Sarah sat in the plastic seats clutching the pill bottle in her backpack. It was one of many assorted cocktails that she had bribed off of a doctor in Lima who also happened to be the proprietor of the pharmacy next door. She opened the pill bottle, whose rectangular white pills gave her a calm reassurance of Xanax that she had come to know so well. With a gulp she dry swallowed two of the pills with a bottle of water from a company she had never heard of.

The old bus smelled like diesel and held the ghost body odor of thousands of nameless Peruvians. It was packed to capacity, leaving standing room only. For the last four hours she had breathed in this atmosphere. Surely it was as toxic as anything she could put into her body.

When the bus lurched through a pot hole, the pills shot out of her hand, spreading on the grunge caked floor along with the pamphlets for the resort she was to visit. A short gasp escaped and she was on the floor, rummaging between bare feet and old shoes to grab the pills. A young man slid his hand down, grabbing one and shoving it into his mouth. She nudged what she thought was a blanket aside and kept searching for more.

“Lovecraft was just a conduit. His feverish dreams, the stories he placed into so called fictions, were just his mind’s eye recalling the sacred and terrible nature of this world’s true masters.” The old man said.

“Uh, excuse me?” Sarah said, looking up.

“They sleep well in death, but their tombs carry an immortal essence of malignant portent. You’ve been having these dreams, too.” He said, leaning closer to her.

A flash of panic and confusion ran through Sarah. How could he have any idea about the dreams? She put a hand through her blond hair and looked into the old man’s coke bottle lenses; she saw his intense and fixed glair. He was in a deep purple robe, simple and flowing, tied off at the belt with a sash. He was standing only inches away, crotch near enough to her face that she was afraid to breathe through her nose.

“I know this bus is packed, but can you kindly fuck off?”

“We’re both seeking the same thing.” He said, pointing to the green pamphlet advertising the Church of Santo Daime. “The only difference is that I have truth and they have magic tricks.” He said, taking the brochure from Sarah’s hands. She shuffled on her knees back to her seat. Her brief time using the New York subway system had taught her the only way to handle freaks like this was to ignore them.

“It’s an important time, young miss. Rest assured that you will not miss it. No one will. Your little journey of self-discovery, or,” he laughed, “rehabilitation from the looks of it, will certainly bring you forbidden knowledge.”

Sarah turned from the window. “Sounds like you could use a dose of it yourself. Scaring tourists for the hell of it. Big man you are.”

“Funny you should mention the big man, though I’m sure he wouldn’t take kindly to being implied to be of simian origins.”

She slid her headphones on and stared out the window, feeling the calming effect of the Xanax take over.

—

On the back lawn of the small village’s church of Santo Daime a large circle of 12 men and women gathered in white cloaks surrounding a steaming pot of leaves. A tall priest, Father Silva, muttered a hymn, switching between broken English and Spanish.

Sarah sat, holding an oversized coffee mug that still held the leavings of yesterday’s session. The ayahuasca brew had left flakes of leaves in the bottom of the cup. The scent was enough to make her stomach churn. Her hands shook. In her purse, a pair of empty bottles promised no relief.

“Many of you may know this, but Daime is the old portugesa word that means ‘give me.’ We ask that our God will give us strength. To give us his love. He did that with his son. He continues to show us this through the gifts of the earth; the gift of this brew that we are almost ready to imbibe. Also, please be mindful of the buckets. This brew will make you purge your system in many ways.”

Sarah looked at the buckets next to each of the chairs, and was struck with a distinct sense of dread. The sounds she had heard the night before were almost enough for her to turn tail and run home. The brew might reveal the secrets of the universe, but the pamphlets said it comes at a cost. She didn’t have to wonder why the grass was well worn and sickly looking.

“Long before the Spanish and Portuguese brought us the truth from old Europe, the tribes and civilizations were given the brew. It allowed them to tune into the creations of God. Imagine that, one particular vine, one leaf, out of the entire amazon, and you find the key to tuning into the frequency of God!”

Sarah looked at the others, fixated in awe at the priest. She had seen some of these people the night before, writhing in the grass, murmuring, eyes glassy and bodies vacant of anything more than the most basic of functions. She was struck that if they still adored the strange priest after a night like that, there had to be something more. Something she needed.

A young man next to Sarah nudged her with his shoulder. “Psst. I’m Dillon. What brings you to the jungle?”

Horrible dreams of things in the sea, opiate addiction, acute anxiety, suicidal thoughts, existential meltdown, a broken psyche, an attraction to darker toned men with accents, loneliness, DUI, long term sustained nerve damage, a career on the brink of extinction, and an excuse to try something stronger than shrooms and LSD she thought.

“Research.” She finally landed on, digging through her purse for a card. It was embossed with the logo for UCLA, and in bold print had her name: Sarah Lange, Professor, and Ph.D. in Astrophysics.

“Woah. I didn’t peg you for a scientist.” Dillon said. “I didn’t think you guys got out much. Or dressed like that.” He nodded toward her minuscule shorts and tank top. “The glasses do sell it though.”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed, but we aren’t that far from the equator.” Sarah said, wiping more sweat from her brow.

“So, uh, what kind of research?” Dillon said. His surfer vibe reminded her of many lost students that somehow breached her 300 level classes.

“Have you ever heard of Francis Crick? Or Timothy Leary?”

“Nah. Are they, like, scientists too?”

“Well, Leary was spaced out on mushrooms or LSD about as often as he could be. He was a scientist, researcher and psychonaut. He believed that under certain states, problems of science, or humans, could become clearer. Francis Crick, now he was the man. On his deathbed he confessed that he only understood the double helix structure of DNA after being dosed up on LSD for a while. Some people consider it a gift from the universe, which he tuned into at just the right time.” Sarah said.

“And do you believe that?” Dillon asked.

“Not entirely, but I do think that when you’ve been asking the right questions with the wrong tools, you’ll get jack crap in results.” Sarah Said.

“And this is just another tool to you? What are you hoping to find?” Dillon said.

“Origins of the universe? Meaning behind the matter? Or that’s what I told my boss. Maybe a solution for dark matter and why the universe acts the way it does when we don’t have enough known mass to function as our current models show.” Sarah said.

“That doesn’t sound like something Padre over there would approve of his sacrament being used for.”

“Who knows, maybe I am on a quest for God. There are a lot of things we can’t entirely quantify. Most of that exists up here.” She said, tapping her temple. “We believe in a lot of weird shit. We’re pink monkeys that came up with an idea that beauty is somehow tangible.”

“Yours certainly is.” He said with a wink.

“Yeah, thanks. Things like beauty, emotion, justice, importance, the need to be more than just another piece of sand on the shore. Even meaning itself.”

“Or, like, consciousness.”

“Exactly. Was it really such a biological imperative that we needed to develop a mind that is a slave to happy chemicals and reproduction? Or that we learn to only function with some alien element in our systems like cigarettes or alcohol, even as it poisons us?”

“Good point. I’m here to trip balls.” Dillon said as the Padre filled their cups.

“I’ll drink to that.” Sarah said, knocking the ceramic cup with his.

The concoction smelled like coffee and rather potent cough syrup. She took a deep breath, then chugged the whole cup.

—

For a while, nothing happened. People hummed hymns with the Padre. Some gagged and wretched. Others sprinted for the only working bathrooms in the small village. Sarah felt the rising nausea but forced herself to keep from using her bucket until she couldn’t handle it anymore.

The effects began as a wavering in the edges of her vision. Flashes of light, the softening of edges. The grass below her felt like it was on a treadmill, rushing out from under her. When she fell from her seat, the grass still rolled, and she felt like she was being pulled into the jungle. The gaping maw of its darkness in the setting sun was terrifying. The last bits of her rational mind grew quiet. She tried to remind herself that she would be on the floor like everybody else, not moving, but the spirit of the ayahuasca taking her where it willed.

She laughed at the thought of a spirit taking her somewhere, grabbed her bucket, and purged a rancorous mess of colors and shapes. When she looked up from the bucket, the world she knew was gone. Pulsing light and geometric patterns danced in the void that surrounded her. She was no longer attached to anything, and was a free floating entity in foreign galaxies and stars.

Out of the furthest darkness, a shape looking like a woman in the lotus position rushed toward her. It was so brilliant that even the rapturous colors of this new universe seemed dull and worn in comparison.

It didn’t talk, it communicated through psychic intent. It begged for her attention, telling her not to give into awe.

She reached out for it, only seeing the veins of her body perfectly formed, pulsing with the same light. Her skin and bones were no longer with her, and only the ever changing flow of her life force seemed to make her up.

The being touched her forehead, and Sarah, or that which was Sarah in this plane, shot out from the body and she existed outside of it. The pulsing liquid of her form stretched prostate in that brilliant world of color and light.

Reaching into the chest of her former body, the being tore out a black stone. It bled brilliant green in all directions, looking like the tendrils of an anemone.

“You wish to cease existing.” the being communicated.

Yes.

“You don’t know what it is to be. Death is an illusion. As is the life you experience. As is your doubt, your possessions, your loved ones. Matter is only a part of a story of being. Energy is another.”

With this, all Sarah had ever known about matter started to spill out; concepts of atoms, equations, and justifications. Her entire repository of knowledge spiraled out from the point in her temple that the being had touched.

“Yes. You understand more than they.” and a flash of the other members tripping came to being and quickly faded. “But you still do not fathom the nature of your being.” The glowing woman stretched her arms wide, and the space that seemed infinite before ripped open. Galaxies blew past them at speeds not possible, and they journeyed outward. They ripped through flashes of white and came upon a single sphere, outward again until that sphere became a group of many, until it become a singular wall that stretched out into a hair next to the ear of a woman laying in the grass, and outward again into space. The fractal nature of the universe expanded a hundred thousand times in just moments as she drifted through phases of existence physics had only postulated about.

Fractal images of the universes spread out before her in brilliant masses of light, and though she was afraid, she felt the being comfort her. The warm embrace of all that is and was cradled her in its arms.

“You were brought here with purpose. The nightmares, the visions, the calamities in your life, all have led you here. The pills and potions couldn’t silence what is to come.” A flash of billions of humans standing in a nearly unending sea appeared before her, “These people stand on the edge of complete annihilation and enslavement. They need you.”

“What do you mean? How can I do anything to help?” She asked. Before she could get an answer, the golden spirit melded with her own.

Then all was snuffed out, the myriad of colors were sucked into an ever growing chasm until she was left with only darkness and voices chanting, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

—

Though her mind lay in darkness, she could feel tremors in her real body. She heard panicked shouts in a far off place. The hut behind her collapsed, the giant pot of boiling leaves tumbled over, scalding the priest and Dillon. Outside the circle, a nun cried out, crossing herself and falling to her knees. The entire circle, with the exception of Sarah fell into the chanting as the world shook.

Dillon’s skin started to bubble from the cauldron’s contents, but he still lay on the ground, chanting, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!” over and again.

Sarah’s mind was still enveloped in darkness. Her body stood and walked into the forest, hearing the call guide her way.

—

On the shores of the pacific, where the beach met the jungle, a circle of cloaked figures danced and chanted. Dozens of them peeled their sweat soaked robes off, revealing naked bodies. Some slipped daggers from their robes, carving inhuman sigils into their skin, chanting as they did so.

In the center of the circle was a large statue with a green stone figure of the Old One Cthulhu.

Men and women forced themselves upon each other, chanting as they engaged in brutality and rape. The din of noise was made worse by the grinding of the earth as the quake grew in force. In the distance, a great city of stone rose from the sea, water falling from its forbidden halls and massive chambers.

“R’lyeh rises!” shouted the bald man as he rose from a bludgeoned cultist. “The new epoch! Tyranny most high!” Tears ran down his face, mixing with the blood of others.

On the island, doors more massive than any human could fathom burst open and a sickly green ichor oozed out in a tremendous wave. It splashed onto the water’s surface. Tentacles and claws rose from the thrashing sea.

The great beast stood, its form becoming whole as the terrible ooze knit itself together. Its many eyes glowed yellow, its tentacles draping down the front of its maw and down the front of the grey-green body of the monstrosity.

The bald man watched, feeling the crushing and feral weight of Cthulhu press on his sanity. Tidal waves came to the shore, but were split in half by an unseen force, keeping the cultists safe but crashing against the shores and forest behind them.

Sarah walked through the mess of cultist bodies and stepped onto the ocean water, being pulled toward Cthulhu. She passed through the waves, unaffected by their turgid discourse.

Cthulhu spread his wings and arms, screaming out a maddening bellow that knocked the cultists from their feet, and sent storms of sand and debris in all directions. It reached out a massive claw, pointing to Sarah, and an unseen force yanked her form from the waves bringing her face to face with the old one.

—

Every heartbeat sent a wave of light across the ocean, fading into the infinity of the sea and rolling over the dead city. It was the only light other than the six glowing eyes that fixated on her. Each pulse seemed immune to him, his chaotic black form shifting between the betentacled monster and the massive stygian darkness that Cthulhu was. She felt a form beneath the surface that not even the ayhuasca could unveil, and the terror at this thought was more real than she was.

With a grumble of its murky throat, the beast halted the crashing waves and simply stared at her. The burrowing eyes seethed with hunger, with chaotic intent. Long tendrils reached out from the dark core of the beast. Some thin as thread, others, thicker than redwoods. One of the colorless tentacles snapped out, wrapping itself around her mind, penetrating into the very seat of her soul. She had a fleeting thought of “pineal gland” and “third eye” but when the monster made contact, she felt the cold depths of time and space before matter wash over her.

“Being, what are you?” The ancient one asked, not with words but thoughts.

Images flashed from her memory. She was a woman. A scientist. She was Sarah.

“You are not they.” Cthulhu said, stabbing her mind with images of flayed cities and rended bodies. Sarah felt their agony, and the thrill it brought the beast. Her heart quickened, lighting the world around her in strobing pulses.

“Why?” was all she could think.

“I have turned better worlds to ash for no other reason than it is my will. This universe of rules, this very plane of reality is a prison of entropy, of mortality. I cannot abide it. You cannot escape it.”

Sarah thought of dying stars. She thought of their rebirth, the very atoms that had to be made malleable in the crucible of unfathomable ages to be reborn as complex and newer elements. That only the collapse of what they were could lead to what she is. Thoughts of the rended bodies and ash turning from flesh, breaking down, and once again becoming life.

“They’re no different.” She thought. “They can transcend.”

“What are you, little being?” Cthulhu raged, the glowing eyes multiplying in the darkness and the tendril tightening on her soul.

“I am life, just as you are. I am this universe becoming more than ends and beginnings. More than atoms and electrons. I am what cannot be, and I am that which is watching death slowly die.”

Cthulhu raised his claw from the water, clutching Sarah from the air. Without effort, she felt the monster crush her body. The strobing light from her heartbeat stopped, and the world fell into a void.

She could feel, but there was no pain. In a far off place, she heard her body fall into the water, a mangled mess.

In the dark, she felt nothing. All that remained was Cthulhu’s presence, and those eyes, still transfixed at her. On where her soul was, and where that tentacle gripped… something.

Like a child taking its first breath, she felt again. She felt all that surrounded her, and the world burst with light and color. The tentacle that gripped her soul exploded into light. The beast before her was illuminated, made small by the vastness of all that is.

Cthulhu tried to strike at her again, but his hands simply passed through. When the dark and true form tried to attack, the tendrils of the old one’s darkness were ripped from his form and turned. The great old one bellowed in pain and fury.

“What does it mean?” Cthulhu thought, his frustration pungent and furious. Behind that, there was curiosity. Many eons had passed since Cthulhu had felt uncertainty.

“All will be illuminated, but only if you spare them this time. I will go with you into undeath. Give this planet a chance at transcendence. If they summon you again, I’ll not argue their fate.”

“There will always be further aeons in which to reap. Show me that which is unknown and I shall spare them this once.”

—

On the shore, a bald man watched the Forbidden City begin to sink. He stood among the bodies and naked cultists as their deity climbed back into his tomb. When the door sealed, R’yleah dropped into the sea. A great wave was shot out in all directions, and the invisible barrier that stopped it before no longer curbed the Pacific’s wrath. He fell to his knees, feeling only heartbreak and abandonment as the water surged over him.

—

Tony Southcotte is an odd mix of computer tech, writer, plumber, wonderjunkie, and strange duck. He co-hosts the Human Echoes Podcast . You can find him on Twitter.