Reddit Writing Prompt #11

A secret council has been working with an unknown entity to replace humans as the dominant species of Earth, but they have finally been exposed. Every person is given a choice: Help the entity for a chance to save yourself, or fight.

We were all given the same choice. Surrender our souls to Urbat, the Sumerian "Dog of Death", or take our chances in the Psychic Wastes.

I chose the latter, for obvious reasons. I wasn't going to become some soulless puppet of a demi-god. No, I was going to live. However, as soon as I arrived in the Psychic Wastes, I wished that I was dead.

Words cannot accurately describe what it's like to enter the Psychic Wastes. Imagine all of your worst nightmares, subconscious fears, and irrational hatreds becoming real. Except they aren't real. It's all inside your head. It all plays out around you, through you, as you walk atop the psychogenic soil that gives the Psychic Wastes its namesake.

Eventually I was picked up by a Sanity Squad. These guys were the saviors of the Psychic Wastes. They were masters of mental manipulation who, for whatever reason, acquired powerful psychic abilities the moment Urbat was summoned. They were they lucky ones. Everyone else was either absorbed into the Legion of Urbat or thrown into the Psychic Wastes to be consumed by their own fears.

When the Sanity Squad found me, I was covered in my own urine and feces, curled in the fetal position while screaming at the top of my lungs, "GET 'EM OFF ME, GET 'EM OFF MEEE!!!". I have a fear of spiders. Somehow, they knew that. They knew exactly what to say. They picked me up, cleaned me off, and helped me into their truck. I was astonished to found out that trucks still existed.

They brought me to their camp, a collection of tents and wooden huts. In total, this Sanity Squad and their charges consisted of 15 people. 7 women and 8 men. No children were present. I wondered if there were any children left.

They trained me. To fight, mentally and physically. To know what's real and not real. They showed me the real perils. Wild animals, corrupted by Urbat's influence, had mutated into bizarre and violent creatures. They were not intelligent though. Simple tricks allowed me to avoid the worst of the Urbeasts, as the Sanity Squad called them. Snakes were now branching and undulating hydras that spit paralytic acid. Their hissing was a dead give-away. Wolves and bears were now hairless tentacled monstrosities, but you could smell them more than a mile away. Smelled like old cheese and burnt flesh.

After a few weeks of living and fighting with the Sanity Squad, we had increased our number to 20, bringing in 3 more women and 2 men. We found a bunch of interesting things, it seemed that this part of the Psychic Wastes occupied the area formerly known as Portland, Oregon. One of the most important discoveries was also the most simple. A book. The book was titled Sumerian Incantations and Rituals. This dusty old book was important because of a single passage. This passage was noted in the Table of Contents as being present on page 67.

The passage was entitled, Incantations and Rituals for the Control and Banishment of Urbat, the "Dog of Death".