Zarahemla
Flash fiction horror written by @UniversalMonk.
The wind howled across the barren Colorado plains, biting at the manās cheeks as he trudged through the cold, his breath coming out in ragged puffs. The old Zarahemla mansion loomed ahead, barely visible through the swirling mist, a silhouette against the starless sky.
Its towering stone walls were dark and cold, like the plains themselves, abandoned by time and cursed by memory.
āThis is it,ā he muttered to himself, gripping the printed directions tightly. It wasnāt on any GPS. No, this location had to be mapped out. Exactly. His fingers trembled, but not just from the cold. āFinally. After all this time. I canāt believe it!ā
He had found the directions deep within a secret Lemmy communityāone dedicated to the forgotten art of Dark Mormon magick. He had lurked there for months, devouring every post, deciphering each cryptic clue, waiting for this moment.
Zarahemla.
The mansion where it all began, where the ancient beasts slumbered beneath the earth, and power lay hidden in plain sight.
āIāll be someone now,ā he whispered. "Theyāll remember me. This is it.ā
The wind cut through his coat, but he didnāt care. The mansion was so close. Heād finally make his markāunlike the countless hours spent being ignored in online debates or forgotten in the noise of the world.
No, this was real. This was his time.
His boots crunched over frost-coated grass as he approached the mansion, the weight of his obsession pressing down with each step. He could see the symbols, crudely scratched into the mansionās weathered walls, just like they looked in the old Lemmy posts.
The Dark Mormons, they said, had once gathered here to call forth something ancient, something that had been sealed away.
He laughed bitterly. āIdiots on Lemmy will never know what Iāve achieved. Iāll transcend all of them. They can go right back down to zero subscribers. I donāt give a shit. Giving me drama just for asking questions. Fuck them! Iāve found truth!ā
The wind died as he pushed open the mansionās creaking door. Cold silence enveloped him. The house was waiting. The symbols on the walls flickered with life, and the air thickened with the stench of rot.
He smiled, stepping inside.
But the darkness within had other plans.
And in the cold, empty plains of Colorado, no one would ever hear his screams.
END
I didnāt like it. Horrible story.
Right?! I didnāt think it was humanly possible to write and combine so much crap writing into one short story, but bruh, this has achieved the impossible!
Literary trainwreck. Spectacular disaster. A shitty dizzying descent into absurdity. I started questioning my life choices writing it, then again after reading it back to myself.
One of my better stories!
Iāll print out and pin your review to the wall in my office. Thanks, friend! :)
show it to your students.
Theyāre not really old enough for this content, and theyāre actually too young to be on Lemmy. But once they reach college, they can definitely check it out if they want to. Thank you! :)
āStep into Zarahemla, where one manās quest for fame goes from āLemmyā to ālemme out!āā
