It was morning. Just this morning, actually. We'd set out and found our way to a nice little pond for some rest and to refill water, settled in a copse of Eucalyptus and rock. It was shady and cool, and a perfect place to rest during the heat of midday. Not only that, but we saw the threat of another sandstorm looming in the distance, and figured this was as good a bulwark from that as any we'd otherwise find, so we set up camp and started getting some protection from the sand up around the area. Those university grad students took to parking the jeeps and setting the tents up, meanwhile we set to gathering firewood and refilling our water supply.
It was maybe halfway through this when we all heard something, and then felt a sensation of being watched. I shouldered my rifle and took aim at the sound of a cracking twig, and then Lucas pointed something to me.
"You see that thing?" He whispered, indicating a thin, almost human figure in the distance. "That's no Abo, looks too thin... and they're not that tall either."
"Yeah, and if it comes closer it's getting lead poisoning," was my response. But what bothered me wasn't the figure's shape, it was the fact it moved so strangely. Like a dancer or fish leaping out of water, fluid in movement and almost too flexible for a human being. It had something in hand, which I soon realized was a spear, and then I lost track of it. But for a fraction of a second... I swear it was watching me.
Then I heard the Yank and his Hun friend yell in alarm followed by a few panicked gunshots, and both Lucas and I turned abruptly to find out what had happened. We expected a 'roo or some other beast had startled them. What we found was certainly not that. The Yank was curled up against a rock, empty gun pointed at a figure, and the Hun was trying to calm him down as the being simply stood there. It was similar to a man, but much taller - nearly nine feet tall - with skin like an Abo's. It was even dressed in similar clothing and painted like one with white chalky marks. It was as thin as a branch, drawn out like a living stick figure with three fingers on each hand and feet tapering to thin points, like the ends of a wire or a spear. But the thing that caught my eye immediately was its face, dominated by two big, liquidy, black eyes and little else. No mouth, no nose, and no ears. Only those big eyes, almost unblinking and shiny like an insect's, staring at us curiously as I aimed my rifle in horror and fired.
Not a single bullet hit. It dodged them all, faster than the eye could see, like a blur of movement, then darted behind a rock in alarm. There it observed, peeking from behind the stone with great curiosity and concern, observing intelligently.
"Bloody Hell!" I exclaimed, holstering the rifle after realizing the thing was no threat. "The fuck is that thing?" Lucas observed the being, then a look of vague enlightenment crossed his features.
"This might be a long shot," he said, turning to me, "But you ever hear any of those old Abo legends? They talk about spirits that look a lot like that one, I think they're called Mimi or something like that..."
I'd admittedly not heard much of those legends, but after some thought they did sound slightly familiar. I'm sure I read some book when I was a kid or something with these 'Mimi' in them, supposedly they were forest spirits or something. Either way, they weren't harmful, especially not as frightened as this one seemed. The Yank by this point had calmed down, and was finally willing to talk once he realized the Mimi wasn't going to hurt him. Lucas, meanwhile, tried using a scrap of jerky to coax the being out of hiding, thinking maybe it knew something we might not. It worked, and it stepped out from behind the rock with absurd grace. Then, quick as a flash, it proceeded to use mud to paint on the rocks, images of its purpose... images of why it had approached us. Images of great wind-blowing beasts that were fought by the Mimi, beasts that caused gales so strong it snapped the Mimi's necks like twigs. It seemed to be asking us for help - no, not asking. Begging. Pleading with its oily eyes. I almost felt bad for it, and I think the others did too, because we all looked to each other in turn with looks of conviction.
"Alright," the Yank said, finally calmed down and stepping forward. "We'll help you."
The Mimi did not respond, but stepped forward towards the rock it had drawn on, placing a finger there and splitting a fissure down it. The rent opened gradually like a maw, and inside a myriad of rainbows were visible as the willowy being beckoned us forth. It was right disorienting, walking through that mess, and I suppose maybe we're all insane for agreeing, but we were in it now, weren't we? In seconds, we stood before more of the beings, similar to the one that brought us there - females, children of the species, and elders which all communicated by drawing. They all seemed desperate for our aid. From the pictograms we saw, it appeared they had attempted to throw spears at the creatures, and failed. But maybe our guns, I thought, maybe bullets would do the trick. How difficult could it be?
How difficult indeed.
The Mimi that brought us to this cavern of those like itself explained it had found the wind-beasts' source, and would bring us to it. We followed it through another strange chromatic tunnel it split through the rock, and soon we came to a tunnel. It was massive, the ruins of an old city greater and more ancient than any I had ever seen, carved with spiraling hieroglyphs and not made for human travelers but someone or something far taller and more alien than mankind. Great pillars jutted from the floor, holding a huge ceiling, and yet the floor was littered with rubble. What had destroyed this place, and why did it feel so familiar...?
At the far end was a great metal cap or door of some sort, embedded like a grate into the floor, and heavy. It had somehow been pushed open, and from the enormous hole there came great gusts of fetid, musty wind and a curious low and eerie whistling, like air over the mouth of a glass bottle. My hackles raised as we took cover, drawing our weapons. The Mimi, armed with only a spear, was also ready - but trembling in vague dread. The whistling grew louder and stronger, and soon Lucas looked to me nervously.
"Are you sure this is a smart idea, Neville?" he asked, deep brown eyes bearing concern that his face wouldn't dare show.
"You saw the drawings, how hard could it be?" was my response. "Now quiet, don't let it hear us... we want the element of surprise..."
I'm a bloody idiot if ever there was one. If we'd known what hell was coming out of that hole, we'd have run. If we'd had any sense, we'd never have agreed. But we didn't know, we didn't listen, and what we saw in that hole came out like a tumor.
That's not a metaphor, by the by - it actually did escape like a swelling, pulsating mass of flesh hovering in midair, tentacles and mouths visible, massive siphon-like tubes from all angles of it, twisting and writing and clawed with vicious teeth. The shock nearly stunned me to silence as it seemed to billow like a balloon, half real and half visible, and it hadn't even noticed me yet. Or so I thought, because when it opened one of its massive eyes, the strange, cross-shaped pupil of the thing focused immediately on the pillar both I and Lucas were behind - and it gave a look of utter contempt and malice.
All hell broke loose. Guns blazed, bullets flew, but nothing we did... not a single thing seemed to harm it. It was like fighting air. We aimed for the eye, and blasted it to at least give us a fighting chance, but it still didn't kill it - only blind and enrage it for a bit. Where its tentacles slammed down, the ground cracked and the earth shook, sending rubble into the air. Always, its features grew back and grew more numerous each time, like the Hydra's heads. When it reared up from pain and we ducked for cover, a great blast of wind like a hurricane hit us, shearing us and burning our skin, taking pieces of flesh off in the process and leaving scrapes - had we not been behind something, it would surely had killed us all. It certainly killed our Mimi ally, tossing it up and slamming it against the wall like a ragdoll, killing it instantly. We soon realized the only course of action was to somehow shut that grate, and that's what our attention turned to. Shutting the door on it by making rubble rain on it, or maybe hit the door itself and force it forward from the impact.
Then, chaos. Lucas ran to take aim, and got behind a boulder. But in that split second, the beast saw him and raised seven of its mighty tentacles. I tried to scream for him to run, but it was too late. He never even noticed them slam onto him. Probably never even felt it either, judging by the reddish paste left behind. In seconds one of my few friends in this shit-hole of a world was paste, and not even a shell could have done the sort of damage that creature did to him.
I don't recall much else. My mind switched into battle mode, a sense of vengeful pain for the man I fought with, the only man I ever really gave a shit about, and I kept trying to shoot that thing so the others could shut the door. I don't even remember if the door got shut, only that a few moments later I was lying on the ground, shaken, breathing heavily from the stress of the battle, gripping my best mate's bloodied, semi-mangled dog tags. The Yank said I grabbed them from the pile that was Lucas Bradford, and wouldn't let them the fuck go. Somehow, we'd been brought back to the cave with the Mimi in it, and one human - an elderly Abo woman. She said her name was Enala. Said we had done a good thing, and that we were noble and all that bullshit. She wanted to join our quest because she saw in a Dream-Vision that she was destined to aid us against Sand-Bat.
I went to protest, but the others defended her and so I said nothing. I don't think I even protested, not even when we got back to camp. It was nighttime. The grad students wanted to know where we'd been, and all I could tell them was that a boulder had fallen on Lucas and I was able to only just get his tags. They bought it. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
That night, long after the others drifted into uneasy sleep, I stayed up and cried.
Monsters. Great bleeding monsters live out here. And one of them just slaughtered Lucas, because yet another of them wanted us to go after the former. Between them and the cone things, it's no wonder the Yank and his motley crew are yarra. Hell, I'm more than ready to believe by now they really did meet some sort of goddess connected to Sand-Bat that turned into a bloated corpse, or that they saw a great dirty bird-lizard attack their plane, or even that some sort of starfish-creature needed them to build some kind of gateway to elsewhere.
Maybe that makes me insane too. Maybe it's rubbing off on me. Either way, I'm making serious plans to leave this lot behind as soon as I can, if they don't bloody well kill me first, and I know they'll try. These fucking loony bastards already got my best mate killed. I'm not taking any more chances.
-- Neville Harris, Back in the Trenches (August 9th, 1928)