It's been one of my aspirations as a writer to produce good enough work to be accepted into the ranks of contributing authors to Lovecraft canon. This story was my first attempt to make headway into the genre.




So it is from this lunatic manuscript that I hope the story of the events in Korissia Valley survive, and that others may learn to not so foolishly discredit the accounts of superstitious locals.
In the early afternoon of a February day in the winter of nineteen and ninety-five, I arrived in the antiquated, remote village of Haerdt, a backwoods collective of a modest size, built and maintained by an anomalously sequestered indigenous population. The people and populous here were my first stop on a journey, impossible by aircraft, that was to take me further north, to a yet more taciturn and clandestine folk. These natives it was my course to study, being a moderately respected anthropological authority on the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The quasi-modernized Haerdt people were an interesting bridge between the Korissia people and modern Alaskans, but despite the prodding eyes of a scientist, welcomed me with as much hospitality as is charged the denizens of their nigh-uninhabitable domain.
From the small Sesna I arrived in, I bade the pilot a warm farewell, and stepped into the frigid Alaskan air. From several yards across the strip, my stocky contact waved to catch my eye, and, bundled head to foot in skins and fur, shuffled awkwardly toward me. Once in earshot, he managed a muffled greeting in English, and offered a stiff, gloved hand with my sparse belongings.
To give written account my surroundings, and the first days in Haerdt is to bid return of the exhaustingly negative miasma that coiled so venomously about my time spent there. The most pressing feature of the locale was the cold. This was winter in Alaska, after all, and to say cold was certainly not an unusual feature would be obvious to any laypersons. But I had dealt with cold before, and never had it affected me so. Perhaps my age was beginning to show prematurely, after a strained life of travel and exposure to a multitude of harsh climes. This, however, was a cold that stirred my innards into unusual motions, and summoned a dull, miserable, aching moan from every resounding string of my body. This unrelenting fixture of the village Haerdt and its surrounding air was inexorably taxing, and by the third day, my mood had turned from apprehensively determined, to that of a bitter and selfish child.
The hosts of my boarding seemed not to notice my mental state, or at the least tolerate it very well. I, at times then, and still now, wonder if they felt the extreme frigidity as anything aberrant to the season and geography of their aboriginal lands. If they did indeed note the particular malice of that winter, they revealed no hint of concern, trudging through the manually intensive work of maintaining their fragile survival in this place so damnably reminiscent of Dante’s ninth circle.
On the fourth day, the eve of my departure into the thick, knotted pine forests of Korissia Valley, I awoke to find an unwholesome commotion about the rustic village, and a nauseous, looming cloud about the locals. As I drew nearer the gathering, there unfurled about the scene a gut-wrenching gore, in fresh, alabaster snowfall. The juxtaposition of such sanguineous mess upon a pristine snowfall may lend itself to a sort of morbid poeticism in the mind of my dear reader. I can only say that the reality was unprecedentedly more visceral, crude, and ugly. The cruor remains were scarcely discernable as anything, but as I drew close enough, I felt the near tangible weight of mourning in my fellows and knew immediately that not a half day prior, this piteous mess was human. The victim was, that afternoon, identified as being a child of no more than 9 years, the only son of a widow, who vehemently swore through choking sobs to tucking in her progeny just the night before, and routinely locking the simple wooden door to her hutched cabin. The child must have left the cabin, for a reason now forever lost to the living.

My dazed mind did not truly ruminate the implications of that grotesquery until quite later that evening, as I sank solipsistic and brooding into the wicker chair provided by my lodgings. Tomorrow morning, I was to take four hardy men of local expertise with me into the Korissia vale. If the woods held nearby a polar bear, the hostility to whom I naively attributed the death of the village boy, I should, in all rational mind, call off my expedition. A polar bear was a creature I did indeed fear and respect, but my weary mind calculated the risks and I resolved to continue my journey, if careful precautions were taken.
That night, one of my travel compatriots relayed to me in hushed whisper the dark and furtive gossips that had arisen among the village. These fears were rooted in their ancient beliefs, which, though many were several generations removed from practice by the inevitable interdictions of missionaries, they still maintained much reverence toward. The people spoke of a much feared creature, the wendigo, roughly analogous to werewolf myths of northern Europe. I knew well enough the rudimentary base of the myth, but allowed my trembling confidant to continue, bearing in my mind the dismissive condescension of a parent, listening to the detailed recount of a nightmare by his child. Oh, that I was so ignorant! This hobgoblin of lore, this demoniac telling of creature simultaneously man, beast, and spectre only served as impetus to my confidence. Goaded by the uniquely arrogant naivety only borne of expertise, I steeled myself for the journey.
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The hazy purple predawn of my fifth day in the village saw no relief to my foolhardiness. I gathered a modest stock of nine well-muscled dogs, and the four hardy Haerdt men, and after some preparatory checks, we began the first footfalls of our doomed trek into the antediluvian pines.
As our journey wore along, the sun danced just below the horizon, not to show us its gloom piercing rays but for a few short hours. In such perilously northern latitudes, February daylight was at a premium. The frigidity remained our omnipresent assailant, biting and clawing fearsomely into our warm garments and shocking the tender flesh beneath. Our first day showed us more dense clusters of pines, and the going was slow; picking our way with the wide turning sleds through an uneven minefield of ash gray trunks speared through the otherwise unremarkable white piles of untrodden snow.
Perhaps midway through our meager daylight reserve, we took a short rest to feed the dogs and managed a feeble campfire and a light meal amidst the slush. I noticed my companions offering quietly muttered prayers to their amalgamate pantheon, and took a moment of silent introspection for myself, not quite a prayer, but it offered a steeling of my nerves amidst the tense atmosphere.
The remainder of the first day gave rise to more difficulty, as we had to cross uneven ground, and deeply creviced rocks hidden treacherously by the snows. Our going was slow, but the dogs managed to pick their way through careful trial and fortunately harmless error. All too quickly, the sheer white of winter faded to mirrored sheets of stoney violet and pallid silvered yellows, as our last dribbles of fleeting sunlight slipped beyond the horizon, and our way was guided only by soft blue pillars of liquid moon flowing through the frozen pine ceilings. We set up camp and somberly ate the remainder of our day’s rations. The dogs huddled in together for warmth, and each of the men retired to their tents, myself included.
At a bizarre hour, something roused me in my tent, though I could not immediately discern what it may have been. Still in the thick, cottony fog of sleep, I fancied I heard my name called softly over the steady billowing wind. As if enchanted, I sloppily donned my overparka and stumbled numbly from my tent. The call of my name sounded again, though not audibly. My illucid braid did not at first perceive the difference, and compelled my body toward the darkness beyond our smoldering camp embers. I took heavy, drunken steps, still drugged by daze of sleep or wicked faerie calls.
As I stood my stupor, in snow ankle deep, trying to focus my blurred eyes, I heard a long, low growl, as a bear or wolf. In that instant, I jumped awake as from a dream; a heavy hand gripped my shoulder. To my relief, one of the men I’d traveled with had heard me unzip my tent and had peered outside his own to check on me. He quickly ushered me back to my tent, as a mother her sleepwalking child. Once inside, I immediately fell back into heavy, fevered sleep, fraught with nightmare hallucinations of hungry eyes, and the insidious growling voice calling my name.
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As I heard the others outside preparing their breakfast, and the whines of dogs eager for scraps, I felt as though I had not gained any restful sleep through the night, and groaned to myself as I dressed and stepped again into the ire of the cold Korissian air. Our second day of the journey began to pass uneventfully, as the routine of the travel began to grind into my surely delirious mind.
The monotony was shocked apart by disaster as our lead dog had fallen into a rock fissure disguised maliciously by the snow. The fall wasn’t deep, but the poor creature had broken a leg, and nearly dragged the rest of the dogs down with it, had the harness not slipped mercifully from the tumbling beast.
After assessing its cause as surely lost, we spared the thing a crueler fate and shot it dead with grim countenance and twisted stomachs. We repositioned our remaining dogs, and shared brief discourse on what a close call we had, almost losing the entire sled. The brief remainder of day gradually wore away into night, and we again set our small tents and goaded ourselves for the chill of night.
Though scent was virtually impossible in the subzero temperatures surrounding us, as I lay in my tent, I could not shake the repulsion of something I could only attribute to some malodorous scent of decaying flesh. I searched my tent for the source of the repugnance, but could find no trace of anything that betrayed its origin. I lay disturbed, with subtly furrowed brow and wrinkled nose until the veil of sleep overtook me.
The night again saw my sanity tore upon by wild dreams of inhuman figures and icy claws. The voice pleaded, begged, and commanded me toward an aperture of inky pitch, and punished my fear and refusal by rending my flesh with wicked nails and teeth. I suffered these torments for uncountable eons before waking to my own cries in the pitch black of the tent, unable to return to rest before dawn’s creeping light illuminated the faintest outlines within.
As we stirred to ready up the dogs, each was greatly disturbed, and none would take up the sled to carry us forward. They poised low and fearfully, and ran with tail under belly, and ears back as we attempted to harness them. Some wave of mutinous temperament had caused the creatures to refuse our march deeper into the vale. With snarling protest, we managed to corner and leash six of them, but two had fled beyond our reach, and had slunk off into the knotted woods.
The brisk pace we had begun in our trek had slowed considerably. With losing a third of our dogs, the weight was much greater on the remainder, and the ever-deepening tangle of stone and wood cut wide swathes of perilous obstacle across every passable avenue. By shortly after sundown, we came upon a frozen stream perhaps ten yards in breadth, a tempting trap set by winter’s hoary hand. We debated the merits of a blind crossing, or delaying further our arrival.The men advised me the rivulet should be frozen solid, but I would not risk another accident in this abominable forest.
We moved westwardly for a good hour before finding a stone crossing where the stream leapt in suspended animation below a natural archway of ivory frosted granite. Following our crossing, the dwindling sun rays had abandoned us, and we made camp not far from the brook’s edge.
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The serenity of this crystalline wasteland doused in the pale fires of moonlight drew my mind far from the thus-far ill fortunes of our trip. Drunk with the beauty of my surroundings, the wings of fancy gripped my swimming head, I thought of my wife and son at home, and spoke proudly of them to my fellows. They recalled tales of their families, and we enjoyed the first peaceable night since our departure. As I retired to my tent, and sleep roped its embrace around my fragile conscious mind, my dreams took on a different color than the previous week’s nightmares.
I dreamt not of myself, but of a medicine man, clearly a native of the lands I was now inhabiting. I dreamt of hungry children, and somber mothers. I saw the medicine man as myself, and I promised these people I would care for them. As I turned from their pleading faces, I stumbled into a dark abyss, and tumbled formlessly through shadow and time. I fell without direction as sensations swam past my unshaped form. It was as if I were plunging through endless pools of feathers or furs, my descent unhindered by their touch and unbroken by solid surface. I perceived my name called faintly by a familiar figure, and willed myself to plunge in the unnamable direction of my summoner.
I woke, or thought I woke, alone, amidst a clear field of snow. Before me stood a neat pile of mortared stones, forming a simple covered well. Borne upon the heavy lid were carefully scratched glyphs of a script I could not quite identify, despite my functional knowledge of the written languages of nearly every discovered tribe in the region. I examined the pictogram with intent, and was dumbstruck as I heard my name called softly and unmistakably from beneath the heavy lid. As I paused, the voice cried louder, now concretely holding the wavering timbre of a young girl, and repeating again each syllable of my own name.
I moved my hands without thinking, and began to heave open the heavy stone lid before me. Each centimeter of grinding stone against stone, I began to hear more clearly an unearthly keening emanating from the well’s depths. When enough empty space had been revealed to allow the edge of my fingers, I thrust my palm into the crack and shoved the lid aside with a singular motion, and revealed the tenebrious darkness and dizzying trill of sound that floated from the well’s open surface. I was momentarily stunned by the musty, rotted smell of unfathomed ages, and found myself tumbling headlong into impossibly black shadows as the well’s stoney egress swallowed my reeling form.
I was then jolted awake in the living world as my jaw collided painfully with solid ice, and a crash of screaming water engulfed my face and body. The sadistic frigidity of the icy river burned and stabbed at my lungs, face, and entrails with twisted knives as I began frantically willing my unresponsive limbs to kick my way back toward the surface. I managed to slow my downward drift, but as I felt the sickeningly acidic water in my mouth and lungs, I realized I did not have the buoyancy or strength to return to the jagged break I had made in the surface. I drifted slowly down, for what seemed to be many minutes, as each muscle of my body writhed in the tight, irregular circles of my death throes.
I had just begun to feel a warmth of body as I noticed a strange sensation in my numbed foot, and tried to move it. I then realized it had, by some divine grace, touched the bottom, and my mind surged with new hope. I sprang against the riverbed, and used the force to propel my body upward and toward what I had hoped to be my exit. My spirit sang as my head broke through a thin sheet of ice that had already begun to blanket my escape. I coughed the brackish remains of coppery tasting water from my lungs, and dragged my arm up to the edge of the ice. I continued to cough and sputter helplessly as my arm cut through the brittle layer of glassy cold. I floundered weakly, only keeping above the surface with pushes against the papery surface that would not bear my weight. I somehow managed a very weak cry for help over my chattering teeth and maddeningly agitated windpipe.
I continued my pleas and clumsily had made my way across to a shallower section of the streambed. I felt my foot touch bottom again, and I clambered from the deadly waters with all the strength I could muster from my wet, jerking body. I collapsed to the snow and managed a crawl toward what I hope was camp, unable to see, as the demons of a blizzardly gale quickly worked the dripping glops of river water that had covered my face and clothes into interlacing beads of dried ice.
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I crawled forth blind, shivering, and uttering a weak sort of crying sound without words. I could only hope to be within earshot of camp, and pray the men would save me. Then, as I crawled, my name was called over the roaring wind, and I scurried forth with resurged optimism. It was a good few moments before I realized I did not recognize the name that called me. My anticipation for any human contact to shake me from my blind nightmare led me unwittingly onto the stage of certain events that now bring the first trepidations in this maddened diary.
I wormed my way forward eagerly, but carefully, guided by a vague idea of what lay around me, and the voice that had called my name. I assumed I was near the stoney bridge I had tumbled from in my fit of somnambulism. I clumsily inched over snow and rock, waving my hands ahead of me like the malformed antennae of some primordial insect, when my probing fingers grasped a bolt of manmade material. I cried with relief as I heard the sound of the tent in my gloved fingers.
I patted my way across the tent face to grasp one of the steel poles, and used it to painstakingly brace my body, as I returned to bipedalism with a cracking of ice from my frozen clothing. I called out for my fellows, and heard only the moan of whipping winds above the tree line. My legs jerked wildly independent of one another, in a laughable attempt at locomotion as I moved toward the other tents. I managed to locate a second tent, and clap my gloved claw around the zipper enough to peel it open.
Outward from the tent poured a loathsome tide of ineffable stench, and I heaved and gagged as the wave passed over me. I brought my arm widely across my face as barrier against the fetid current, and called out for any occupant therein. With no response, I reached inside to rouse anyone held tightly by slumber, and my hand met an organic, but solid point of resistance.
I shook the tent dweller with all my might, and began to shout curses and cries for him to awaken. My stomach filled with lead, and I began a tittering, laughing sob as the realization cut horribly into my withering psyche.
I stood again, and yelled hoarsely into the dull roar of the storm winds overhead. I thrashed my way toward the next tent, and attempted to kick into it with furious anger, but my body managed only a frustrating half-lean toward it. In my insane rampage, I fell over, and landed in the deadened, charred branches of our campfire.
I sat blind, stewing among the frozen wood, as laughing snow poured down from the sky in thick curtains across my hair and face. When at last my temper subsided, I sat up, and scooted myself toward what should have been my own tent. I fumbled through my belongings, and found my parka, throwing it carelessly over my frozen nightclothes. I sat alone, between as many as four of my dead fellows, trying weakly to pry open my frozen eyes. As I managed to painfully open them to a half-squint, I felt the sting of cold rush upon either my wet eyeballs, or a bleeding wound from my attempts to force them open - I could not discern which.
Preoccupied with my ineffective treatments, I nearly fell over when again those terrible and familiar syllables reached my ear, though this time, the voice sounded much closer.
I turned, and called out my first response to the will-o’-wisp that had chased me this far, and left my company a rotted heap. My reply was met with a low growl, and I again raised my eyelids painfully, allowing a crack of reflected moonlight into my desperately isolated irises. A crawl of unease skittered across my skin as I glimpsed the twisted form of my harasser in the dark of the snowstorm.
It was not a bear, and not a man, but stood upon two legs before me. Two horns, or ears sat atop its shaggy head, and it stood with mouth open, tongue dragging thoughtfully across a maw of repulsively uniform fangs. Its eyes shone as two pits of smoldering ebony, smoking with their hunger to suck all light from around them. Worst of all the features of the twisted thing in the darkness, it bore striking resemblance to a man, but held a nauseating, indescribable wrongness in its proportions.
In that instant, I turned heel and fled as swift as my legs would carry me. I stumbled on numb extremities, haphazardly probing my way through rock and tree by sinking my arms into the snow and shuffling ahead nearly upon all fours. I payed no heed to the burn of frostbite upon my hands, and drove onward, frantically away from that abberation of shadow and malice. I could only pray I would awake from this horrible dream before the demon overtook my snowblind and addled pace. I plunged forth madly for what seemed eternal hours. Twice, I shudderingly quickened my pace as I swore I heard my name howled angrily over the shrieking gales.
As far as adrenaline drove me, the woods were deeper still, and I collapsed in exhaustion amidst the isolating shadows of those grotesque trees. Dreams smothered my consciousness as I welcomed my death in the lonely pine forest of Korissia Vale.
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It is here I must accept that madness had eclipsed me entirely on that night, and indeed pray that strength of lunacy alone explains my survival, and not the delusions I now shakingly pen.
I first became aware of a weight upon my frame and a sickening disconnection between my body and brain. As I attempted to stir, my limbs offered no company to the lifting of my chest. After many minutes, the burning absence of sensation slowly left as I managed to prop myself up enough to shake snow from my chest and neck. My eyes remained frozen shut, and I flinched at every painful attempt to reopen them.
The wind had subsided and I did not feel the fall of snow upon me. I do not know how many hours ago the storm subsided, or how I had not died there in the snow. My passing of consciousness had seemed to bring a fresh stirring of trembling lucidity to my mind. The delirious fear that had gripped my sense was curiously absent. Was that not surely the apex of my madness? Not to flee with all swiftness even as the devil’s teeth were upon my heels? I stood placated and dumb for a great length of time, my inner workings vacuously devoid of panic.
I took a moment to fumble sightlessly through the pockets of my parka for my matchbook, and located what I hoped it to be. My clumsy fingers shakingly dropped several before managing to strike one. I held it wincingly close to my frosted eyelids, and felt my lashes smoke and singe, but held steady, willing the muscles to pry open the lids. With only moderate discomfort, I snapped my eyes open for their first glimpse of light since the previous night.
I surveyed my surroundings, and found it to be a few hours into the short span of daylight. The air held the crisp smell of ozone that follows large storms, and the landscape was markedly similar to the rest of the forest I’d traveled through. My eyes then spied a break in the eerily monotonous landscape of ice and pine, and I trod toward it heavily.
An irregular form lay crumpled beneath a tree not twenty paces from where my own had been buried all too recently. I approached and my features recoiled in grisly protest to the sight. A woman, or what had been a woman, lay prostrate and eviscerated before me. Her condition immediately summoned flashbacks of the child in Haerdt, and my slain companions.
I stumbled away wearily and without thought. Past the poor woman, a hillock caught my eye. I made way weakly and peered over the ridge, unprepared for what had met my eye. Korissia village sprawled below me, thatched roofs and pine lodges crisscrossed in a maze clearly built outward from a central locus. Were I not alive now, and even then I have my doubt, I would swear I had died in that snowbank and gone straight to hell.
Populating the labyrinth of squalid shelters were countless crimson splotched masses, splayed in scenes of cruel and merciless slaughter. I fell into a gagging fit and vomited the meager contents of my innards.
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Laying in sobbing agony, I somehow, with time, managed to stand and climb my way down and into that abhorrent hellscape that rested fitfully beneath the hillock. I did not think myself a madman as I approached the innumerable dead that slept only half buried beneath the ice. Or as I passed a woman and her child, strewn about between two wooden lodges. Nor as I slept warmly and peacefully within an empty longhall. I did not even as I cooked and ate the remains of several of my quiet hosts.
I learned, in my stay, many things about that infernally cold winter. That the lake had frozen far too thick that year, and that the caribou had not ventured this far north, staying to warmer climes. I learned that an ancient stone aperture had been opened by a holy man of Korrisia. Beneath the stone was said to lay an evil god of the Korissians, who was made to sleep in a tomb of stone. Patron spirit of temptation, treachery, and cannibalism, whose avatar was the damnable Wendigo.
I was not in doubt of my sanity when I climbed into that familiar stone well in the center of the village, where the rescue team found me cradling bones, and whispering dark things to darker beings. Even now, I do not question my sanity. I know the dark god Ithaqua spoke my name, and I know I was chosen by her. I do not think the courts will revile me for what I did, or what I may do again, for I know it to be Ithaqua’s will. Ia la Ithaqua! T’sik Kahra! T’sik Kahra!

Well done. It takes courage to write anything at all, and you've definitely hewn close to your inspiration. If I didn't know you wrote this, I might have pegged it as one of Lovecraft's early works.

First off, I think your writing may be too belabored. It's not necessarily wrong to emulate Lovecraft et al. and spew out long winding paragraphs, but it's my belief as a writer that you should write as clearly and concisely as you can. You want to hook the reader, not intimidate them with a wall of text. And if your main character is born in the last half-century, they would most likely write more colloquially.

That isn't to say that you should cut down on the poetic waxing though. There's some really nice imagery here. "Soft blue pillars of liquid moon flowing through the frozen pine ceilings" – "I sat blind, stewing among the frozen wood, as laughing snow poured down from the sky" – that's quality stuff. I just don't think first-person narration is the right place for it. If you instead adopted omniscient narration, you could write like this and play to your strength.

Another thing you should keep an eye on is your grammar. I notice that in trying to be Lovecraftian, you misuse unfamiliar words - "cruor," for example, is a noun and not an adjective. "Worst of all the features of the twisted thing in the darkness, it bore striking resemblance to a man" is another example. If you aren't editing your work after hammering out the first draft, you should. If these errors are still slipping past your editing, you may want to consider less convoluted sentence structures: "Worst of all was the features of the twisted thing in the darkness. It bore striking resemblance to a man."

Some more specific comments: I thought the first paragraph was clichéd and rather short; I think you should either cut it or add something to grab the reader's attention, something that will tease about things to come. The ending came far too abruptly, since you don't even mention Ithaqua's name before the narrator's final outburst: I think you should either leave the god unnamed, or work her name better into the preceding narrative.

All in all, a pretty good stab at Lovecraftian writing. It needs polishing, but it can be really bone-chilling if you do the story the justice it deserves.

Hugely appreciate the feedback, and good catches on those errors, although I admit that I'm guilty of intentional misuse of language when I feel that it works (which it doesn't always). It was a bit of a mess to write, honestly, since I was writing in such a new style, and wrote large chunks of it sporadically, and filled in the gaps between afterwards.

It's definitely not concise, but I feel that's one of the strong pulls of Lovecraft for me. Of course, I'm also a fan of Kafka and love the dreamy, hazy sort of atmosphere that both tended to pull (as I explored in this story with the dream sequence and frequent references to somnambulism). I do, however, agree that is was an odd choice, given a narrator of such a recent era.

I had originally written early drafts of the piece in limited third person, but decided on first because it's the most common for Lovecraft himself (although often with frame stories).

Lastly, yeah, the ending was indeed kind of rushed. I'm debating a rewrite over it to explore the time the protagonist spends in the village alone and insane, so I'll see if anything comes from that. I do appreciate the criticisms, so thank you again.