OMENS - 1891 CE

Part 1:

It is nearing the end of summer in the year 1891, and I watch the Norwegian village from a distance. The villagers congregate at the center and Astrid, a young well-liked woman, is the first to witness the emergence of yellow sigils on doorsteps and gates. These twisted etchings, born as if from a nightmare, make the community buzz with whispers of Carcosa and a pervasive dread seeps into our dreams. Visions of a city shrouded in mist. Where black stars rise amidst strange moons when the two suns slumber.

Before the village has time to react, an eerie affliction takes hold, warping the minds of the sane with visions that cast a long shadow in their yellowing eyes. The natural order begins to unravel; dogs bark at empty patches of darkness, while birds, both prey and predator, fly in odd groups that form ominous patterns in the sky. A signal for the Yellow Sign. The crops and trees droop, their death fast approaching, as their colors melt away. An echo of the same madness that afflicts us. And our dear river, once clear as crystal, now carries the murky reflection of sickly otherworldly lights.

Part 2:

Astrid looks at the arrival of dusk with a pained face. The villagers whisper of the King in Yellow, a spectral figure in our folklore of which we rarely speak. She listens as the elders blend the old Norse myths with tales of this foreign wanderer. One claims the stranger holds knowledge that rivals the mind of Mimir, the weight of forgotten truths known to no living man. While another weaves a tale of Hel and paints a vivid image of the entity as the bringer of contagion and pestilence, sending humans to the cold and dark of Carcosa in his passing.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The light of the sun begins to fade and our skies are encircled by the ravens of Odin. Resonating with a foreboding akin to the omens of doom spread by the oracles of distant Apollo. Astrid watches the birds with a heavy heart and feels something tug at her mind. The village recedes to slumber as the chaos encroaching on our reality, the King in Yellow, draws her towards a fate beyond the stars.

Part 3:

Astrid stands at the village's edge, under a sky marred by Carcosa's black crescent, the white landscape around her is chilling, yet somehow a relief, an imagined barrier to what lies beyond. She is alone, compelled to move by a force unseen, as the night stretches ever onward. The earth pulses, its rhythm mirrored in her beating pulse, as the air in front of her shimmers and cracks, a bilious yellow mist oozing out. Astrid shivers and turns pale, but her legs move forward against her will. Reality shatters before her, revealing the form King in Yellow in all of its grotesque glory. A presence that ushers forth the miasma of Carcosa, merging our world with the darkness.

Faced with this avatar of chaos, any defiance left in Astrid crumbles under the weight of its gaze, flooding her with otherworldly secrets. She sees beyond the sallow tattered robes, the twisted ancient crown, and the decayed, borderline skeletal, grey arms. Behind the royal facade, she sees the truth, that of a being encompassing Carcosa and beyond. That of Hastur the Unspeakable.

The cosmic entity’s tendrils reach and stretch around her and her village, shepherding those it desires into its embrace. By the time dawn arrives, our village is left desolate, the yellow marks now broken portals of despair, our collective fear now a cacophony of screams. We find Astrid with a serene yet haunting smile and she becomes a testament to our confrontation with the unknown.