Lucas Nyx: Eldritch

By Brandon Bickler

Sacrificed by a cult and left for dead on the side of the road, Lucas Nyx awakens five years later in the hospital, with a voice in his head and strange new powers, Lucas must uncover the cults plans and what they have to do with his small mountain town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brandon Bickler
• Release date: Jan 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224539215

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Brandon D. Bickler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [e-mail].

First paperback edition September 2021

Volume One: Beginning and end.

Roaring guttural grind of stone grinding against stone, as an octagonal slab of carved obsidian is moved away. With a heavy crash, the slab rests. Shaking the ancient dust upon ten men at the entrance. Flashlights in hand. A bald, stout man, military or mercenary, with an American accent. You are positive this location is correct, herr Bose? Moving into the temple ruins, raising his pistol and flashlight to shine the light into the passage. Signaling to his men to proceed. Light extends a few feet into the chamber, meeting a wall of thick darkness, only retreating as the men enter the passage. Ja officer Morgan, the site is correct. I can sense the eldritch energy seeping from further into the temple. We must find the artifact. An elderly man with a gray pointed goatee and handle-bar mustache moves in as he takes off his glasses to clear them. Soldiers move in and set up generators and lights, examining the ground and walls with radiation meters. Officer Morgan pushing a couple feet into the passage, pulling out his lighter to ignite the torches, but the sparks won’t take. This place gives me the creeps. Find the stick. Morgan pushes opens a stone slab door leading into a greater hall. The center is a pyramid platform, with sets of steps on all sides. Elevated up at least twenty feet floating midair is another smaller platform. Surrounded by three statues, one at the end of each corner, facing various directions. Each statue represents a different formless mass of tentacles, spikes, mouths, and eyes. It is not a stick, officer Morgan. It is the Abyssal Key of Azathoth, and it carries more power in one splinter than your feral mind can fathom. Dr. Bose retorts with a sharp emphasis, as the doctor ascends the platform.

Around the structure, the men set up equipment as Dr. Bose examines the statues. You. Soldier, come here. Gesturing to a soldier setting up a campfire. They stands at attention, waiting for orders. Dr. Bose then directs them to rotate one statue ninety degrees to the left. Officer Morgan interjects. Now Herr Bose, my men are tough, but for them to rotate a statue alone is ridi-. The grinding click of a statue locking in place interrupts Officer Morgan. These statues depict the dance of the Outer Gods around Azathoth. They must move the statues in their proper positions. He then orders two other soldiers to rotate two other statues right, seventy degrees, and left one hundred and twenty degrees. With a grinding click, statues lock in place, sinking into the floor as the elevated platform in the center descends. The unlit torches lining the walls roar to life with sickly purple flames dancing as winds pick up, whirling around the pyramid structure. The platform descends, hovering above the ground. Dr. Bose steps onto the platform where an altar made from bones of unknown creatures, unknown species. Bones protrude and wrap around a curved dagger made of petrified wood materials, or bone, maybe glass? This material looks like nothing found on earth floating inches off the slab enclosed in rib-like bones. The doctor turns around, having to yell over the screaming winds swirling around them. Quickly now! Bring the containment unit! As he raises his hands to the air, contorting his fingers together in a sickly inhuman shape resembling an eye. He brings his hands to his forehead and speaks aloud something inhuman. A series of screams and grunts strung together to sound like words from some alien language. As the bones covering the key shatter and collapse into dust, the vibrations from the key become audible throughout the chamber. Soldiers clutch their ears to no avail, as the torturous tones pierce their ears, blood pooling at the corners of their eyes. Bose pulls a cloth inscribed with runes and sigils out of his jacket pocket, wrapping the key in the cloth. Making sure not to touch it with his bare hands. The high pitch scream silences as the cloth covers the key. Holding it up, admiring this artifact of immense primordial power as the winds die down and the chamber goes eerily silent. The sickly purple glow from the torches blanketing the chamber in purple. The flames flicker violently, casting the faces of the damned upon the walls.

Two other soldiers grab a metallic box and bring it over to the doctor. The rest of the soldiers shaking their heads and reorienting themselves. A scream pierces through the chamber, as one soldier near the back of the chamber severed in half his blood, and organs splattering across the stone walls. Invisible entities force two more to the ground and ripped apart screaming, their blood encasing these creatures just enough to show what they have awoken in this long forgotten chamber. Quadruped canine type creatures that look like Picasso’s paintings made up of the shattered glass of reality. Officer Morgan pulls out his handgun and starts firing off shots. Recognizing dozens of these creatures surrounding them. He barks to the remaining soldiers, Get the doctor out of here! As officer Morgan brandishes another handgun, unloading into the creatures with little to no effect, bullets sliding off their bodies like water droplets. Dr. Bose turns to secure the key. Two soldiers holding the case are both pounced on by eldritch beasts, ripping and tearing into them. The doctor scrambles to the case as a claw catches him from behind, raking up his face, gouging out the doctor’s left eye. Bose screams out in pain. Officer Morgan shoulder charges the creature, knocking it off Dr. Bose’s back. Morgan reaches down, grabbing Bose by the arm and lifting him to his feet. Get that fucking stick and get the fuck out of here! Shoving Bose towards the containment case. Bose struggling to open the metallic case, blood dripping from his face onto the keypad, obscuring his vision. He gets the box open and secures the key with a hiss, sealing it shut. As the shadows grow and creep through the passageway, like a wall grinding forward. The echo of boots hitting the stone reverberates through the corridor as Dr. Bose runs, clutching the metallic case to his chest. Glancing back to catch sight of Officer Morgan being brought down and disemboweled by shattered hounds. Morgan shoves the handgun in the mouth of one beast, unloading the clip to no avail as the life leaves his eyes. Bose turns and runs the purple flame torches, being snuffed out one by one as the darkness creeps towards him. The disembodied distorted howls and growls from the beasts made of shattered reality nipping at his heels. The light ahead, the doctor’s only saving grace, dwindles as the octagonal obsidian slab slides back into place as the slab sets with a heavy.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGG. The school bell rings and a boy wakes up, rubbing his green eyes and running his hands through his long dark hair. The disappointed scowl on the face of his science teacher, Mr. Fritz. He glances up at the clock and reads, 4:30 I passed out again. It’s been the same dream I’ve been having for the past month. I am running through the halls of my high school, being chased by something on my heels. I can feel a frigid breath on my neck, the rising growl of something inhuman as it hunts me. Nothing I do shakes it and always ends the same. I curled up in a corner of my science class as the darkness closes. Mr. Fritz thwacks his sticker covered ruler on my desk and in his sharp German accent. I should scold you for sleeping through my entire class. He leans in closer, making eye contact. Too close. It is the last day of school. You have done this for five years. What’s the point of disciplining you now? Enjoy your summer, Herr Nyx. I look forward to not seeing you next year. He thwacks his ruler on his desk again, smirks, and turns away. He gathers his things in his worn out patch covered black back pack. Grabs his tattered tapped up headphones and comic books, exiting the science class for the last time, hoping with these steps the nightmares end. While everyone else is cleaning out their lockers for the summer, he wades through the hallway with his eyes on one thing, the exit. I have been here five years. Nothing but asshole teachers and heartless kids. I never bothered making friends, never had the chance. But it doesn’t matter. I am done, the exit. My freedom is mere inches away. I can taste it. But it’s never that effortless, is it? A familiar hand grasps him by the shoulder. Drags him back underneath an arm, the putrid stench of jock seeping from his arm pit. Where do you think you’re goin Nick? The Senior Party is tonight. Not ditching the senior party, right Nick? Bradly grinding his knuckle into his scalp. Last fucking time, Bradly. It’s Nyx, not Nick! Pushing himself out from under Bradly’s grasp, glaring. "Lucas Nyx, Fuck off,