The Mountains Of Madness
Part 2

Disturbing these sculptural walls were tall windows and a large twelve-foot door; well now and then maintain the petrified wooden board — carved and polished elaborately — of the actual shutters and doors. All the metal fixtures were long gone, but some of the doors remained in place and had to be removed as we moved from room to room. Window frames with strange transparent panels - mostly round long in shape - survive here and there, albeit in a small amount. There are also large niches that are often large, generally empty, but it occasionally contains some strange objects carved from broken green soap stones or may be considered too low that it does not need to be removed. Other holes are undoubtedly connected with the mechanical facilities that have passed — heating, lighting, and the like — of the type recommended in many carvings. Ceilings tend to be plain, but sometimes decorated with green soap stones or other tiles, most of which fall now. The floor is also paved with such tiles, although ordinary stones predominate.

As I said, all the furniture and other movable items were absent; but the statues gave a clear picture of the strange device that once filled this tomb-like echo chamber. Above the glacial slabs, the floors were generally filled with detritus, litter, and debris; but the further these conditions declined. In some lower rooms and corridors, there is little sandy dust or ancient splashes, while areas that sometimes have immaculate air are neatly washed away. Of course, where a crack or collapse had occurred, the lower level was as trashy as the one above it. Central court — as in other buildings we saw from the air — save inner area from total darkness; so we rarely had to use our electric torches in the upper rooms except when studying sculptural details. Under the ice cap, however, the twilight deepens; and in many parts of the tangled ground surface there is an approach to absolute darkness.

To form the basic idea of our thoughts and feelings as we enter this inhuman mute labyrinth, we must correlate the confusing mess between moods, memories and fugitive impressions. The horrifying uniqueness and deadly destruction of the place were enough to overwhelm almost everyone who was sensitive, but added to these elements are the recent unexplained horrors in the camp, and those revelations are too quickly influenced by the monstrous mural sculptures around us. The moment we arrived at the perfect engraving section, where there was no ambiguity of interpretation, the, it only took a short study to give us the terrible truth — a naive truth to claim Danforth and I had not been suspicious before, though we carefully refrained from hinting at each other. There is now no doubt about the nature of the creatures that built and inhabited this terrible city of the dead millions of years ago, when the ancestors of humans were primitive, primitive mammals, and the great dinosaurs roamed the tropical grasslands of Europe and Asia.

We have previously clung to the dead-end alternatives and insisted — each for itself — that the omnipresence of the five-pointed motif simply means the cultural or religious exaltation of the Archaean's natural objects it has so clearly embodied the five-pointed quality; when the decorative motifs of Cretan Minoa exalt the sacred bull, the Egyptians scarabaeus, the people of Rome the wolf and the eagle, and the, and the people from the various savage tribes some totem animals were chosen. But this only sanctuary is now stripped of us, and we are forced to confront with certainty the rocking awareness that must have been anticipated by the readers of these pages. I can hardly bear to write it in black and white even now, but maybe it's not necessary.

The Great Old Ones were a group of unique and ferocious creatures with great power. They lived in various locations on Earth, and once ruled the planet as gods and rulers.