บท 23: Elohim's prayer
The camp at the edge of the Great Summit took shape slowly, the soft sound of ropes and fabric rustling as Arvid and Bjorn finished securing the last tent. The sharp, cold air of the mountains surrounded them, biting at their exposed skin as they worked. The fog had already begun to creep in, rolling like a living thing, pressing against the thin barrier of their camp. It moved in heavy drifts, obscuring what little view they had of the world below—or what they had come to understand as "below".
"It's been some time since I've been here," Arvid said, his voice soft and touched with a note of nostalgia as he stood back, inspecting their makeshift shelter.
Bjorn looked at him, a hint of warmth on his face despite the cold. "It sure has," he said. "Do you miss it? The hunts, the rush, the thrill of running after prey?"
Arvid's hands stilled for a moment as he finished tying the last knot on his tent. He let out a slow breath before responding. "Weirdly, I don't," he admitted. "Not like I used to."
Their conversation was interrupted by the sight of Mikkel approaching, his face shadowed by worry. His eyes swept over the camp before settling on Bjorn. "The fog is starting to surround us again".
Bjorn's gaze followed Mikkel's out to the swirling clouds beyond their camp. There was no sight of the ground—no solid point of reference to remind them where they stood. The clouds seemed to wrap around them, forming a boundary that blurred the line between what was real and what was imagined.
"We'll need to move at least twice as slowly tomorrow," Bjorn said, the weight of the day pressing into his tone. He could feel the exhaustion clawing at him, even as he forced himself to think ahead.
"At least," Mikkel replied with a touch of irony, the hint of a smile failing to reach his eyes.
Bjorn's face grew more serious. "I want two men to watch the fire tonight," he said, looking between Mikkel and Arvid. "One should be outside at all times. Every so often, the two awake should rotate, waking a third man to switch places with one of them."
Arvid nodded, the gravity of Bjorn's words not lost on him, even if he didn't know the full reason behind such caution. The night before had left an impression on them all, even if not everyone understood its cause. Bjorn's decision was clear "Oh, and Arne will not watch the fire," he added. Bjorn glanced at Arvid, sensing the question forming on his lips. "I know you don't know the reason for this, but trust me. I'll explain later."
Arvid's eyes searched Bjorn's face for a moment before nodding, the trust between the two men apparent. Olaf, who had been standing nearby, looked up and caught Bjorn's eye, his expression a mix of curiosity and silent concern. Mikkel's face tightened, a flicker of disapproval crossing his features, but he said nothing. For now, it seemed, he would follow Bjorn's lead.
As the last of the preparations were made, the men moved around the perimeter of the camp, laying down thin branches that would crack under any weight, forming a crude alarm system. The branches formed a circle, an unseen line of defense between the sleeping villagers and whatever might come in the night.
The sky darkened swiftly, the deep blue of twilight surrendering to the stark, unfathomable black of night. The camp settled into an uneasy stillness as the women and children huddled in their tents, their soft murmurs replaced by silence. The fire cast a flickering glow, painting long, wavering shadows across the snow.
Bjorn sat by the fire, the ice axe resting across his knees, its cold metal handle a familiar weight. Beside him, Olaf kept his eyes fixed on the edges of the camp, where the darkness met the light. The fog, now fully settled, wrapped around the perimeter, making it impossible to see more than a few meters beyond.
The two men sat in tense silence, listening to the crackling fire and the occasional creak of branches shifting in the night. Every sound, every subtle shift in the wind, felt magnified under the oppressive stillness of the mountains. Even the breath they exhaled seemed loud, hanging in the cold air before dissipating into the void.
The fire crackled, the only sound breaking the silence that hung over the camp like a shroud. Olaf shifted uneasily, his eyes darting between the wavering shadows and the dense, suffocating fog. He was a medic, not a hunter, not a man bred for the terrors that lurked beyond the safety of their village. The eerie quiet pressed on him, squeezing his chest tight with an anxious dread he hadn't felt since he was a child listening to the old stories around the fire.
"I need to take a piss, Bjorn," Olaf said, his voice trembling as he stood abruptly, the sudden movement breaking the spell of silence.
Bjorn's eyes narrowed, the grip on his ice axe tightening instinctively. "You can't," he said flatly, the steel in his voice cutting through the air.
"But I need to—"
"I said you can't," Bjorn interrupted, his patience fraying. His eyes didn't leave Olaf, watching the older man's movements, the way his hands shook, the way his eyes flitted wildly, searching the darkness as if seeing things that weren't there.
Olaf's gaze was pleading, the whites of his eyes stark against his pale, weathered face. Without warning, he took a step toward the edge of the camp, toward the darkness beyond the fragile circle of firelight. Bjorn moved faster, grabbing Olaf's arm and pulling him back, the sudden force causing Olaf to stumble. He collapsed into the snow, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
"Please, let me go," Olaf sobbed, his voice broken. He shook his head like a man possessed. "I need to go. Please, Bjorn, I need to—"
Bjorn felt a pang of confusion cut through his stern resolve. This wasn't like Olaf. The man was soft-spoken, cautious, but never like pussy, never driven to the edge of madness. Something unseen gnawed at his friend, something that turned reason into desperation.
"Olaf, stop," Bjorn said, the edge of command in his voice wavering as the unsettling scene unfolded. But before he could react further, Olaf's eyes shifted, vacant, hollow, and he jerked free of Bjorn's grasp. The medic's face twisted, as if in recognition of something beyond them, and he took a step backward, over the line of branches.
"Olaf!" Bjorn shouted, his voice cracking through the air as Olaf turned and bolted into the fog. Panic surged through Bjorn, and without thinking, he snatched a torch from the ground and ran after him, the firelight casting sharp, erratic shadows as he moved.
The mist enveloped them both, greedy fingers of fog swallowing Bjorn's torchlight. He strained to keep sight of Olaf's fleeing figure, the old man's silhouette flickering and fading. Just as the firelight dimmed, Bjorn's eyes caught movement—something massive at the very edge of the clearing, where the fire's reach met the dark curtain of night.
A figure, impossibly tall, loomed before him. It towered, twice the height of a man, a grotesque specter that absorbed the weak light, twisting it until it became a void within the night. Its form seemed carved from shadow, each limb stretched like tendrils of smoke, thin and skeletal. Fingers elongated beyond reason, moving slowly as though tasting the air, their spindly tips quivering as they reached for something unseen.
Bjorn's breath caught in his throat as he took in the creature's face—or what should have been a face. It was a featureless expanse, marred by two deep, yawning pits where eyes would be. They seemed to tunnel into its skull, consuming light and reflecting only an abyss. Below, where a mouth should have been, two grotesque limbs dangled, swaying like pendulums in a breeze that wasn't there.
Nausea swept over him, the world tilting as if it, too, recoiled from the sight. The creature moved without a sound, yet in the silence, a whispering began, slipping into Bjorn's mind like a blade. It wasn't noise—it was the sound of thoughts unraveling, of memories disintegrating into nothingness. The whispers clawed at the edges of his sanity, prying at the walls he'd built over years of hardship and survival.
Bjorn's legs felt rooted to the spot, his eyes wide and unblinking. The snow beneath him remained undisturbed; the creature cast no shadow and left no mark. The only proof of its existence was the sheer, suffocating terror that gripped him, freezing him in place.
The whispers grew louder, coiling around his thoughts. His vision blurred, the torchlight sputtering in his trembling grasp. With a burst of will, he tore one hand away and pressed it against his ear, shutting out the insidious sound. The whispering faded to a dull thrum, but the creature remained, motionless, a dark guardian of the night's secrets.
For a heartbeat, Bjorn stood in stunned awe, unable to move, unable to breathe.
"This nightmare isn't real," Bjorn muttered aloud, his voice shaking as he tried to force the scene before him back into the recesses of his mind. But the more he spoke, the more the horror solidified, etching itself deeper into his reality. The cold air bit at his skin, and the whispers, though momentarily silenced, echoed in the hollows of his mind. Every fiber of his being screamed to act, to do something. Olaf was still out there, swallowed by the fog, and Anna, the children—everyone he loved—were sleeping, oblivious in their tents.
Bjorn's muscles tensed as he forced his body to move. With painstaking slowness, he began to back away toward the camp, each step measured and deliberate. The boundary of the firelight, the one fragile line separating the known from the unknown, glowed faintly behind him. He had almost reached safety when the creature's head jerked to the side, the motion so swift it was like a nightmare flash. In an instant, it was there, standing just a meter away at the edge of the light.
Its form was more grotesque up close, an abomination of dark tendrils and bone-like extensions that twisted in a mockery of limbs. It did not step forward; it merely stood, its hollow, eyeless sockets fixed on Bjorn, unmoving. The whispers had stopped, and in their absence, the silence was suffocating. Bjorn's breath came in shallow, ragged bursts, his vision narrowing to the void that loomed before him.
With a quick, practiced motion, he snapped his ice axe into its spear form. The metallic click echoed like a gunshot, but the creature did not flinch. It did not recoil or hiss—it merely observed, silent and still. The moments stretched, turning seconds into what felt like hours.
Then it spoke.
"Come, my dear," it said, its voice a twisted parody of Anna's, each syllable dripping with mimicry. The words clawed at his mind, unspooling memories, taunting him with echoes of familiarity. Tears welled in Bjorn's eyes, unbidden and hot against his frozen cheeks. The entity's voice was so wrong, so jarringly intimate, that it shattered the last of his composure. What am I looking at? The thought trembled through his mind, brittle as thin ice.
"You should pray, Bjorn," the creature continued, its tone shifting, deeper now, laced with a dark insistence. "Elohim wants you to pray like this."
It raised its elongated, skeletal arms, mimicking the exact posture Arne had held the night before—hands above the head, palms facing each other in that strange, unsettling gesture.
Arne's silence the previous morning, the haunted look in his eyes—this was what he'd seen. This thing, this living nightmare. Bjorn's heart pounded so violently he thought it might burst. If Arne had known, why hadn't he said anything? If he had spoken up, they could have turned back, returned to the relative safety of Altera.
"Bjorn, get back!" Arne's voice cut through the fog, sharp and clear. He emerged from the edge of the camp, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and rage. But Bjorn was frozen, trapped in the vice grip of terror. Arne moved to his side, his breath heavy and visible in the cold night air, his gaze fixed on the creature before them.
"What the fuck is that?" Arne whispered, barely audible over the thundering in Bjorn's ears. He didn't wait for an answer. With a sudden, fierce determination, Arne drew a handgun from his side and fired a single shot, the sound shattering the silence like glass.
The bullet found its mark, piercing through the creature's head, carving a hole in the dark mass of its skull. For a moment, time seemed to pause, the fog catching the echo of the shot and folding it back into itself. The creature did not fall. It did not move. It remained still, the hole in its head a void within the void, leaking nothing, reacting not at all.
Bjorn's vision wavered. The effort to process what he was seeing became too great, and the world tilted. The last thing he saw before the darkness claimed him was Arne, standing tall and defiant, the flame of the campfire reflecting in his eyes. Then Bjorn's world narrowed to a pinpoint and went black. He collapsed into the snow, cold and unresponsive.
The creature did not move; it only watched, the silence returning with an unbearable weight.
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