My Final Letter

As I'm laying here, old and withered, every hour is a giant leap towards the dark embrace, that is the inevitable end, we all must meet. I know, that I have to transcribe to you, my deepest, most darkest secret. Something I never dared mention to you or anyone else before, and still something I will never utter, with the exception of the words I'm writing down in this letter right now. For it is something so terrible and maddening, that speeking of it could drive a sane man crazy, yet it is also too important to die with me. The world deserves to know it, and so do you. But be aware, reading this may couse you immense discomfort and pain. I could not recommend it to anyone, but it is a choice you will have to make yourself. Many years ago, before I met you, or before I met many of the friends we share, I was a young man looking to make a name for myself in the field of anthropology. At the time, the world was not as small as it is today, there were still many undiscovered cultures, which could serve as great research material. Feeling I had nothing to lose, I went with a small group of people, deep into the Amazon rainforest, to find an isolated tribe of people called the Inqwu. The Inqwu were notorious for having a religion and culture so vastly different from anything else in the world, and there were very little written about them as a people and about their strange and otherwordly gods. Me and a colleague of mine, had hired a pair of local guides to help of through the thick rainforest. In the beginning they seemed very friendly and trustworthy, we had some trouble communicating because of the languish barrier, but I was able the show them where we wanted to go. The happy start to our journey, would soon turn sour though. Not far from the location of the Inqwu city, our guides suddenly turned around and started running away, screaming words I did not understand. At first I thought I had been scammed, and had been taking into the jungle by thiefs, who would leave me hear to die. But as I looked ahead I saw something, that made me think the screams and the yelling from our guides were not fake, but were real fear. Now it was only me and my colleague, who shall remain nameless for reasons I will not disclose in this letter, and in front of where giant statue, and we new this was the entrance to the Inqwu city. For the statue was a depiction of something I had never seen before, an animal for sure, but not one that roamed this planet. It was truly grotesque, I almost refrain from describing it. Its body mostly resembled that of a tiger, but instead of fur it was covered in scale, its eyes did were unnaturally large and looked dead like those of a shark. The sight made me shiver, and my colleague suggested that we followed the lead of our fleeing guides and return bag to civilization. He was clearly scared, and so was I, but nevertheless I managed to convince him and convince myself, that we could not turn back, that we had a duty, not only to ourselves, but to our profesion. So together we ventured past the statue, into the city. What we saw in there, I will never tell or write about for one simple reason: on our way back my colleague suggested we split the credit for our findings, even though it was I who persuaded him into going inside the city, when he wanted to turn back. He said he would publish the findings no matter what I did, so one night when he was sleeping I gathered all our work and burned it all. It was only fitting, I thought. Years later my colleague went back to find the Inqwu's but he never returned from the jungle and the Inqwu's were never heard of or seen again. Their city is still there but the miracles and mysteries we saw in our time there, will never be known to the outside world. I take with me to the grave no regret, for any of my actions during that time in my life. I only write this in the hopes that someday someone will go back to the Inqwu city, search the giant tempel in the middle of the city and find the secret pathway that exists wihtin it. If that happens the person who does this, must seal the pathway forever. I cannot stress enough how important that is, but I must also warn you; do not try to follow the pathway. If you go there, you will smell the salt of ocean waves, but it will not lead you to the sea, it will only lead you to suffering.