Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28060931-20161112150542/@comment-31532017-20161127034521

I'm a terrible businessman; I am so because I have a kind heart, in my world business (it's) about generosity and advancement of human knowledge -- really it's about money and power. A certain company found a huge deposit of gold in (Africa) and needed someone to deal with the documents while they were directly operating the excavation. I did not want to work with those tyrants, but I had no choice. I needed the money and respect that came with the job.

Three months after I signed on, I received a letter from my employers saying that I needed to come down because of trouble with the miners. They were having delusions and abrupt, violent fits. I ran hospitals and human rights organization in the country and I was highly respected among the natives, so I knew why I was needed.

The next day I engaged passage from California to Africa on the (speediest vessel available). [I prefer fastest, but hey that's just me] My butler already wrote to those bastards that I will arrive upon short notice. A coach was waiting for me at the dock.

Africa is a vast, scorching plain that offers vistas of desert occasionally dotted with a lonely tree or a sad animal stalking the fields. In these hopeless stretches of unmerciful land many (men have) withered away from hunger and thirst. That is why I started helping the people living in this hell.

A mountain loomed in the distance, and the driver said, "Dat it, mista, the camp-site. I don' know why anyone would wanna set up camp there, the gold ain' worth it, mista."

"What do you mean? It's the biggest gold mine in all of Africa, the thing will make billions."

"A life is not worth de trillions, mista, they speak horrible things about de mountain -- they say spirits haunt da place. The miners talk of strange visions of terrible alters and horrific sacrifices."

The coach stopped at the foot of a hill and rattled back the way it came. Golden sunlight slanted down from atop the hill, and silhouetted in it were watchtowers and headframes. I climbed to the top of the hill and froze in perplextion and alarm.

The camp-site was desolate. Tools and clothes were strewn everywhere, the tents were ripped to shreds and a few gory corpses lay on the ground with ghastly expressions burned onto their faces.

"Ghosts!" I cried. Surprised, I jumped a little; I did not believe in ghost, I was merely scared and my dialogue with the driver put the idea in my head.

Surely, a stampede of animals rampaged through the camp and the everyone fled into the depths of the cave. Thinking this, I decided to go inside.

I produced a flashlight from one of the tents and ventured inside the mine. I climbed down a shaft into a straight tunnel. I was relieved at the dampness and darkness of the cave, I had enough of the sunlight. I walked down the tunnel and took caution with each step. The tunnel sloped and slanted and became more confined and claustrophobic as I continued; the walls were framed with timber but jagged rocks pointed down from the ceiling. I almost had to crawl.

When my foot slipped, I collapsed on my back and slid down until my foot caught a wooden plank connecting the tunnel over an opening onto a cave. I crawled further until the flashlight caught a cage and a dead canary inside it. Of course the cheap fuckers would use this prehistoric gas detectors; the canaries respiratory system is similar to ours and the fuckers go mad when they're (dying), and if they’re not moving, they're probably dead.

But this one was not only dead, it was a bloody mess: its beak was smashed, its guts hanging out of a gory aperture, and its eyes bulged. The thing went into a frenzy, it clawed its inside out and crashed against the cage manically. Why did the miners drop the cage? If they saw the thing was dead, they would run the fuck out, but it went insane -- it gave sufficient warning, there was time to evacuate everything living.

I started with the realization that whatever made that thing go crazy still lingered in the air.. Adrenalin surged through my body and I sped back the way I came; I did not hear the creaking, nor did I feel the wobbling, I only saw a blur of color as I flew downwards into the cave below the plank.

A paroxysm of pain shot through my arm when I tried to move it. I pushed myself up and limped around the cavern. My flashlight was damaged, it was flickering.

I stalked down the tunnel until the flickering light lit up a humanoid shape sprawled on the floor. I came closer and, in brief photo-snaps of light, a grinning, decomposed skeleton wearing a weathered suit stared at me. I recoiled. When I calmed, my mind betook itself to piecing together the facts; this man was one of my employers, he stood out like a sore thumb in this place. Seeing him dead made me happy, and not only because it meant I was upon the miners’ tracks...

A sudden burst of anger flared through me and then I felt light-headed. Fuck, the gas may be kicking in. The light-headedness faded into a dream, I was walking down the tunnel until I reached an opening. The room was about 20x12 feet. In my bag, along with my journal, I had some supplies for a fire, in case I had to spend a night near the camp. When I snapped out of it I was in the same room; the dream was not a dream but a involuntary movement. I decided that I had no other options anyway. I laid out the kindling and a stone circle around it; when I could not ignite the lighter I became frenzied. I yelled at the lighter and threw it against the wall.

Eventually, I managed to get a fire started. My light-headedness morphed into a throbbing headache, and I was infuriated by the smallest details. The neurotoxin was working fast.

The flames died down and I screamed in pain as my head pulsated with agony. Motherfuckers, these cunts got me into this mess, if the fuckers kept the niggers at bay, I would not have to deal with this shit.

I was drifting through the tunnel, everything seemed muted and distant and tranquil. I snapped back into reality. My head hurt, but I knew I had to go onwards, the exit was too far away.

I turned a corner and entered onto a platform overlooking a huge stage; torches and bowls of fire lined the walls and tables. Cages hung from walls and inside them were miners and the others.

A colossal marble carving of a fishy monstrosity with an elongated face and bulging eyes loomed over a bloody table, on which lay a miner. His body was stretched taut with chains, locked around his wrists and ankles. A group of Africans wearing robes stood over the man, chanting some other-worldly hymn; they made a stealthy, hissing sound that chilled me to my bones.

In the corner stood a shadowed line of people. They resembled Holocaust victims: starved, limbs hanging limply, faces worn and clothes dirty.

The middle man of the robed figures took out a scalpel. The miner howled in horror as the blade neared his face. Holy fuck, I thought, I don't wanna see this deprived shit, please god no! The blade pierced his neck, and made a vertical slit through his windpipe.

The rest of the robed people retreated and came back with a steaming bowls of a blood-red and indigo liquid. The bowls were pressed against the miners face and he was forced the inhale the vapors.

Moments later, when the bowls were replaced out of sight, the worker coughed up blood; and after more coughing, convulsed violently and foamed from his mouth. He then calmed and lay down, eyes closed. Suddenly, he burst into a frenzy and kicked violently, his -- its -- eyes blazing with anger. The middle man put a hand against its forehead and it ceased kicking but it still emitted waves of fury.

The chains were taken off. The thing was was not moving its mouth; instead, the flaps of skins near the slit in its neck were blowing inward and outward with the thing’s breath. Somehow, it controlled its neck that way. The line of people in the corner stepped into the light, all of them were black, all had slits in their necks and all of their faces betrayed no hint of motion.

I clenched my fist. I was disgusted, furious, and... Pleased?

I was pleased at seeing that guy getting wrecked by those niggers, fucking dirty, free slaves.

No! It's just the drug talking.

Maybe I'll pop out and see what those niggers are made of.

No! This is what happened to everyone else, the gas made them angry and caused hallucinations. The visions were making them (like me) come closer and closer to this shrine, while making them more angry -- in other words, a perfect zombie: brain-washed and with a temper.

My head pounded and I waged an intense war with the sane part of my mind. I threw myself up and yelled so loud that I felt my vocal cords rip, "COME AND TAKE ME, YOU FUCKS!" I don't know what to do, I can hear their stampeding footfalls banging against the ground. God help me!