Book of the Dead

They slumber, a race far older than man’s first word,

In a city more ancient than Lemuria’s first brick.

The sleepers in the dirt, the burrowers below us all.

We who climb down into the depths find not just caverns of wet and slime,

But carved faces beautiful in their hideousness, carrying not one visage of mortal man.

Pathways spiral ever downward to hopelessness and eternal blackness.

There, find mighty columns, towering edifices, and streets too wide for a sapiens’s feet.

A primal city long past anything the tiny human mind could comprehend.

Gates of red granite so huge they could hold back an army. Now swung wide.

Past them the Old Ones eternally slumber — dreaming, and still reaching out to us.

And the Earth shall fall before they rise.