TERRORBITES Podcast

The Devil's Analyst

Scott McLean Episode 14

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Terrorbytes Intro

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Exxa:

The fluorescent hum of the Infernal Bureau of Statistics was a constant low-grade thrum against Elias Thorne's skull, a sound that burrowed into bone and settled in the marrow. He'd been an analyst for the devil for well time. Was a fluid, viscous thing down here, a river of tar that stretched and contracted according to his whim. Elias suspected it had been centuries, maybe millennia. He'd long since lost track of birthdays, anniversaries or the simple, comforting rhythm of sun and moon. His current assignment? The meticulous categorization and analysis of human anxieties, specifically those relating to dental hygiene. A seemingly mundane task. Yet in the sprawling Baroque bureaucracy of hell, even a chipped molar could become a cosmic horror. Elias stared at the data stream flickering across his obsidian monitor. Columns of numbers each representing a soul's specific fear quotient scrolled relentlessly Fear of tooth decay 7.8. Fear of dental drills 9.1. Fear of flossing 3.2. Negligible. He sighed the sound a dry rustle in the sulfur-tinged air.

Exxa:

He'd once been a statistician in Des Moines, a man of crisp spreadsheets and predictable variables. Now he wrestled with the irrational, the primal, the unquantifiable terror of a single loose filling. He'd seen fear manifest as writhing black tendrils, as whispering shadows that clung to the edges of reality. He'd seen the raw, naked terror of a soul facing the chrome gleam of a demonic dentists tools, a terror that resonated with a power that could shake the very foundations of pandemonium. The devil, or the manager as they were required to refer to him, had a peculiar fascination with the mundane. He believed that the greatest horrors resided not in grand apocalyptic gestures but in the subtle, creeping anxieties that nod at the human psyche decay, rot, the slow, inevitable erosion of the body. These were his favorite tools. A red light flashed on his monitor, anomaly detected.

Exxa:

Subject Gloria Restaino, age 54, east Boston, mass fear, mass fear of dental hygiene. 12.0, off the charts. Elias frowned Twelve, it was unheard of. The highest he'd seen was a 9.9, the soul of a man who'd once faced a root canal performed by a particularly sadistic demon with a fondness for power tools. He pulled up Gloria's file. Her data was a mess of jagged lines and erratic spikes.

Exxa:

Her anxieties weren't just about teeth. They were a tangled web of dread, a symphony of fear that resonated with a dark, primal energy. He leaned closer his reflection, a gaunt eyed figure in the monitors dark surface. He could almost smell the fear, a metallic tang that filled the room. Gloria's fear wasn't rational. It wasn't about cavities or root canals. It was about the absence of teeth, the gaping empty holes in her jaw, the sense of being devoured from the inside out. It was a fear that went beyond the physical, a deep existential dread that whispered of mortality and decay. He felt a coldness spread through him, a sense of unease that was rare even in hell. This wasn't just fear, it was something else, something hungry.

Exxa:

Suddenly, the lights flickered, casting long, distorted shadows across the office. The hum of the fluorescent lights deepened into a guttural growl. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of sulfur and something else, something ancient and rotten. A voice, deep and resonant, echoed through the office. Thorn elias stood heart, a cold, leaden thing in his chest, pounding the manager stood behind him, a towering figure shrouded in shadow, his eyes glowing like embers in the darkness the Ristaino woman. The manager said his voice, a low rumble that shook the very foundations of the room. Her fear, it's not just fear, it's a conduit.

Exxa:

Elias swallowed his throat dry. A conduit, sir, an opening, a place where the rot can seep through, something old, something hungry. The manager's voice dropped to a whisper. The teeth, they are a gateway and she is opening it. He gestured towards the monitor. The image of Gloria Restaino flickered, her face contorted in a silent scream. Her mouth, a gaping black hole. The manager demanded find the source of this rot thorn. It threatens everything. Elias nodded, his hand trembling as he reached for the keyboard. He knew what he had to do. He had to descend into the depths of gloria rostano's fear, into the black, gaping abyss that threatened to consume them all. He had to face the ancient hungry thing that lurked in the shadows waiting to be unleashed. He had to face the rot and pray that he could survive the taste of it, because in the depths of hell, even the devil feared what lurked in the spaces between the teeth.

Exxa:

The descent into Gloria Rostein oh's fear was like plunging into a tar pit. The obsidian monitor, usually a window into the quantifiable horrors of the damned, now pulsed with a nauseating organic rhythm. The numbers dissolved into writhing black tendrils that reached out grasping, pulling, elias felt a cold dread, a primal terror that wasn't his own but Gloria's, amplified and distorted. He navigated the labyrinthine corridors of her subconscious, each hallway a twisted reflection of her waking life. The dentist's chair, normally a source of mild anxiety, was now a grotesque chrome plated throne, its instruments dripping with a viscous black fluid. The waiting room stretched into an endless echoing void, the magazines replaced with ancient crumbling texts filled with indecipherable glyphs. The air grew thick, heavy, with the stench of decay and something else, something metallic and sharp like the tang of rusted iron. He could hear whispers, sibilant and low, like the rustling of dry leaves in a graveyard. They spoke of teeth, of gnawing, of endless hunger.

Exxa:

He found her in the deepest chamber, a cavernous space filled with jagged, obsidian teeth, each the size of a tombstone. Gloria stood at the center, her face, a mask of terror. Her mouth agape, a black, bottomless void. The teeth pulsed, their surfaces slick with a dark, oily substance. From the depths of gloria's open mouth, a low, guttural growl echoed, a sound that resonated with the ancient primal hunger of something long buried.

Exxa:

A shape began to emerge from the darkness, a hulking, amorphous mass of shadow and teeth. It moved with a slow, deliberate grace, its form shifting and reforming its edges, blurring into the darkness, its eyes to pinpricks of malevolent red, fixed on Gloria and then on Elias, the rot. Elias whispered the word, a dry rasp in his throat. The rot moved, its form, coalescing into a grotesque parody of a human figure, its limbs elongated and twisted, its hands, ending in sharp, jagged. Its head was a mass of teeth, a swirling vortex of bone and decay. It spoke its voice, a chorus of whispers and gnashing teeth. You are too late. The rot lunged its claws reaching for Gloria, its teeth snapping and grinding.

Exxa:

Elias felt a surge of adrenaline, a desperate, irrational urge to protect her, to stop the unspeakable horror that was unfolding. He reached into his pocket, his fingers closing around the only weapon he had his statistical analysis tablet. He activated the device, the screen flickering with complex equations and data streams. He began to input the data he had gathered the raw, unfiltered fear of Gloria Restaino, the chaotic energy of the rot. He manipulated the variables, adjusting the parameters, attempting to find a pattern, a weakness, a way to quantify the unquantifiable. He was trying to contain the rot within the very thing that made it strong her fear.

Exxa:

The rot recoiled, its form, flickering and distorting as the data streams bombarded it. The equations normally used to categorize and analyze fear were now weapons tools to disrupt and destabilize the ancient entity. The air crackled with energy, the cavernous space filled with the sound of grinding teeth and the electronic hum of the tablet. The rot roared, its form, dissolving into a swirling vortex of black tendrils. Elias pushed the tablet's processing power to its limits, the device glowing white hot, he channeled gloria's fear, her existential dread of the empty spaces, and fed it back into the rot. And fed it back into the rot, amplifying it, turning it against itself. The rot screamed a sound that shattered the obsidian teeth around them. Its form began to collapse, its black tendrils retracting, its eyes dimming. The gaping void of Gloria's mouth began to shrink, the darkness receding with a final agonizing groan, the rot vanished, leaving behind only the lingering stench of decay and the echoing silence of the cavern. Gloria collapsed, her body trembling, her eyes wide with terror.

Exxa:

Elias deactivated the tablet, his hand shaking. He had done it. He had contained the rot, banished it back into the darkness from whence it came. He looked at Gloria her face pale and drawn, but her breathing steady. The gaping void in her mouth was gone, replaced by the normal human features of her face. He knew that the rot was not truly gone. It was merely contained, pushed back into the shadows. It would wait, biding its time, searching for another conduit, another opening. He knew that his work was far from over. The rot was always looking for the spaces between the small cracks, the subtle fears that eroded the human soul and he would be there to measure it, to quantify it and to hold it back for as long as he could. Even in hell, there was a job to be done.

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