Introduction
On 07-16-1994, a team was dispatched to ∎∎∎∎∎∎∎∎, Illinois, following a string of disappearances in the area. Agent Mikula interviewed the wife of one of the missing persons, who said her husband had been ‘eaten by the sky’. Combing of the nearby field led to the discovery of the object, and shortly after the discovery of its pocket dimension.
Description
The following information is outdated, please see the revisions.
The object is to be kept in a climate-controlled storage unit. Under no circumstances are any personnel to read from the object for extended periods. A transcript of the text is available. Non-essential personnel are permitted to read from the object as a means of traversing the portal, pending approval from Researcher Daviau. For information regarding expeditions, refer here.
[REVISION] The object is to be kept in a standard object containment chamber at all times. No part of the object is to be read, transcript or otherwise, without approval from Researcher Daviau. Any individual suspected of having been exposed to the contents of the object is to be quarantined by medical staff for 14 days, or until symptoms associated with infection begin. All confirmed or suspected instances of infection are to be terminated, and remains incinerated.
Any expeditions into the beyond must be monitored remotely. Any personnel entering the beyond must be fitted with a remote termination device. Transcriptions of interviews and expeditions must be done manually, and are only to be accessed with approval.
The Object
The object is a small, hardcover book bound in green leather. There is no title on the front cover, but ‘Lindwyrm’ is handwritten upon the first page. Upon reading, the subject will become entranced and ignore normal outside stimuli. As they read further, they will begin to wander, seeking the nearest empty space under an open sky. They will walk farther and farther from observers, until they appear to be enveloped by the horizon, at this point having entered the object's pocket dimension (henceforth referred to as the beyond).
They will continue on, and upon reaching the very last page, the ground of the beyond will open beneath them, and they will be lost. No attempts at recovery at this stage have been successful. Rough stimuli or physically stopping the movement of the subject will interrupt them from their trance.
The text of the object describes itself as a bestiary, though it only describes one supposed organism in great detail. The author (who is never identified in text) recounts a tale of discovering that the hills it lives on are alive, and with the realization the earth becomes hungry. Transcribed below an excerpt from the object:
I worked, deeper and deeper like a maggot in the flesh of the Earth. The mine grew hotter and hotter, sunless heat choking me in the pitch black– but with one great and final swing of my pickaxe I broke through the bedrock, and I was rewarded with great gouts of scalding blood that burned my flesh and flooded my meager tunnel. It was only by the grace of God that I managed to escape, such was the ferocity of the torrent that I could barely manage to float toward the surface. It was this that marked me with the knowledge, and these beasts can sense the mark. It awakens their appetite.
The author initially attempts to explain the ‘beasts’ (the text provides no name for the organism) as being fallen angels. To quote the text:
It is with great jealousy they live, rotting as their endless bodies cover the ground. They see humanity, in all our freedom, and they covet our spirits. Thus, they try to consume us, but they cannot consume the soul. It passes through them, purified into something greater. By being consumed, they are freed to live as earth-angels, and they wander the Earth and enter the hearts of men.