A/N: This is a modern-day adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Dagon", but it has a few elements from some of his other stories too. I don't own the original work, or the character of Randolph Carter, or the story upon which this is based.

SUICIDE NOTE

A webcam is turned on, revealing a thirty-something man with a gun in his hand. Though his expression is neutral, the sweat on his brow and his manner of speaking indicate a great deal of fear underneath. He takes a deep breath.

"My name is Randolph Carter. If you're seeing this video... then I'm dead. Now, I know what people usually say about suicides-that people who take their own lives are insane, or cowards.

Well, I'm telling you right now: I'm not crazy, and I am NOT. A coward. *nervous chuckle* Heh, I doubt a coward would have lasted as long as I did, after what... what I saw. But... that's why I'm making this video. I want people to know what I saw, so that maybe... maybe they'll understand why I'm killing myself. Or maybe they'll just think I'm crazy after all."

There is a distant, unplaceable sound. Carter startles at it, and listens silently for a moment. However, the noise does not continue, and he turns back to the camera.

"I, uh... I guess I should start at the beginning. Remember that Hawaiian cruise ship, the one that got boarded by terrorists? I was one of the hostages. Now, I know what you're thinking, and no, the terrorists aren't what I'm afraid of. God, I WISH they were... anyways... a few of us... about four, including me, I think... saw a chance to escape in a lifeboat when the bastards weren't looking. We managed to get away, but... we ended up drifting. I don't know how long, but suffice to say we started to question the wisdom of escaping.

After a couple of days... we landed on something. It wasn't any regular island, it was more like... a huge thing of mud that got tossed up to the surface. And by huge, I mean... fucking massive. As in, we couldn't even see where it ended. Like a whole chunk of the ocean floor just... came up."

Another distant sound, as unplaceable as the last. Carter looks around again, visibly worried this time, even paranoid, but as the noise fades he composes himself. After a deep breath, he continues, though slower.

"...anyways. We decided we ought to at least SEE if there was anything there we could use. There was a huge pile of dirt, kind of like a hill that stretched across the horizon, so we figured if we got to the top of that we might be able to see where we were, or maybe make a signal, or something.

It took several hours to get there. Slogging through that mud... or whatever it was. We managed to reach the top of that hill... the top of that... that hill..."

He is now far more visibly distressed, and is clearly struggling to work up the nerve to continue.

"The top of that hill... we saw... God. We saw what looked like old ruins. Like Pompeii, but with huge fucking stones, like the ones from Stonehenge, except these were carved with weird... pictures, or symbols, or whatever. Anyways, that place... the moment we saw it, we knew SOMETHING was wrong with it. That fucking place... for one, everything was gigantic. Like, there were archways that went twenty, thirty feet up all over the place, stairs where each step was almost as big as we were...

Then there was the geometry. You know those... mystery houses, those stupid tourist attractions that use optical illusions that make balls look like they're rolling uphill, or one person looks really small from a certain angle, or things look tilted in a weird way? Well, imagine that, but... fucking everywhere. The whole damn place was like that. And at the center of it... God... a door. Or a trapdoor, things were so messed up we couldn't tell if it was standing up straight like a normal door or lying flat like a trapdoor. We were looking at it, walking across it, or up it, when it... it opened on its own. We all looked in..."

He tries to continue, but tears start to well up and he puts his head in his hands. He's now clearly on the verge of freaking out. It takes almost a full minute for him to continue.

"...At first, we couldn't see anything. It was darker than black in there... then we heard... God. I can still hear it. I can still fucking hear it... it was... like some combination of... footsteps, but kind of wet, sloshing. And there were a lot of them. That's when... Jesus. That's when we saw them.

Hundreds of them. They were... Fuck, I can't even describe them. Like part fish, part human, but... big. Bigger than all of us. The sounds they made... Jesus Christ, those fucking noises, I...

Well, we ran. I guess I don't really need to say that, I mean... who would stick around. But they followed, and they were fast... I think two of us got caught, because I heard them screaming... like, just... someone being tortured, or ripped apart, or something. Those things made that noise... I didn't look back. I kept running, and running... the other guy and I made it back to the boat, I don't know how, and we shoved off... the land looked like it was starting to sink, I guess that's why those... things didn't chase us after we got away. Or they were too busy with... the others..."

He puts his head in his hands again, and begins quietly weeping. It's all he can do to avoid just crying out loud. After a couple of minutes, he pulls himself together enough to continue, but the tears don't stop, and he is still crying to some degree.

"We... we drifted a couple more days. But the other guy... he just, he was broken. Way worse than I was, he couldn't even talk. He just laughed like a nutcase, or cried his eyes out. A helicopter spotted our boat and called for pickup, but by then the other guy was dead...

I thought about telling them what happened to me. But... I couldn't, because that would mean... it would mean admitting to myself that it all really happened. I tried denying it... that didn't work. I tried drugs of every kind... that didn't work either, the nightmares kept coming...

Those things, they're out there. They are out there somewhere, I know it. And someday... they'll come up. Like that city. They'll come up, and then... then everyone will die. Everyone but me... I'm not letting them... do to me..."

There is a thumping noise from outside the room. It starts out slowly, then gets louder and closer... and then picks up the pace rapidly. There is a loud banging at the door, and the sound of wood cracking by the force of it.

*panicking, fumbling with the safety on the gun* JESUS! JESUS!

Something knocks over the webcam, and a loud noise somewhere between howling and gurgling occurs. Carter begins screaming, and screaming, and screaming... then the screaming suddenly stops. The camera shuts off.

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