Peterson Report: 1948, July
July of 1948, Agent Gregory Peterson reporting in. Mission was a failure, complete loss of assets and personnel, 2 dead or missing, it’s hard to tell. We had been assigned to the Western branch to deal with previous disappearances, I can only assume they were trying to get us all killed. I can only explain by telling my story. It is not a story I wish to retell but for the safety of our agents I will divulge everything I can.I had arrived in the NARACO base in early June with the intent of looking over the expedition into a “crevice” that had appeared in the desert with no explanation. The crevice was at least 2 miles wide and probably countless more deep. But that was not the interesting part, it had an impenetrable darkness, light could not pierce it. Light was completely consumed by the Crevice, the pit of Hell that suddenly appeared before us. Assigned to work with me were Agent McGregor and Dr. Settleton. McGregor was a big man of a muscular build with dark eyes and hair, he was no doubt the protection for this mission. Settleton was around the same size, blue eyes and younger, he was a respected scientist, American. He had theories on what was going on from the mundane to the implausible. I merely laughed most of them off, nothing before this was anything this drastic. I didn’t believe this was real before I got there, what was I supposed to believe? That some dark abyss just happened to appear in the middle of the desert?
That’s what we found, though. A giant hole in the ground, some tens of miles away from all of civilization, just...darkness all around it.
And we were there, already in the darkness before we plunged into it.
“Do we have any idea what is down there?” I asked the doctor, a day or two before our expedition into the Crevice.
“What I believe is that we’ve found a portal leading somewhere...well, where is another matter entirely. We could speculate all day and still have no conclusive answer until we go in.” The doctor nodded.
“It’s just a damn hole in the ground, don’t know why yer so crazy about this.We’ll go in, find nothing and get the hell out of it.” McGregor muttered.
I nodded in agreement with him, a small smile formed on my face before I lit my cigar. A small twitch of calm went through me, enhanced by the smell of smoke.
Yet, there was uncertainty, the smallest corners of my mind toyed and played with the possibility that Settleton was right. That this hole might be door to somewhere else...and we had no idea where. Was there even a way back? Was it easy to find? And what would be there, would we even be on Earth? These thoughts flooded my brain, a wave of doubt hit me, crashing against the weak shores of my mind and leaving nothing but a twitch of fear which slowly grew into a loud hammering fear. But I was apparently good at hiding it, no one noticed or maybe no one dared speak in silent agreement. Whatever it was, no one spoke for a good few minutes, though in McGregor’s case I believe it was sheer indifference and maybe Settleton was pondering on the benefits that could be reaped from this trip. Finally I decided to speak, more than the small whisper I had expected.
“Our orders are only to observe what is down there, the boss doesn’t want one of us acting like a damn fool and destroy the whole goddamned place.” I mentioned. “That’s for you McGregor, you’re here only if we need it. Settleton, your orders are not to touch anything down there. We don’t know what could be down there and if you mess something up, we may never get out.”
A few nods and a bitter bit of grumbling from McGregor, who all of us would match rather ignore. With that, however, we rested for the journey ahead of us.
Resting, of course, was subjective as I couldn’t get my damn self to sleep, those echoing thoughts from Hell creeping back into my mind and leaving me in the dull awakeness. I could manage, I could get past this.
Arriving to the camp where the Crevice was located was the oddest moment I have ever experienced. The Crevice literally seemed to just appear in the area it was located, it’s borders and existence seemed to be just...there. Nothing of it seemed natural, it was a sea of nothingness, no depth, no light, no stops. You could just feel how wrong it felt, how you couldn’t quite comprehend what was ahead of you. Even the former skeptic McGregor was put at pause by this, muttering a single “Goddamn” before silently putting his hands into his pockets.
That was when things started to go south. The three of us went into a chamber of sorts, a secure chamber attached to a crane that’d lower us into the Crevice. It was a white room, small windows to allow us to see what was ahead of us. There was a button on the left wall that would signal the crane to lift us up if the need arised. The Crevice was right below us, that nothingness that seemed to stare into us. I felt the crane lower us down, slowly, carefully as not to lose us down there. As we neared the Crevice, Settleton walked right to the window in anticipation for what was down there. We entered the darkness.
We felt the pull of the crane disappear as we entered. We saw what we had arrived into. We had arrived to literally nothing, blank white outside the windows...no sound, no air but no need to breathe either. No need to do anything it seemed, there was nothing to this place...the silence...the lack of needs. We had nothing to latch onto but each other as we looked out into the void. And the void challenged us...dared us to go into it. It called to us almost, our curiosity had to be satisfied somehow. The days and hours became meaningless, there was nothing to count no reason to...just silence in the room and the void.
Settleton was the first to break. He walked right up to the door with a determined look on his face, he had to be the first damned one to see what was there. When he opened the door and walked out, he disappeared. No noise, no reaction..he was literally just gone. McGregor called for the doctor, over and over but he was gone. In a rash moment, McGregor followed him in there...popping out of existence before my eyes. I had to be alone. In the silence. Silence.
Isolation. No noises but the thoughts of my own mind, left alone. I could not feel hunger, weakness or anything else, just existence. All I thought was what had happened to the others? Where were they? What had they seen down there...what were they seeing? My heart pounded, a useless gesture here but it kept going, beating the drums of fear in me. Sweat rolled down my face as I thought of the possibilities, theorized what would happen if I went in there.
If.
If.
The words repeated in my mind, the temptress of the weakened psyche and the bringer of doom. Yet the words were persuasive, pervasive and unyielding, telling me to go into the Crevice and join my friends. If. It called to me. It wanted me to open the door and join them in nothingness. If. It gave uncertainty into my mind. IF. The words taunted me, tempting me...IF.
Giving into them was the biggest mistake, it was Pandora’s Box, it was Eve taking the apple, it was the first sin. The mistake.
Stepping out of the door was not an action so much as it was a trance. I was not awake as much as I drifted into a dull glide to the door and stepping out.
I felt nothing. I smelled nothing. I heard nothing. I could not move. All I had was my thoughts, no body to feel or no senses beyond the white. The piercing white, gazing into my very soul and mind, tearing them to nothingness. I wished to scream but there was no sound, only the thoughts. Only the thoughts. ONLY THE THOUGHTS. It slowly became calming…calming. Like a siren calling to me, on those rocks, leading me to oblivion. The calming thoughts...just nothing. Nothing at all. Nothingness…white. White. Yes...the blankness. Calming. Rest. Peace. Sleep. It brought to mind these words. Sleep...Yes, that sounded good. It sounded like it was what I needed. What I wanted...what I wanted.
NO! I fought. I resisted. I rebelled. The Crevice knew, it knew I was trying to escape its grasp and like a great wave tried to force me to accept this nothingness. I refused. My mind would not succumb to this void. The Crevice would not win. WOULD NOT WIN! The wave calmed...my vision rippled, I saw the room. I saw freedom. I saw it. Right in front of me...just a bit closer now…please, I begged, please. Right there. C’mon, Greg, just right there.
I keeled over under the weight of existence, slammed my knees onto the white floors of the room. Smiling, crying, laughing...everything my body allowed me to. I was alive...I had made it back to the room and all the safety it could provide. I escaped the reaches of Hell. Yes, I had been victorious. Yes.
I staggered over to the left wall, frantically groping and looking for the button. I clawed the wall, searching every corner until I felt it. With no hesitation, I pressed the button. I felt the sudden tug of reality hit me like a freight train, knocking me over and sending me to another darkness.
I woke up in a hospital bed. As it turns out, I had been down there for about two weeks and they had figured we died down there. And I was lucky, another two weeks there and they’d have removed the crane. Just let it drop into oblivion. Apparently, the Crevice had just vanished after I emerged from it...the ground was back to normal as if it never existed. They asked me what happened down there, I have remained silent on the matter until this report. For the past few nights, I have been thinking on what happened to Settleton and McGregor...were they even thinking anymore? We were they still alive...was there a way out? I can’t go a night without thinking about this…about what happened to them. Do they even exist anymore? Did it even exist? Did any of it exist? It had to...It had to.
My hands are shaking too much...