FIELD LOG 06 — THE WATCHER BELOW

Expedition Archive // Restricted Access
Recovered Documents Dated: October 27th, 1911
Author: Alias Voss

Everything changed after we left the chamber beneath Hollow Peak.

The mountain followed us home.

At least, that is the only way I can describe it now.

For days after our second descent, I could still feel the vibrations from the impacts beneath my feet even while standing miles away from the mountain itself. Sometimes late at night, lying awake in bed, I would convince myself the entire house was trembling faintly around me.

Not enough to wake anyone else.

Just enough for me to notice.

Three slow impacts.

Always three.

My father barely left his study anymore.

The room had become almost unrecognisable by then. Maps covered every wall. Sheets of calculations littered the floor beneath piles of ancient journals and excavation records gathered over decades. Strange geometric diagrams had been drawn directly across the wooden panels in chalk and charcoal, connecting symbols I did not understand into enormous circular patterns.

At the centre of every diagram was the same shape.

The Black Sun.

Only now the six fractures surrounding it appeared constantly beside additional markings my father refused to explain.

I stopped asking eventually.

Because every time I mentioned Hollow Peak, he looked frightened.

Not of the mountain.

Of me.

That frightened me more than anything we had witnessed beneath the earth.

One evening, several days after our return, I found him sitting alone in darkness inside the study. The only light came from the black fragment resting on the desk before him, faint crimson fractures pulsing softly through the room like dying embers beneath ash.

He did not notice me immediately.

He was speaking to something.

At first I thought he was reading from one of his journals.

Then I realised he was answering questions.

Pausing.

Listening.

Responding.

The room itself felt warmer than the rest of the house. The air carried the same metallic scent I remembered from the chamber beneath Hollow Peak — like heated iron and rain-soaked stone.

“Dad?”

The voice stopped instantly.

My father looked up sharply.

For a moment, genuine panic crossed his face.

Then it vanished behind exhaustion.

“You shouldn’t come in here anymore,” he said quietly.

I stepped further into the room despite him.

“When was the last time you slept?”

He ignored the question completely.

Instead, he wrapped the fragment carefully inside cloth and placed it back beneath his coat with almost protective urgency.

Like he was afraid I might touch it.

Or hear it too.

Outside, rain hammered against the windows while thunder rolled across the valley beyond the house. The storm had arrived unnaturally fast that evening. My mother had mentioned it several times during dinner, unsettled by how suddenly the skies had darkened.

Nothing felt natural anymore.

Not the weather.

Not the house.

Not my father.

He looked thinner every day. Dark circles hollowed the skin beneath his eyes while his hands trembled constantly unless he held the fragment itself.

Yet despite the exhaustion slowly destroying him…

I had never seen him more focused.

“You said the seal was weakening,” I told him carefully.
“What does that mean?”

For several seconds he said nothing.

Then he leaned back slowly in the chair and stared toward the darkened window beside the desk.

“I don’t think Hollow Peak is a prison,” he whispered.

Lightning illuminated the study for a brief instant.

His face looked older than I remembered.

“I think it’s a lock.”

The words settled heavily into the room between us.

Outside, thunder echoed again across the hills.

I remember wanting to argue with him. To tell him the voice beneath the mountain was manipulating him. That whatever existed beyond the chamber door was dangerous.

But part of me remembered the relief on his face when the darkness spoke.

And a small, terrified part of me understood it.

My father had spent his entire life searching for proof that humanity was not alone beneath the surface of history. Every expedition. Every ruined temple. Every forgotten language had led him toward Hollow Peak.

And Hollow Peak had answered him back.

“How long have you been hearing it?” I asked quietly.

He smiled weakly.

“Longer than I admitted.”

The rain intensified outside while the lantern flame on his desk flickered violently.

“When I was younger, I believed the dreams were stress. Obsession. Hallucinations caused by too many years buried in myths and excavation sites.”

He glanced downward toward the fragment beneath his coat.

“But the closer I came to the Black Sun symbols… the stronger the dreams became.”

“What dreams?”

For the first time in weeks, uncertainty crossed his face.

Then slowly, he began speaking.

“I see cities beneath a black sky,” he whispered. “Endless towers carved from stone darker than night itself. Oceans without water. Fields of ash stretching beyond the horizon.”

His voice lowered further.

“And chains.”

The lantern flame dimmed suddenly.

“Massive chains stretching across the sky.”

I felt cold despite the heat inside the room.

“The people there…” he continued quietly. “They aren’t dead, Alias.”

A violent impact shook the house.

Not thunder.

Something deeper.

The cups inside the kitchen rattled downstairs.

My father froze instantly.

So did I.

For several seconds neither of us moved.

Then came the second impact.

Slow.

Heavy.

Somewhere beneath the earth itself.

My father stood immediately, knocking papers from the desk.

“No…”

The third impact followed.

The windows trembled violently.

Outside, every dog in the valley suddenly began barking at once.

I remember my mother shouting from downstairs asking what was happening, but neither of us answered.

Because my father was staring directly toward the floor beneath the study.

Listening.

Terrified.

Not of the impacts.

Of what they meant.

“The chamber opened further,” he whispered.

I felt my stomach tighten immediately.

“You said we sealed it.”

“We didn’t seal anything.”

Another silence filled the room.

Then slowly, my father looked toward me with an expression I had never seen before.

Guilt.

Real guilt.

“I think we unlocked it.”

The storm outside intensified violently.

Rain lashed against the windows while thunder rolled continuously across the valley beyond the house. Yet beneath it all…

I could still hear the impacts.

Faint now.

Distant.

But spreading.

As though something enormous beneath Hollow Peak had finally begun moving in its sleep.

That night, I did not dream of the Black Sun world.

For the first time…

I dreamed of something looking back at me from beneath it.