THE SOUND OF A THOUSAND VOICES SCREAMING AT THE STARS

What follows is a short, short, short story I wrote back in 1991. I wrote it while being bored in an Entertainment Copyright Law in Art School. It's very simple and very different. At the time I was a HUGE Lovecraft fan...still am...and for some reason I thought of this story. I've always dreamed of making something more of it and expanding the world it takes place in.

I'm thinking it might be my next screenplay project.
Anyway.....


A THOUSAND VOICES SCREAMING AT THE STARS 

So I sit here. Looking over the landscape in front of me.

A tragedy.

A mess.

I ignore the neglect that the citizens have had to endure. I think about the Service we are assigned by The Controllers. Our daily lives. Our duty to fulfill The Call.

I ignore the hundred of other citizens gathered here on the rooftop, looking down at least eighty stories below. I ignore the thousands of other citizens all lined up on the towers around us in the city.

Our duty.

Our duty to fulfill The Call.

I do gaze into the Center Complex of the city. Several miles away. A bright yellow orange color. Stronger than the sun. Stronger than suffering. But not stronger than love. 

How many time have my beloved and myself tried to get to the Center Complex. To behold it's wonders, it's mystery. For no citizen knows of what resides in the Center Complex. Life for sure. Old life. Older than this planet. Older than this city.

I think of how old the city is, and how all of us have grown up here. Not knowing anything other than this. 

Our assigned duties by the Controllers. Those of us that are lucky enough to be Chosen to be an Overseer.

But most of us....sometime or another in our life, must offer to The Call.

I try not to think on these things.

 Instead.....

I look over to my right. And the reason that  I have not made another attempt to reach the Center Complex is there.

My lover. She sits next to me. My Kayla.

We've been through so much together.

She has even before me.

Her husband who was assigned to a job in the City Beneath the Sea (that is something I will never dwell on). The child that was taken away from her.

By the time I entered her life, we were both lost. Broken. Addicts of our own creation.  We found each other and somehow rose above all this madness.

Day in and out, watching our neighbors and friends suddenly loose their sanity. Or change into something horrible.

Not us.

Our love endured for the past six years. We were untouched. Left alone by the Controllers. Given our Assignment. Her an Artist. Me......myself a Creator.

We both had the rare power to summon. And that scared the Center Complex. 

We were left alone because they saw us as special.

Being special does not take away your obligation to The Call, however. And two years ago, we received our summons. Leading up to this point.

"It's an amazing site to see", she states.

"What is?"

"All the Citizens. Offering themselves. Here on top of the city."

I nod my head.

"It disgusts me", Kayla spits out. "We were so close to the truth."

At one time we were. She is right. We almost DID make it to the Center Complex. 

"My mama mama used to tell me about the city before the First Call", she tells me. I remember her telling me this before, but I let her. This will most likely be the last time she will tell me.

"People did as they pleased. They worked were they wanted to. They ate when they wanted to. They made love however they wanted to."

She looks me in the eyes.

"Freedom. No insanity. No metamorphs. No Call. Can you imagine?"

I tell her that I could not. I never had any one who was still around since before The First Call.

She holds on to my arm.

"All this ugliness will be gone very soon. For you...for I...for all these citizens."

I ask her what would come after this.

"No one one knows what happens after we serve to The Call. I imagine it is only death. Death. Just death."

"How can that be beautiful?"

She looks down. "Because it is freedom. These things that we have been forced to do by the Controllers because of our Special nature. Our Assignments have appalled me. I know they have in your heart as well."

"You are right. I hate what you and I have become"

"We serve no God other than the Old God.  That much I know. And whatever God the Old God is, I hate him." she says..

She looks around at all the citizens , spread out on top of the towers. The Call Guards, blocking the ways out of this. Then she looks up into the heavens. At the stars.

"Their beauty will shine down forever. No matter how mad we are down here, the stars will always be a reminder of what was. How peaceful they must be. How confused they must be when they look down upon our insanity of this city." she tells me, or herself, I'm not very sure.

She then points around the city.

"It's so quiet. No one is making even the slightest sound."

She is right. For the first time since we have been forced up here to honor our duty, I realize this. You can here the drones of City life below us. But up here. Around all these towers with all these people here, you expect commotion. Wailing. Anger. People professing their love for each other. 

Terrified.

Yet all I hear is the wind. The winds from the heights of which we sit.

And Kayla's voice. Her sweet, angelic voice.

"It is quiet.", I agree.

"That, my love, is the sound of a thousand voices screaming at the stars".

At now the loud sound. Like that of a horn, or some loud instrument The City Complex lights up. Brighter. Intense.

And  we see what really is at the heart of the Complex.

A mammoth sized thing. Bulbous head. Tentacles the size of three towers. It rises slowly. 

The sound of the instrument louder.

The Call.

Now it happens. People around us loose their mind. Their sanity is turned off like the water coming out of a faucet.

Anguish, fear, wailing starts.

And they fall. 

Plummet.

Offer themselves to the streets below.

I feel a gnawing in my mind. Something that is not my thoughts. It's not me. It's the Old God. He's here. I must fulfill mu Duty.

I see Kayla. She is gone. Her physical body is here, but she screams and stammers like a fool. 

Then she offers herself. I see her body into the air.

Now I realize that the Complex is actually the sea. The city has been built around the sea....and now I know that beneath that spot in the sea is The Dreaming City that we have been told about in whispers. And now it dawns on me. We have been raised her, put here for this.

I.......yes...........IT IS.........OLD......OLDER THAN TIME......

Ai! Ai!





Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn





Now isn't that a pleasant little story to write while in a class.....see...I am fucked up.
A lot of you are thinking that was a dumb fucking story....well go ahead. I'm rather fond of it.