Teeth Grinding in the Dark
I. Beneath the Skin of the Earth
There are hideous creatures lurking far below, in the bowels of the earth, waiting, hungry, crouched low in the darkness. Their heavy, strange breathing is a weird counterpoint to the incessant dripping of water; but, in the caverns, in the caves that twist and snake below the surface of things, there is the ominous drone of empty space, the filtering of air, carrying the noxious vibratory hum of flesh curdling like cheese in vast darkness. Below, here, in this space below the surface, these subterranean vaults and crypts, are the bones of the Elders, the burying ground of a suppressed yesteryear; brooded over by hideous, white things, fur-bearing fungoids in the deep, black pools of the tunneled night.
