Thu-Thud, Thu-Thud

Thu-thud, thu-thud, we all know the feeling when trying to sleep and we end up laying on an arm that weird way where we can hear our own pulse. I have that all the time, I don't know when it started, I reckon I had it all my life, because the thu-thud, thu-thuds have been there for as long as I can remember.

It has gotten to the point where I can ignore it, it's an everyday thing now, like voices in your head, or breathing really, you don't notice the sound of drawing breath either. Or that you're automatically blinking your eyes. I go to school, I come home and play games, all the while I'm hearing the thu-thuds.

No doctor or shrink or voodoo shaman could figure out why I hear this, I'm not depressed, I'm in tip-top shape, sorta at least, and no evil spirits possess me. Unless the guy was a hack. Tomorrow was the school field trip to Paris, I'd always wanted to go and I was so excited to finally see the Eiffel Tower and dine in one of those fancy street cafés romanticized in the movies.

I just had to pack up my bags and I was ready to go to sleep, but as I went to my suitcase to pack it I found a weird doll if you could call it that, it looked more like a ball of yarn with several mouths on it, at first I didn't think much of it and thought my dog may have dragged it in or stolen it from one of the neighbor kids.

I tossed it aside and began packing and when I was done I went to bed, I usually don't remember my dreams, but this night I did, I had a horrible nightmare of a writhing mass of flesh, with small appendages all over it, almost like a ball of yarn, it had mouths everywhere with both sharp and flat teeth as if the mouths came from different things. It spoke to me, the thu-thuds rose in volume and it drowned out any other sound except for a whisper, as it reached its peak and my ears felt like they were starting to bleed I woke up in a cold sweat, to my surprise it was morning and I was battered. I took a few minutes to steady myself, and went about my day, today it was Paris!

The trip there was uneventful at best, however when I went to check in my bags I was pulled aside by security, they asked me to open my bag because of a weirdly shaped circular object in my bag, as I opened it, there it was, the weird toy my dog had put in my suitcase, the ball of yarn with several mouths on it, I could've sworn I had removed it, but when they saw it, they ushered me on my way, after all, it was just a dumb toy.

So I get on my flight and the thu-thuds are were almost deafening, in my childhood this happened from time to time and I found meditation and breathing helped silence it, but it didn't work, it became so loud that I had a ringing in my ear and I almost started hyperventilating, suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder, and the thu-thuds became silent, it was a sweet old woman who squeezed my shoulder and asked if I was okay, I said yes and we proceeded to engage in small talk, the entire trip I didn't notice the thu-thuds at all, as we landed and got off the plane I got through security no problem, and headed for my hotel with the rest of my class.

The weirdest thing was the thu-thuds went crazy, then they were loud, then almost silent, then loud again, we passed by an alleyway and I stopped and looked down it, I felt like I was beckoned to go, and I did, splitting from my class in a city I've never been in, the thu-thuds were slowly growing in volume and as I came to the other end of the alley, across the street was a museum of sorts "Orville's Mystery and Oddities Museum" again I felt beckoned to this place. I went inside and was greeted by the clerk, I couldn't hear him the thu-thuds were making my ears ring, it was as if I was in a trance I walked right past him and steered through the displays without as much as looking at them until I found myself in front of a glass display with a cloth over it.

I pulled the cloth aside and gasped silently, or at least I think I did, it was the same weird toy I had in my suitcase, I felt compelled, almost possessed because in an instant I had shattered the glass and taken it, I ran towards the back and from the emergency exit door and rushed out, looking back the manager and clerk were yelling, but I couldn't hear a thing, I just kept running. I knew the address of my hotel and I punched it into my phone and found my way there after losing my pursuers.

The thu-thuds had silenced again, it was becoming night and I was jet-lagged, my friends and teachers asked me where I had been and I made up an explanation that sounded plausible, I went to my room and passed out on the bed.

Next day the first thing I did when I woke up was to rip open my suitcase and take out the other toy, while holding both of them in my hands the tendrils started moving towards each other, and as I pushed them closer they intertwined and merged to a larger ball of yarn and tendrils. I wasn't frightened, something in the back of my mind told me this was normal and that this was supposed to happen. I was still tired and decided to take a nap before we had to go experience the life of a student in France.

But I awoke not in my bed but on a cobblestone street somewhere in the city, the toy in hand and the thu-thuds louder than ever, before me, was a staircase built into the side of a house leading down underground, as I descended the steps it was dark, but oddly enough I could see as if it was day, the thu-thuds grew faster and faster the more I walked through these tunnels, soon though I began seeing coffins and skeletons, these were catacombs, again I wasn't frightened I had a feeling that this is where I was supposed to be. I must've walked those tunnels for hours until finally, I hit the end, a spiraled staircase leading down deeper into the earth.

I reached the bottom and the thu-thuds grew rapid and more forceful, I felt like my head was about to explode, but I pressed on, I came to a doorway made of stone with odd markings around it and I walked through into this massive expansive cavern and what I laid eyes upon was indescribable, my dumb dogs' toy was before me, but bigger, much bigger, the size of the Eiffel tower, a huge writhing mass of flesh and tendrils, with mouths scattered across it, with both sharp teeth and flat, mouths of animals and humans alike, a large pedestal stood before it with a stair coiling around it, the thu-thuds seized and became a word, a name "Thu'thad" it repeated rapidly and violently in my head "Thu'Thad, Thu'Thad" it went, as I ascended the pedestal.I stood now upon it and looking down upon this horrific vision of a monster, with outstretched arms I closed my eyes and leaned forward, becoming one with the one true god. It wasn't my heartbeat I heard in my head all those years. It was his..