Lark's Terror

Serpentine text swirled across the page like a labyrinth drawn by inhuman hands. Whatever had enclosed these words and allowed them to retain their form in this world was a travesty. To understand would bleed the strength from most minds. Those that survived the attempt were scarred. The bulk of these dangerous letterings, this horrific text, this insipid accompaniment of ink, velum and strange leather were what Lark held.
He’d found the book here below his house. Guided by a lone candle and dreams that had haunted him since childhood. Following memories of reaching past damp tunnels. Narrowly avoiding beady-eyed rats and delving into the darkness that stretched from there.
Those dreams had earned him a dread for anything lower than street level. When he’d spent time under the pay of a stern merchant as a youth. She had laughed when he’d beg not to pull racks of Shebizi from the cellar, and if she knew his current state, she’d just laugh even harder. He had known entering such places would lead to his dreams. He could not bear the idea of falling into the twilight and being trapped in a sunless world.
He was wrong to have worried about twilight. Apart from those meager flickers of his dying candle, all he knew was darkness. As the labyrinthine lettering continued to morph, he saw worse than any dream. Down here, horrors became reality. He shivered, caught by the chill of an unknown breeze as the letters finally began to untangle. Approaching the form of words with the solemnity of a funeral march.
It terrified him, but he couldn’t move. His gaze held by the irons of his glasses pressed against his eyelids. His eyes watered as the stench of rot made itself known and his consciousness waned with an afflicted weariness. His youthful dreams were fragments, yet now stood as stark premonitions. As long nights that had foretold the fate MeyGana had prescribed. They had analyzed his due DraKaise and ceased any outpourings of sentiment for his future potential.
Those horrific words began to connect as his eyes overflowed with tears, but words still imparted their worth. His mind began to tear at the seams. He began to know. He would die here in this haunted chasm deep below his crib. Were he to survive and crawl to the surface. Even if he could make the journey, would he retain his humanity?
The serpentine text was fully connected and were true words. Words which held terrible secrets defiant to reality. Velum Pages flipped. Voices filled his mind; speaking of the folly of the giants, the ethereal summoning, and the binding knot that strung the world. Voices crashed over him as he crumpled to the floor. The text in his hands and pages continued to flip. As they shredded his mind, all Lark could think of was all-consuming terror.