"The Tsalal" by Thomas Ligotti (Ch.1)

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The Tsalal is a short story in Thomas Ligotti's "Noctuary" compendium, and is a word with its own rich mythos and lore, a namesake for blackness and shadow, with roots in ancient Hebrew, and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. More recently, Tsalal was the namesake for the research station in Season 4 of True Detective, a series that in earlier seasons also took inspiration from Ligotti. Through that word I found my way to this dark tale of his. Layered within the ice tunnels of a frozen alaskan night was another tale of another skeleton town, a place also shrouded in darkness and night, where unreality had taken a terrifying hold over things.

This is part one of Ligotti's story, a handful of pages turned into a few minutes of narrative in my first attempt at longer form.

Ligotti's work and other dark creations available at Chiroptera Press: https://chiropterapress.com/

To explore and support original artist (human) readings of Ligotti, we recommend Cadabra Records: https://cadabrarecords.com/pages/abou...

Made with assistance from these AI tools.
Image: Midjourney, Runway, Pika, Hedra.
Voice/SFX: Elevenlabs

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