Chapter 3:2 SPREADING WIDE THE ENTRANCEWAY INTO MYSTERIOUS CHAMBERS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1979

I’m clueless.  I can’t get beyond the door and I have no idea how it could possibly have anything to do with helping Lana.  I’m still only half convinced that this weird dream means anything besides my own self-delusions of comic book heroism.

The school day is a normal one.  I try to focus on my teachers but I’m anxious to return to my dreams.  At lunchtime, I decide to search the local papers for any mention of the missing Jon or of the strange storm, Lana and I saw.  I didn’t really expect to find anything and I wasn’t disappointed.  Then, when I leave the library, there she is.  There’s Lana.  She’s with a couple of her friends.  She still appears awfully sad.  Maybe I should go to her and tell her…tell her what, Lamont?  Tell her I’ve been hearing voices when I dream and when I’m awake voices tell me

I’ve been chosen to help you?  Yeah, right.  I’m sure that will go over like some lead balloon.  She’ll laugh at me and call me some kind of a loony.  No way am I going to do something that stupid.  Which means all I’m going to do is just stand here and do nothing as she walks away.  Damn.

The rest of school goes by without note.  Well, almost.  Basha smiles at me when we meet at our lockers.  She’s talking with a friend of hers, but she takes the time to smile at me!  Ahh.  Sweet bliss.  Now I really have a hard time focusing.  I go home and deal with my homework, eat dinner with my folks, read and go to sleep.

This night it’s a little different.  I don’t even catch a glimpse of the temple.  I come out of the dream mists and find myself in the icy fog, in the middle of that familiar damp cold jungle.  I hear that seductive and sinister laughter. 

My female adversary, or confidant, I don’t know which, whispers in threatening, yet seductive, sibilant tones.

Corazon, you must learn that you cannot defy us.  You will in the end, come to us. We are your fate.

I plead back, “Please leave me alone.”

I hear the jaguars as they appear out of the fog.  I turn to run.  I run on and on.  The jungle goes on and on.  The jaguars don’t seem to tire, but I do.  I can’t keep this up.  I collapse in exhaustion.  I watch as the leader leaps through the air at me.  His black fur glistens from the moisture of the fog.  White wisps of hot air stream out of his open mouth.  His sharp white teeth seem huge.  His eyes glow with the thought of feasting on my flesh.  I can smell his foul breath, when only the lengths of his whiskers separate us.

Then...

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1979

...I’m sitting up in my own night-darkened bedroom with my
heart in my throat, gagging on fear.  It takes at least an hour before I can get the image of the jaguar out of my mind and calm myself enough to return to sleep.  Rather than dream of returning to the jungle temple, I choose to dream an old, safe familiar dream of a palace of shells beneath the sea.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1979

I have regained my courage and my anger.  I refuse to be driven out of my own dreams!  Besides, I have to find out what’s behind that door.  So, I return with determination, mixed with a heavy dose of trepidation, to the obsidian temple dream.

The dream fades into view.  I stand within the threshold of the temple.  The full moon nestles like a pearl in its shell, in this clear, cloudless star-filled evening sky.  I catch the scent of blooming exotic wild flowers from the temple’s courtyard.  Tonight the halls are lit by torches, which cast playful shadows everywhere.

From deep within the temple’s interior, I hear the faint, familiar, distant, and incredible feminine voice, singing.  I follow her melodious tones through the torch lit corridors of stone, toward the source of the singing.  I’m led to the carved wooden door.  The honey and vanilla scent wafts around me.  The door now opens wider than before, seeming to invite my hands to slide into the space between.  From beyond the door, I can clearly hear the divine songstress.  I reach out and with gentle, but firm pressure, I spread open the entrance to the mysterious chamber.  Finally, whatever barrier was there I’ve torn through it.

I take in the scent of a wood fire.  The circular room contains only a bizarre full length-dressing mirror.  Rather than silvery glass, in its place is polished obsidian in a frame of silver and black jade.

The frame has the same mysterious geometric design as the door, with images of bones and skulls woven intricately together.  The eyes of the skulls are set with black onyx.  The scent of the smoldering fire comes from the wisps of serpentine smoke drifting off the dark surface of the mirror.  With the opening of the door, the songstress has ceased her singing.

I step before the mirror and gaze upon my reflection.  Slowly my image dissolves like the morning mist.  In its place are stone steps leading down into depths beyond light.

​Keywords: Lovecraft, H P Lovecraft, Dreamland, Dream quest, Dream cycle, Dark Fantasy, H. P. Lovecraft, Dreamquest of the Unknown Kadath