April 24, 2026: Night of the Cataclysm
DARRYL VIGGS
The gale howled like a vengeful demon, ripping across the ice wastes of Antarctica. The cold nipped at my skin, even through the heavy layers of padding. Snow whirled wildly through the air, eddying into mad whirlpools before settling to rest upon the frozen ground beneath our feet. The sky was an empty stretch of gray, devoid of any moon or star—only a yellowed, all-consuming darkness that clung above us.
We remained standing under the immense ice wall, our exhales misting in the frost. The vehicle ahead of us, a monolith nine-foot tall with cannon-shaped device mounted on its frontal portion, sprang to activity as it gnawed an entryway in the ancient ice. Large boulders shattering and plunging down widened the narrow opening, enough to accommodate our excursion to pass.
Viktor Tanley, a stout, white-haired man bundled up in a massive white coat nearly the shade of the snow, stood beside me, his head back in appreciation of the violence of the machine. There was amusement in his voice.
"This baby definitely works like a charm. A few more minutes, and we'll see what's been hiding behind this icy shroud," he mused to himself, crossing his gloved hands at the back of his neck. A smile played on his lips. "Imagine what the United States government could do with something like that. They could blast enemy strongholds in minutes." He chuckled at himself, his breath fogging the chilly air.
Paying no mind to my daydreaming, I reached into the right pocket of my thick coat and pulled out a handheld transceiver. Bringing it to my lips, I spoke the words in firm command. "Stop the machine."
The operator, a man sitting inside a small control room atop the machine, moved with promptness. "Roger."
The machine came to a dead halt with a metallic wail, the drills retracting. The abrupt silence was stifling.
We exchanged nervous glances before we suited up and proceeded into the newly opened tunnel.
---
As we crossed over to the other side, an unnatural fog hung in the air, heavy and foreboding. The Coats wore small cameras on the left side, designed to record everything that we encountered. The first thing that struck us was the otherworldly darkness that enveloped this side of the wall. Not one star, not even the moon or the sun, was in sight. It was as though we had entered another dimension—one cut off entirely from our own.
There was an oppressive atmosphere. One felt watched, nearly to the point of being smothered. This was not paranoia—there was something beyond that. It was something primal, something fundamental. The atmosphere was heavy with an ancient, malevolent force. It felt it hanging over me, crawling around the edges of my brain.
Viktor's earlier excitement had vanished altogether. His face, aglow with amazement, was now deathly pale with terror. Even the mercenaries—hard men who had fought and seen bloodshed—were quaking. But no one uttered a word. No one dared to break the silence that clung to us like a vice.
Still, we went on.
---
Forty-seven minutes and thirty-six seconds of walking deeper and deeper into the unknown. The earth under our boots was hard and icy, but it seemed as though we were walking on something out of the ordinary—something that had rested untouched for centuries.
Then we saw it.
A gigantic stone slab lay before us, half-entombed in ice. It was roughly round, around the size of an average bedroom, its face etched with markings that seemed to glow feebly in the dim illumination of our headlamps.
I knelt slowly, on the edge of the stone to examine the engravings more closely. Viktor stood behind me, close enough at my shoulder.
The inscriptions were intricate, old—something I had only read in fragmented texts before. My fingers traced over the cold surface, feeling the indentations of each symbol. A revelation struck me like a bolt of lightning.
"This. this is in Sanskrit," I breathed, my breath stuck.
Viktor's eyes widened. "Sanskrit? Here? That doesn't make any sense…"
I stood up and walked onto the rock, my boots echoing lightly. My gaze followed the marks, tracing the line of the sentence from beginning. I inhaled slowly and, with the persistent warning at the back of my mind, began to recite out loud.
"Beware the evil dragon twisted by evil magic… "
A pause. Something was amiss. The marks seemed to warp under my scrutiny, twisting unnaturally.
I glared at Viktor, who hovered just beyond the edge of the stone. He eyed me uneasily but kept silent. I went back to the inscription and continued reading.
"To those that will find this stone tablet, do not mention his name, for he shall be released from his captivity. Do not utter the name."
I got the shiver up my spine.
But too late.
The word escaped my lips.
"DANAKAH."
The ground beneath me trembled violently as a thunderous boom sounded. A red-black flash burst forth from the stone, engulfing me in an instant. Agony ran through my flesh, a strength so colossal that I could not comprehend it. My arms were being pulled out of my body, my bones shattering under tremendous pressure.
I screamed, but my voice was swallowed by the humming darkness. My vision was blurred, shifting back and forth between searing red and interminable black. My thoughts fragmented, my awareness flowing through my fingers like sand.
I was dying.
No—I was fading away.
The last thing I saw before everything went black was the face of Viktor, contorted in naked fear.
Then, nothing.
Nothing at all.