Chapter One
Dear reader, I assume you hold this book in your hands, tentacles, claws, or other such appendages; and are reading freely of your own will. Why? Because this book will not depart its secrets if forced to do so, every copy of this book is enchanted. Only those who need to know will know the knowledge and the terror held inside these pages. Only those who must know, and for the time being, I guess that it is you.
This story begins on a cold, wet night. The dogs were howling, the cats were doing their meowing, and people were mostly indoors. Like I had been, for instance, the cold wind was rumored to be able to strip your skin raw in weather like this, and I didn’t dare discredit that. Thunder was crashing down around my small apartment suite, and I had had the blinds pulled down, the candles lit, and a little light music to freshen the mood. Of course, as a PI, I shouldn’t be allowed such liberties, but it was cold and wet, and I didn’t exactly want to have to put on a show. If I had locked up shop that night, then maybe, just maybe, none of this would ever had happened. But I can’t run on hopes, and I won’t bore you with my moaning. What did happen, did. Usually I just deal with cheating couples, missing dogs, that kind of regular bullshit that pays the bills, and keeps me in a job. Not this guy, I could tell it as soon as he walked through my door. I could smell a fresh case on my hands, and I was pumped. The man, his name was never know to me, he never disclosed it, was tall. Must have been around Six feet Six, or tall enough that I, a regular Six footer’, had to tilt my head back to look at him. He wore a black pinstripe suit, but did not wear a tie. I don’t know why, but it struck me as odd. HE, struck me as odd. He was the kind of face you could forget easily, and never remember. I pro-offered him a chair, and as he sat down, he shook his black, long hair dry, covering me with rain, and then took out a briefcase. He never spoke a word, he just left the briefcase on my desk and left. I shouted after him, tried, tried in vain to stop him. But he slid out of my grip as if he were made of nothing, and was gone. I remember returning to my desk, and opening the briefcase. I remember the large exhale of breath I took as everything struck me. I remember blacking out briefly, but I don’t remember waking up.
The Cell I awoke in was cold and padded, leather-bound and hard, I screamed at the walls for an answer, but none came. I screamed question after question at the Cell, the washed walls, the barred doors, but no answers appeared. Instead, it provided only a steady stream of more questions, ‘Where am I?’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘Why am I here?’.
After what must have been a day of screaming, my voice burnt itself out, my throat ran raw, and my eyes watered in pain. That’s when they came for me, small, lumbering figures who tore at my flesh, laughing manically, I couldn’t scream out in pain, I was cuffed, and I couldn’t shake them off me, I could only cry, until the pain hurt too much, and then I fainted in pure agony. I considered it a miracle when I woke again, my left hand gnawed to the bone, my shoulder torn to bloody shreds, as if ran through a wood chipper. They came again the night after, and after, and after. Always leaving enough blood to keep me alive, but always taking enough skin to keep me in mortal agony.
After what must have been a week, a person came to visit me, me; in my cruel ripped existence, a living skeleton, in the guise of my father. I still remember pushing myself to sanity, to force myself to believe that it was an illusion. It was horrible, weighing pain against anger against a loss of a will to live. I couldn’t escape, I couldn’t move, I could barely breath at times, things came to me in the night, and I was their ****ing food. A month ago I would be happily asleep by now, now I was a broken man. Luckily, by the time the man had come in, my voice had returned, even so, it hurt to talk. He laid down for me food and water, and made me eat and drink. Then came an uneasy slumber. I don’t remember much of the man, was it a man? Or was it one of them? The slumber had washed away all past memory.
- Small edits, story progression -
