Three days came and went. Three days of tortured screams from my brother. Three days of his half sentences and delusional phrases. Three days before we knew it was too late...I spent those three days trying to discover what this thing was that could do this to my father and brother. I was no good at catching the whisker fish, but I could track better than Apollo himself. I retraced what I could of their path to the pasture, and beyond. I saw the fence half repaired, spare posts lying scattered about. As I searched around for more clues, for more traces I heard a sound unlike anything before. A sound that wasn't natural to the forest I grew up in, but that was rooted in the earth. As if this single sound was coming from the bowels of the deepest cavern, as if it alone was capable of shaking the earth above it to its will. As if this sound shaped the earth. I started my way towards it, not without being afraid but being drive by a purpose. A purpose to find what had done this to my family and to strike whatever vengeance down upon this mysterious thing that I could. If only I had more sense. If only I would have turned around and left it at that. But I didn't...

The Gopher has arisen, and it has been charged with me to prepare humanity for the wrath he is to unleash; for I do not know if I can stop him alone. I must not fail at my task or all hope will be lost. I must not fail...

It's been many summers since that event. Few alive still know the true origin of the nightmare that has been unleashed upon us. Some believe that it is their deity punishing the wicked on this Earth, leaving the rest of us here for the time being to test our faith. Others believe that this creature was created by science, in the darkest depths of the most recessed mind of the most neurotic scientists alive. It doesn't matter what they believe, all that matters is that for now; he cannot be stopped. I fear that we may not be able to stop him, but I have to try..

When I returned with the doctor, the look on my mother's and sister's faces were all I needed to know that something was terribly wrong. My father had passed away while I was returning and the doctor wasn't finished with my brother until early the next morning. He said that he had done all that he could do, and that the chances were slim, but we'd know in three days time if my brother would recover or slip away into the dream. All we could do now was wait, and try to decipher the cryptic mutterings of my brother trapped in his slumber. Haunted by what was soon to haunt all of us, haunted by what was once a dream, nothing more than a tale told to scare children, haunted by a nightmare come to life.

He has arisen, and I fear it is already too late...

The first thing I can recall was not my sister's scream, or my mother feinting at the fire; but instead I remember  the pungent odor of whisker-fish I had caught. It was the first one I was able to catch with my bare hands, and wasn't big enough to feed my sister for one meal, but it had this peculiar stench about it, as if this smell alone could foretell the fates, as if it alone knew what the future held and how dark our days were about to come...

...I looked up in the direction my sister was pointing. My brother was being carried by my father, only it wasn't my brother. It was a bloody, twisted, shape of my brother. As my father crossed our stream, not more than fifteen feet in front of me, carrying his eldest son's mangled body, he collapsed. The next moments are relived as a blur of time and action. I was running over to help him; my sister was coming over with tears in her eyes; father was telling us to tend to our brother, that his wounds were nothing. I managed to take off my shirt and wrap it around father's head. My sister had my brother's arm around her neck and was dragging him back to the house over her back. I was doing the same with father, trying not to notice the overwhelming smell. It was unlike anything I had noticed before, some combination of decaying flesh and burnt hair. When I managed to get father to his bed, my sister had managed to rouse mother and she was set into action. She had my sister preparing hot water for the wounds, I was told to gather herbs, and she was doing her best to tend to my father and brother's wounds. After getting all of the herbs I could find, I rode our best horse into the valley to summon the town doctor...

The earliest memory I have, when I first recall thinking that perhaps these bedtime tales were more than just stories, was when I was six. Our house was on the outskirts of the town, tucked away at the base of the tallest peak. My father and older brother were mending the pasture, while my sister and mother kept the house. I was supposed to be gathering water, but was more preoccupied with the whisker-fish in our steam. I had never been as good as my brother at catching them with my bare hands, but today was the day. Little did I know how much a few hours would change my life..