There was a

night veil that never was in a world where humans never came to be. There was a night veil in which old woman Josie would never die, and there was a night veil in which she had never lived. There was a night veil in a world that had flooded, and this town floated on the water and thrived, its light spreading iridescent over the waves like an oil slick. There was a night veil in which there was no Honto car, and this town should have been safe from me, but then all of the other night veils fell into it, and it too was destroyed by my action. Every night veil then, every night veil now, every night veil passed and present, in every town with every possible person making every possible important and unimportant choice,

all of them, a fractal of night veil, an endless iteration of Cecil and citizens, and in my moment of foolish hope in my belief that I could save anything, I reached out my clumsy hand and destroyed them all. I guess here is where Cecil would say it, so. Cecil, I'll say it for you. Let's take a look at the weather. Something else here now. Something new. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real.

Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Night Vale is Shattered. but for now is still here. Time is startlingly persistent in that way.

Even badly wounded, it moves. And so the town's every possible version of the town balanced precariously on their broken reality. Some versions of the town fell completely into other versions, becoming folded in their reality and unexpected combinations. Others merely open borders with my original night veil, doorways through which travel was possible, but not advisable. For a while, I believe we could go on like this.

If we only put our heads down and insisted on living, without looking at or considering the world around us, we could just keep moving. And the main thing was to keep moving. Denial was key. As long as we denied, then nothing was wrong. The other gods were attracted to the site of my teetering domain, but I was able to arrange truces with them.

They did not do anything that would upset the balance by which my world barely hung. And in exchange, they could poke their heads in, look around, maybe take a few versions of my Nightvale to turn into playgrounds for their terror-filled delights. Others were drawn, not only gods. There were those that came to help, like the angels that Nightville denied

as strongly as they denied their own situation. And there were those who came for debaesies, based purposes of their own, like those awful men in their awful crates. The important thing wasn't a life worth living. The important thing was just a life that continued. Now the Five Head of Dragons and their grief and anger have pulled all of the other gods into this situation. Our fragile truce is ending. The cracks are widening.

All possible nightbills are opening up to each other. There will never be only one of anything. ever again. When all realities are real, sense cannot be made. Everything at once is essentially nothing at all. I've tried so hard to keep Nightbale moving forward, unaware of what had happened to it. Blissfully ignorant. My efforts end here. The world is finally falling apart piece by piece and I stand by all the powers of my thousands of years and I can only watch it fall. Cecil.

Sweet Cecil, whose life lies directly on the fault lines of this broken reality. He narrates his own ending without realizing it is his ending. He does not understand what is happening to him. And so here I am telling you this story. So that at least in your destruction, you will understand who has destroyed you. And you will understand that she destroyed only out of a loving desire to save you. May you perceive her as foolish and naive rather than monstrous. Even as I speak, I look up into the sky and see that dark planet of awesome size perched in its sunless void,

an invisible titan, like thick black forest and jagged mountains and deep, turbulent oceans. It's so close now. I can see it just above me. Maybe even if I tried very hard, I could touch it. This has been a story about Huntercar. She who thought she could save. She who, in saving, instead destroyed. I am the storyteller.

The story made do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells. Good night, my nightville. Good night. Welcome to Nightvale is a production of Nightvale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and produced by Joseph Fink. The voice of Hunt Ocar was Tina Parker.

Original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at dispersion. info or at dispersion.bancamp.com. This episode's weather was Full Metal Dark by The Royal Vey. Find out more at the Royal they.com.com. Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightbail.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvail radio or use Google Street View to take a slow, leisurely walk in a city you'll never visit. Check out Welcome to Nightvell.com for more information on this show and a ton of amazing t-shirts and lab coats and other weird night veil things we've made with a small team of incredible artists. And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link. You can have Cecil talk to you personally.

It's all in that link. Today's proverb, less is more. Simplification is the way to happiness. You are not your things. Anyway, thanks for your wallet. Bye. Hey, Jeffrey Kraner here to tell you about another show from me and my Nightvale co-creator Joseph Fink.

It's called Unlicensed, and it's an L.A. noir-style mystery set in the outskirts of present-day Los Angeles. Unlicensed follows two unlicensed private investigators who small jobs looking into insurance claims and missing property are only the tip of a conspiracy iceberg. There are already two seasons of unlicensed for you to listen to now with season three dropping on May 15th. Unlicensed is available exclusively through Audible free if you already have that subscription and if you don't Audible has a trial membership and if I know you and I do you can binge all that mystery goodness in a short window. And if you like it, if you liked Unlicensed, please, rate and review each season. Our ability to keep making this show is predicated on audience

engagement. So go check out Unlicensed, available now only at audible.com.