I woke up bound with rope and tied around my mouth, and I was lifted on top of the shoulders of a group of scaly humans wearing alligator pelts. I saw these demons carry me as I struggled to break free from their control and somehow run to safety. Both my arms and legs were tied, so there wasnt much I could do though if I could get out of there. They marched on the path following the canals while I tried my best to chew through the ropes. I sweated so profusely that I was able to move the rope off of my mouth. I screamed at the monsters, asking where they were taking me. 

They told me in their hissed voices, Do you not know where you are going? 

I told them, No, I dont! 

Well then you shouldnt be in a place if you dont know where you should be, and you should especially not be in a place you know you do not belong! 

I frantically feared what could be done to me, and what horrors awaited me as I hyperventilated. What could these veridian vermin truly want with me as we descended down the path? 

We went past the path illuminated by the setting sun as we went into a forested area that was emerald-green by the forests and the swamps in front of us, where the canals met and where the light quickly diminished as the forest blocked the light from the outside. Whatever I could see now was lit by the light of swamp gas burning, creating some light for me to see. These reptiles were clearly able to see in the night as they walked me further and further. 

I saw in front of me a structure lit by torches as they walked me in. It was in the middle of a bubbling swamp that oozed gases from the murky depths below. The swamp seemed to be respirating by absorbing the trees and the deadfall and exhaling the swamp gas and burning lights. The reptiles had an extensive hydraulic system that seemed to be pumping out water and replacing what was inside with God knows what, and the air was chilling. Inside, I saw the grand layer that looked to be inside a giant mound. Inside, the flames radiated to portray the skins of alligators that were all around the inside mounds. 

I could only fathom what they would do to me. Cut me up or torture me or swallow me whole or even sacrifice me to some ancient god. They threw me down on the floor, where I was left to marvel at the grand structures they had created. The scaly men or women or otherworldly creatures surrounded the giant mound with their giant spears of bone, and they chanted in their rhythmic, otherworldly speech (or perhaps I was the otherworldly one). I lay down in the center, sweating and hyperventilating, red in the face, drenched in a pool of my sweat. The ground began to rumble, and I noticed a circle opening in front of me with the great monsters around chanting louder and louder. I shuddered at what could possibly have been down in those damp dark depths. I saw what came up from those ditches that possibly could have originated from hell. Out from the hole arose a colossal crocodilian on a throne of yellow bones, that sat and stared at me with his black beady eyes. 

He screamed at me, asking what I was doing there in the swamp so disconnected from civilization. 

I replied in fear, I’m sorry, I do not know why I am here. I was sent here to survey the land.

He replied, Survey the land? For what? You already tried to send an army and railroad surveyors through here! 

Yes, I have heard the stories. 

Do you not know what we keep here buried away from your kind? 

No, I’m sorry, I do not know. 

We were waiting for you! We knew that you’d be here. 

How did you know that? I replied.

Your guide sent you here! What did you think he was guiding you to? 

What do you mean? Why would he have done that?

We invaded his dreams. We knew quite well what we were doing, as although we were enemies in the past, we have long since been able to invade the dreams of his tribe and influence him to send sacrifices to us! Why do you think he feared coming past the mounds? Why do you think the army was diverted to come here?

I trembled in fear that I went through this betrayal. How could a man who I suffered and toiled with do something like this to me? 

And what of these canals? Why did you build them! 

We built them to send our alligators down to spy on you and anyone who tries to enter! Removing the water from under us lets us fuel the water to sustain these canals!

What great engineering these apparitions were able to create, I thought to myself.

I will swallow your brain, and I will peel out your heart, and put it on a shrine to our old gods, he exclaimed. That will be my punishment to you for daring to come by this land! 

Why would you do that? What harm did I cause you? I replied. 

You fool! This is the only way we can teach you to stay away. But as more and more of you try to come here, we will continue to sacrifice you to the old gods that exist under this land! 

Old gods? I asked. 

Yes! The old gods that once controlled this land and who were the custodians of this land. It was long ago that the native tribes were in control of the land and kept us at bay by creating those magical mounds to enclose us. But now that people like you are coming to steal this land from us, we will soon come about to take over this place again! You fool! As your people have continued to destroy those powerful structures to keep us at bay with ancient witchcraft, we can soon take back the land which was ours! He roared. As our deities soon come about to take over the swamps, we will be in control, and you will succumb to a terror you can never even imagine! 

The collection of reptilian humans began to stomp their staves and chant an ancient tongue that sounded like snakes slithering and alligators roaring. At the corner of the camp, I saw human-sized eggs which I’m sure these demons were born from after some ritual or unholy encounter between humans and the alligators of the area. 

You are the first in a while to come here, and you will be the last! 

The great alligator stood up, and as he did, his legs caused great movement of the Earth, and his minions continued chanting as he pointed at me. 

It was here where I saw the true origin of my nightmares, as what he described that day lives inside my mind, passed on by my family, as I inherited the terror that lived inside him. It remains inside me to this day. I can visualize exactly what he saw as I relive the torture of that day in front of me. 

As his voice and body continued to cause tremors in the land, a chasm began to form in the land where he stood. His face contorted to one of surprise and horror as the land he worshipped for so long betrayed him. It was a sinkhole that arose from the displacement of water from the interior. Whatever they tried to replace it with was not enough. The fires that were in the camp were thrown down in the earthquake and caused an explosion as it ignited the swamp gas from the area. The earthquake that came about from the center of his sacred encampment was followed by a surge of storms and gusts of wind that flooded the area and carried all the remnants of this ancient cult down to the depths under the swamp. Decomposing under that black-green liquid turned them into more fertilizer for the swamps. Their paddles did absolutely nothing to save them from the torrents that took them into the valley that ended all history of the crocodilian cult that existed in this ancient land. Their screams caused me to shudder as the demons writhed in pain where they recognized the end of their lives and great civilization.  

I woke up in a daze on the beach where I saw the sun rise. I was covered in mud and sand and could only barely remember the horrors of what I saw that night. I woke up surrounded by an array of old bones around me that possibly must have come from the interior that sailed across the swampy interior with me. I saw the sun rise from the east, meaning that somehow, I had made it to the eastern part of Florida. I had been the first person ever to cross the quagmire and see the darkness of the depths that exist in the center.

I kept walking north when I was spotted by a naval officer, and he took me to the nearest base to provide me with shelter. The navy had told me that they expected my survey to have been completed in a few weeks’ time maximum, but I was declared lost and declared dead and that my excursion took two years. I shrieked and told them I went past the mounds. I knew it was wrong but I did!