The Subscribers of Madness
By Ms Darkwood
“What’s up, freaks and seekers!” Jake grinned into the lens, raising a clawed, seaweed-wrapped hand. Behind him, the jagged coastal cliffs of Daggerreach loomed like teeth, the waves crashing violently below. “This is Jake the Snake coming at you live from the abandoned town of Innsmouth’s twisted cousin—Thornhaven. We’re about to do something nobody’s done before: reenact an authentic Cthulhu ritual from real artifacts and tomes we found in the old lighthouse. Stick around. Sh*t’s about to get weird!”
The camera panned out, revealing the rest of the crew.
Amber, the ever-skeptical skeptic in thick eyeliner and Doc Martens, rolled her eyes. “And by ‘found,’ he means stole from the boarded-up museum that said ‘Do Not Enter – Under Investigation.’”
Beside her, Marcus adjusted his mic and grinned. “Relax. We’re resurrecting content, not gods.”
Eli, the quiet one who handled editing and had a morbid fascination with lost civilizations, said nothing. He clutched the tattered, foul-smelling book they’d recovered—Codex Visceris Noctem. Its leather was oddly warm, and its cover bore a sigil that seemed to shimmer under the pale moonlight.
“Alright, people,” Jake said, throwing on the heavy black robe with a stitched tentacle symbol. “Cameras rolling. Ritual site’s lit. Let’s go viral.”
The town of Thornhaven had died sometime in the early 1900s, buried under rumors of occult worship, disappearances, and whispers of inhuman shapes seen along the shore. Its remaining structures—the stone ruins near the cliff, a rotting church, and the barnacle-covered lighthouse—were left to rot beneath centuries of ocean spray.
The group set up the ritual atop a stone dais covered in moss and lichen, candles flickering against the growing wind. They arranged rusted relics—shell-shaped idols, bone flutes, chalices carved from coral—and placed them around the bloodstained sigil etched into the rock.
“Ready?” Jake asked, his voice lowering. “Amber, light that censer. Marcus, get a good angle. Eli... uh, start chanting whatever the hell that thing says.”
Eli hesitated. His voice cracked. “This is... some of it’s in Aklo or R’lyehian. I’m not sure we should—”
“Dude, we need a hook,” Jake snapped. “You saw the numbers on that demon TikTok video. This’ll blow it out of the water.”
The wind picked up. Thunder grumbled in the distance.
Amber sneered. “Fine. Let’s wake the squid-faced bastard.”
Eli took a breath and began to read:
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn…
The words bled from his tongue like oil, coating the air with a sickly weight. The candles dimmed, then flared with green flame.
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
The ocean responded. The waves crashed louder. The ground trembled.
“Whoa,” Marcus whispered, lowering the camera. “Is that... part of the show?”
Behind them, the sea roared—and something answered. A groan, deep and ancient, rolled from the abyss.
“Did you plan that?” Amber asked, spinning on Jake.
Jake went pale. “No. That wasn’t me.”
Eli dropped the book. His nose bled.
They turned toward the cliffs.
Where once there had only been sea and stone, a column of water twisted upward, writhing as though alive. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating something massive rising from the ocean depths. Wings like cathedral vaults spread outward, eclipsing the moonlight. Tentacles uncoiled like serpents.
It had no name they could comprehend—but they knew it.
Cthulhu.
It had heard them.
And it remembered.
“RUN!” screamed Amber.
They fled, robes flapping behind them, but the air itself had grown thick—like syrup laced with screams. Each breath became a labor. Each step, a struggle against the dread pressing into their minds.
Eli fell to his knees, clutching his head. “It’s inside... It’s in my head!”
Marcus grabbed him, dragging him toward the lighthouse. “Come on! Inside—now!”
The door splintered under their weight, slamming shut behind them. The lighthouse groaned under the pressure of a storm that hadn’t existed moments ago. The sea was boiling. Thunder danced.
“Is it following us?” Jake whispered.
Amber peered through a cracked window.
The cliffs were no longer cliffs. They had shifted, warped into stone faces—screaming, wailing, fossilized in agony.
And in the water, He stood.
Cthulhu’s eyes glowed like twin emerald stars. His face, if it could be called that, pulsed with unspoken madness. Each tentacle writhed independently, brushing the veil between dimensions.
Amber turned from the window, her face drained of all color. “This isn’t content. This is a mistake.”
Jake pulled his hood off. “We didn’t mean it!”
Eli laughed. It was cracked, dry, and unnatural.
“Oh, but we did. You read the words. You offered the rites. You made the call.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Marcus snapped.
“I’m saying,” Eli whispered, “that Cthulhu is awake. And he knows us.”
The lighthouse shook violently. Saltwater burst through the floorboards, rising like a tide from below. The sea was inside the land now, leaking through dimensions like a hemorrhage.
“Basement—GO!” Jake barked.
They descended the spiral stairs, each step slick with water. At the bottom, the room was filled with crates and seaweed-choked relics. And in the center—another altar. This one pulsed with a greenish hue, like a heartbeat.
“What the hell is this place?” Amber muttered.
“A temple,” Eli said, eyes wide. “The lighthouse was built on it.”
The book had followed them. Somehow, impossibly, it was already on the altar.
“Maybe we can undo it,” Marcus panted. “Read it backward or... I don’t know. Close the door!”
Jake snatched the book, flipping frantically. “It’s gibberish. It’s all—”
He stopped.
The pages were changing. Ink spreading like mold across parchment. Words rearranging.
The price is paid. The door is open. The watchers return.
“No, no, no...” he whispered.
From the floorboards, tentacles slithered up.
Marcus screamed, grabbing a rusted axe and hacking at them. “Keep reading!”
Eli spoke again, this time in another voice. A voice that didn’t belong in this world. A tone older than language. More were coming through him.
He rises. He rises. The dreamer is awake. The stars burn out one by one.
Amber slapped him. “Shut up! That’s not you!”
But Eli just smiled—and his eyes were glowing green.
From above, the roof caved in. Water gushed in like a broken artery. Through the hole, the monstrous face of the Great Old One loomed—indescribable, grotesque, but undeniably aware.
Jake sobbed, clutching the book like a child. “We just wanted views. Just a few million clicks.”
Amber backed into a corner. “We were pretending! This wasn’t supposed to be real!”
But the cosmos did not care.
Cthulhu’s thoughts flooded their minds. Images of cities that defied geometry. Of skies aflame with dead stars. Of civilizations swallowed by the sea before time was time.
Madness... sweet, endless madness...
Jake was the first to burst. His mind cracked like porcelain. Laughing, he climbed the stairs and opened the door to the sea.
And was taken.
The others watched as the storm swallowed the land. The town of Thornhaven vanished beneath a wave not made of water, but nightmare. The lighthouse trembled, then crumbled into the black ocean.
Amber held Marcus’s hand, her voice soft. “Do you hear it?”
He nodded, tears streaming down his face. “It’s singing.”
Eli turned to them. “The ritual was never to summon him. It was to remind him.”
He walked into the rising water, the green glow in his eyes now burning.
“Let’s get that final shot,” he said, lifting the camera one last time. “This’ll be the only upload the world needs.”
The footage was never found.
But sometimes, deep in certain forums, you’ll hear about a corrupted video that crashes systems. It starts as a vlog. Four friends in robes. Candles. Laughing.
Then screaming.
Then... silence.
A green light lingers on the screen.
And if you stare too long into it—
You dream of the sea.
And the sea dreams of you.
Ia. Ia. Cthulhu fhtagn.
