Onryō

January 23, 1998

It has been approximately 3 weeks since I last slept.

Every several hours I pump myself full of caffeine and whatever drugs I can find in order to prolong my state of consciousness. Each passing moment since this all began is another weight added to the back of my eyes dragging my head to the ground. I’m quite literally so far past the point of exhaustion that my body has quit trying to force me back to the former state of sleep. I fear that at some point I’m simply going to assume some pseudo-narcoleptic state and merely slip from consciousness. Unfortunately, I know that once that happens, I won’t be able to keep the fires going any longer and then they’ll finally have me. They’ll finally be able to fulfill their dark purpose that perpetuates their existence in this world.

Nevertheless I feel it is important to explain what “they” are. Unfortunately, I don’t know myself and mere speculation at this point about their nature isn’t going to get me anywhere but to the point of simply eating a gun out of a sheer desperation. Not that my attitude as of late has been much more optimistic.

Fire is the only thing I can trust anymore and even it will abandon me in a moment’s notice if not properly cultivated. It’s somewhat interesting why fire has become such a necessity to me. The heat isn’t important but the light it gives off is the only thing that prevents them from coming near me. At the same time, fire is the only thing that they have been unable to stop… and not for a lack of trying. Electronics go completely haywire in their presence. Light bulbs and even fluorescent lights have been known to flicker and die completely when they come near. Even flashlights aren’t immune. While this was initially a good warning as to their proximity, it typically meant they were so close that any emotion but panic wasn’t going to be enough to escape. Still, even if fire keeps them away, it doesn’t hurt them. They merely wait at the edge... at the gray area where the light dims just enough to allow them to sit… and to watch.

I wish this knowledge about fire could be used against them, but I’m not even sure they can feel pain, let alone be harmed at all. I’ve had mixed results with throwing different physical items at them during the many times I’ve had to run. Sometimes objects will impact them and at others objects will simply pass right through. I have a sneaking suspicion that this has something to do with their conscious decision to interact with the physical world. They can appear just about anywhere where the light has dimmed enough or shadow dominates a corner. At the same time, they have shown they are perfectly capable of manipulating physical objects at will such as any everyday items and on occasion, doors. It’s not as though I’ve really tried to fight them though. Their mere appearance is enough to make me run and so far I have been pretty good about not being cornered and in a jam I have started small fires to keep them at bay until I can come up with a better plan.

I’ve only been touched by them once. She… rather “it”, grabbed my arm and the skin immediately underneath her cold touch began to decompose and turn gray. Somehow I managed to pull free before it caused further injury and fortunately, the afflicted area has more or less healed now… though at a diminished capacity without any sleep to aid it. Still, this one occurrence was more than enough incentive never to let them get that close again. I really wish it was as easy as simply making that decision. Every day they come closer to grabbing me and not letting go.

I can see them even now… in the distance but not quite. It’s like when you walk into a darkened room from a lit hallway and your body casts a shadow in the corner of your eye. You think you saw something so you turn toward what is no longer there and pass it off as simply your mind playing tricks on you. Unfortunately, in my case, something is there. They’re always there…

Tomorrow will be difficult. I’ve been forced to hide in a back stairwell for the time being. I got stuck in the city when the sun began to set and the only place I could find to light a fire for the night hours was a park. It worked for a while; about an hour or so before someone decided to play Smokey the Bear on me and call 911. The police and a fire truck arrived to put out the fire and I fled as fast as I could before they did so.

I just started running. I didn’t really have any idea where I was going and my brain wasn’t exactly working at the capacity to figure it out for me. I didn’t dare to look back but I was already seeing street lights parallel to me begin to short out and die as I passed. They were getting close or rather already were close. It was only as I passed a stairwell leading into the subway that I made my decision. Unfortunately, I tripped on the last step skipping my body like a stone finally coming to rest on the cold concrete of the platform. My face and my arms were skinned pretty good but I was already pushing myself to my feet and sprinting forward. The light above me died and I grabbed a trashcan as I pulled myself through an open doorway that happened to be the stairwell I’m currently writing this from.

With one arm I pulled a bottle of lighter fluid out and squirted it in its entirety into the trashcan and with the other I started to push the door shut praying to whoever that the shabby light bulb swinging precariously above my head held out just long enough for me to light it. Unfortunately as the door came close to settling in its frame I found resistance and as I turned my head back, my eyes locked with the wide eyes of a girl with chalk white skin and jet black hair peering at me through what was left of the small opening and the ensuing darkness. The girl’s hand was in the way and without changing her expression the door began to slowly open back up despite my best efforts to fight it shut. I fell to the floor and put my feet against it slowing the opening but not stopping it. Now there was not simply a hand wrapped around the door but an entire arm. The arm was soon joined by another and soon after that another pair of arms. Finally another pair joined the first two and they effortlessly pushed the door open and me with it. As the hanging bulb died, I struck a match which to my great relief ignited on the first try and met with the fumes coming off the trashcan igniting it as well. Suddenly, my section of the stairwell was illuminated and the three were gone.

There was no scream or dramatic exit. They simply vanished with the darkness. I suspect it’s much like what would happen if they finally got me. I’d be dead and they’d be gone as if they had never even been here.

I just saw one of them peer out from down the stairwell. They’ll do that from time to time. I’m not sure if they’re doing it simply to scare me or if they’re merely testing the intensity of the light. Anyway, I’m tired of writing. The only reason I started was because I needed something to do to kill time and I was sitting in a large collection of random magazines, pamphlets, memos, and newspapers that I presume were the bed of some homeless person at some point recently. I’ve been using them to fuel my fire and found I had enough that I could start scribbling down some random thoughts while I was at it. I probably won’t be able to write again and may end up burning even these pages if I run low on fuel. It has made me feel a little better but that’s not saying much. Tomorrow I’m going to have to figure out a way to get through the blackened subway platform back upstairs. For now, I simply have to wait… Wait for daybreak once again in my continued personal Hell.

Oh man, this section has had like a year long drought. So I was pretty anxious to open this thread when I saw it. My first thought was, "Oh no, not another apocalypse diary." But then it was just like, oooh, ghosts? And I was hooked. Then you drop the little bomb about the police and fire trucks, and it was like, shit, this isn't apocalypse at all. That's revolutionary.

I liked it alot. I love supernatural bullshit, and this forum has a serious lack of it. Moar nao!

January 24, 1998

Night ended relatively uneventfully. However, at one point, one them did in fact attempt to test the strength of the light. It started as the others had with a head peering out from the shadows, except this time it didn’t stop there. It proceeded to move up the stairs in a movement I can only describe as a stuttered float. It got as far as halfway before it simply faded away. Then I saw the same face back down the stairs peering out with the others a few hours later as if nothing had happened. The event really fucked me up. For a moment I thought they had figured out how to beat their only limitation and just about had a heart attack in the process. Drying the cold sweat that had formed all over my face I had to sit there in the far corner reassuring myself that I was still alive and that if they had managed to become immune to the light, I’d already be dead. I do have another theory about the act though. I think they were trying to scare me into running out of the safety of the light out onto the platform. It might have worked too if she had made it another step or more. I wouldn’t have had any other choice but to run at that point and once I was in complete darkness, I would have been utterly at their mercy.

A few hours later I decided it was time to try and escape. I considered trying to make a torch but without anything to do so realistically I had to abandon this idea. The newspaper and the magazines either burned too quickly or not at all and neither had the integrity to burn for long before crumbling. So I did the only thing left that I could really think of. I just pushed the trashcan with me. Nothing remarkable really happened save for one tight spot when the trashcan was directly underneath the doorway. Given the way the light bounced and the darkness of my own shadow they were able to stand both on the same level as me within a few feet in the stairwell and then on the other side of me in the platform. This motivated me to move faster but fortunately, once I was on the platform, the light was able to get large enough again that it pushed them back much farther away.

My arms were burning by the time I reached the stairwell. I really had underestimated how heavy the trashcan would feel after dragging it the entire length of the platform. I did encounter a problem once I reached the kiosk and the security doors, though. First off, even if I could open them without power the trashcan would have been too fat to make it through the opening. Second, there was a maintenance team there working on the lights in vain who looked at me like I was completely batty as I drug the mini bonfire behind me. Trust me when I say the thought has occurred to me as well. I knew one of them had to have called the police once they saw me so I made a run for it at that point. There was still a U-shaped hallway to go and at least half of it was still covered in darkness. The sun just wasn’t high enough yet even if the streets were safe now. Still, I managed to make it through and up the stairs before I could be stopped. I think this shows another limitation though it’s not much consolation. They can’t fully materialize instantly. If they had been able to they would have simply appeared in front and behind me and boxed me in. I take this discovery to indicate that I do have a short window of time where I can run safely through a darkened area as long as I keep moving. Though, that said, they do seem to move much faster once they assume their “stuttered float” I mentioned a moment ago. Also, I should be careful when discussing their “limitations” since when they first appeared they were much more limited and ascended far beyond such inconveniences. They seemed to grow stronger and more powerful each day. Fortunately this seemed to have plateaued recently but I shouldn’t take that to mean they’re as strong as they’re going to get. This next ascension may simply be taking longer to reach.

I spent the better part of the day in an internet café drinking enough espresso to keep me awake for three lifetimes and making frequent open door bathroom visits (which led to one humorous reaction with a female patron). At some point I made the mistake of posting part of my situation on the message board of one of those ghost aficionado websites where different people take pictures of dust particles and claim everywhere is haunted. Within no time at all, I had several responses. None of them proved to be remotely helpful. A minute or so later someone else posted suggesting that the three could possibly be what old Japanese literature referred to as “Onryō”. Apparently these ghosts were the vengeful spirits of women who were screwed over by men and returned from the afterlife to seek revenge.

Ok, I thought. Now we were getting somewhere. However, this raises way too many questions in and of itself. I actually know or rather knew each of the three women who now pursue me. In fact, I dated each of them briefly. So fact is, if any of them had died, I would have heard about it, let alone if all three had conveniently died at the same time. It’s not like they all went to the same school together or had any other connection besides me. So was it possible that this Onryō was simply taking on the form of women I had hurt? I suppose. Though, that didn’t answer the question of “Why me”. Additionally, these Onryō seemed to form out of legitimately evil acts toward women such as murder or rape, and I can safely say that my womanizing hardly fits either. Either way, I didn’t really get a whole lot of answers beside a new name for those that hunt me.

The posts that followed this were somewhat split in between those that didn’t believe me and those suggesting dumb Christian, Wiccan, or even Satanic rituals pertaining to the individual’s personal religious beliefs to remove the evil spirits from my life. Even if such things could work, I think it’s safe to say my ghosts have gone beyond being vulnerable to such things. One woman even asked if her and her camera crew could film me for a few weeks.

Around noon I gave up on trying to find any real answers from these people and went to the hardware store to stock up on lighters, matches, lighter fluid, and any other incendiary devices I could use to start a fire. This presents a problem in and of itself as an individual purchasing the things I do, in the bulk that I do, screams “arsonist” and while no store has denied themselves the profit from my purchase, more than once a store owner has notified the police after I’ve left. In fact, given all the fires I’ve started out of sheer necessity I suppose I am technically an arsonist. Though, unlike other arsonists, if they put me in a holding cell, they’ll discover a month old dead corpse once the lights come back on.

I’m already on the run as it is. My family already suffered the fate that I’m running from… as did the friends of mine I went to for help in the early days. The only connecting factor between them is me and it’s for that reason that I’m a wanted man. They’re not sure how I killed these people but with them dead and me missing I’m the prime suspect. It’s bad enough that anyone I get close to dies in such a horrible manner but each time it happens it means that the police are just that much closer to catching me and then my wraith pursuers by proxy. I’m not sure the three are aware of this fact otherwise I think they would merely start killing people in my general vicinity just to get me arrested and at their mercy. I think from here on out that’s the last I’m going to mention on that topic lest they read any of this… if they’re even able to do so that is.

Anyway, I got out of the city before dinner time. I’m in a field somewhere with a fire that I don’t think will draw the authorities.

January 25, 1998

I was wrong… and more people have suffered now because of my carelessness. The field I was in was part of some farmer’s land and he was not happy to see a fire burning in the distance in what turned out to be a plowed cornfield. He called the police and one officer arrived. I started to run but stopped when I realized that I was truly in the middle of nowhere. Even if I did get away, there was no way for me to build another fire in time. Seeing me start to run, the cop threw me to the ground and handcuffed me. He put me in his squad car and informed me he was going to drive us to the farmer’s home to see what he wanted to do with me for trespassing and fucking up a section of his land by scorching it. As we started to drive away I saw the three looking right back at me in the windows. The fire was out and they were already there. As one of them, Charlotte, I think, started to place her hands on the window, the car sped off down the dirt road toward a now lit house that I hadn’t seen before now.

The cop pulled me from the back seat as I started to convulse in his grip trying to get away but knowing that anything I could possibly say would merely be viewed as insanity. As I was brought inside, I heard the officer and the farmer talking. The farmer was pretty thoroughly pissed off and was saying all kinds of shit about pressing charges and wanting to beat my ass himself. In fact, it was sounding as if the cop wasn’t exactly opposed to letting him given the fact that I had started to run-. Unfortunately, we had been still for too long and on cue the lights flickered and died.

As my eyes struggled to adjust I saw Charlotte once again, with her hand pressed against the chest of the policeman. He was shaking and gagging on nothing as his life drained from him. The farmer already had a shotgun in hand and unloaded a round into her. The muzzle flash was bright enough to cause her to disappear momentarily dropping the cop to the ground. Unfortunately, as he fiddled with his gun attempting to open it up to load another slug she was already on top of him. I watched in horror as she placed both hands on the sides of his head and it shriveled up. If I hadn’t been so scarred I would have thrown up from the sudden smell alone. Still, in being petrified from the appearance of Charlotte I didn’t notice the sudden appearance of the other two right behind me at either shoulder, Persephone and Margaret respectively.

I’m not sure what prompted me to turn my head away from the scene that was unfolding right in front of me, but in doing so I saw them and fell forward along the ground scuttling to get out of the way into a nearby wall. With both men thoroughly dead, the three resumed their pursuit of me albeit much slower than normal. I take this to mean they actually knew that they had me cornered and were savoring the moment even if their facial expressions never changed. Each of their faces was completely dead and staring into nothingness. I think that’s what haunts me the most about them. Even if they still move, their faces never change supporting the theory that they are in fact dead.

Still as I clutched the wall I grabbed a hold of something soft in the darkness; a drape. Acting purely on instinct, I lit the drape ablaze and soon with it the rest of the house caught fire. I made my way for the door opting to stay momentarily on the porch.

The three had assumed positions about 20 yards away simply staring from the darkness and waiting. I demanded to know what they wanted. It wasn’t as though I expected a reply. I was just at my wits end. Once again I was going to be implicated in arson; An arson that resulted in the deaths of a farmer and a cop. Everyone was going to be looking for me now. Meanwhile I was trapped at the scene of the crime staring at three ghosts. All they had to do was wait and they knew it.

I didn’t really have any idea what to do anymore. Frankly, I didn’t really have any idea what to do from the beginning. Still, I made for the police car which turned out to be locked. Meanwhile the cop and his keys were back in the house engulfed in flames, as was the farmer and any possibility of me stealing the keys to any of his cars. I began rummaging around on the porch that was highly messy until I heard a scream from inside. The farmer had family, and I had trapped them inside by setting it on fire.
Abandoning all thoughts of rationality, I ran back into the fire. Everything was burning now and finding the stairs was next to impossible. A moment before giving up I stumbled upon a lone stairwell that was also on fire. I yelled up the stairs but no one answered me. It wasn’t as though anyone could even hear me over the roar of the fire, let alone would I be able to hear any response if that wasn’t the case.

I stumbled out of the heat and smoke back onto the porch and this time walking away from the house to try and get a look at the upstairs windows. I wasn’t even thinking about the three when one of them got a hold of my jacket. I concede I hadn’t been thinking, but they were not standing there when I came back out. In other words, they had reappeared almost instantly this time. Or maybe I’m just losing my mind. I can’t seem to think straight anymore.

I pulled myself free, losing a section of my jacket in the process and resumed looking at the windows when a large crash from the other side of the home indicated that the windows on that side of the building had just blown out. Then the screaming resumed but rather than indicating fear, it indicated pain. I made my way around the building making sure to stay within the invisible barricade that seemed much smaller than days past. The light wasn’t holding them back as far anymore. They were stronger.

As I rounded the corner I stumbled upon a body that was still on fire. I wasn’t sure if the fire had blown the woman out from the second floor or if she had merely caught fire and jumped. I suppose it really didn’t matter. Before I knew any better, I had pulled my torn jacket off and was beating the fire out. The woman was still alive but barely even resembled any gender anymore. Her skin was completely charred. Wrapping my jacket around her, I lifted her up not knowing where I was going to move her to. I didn’t have a car and even if I did, I didn’t know the area so I wouldn’t be any help getting her to a hospital. I carried her back to the front of the house and sat her in the grass outside. The fire had expanded exponentially giving us more freedom in the light it gave off. Still, I needed to get away, and she needed a doctor. Or at least she did before she died a few moments later. Her burns were too severe but ultimately she passed away simply because I had set her house on fire. It was my fault. Once again, it was all my fault. I pray they didn’t have children but I’ll never know…

With a newly found oil lamp in hand from what was left of the porch, I left the farmhouse. And they followed as they always do. Without anything to really keep them far away, they simply glided along the ground as if in formation behind me.

I finally came to the start of a forest where I’m currently sitting and scribbling away more of my insane ramblings on a legal pad. Day is about to break and I need some time to process everything that just happened. Having all three of them standing there less than twenty feet away isn’t helping.

January 25, 1998 Part 2

So I learned some things today once day finally broke. Besides simply having to put some particulars out of mind, I ended up being forced out of necessity to try some new techniques in dealing with my pursuers. The results were relatively positive though new issues have now arisen to give little room for celebration.

It turns out that they can in fact be damaged temporarily when they get close enough and assume a corporeal state just prior to them attempting to grab me. Unfortunately, damaging isn’t really the word and neither is stunning for that matter. Rapidly attacking them when they get close does seem to slow them down, but once you stop attacking its right back to business. Additionally they have incredible reflexes and strength making the use of clubbed weapons useless. They simply catch them after they connect and discard them, or break them.

That said, when I was forced to avoid the police earlier today and hide in a closed restaurant kitchen, I was forced to use a long butcher knife to defend myself without anything to set on fire. At the time I was cornered and blocked from any stoves otherwise I would have simply tried the burners first. Anyway, I slashed in Persephone pretty good who spewed a black colored blood which defied gravity moments later as the wound reassembled itself. The reassembling took about 1½ to 2 seconds to fully complete and in that time I managed to get past her before the other two could close in.

This discovery regarding edged weapons has got me thinking about trying to find a sword of some kind though I haven’t any fucking clue where I’d find one, let alone one that isn’t merely for decoration and actually works. I don’t have the first idea how to sharpen one even if the latter were true, and frankly if they’re made for decoration then they probably aren’t that durable in the first place. A sword could be handy because it gives me further reach than a knife with relatively the same speed, but if it won’t last then it’s worthless.

Still, with the good came the incredibly bad. It turns out that the delay that I relied on to escape the three in the darkness is now gone. They can appear at will and can now successfully corner me in mere seconds in a blackened room. This was what happened in the kitchen. It was an L shaped room and I was rounding the bend when they were just suddenly there. Nothing dramatic or any grand entrance that could be considered flashy. They just simply and suddenly existed.

Looking back at when I first noticed this new ability and to similar situations when they assumed new or enhanced powers, each of them had something in common. They all manifested themselves AFTER they had killed someone or in many cases, a group of people. I think it’s pretty safe to theorize that in killing people, they are becoming stronger.

If this were the case it could also have further implications for how specifically they are killing people. From their mere existence I can reasonably conclude that spirits exist and it’s also a fairly safe bet that everyone has one. So following this realm of logic when a person loses their spirit and dies the body begins to decompose. Ergo, the Onryō are becoming stronger by draining a person of their spirit or their spirit’s energy, or soul I suppose we could even go as far as to say. This would explain why they are becoming stronger and also why their victims decompose instantly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole concept of this Onryō business as well. I think I may be able to find out if it’s one entity shape shifting to form these three women or if it’s three individual ghosts. If it is individual people who were once human, the girls I specifically knew, then something caused them to take on the form they now inhabit, and that may lead to some understanding of how to reverse the process. Nothing would really surprise me at this point. Then again, seeking out the homes of homicidal ghosts could be suicide. They are powerful enough as it is, and anything that could give them an advantage is tactically stupid on my part. Though I’m not quite sure what advantage they could get in their own homes since they’re not restricted to them.

Still, any action like this will take a few days of straight travel to get back home… to St. Louis. I guess I’ll start firming up plans and go ahead and make this trip once I can acquire a car. It’s not like I can do anything else and I’m coming up short on the steam to keep running. It’s been as good a fight as I can put up but I can’t keep it going forever. I have to do something.

January 27th, 1998

So I’m taking a big risk but it has left me with some opportunity to write about what is going on. At the moment I’m riding on a bus leaving Baltimore and heading back toward St. Louis. Not to worry too much though. It’s not an overnight trip. Since the last time I wrote, I started taking trips during the day to distances I knew would leave me with just enough time to find a good place to camp out. I’ve held onto my lamp from a few days ago and have used it repeatedly to camp out in bathrooms along my multi-stop route thus far. It’s turned out to be the only thing I can rely on. Then again, I suppose I can always rely on my three traveling companions to be there with me.

Seeing them defy gravity and peer out, upside down from the small openings underneath bathroom stalls has resulted in my having to adjust to a whole new brand of terror. The first time I saw them do it I damn near had a heart attack, though I suppose I’m getting more and more used to that as this ordeal drags on. I remember sitting in the corner with the lamp a little ways away on the floor while I was looking over a bus route pamphlet when I noticed something big out of the corner of my eyes. I looked up to see black hair slinking down from underneath the stall and bunching up against the ground before a scalp followed it and finally the wide eyed stare of Charlotte. Behind her in the second stall was Persephone and behind her in the third stall was Margaret. They did this in two separate bathrooms the last two nights.

Speaking of Margaret, I could have sworn that when I saw her appear underneath the third stall last night her eyes were blue though they shifted back to white once I finally made eye contact. I’m not sure what it means and like whenever I make any mention of something out of the ordinary (you know, more so than usual), I have to add the pretext that given my current sleep deprived state, I can’t be sure about anything anymore.

Anyway, with the Onryō, singular or plural as it may be, having grown stronger it’s got me thinking about the last several times they’ve killed people and assumed new abilities. In particular, it’s got me thinking about my friends when they tried to help me and failed. Though in order to talk about them and make any coherent sense I’ll have to start from the beginning. I suppose it’s about time I chronicle those events anyway.

Things began simply enough. I lived at home in St. Louis with my parents as an only child attending my second year of community college. We started having items vanish for several days at a time before reappearing later in plain view days later. It started off with random unimportant objects like a salt shaker or a pair of barbeque prongs. They would disappear from their location, in those cases specifically from the kitchen table and the second drawer from the right in the kitchen. Then three days later the salt shaker would simply reappear sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor and the barbeque prongs reappeared in the empty dishwasher. Note that this was mid December when all of this started happening so no one had barbequed anything and likewise had not used barbeque prongs in the last several months let alone had a pair dirty enough to put by themselves in the dishwasher.

This was odd but no one really thought about it until I woke up one morning around 4 am with the light in the hallway on and the sounds of someone stomping around pretty angrily. As it turned out my father was starting to get ready for work and his pair of glasses had vanished right off his night stand. My mother was trying to help him find them but to no avail. He eventually had to take his backup pair and leave for work. Later that morning I also had to leave and go to class. When I got back home my mother had found his glasses just sitting there in the once empty case that he had removed his backup pair from that morning. When Dad got home, he turned his attention to me and accused me of putting them there. I demanded to know how he though I got them off of his nightstand with how light a sleeper he was let alone why I would even do such a random thing in the first place. He still didn’t believe me but didn’t press the issue deciding instead to simply pout for the rest of the week.

That Sunday, I had some weird dreams and woke up early around 4 am once again. My father was already awake in the basement running on his treadmill. I went into our family room and started watching TV. At some point I heard someone walk into the room, stop, then walk back out. Figuring it was my Mom, I didn’t bother to look up. I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs from our basement. The basement door was open and I thought I’d catch my father to say good morning. We had become a bit more cordial since the evening we found his glasses. However as I came close to the doorway that was the last door before the hallway bended toward the foyer, I saw a gown and a foot round the corner before me. As I raced to look around the corner I found no one there. My father finished climbing the stairs from the basement and with the door open, I asked if he had seen what I had just seen. He said he had but thought it was simply our mother. I went upstairs, the only place the figure could have gone, and found her bed empty. Come to find out that she had been on our back patio all night having fallen asleep in a lawn chair while reading a book.

Things started to get out of hand from here on out. I started seeing things in the corner of my eyes, similar to what I described in one of my first entries, but they would hang in my peripheral vision until I finally turned toward them. Then there was nothing. Finally, about a week after my father and I caught a glimpse of the female apparition I first saw Charlotte. I got up early to get cleaned up and ready for school just before the sun came up. I was brushing my teeth and found her standing right behind me with the same stare she has today in my mirror. She didn’t do anything but vanish when I turned to look at her. She would make a habit of showing up in mirrors off and on for another week or so. By the end of that week I had told my friends about it, most of whom thought it was funny initially but seeing my deteriorating state began to become deeply concerned. Finally, my best friend Jonathon suggested I try and capture this girl using a camera. I didn’t expect anything from it but I tried it anyway. Looking at the pictures in my camera I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. All of them were completely normal save for one when I had accidentally turned the flash off and sure enough there in the dark stood the figure of a barely visible girl.

This was all my friends needed to believe me and soon we were all scouring the internet to figure out how to rid my family of the ghost that haunted our house. A few days later I saw Margaret for the first time in the same way I had seen Charlotte. A few days after that, I started seeing Persephone as well. It still occurs to me as odd that we didn’t discuss who these ghosts were in particular. I can’t remember if I brought up the fact that I knew them or not. Still, even if I did, it was possible that my friends didn’t know them personally with how I went through girls in the months and weeks leading up to this. Anyway, we weren’t finding any real answers and things were progressively getting worse. Then one day I got a call from Dad saying I needed to come home right now, that the police were there and something had happened to Mom. I asked if she was ok and he didn’t respond. He just repeated his demand for me to come home that moment.

Dad had come home early and couldn’t find my mom so he went into our finished basement where he usually worked out. A portion of the basement was still unfinished so we continued to use that area for storage. It was closed off from the rest of the basement and usually creepily dark. What made it really bad however was the fact that we had never rigged it up to a switch so you had to walk a good 6-7 feet into the dark and feel around for the short pull string on the ceiling to turn on the hanging light. We had a fridge and full freezer back there so we were used to it. However, with everything that had been going on, none of us were in a very good state of being. Turns out none of us ever would be again. Dad had found the 3 week old decomposed body of Mom right underneath the light. We tried to explain to the police that she had been alive just that morning but they insisted that that just wasn’t possible.

I have a theory for what happened. Not a whole lot more than that and nothing specific. I think that the ghosts were growing slowly stronger from our fear until they could manifest themselves. Nothing quite as strong as the boost they gained from murder, but eventually after about a month and some change it was enough to attack my mom. I’m not sure how strong they became after they killed my Mom. I’m not sure I’ll ever know.

Anyway, my Dad was completely destroyed by the events of that day and I wasn’t much better but with everything that had been happening my friends kept pushing discussion of the ghosts. They got me so wound up about it that I finally tried to talk to Dad about it too. He flew into a rage and nearly hit me for suggesting such an absurdity after everything that had happened. I stormed out of the house. Over at my friend Nathan’s place, we were talking about fighting the ghosts. Ironically, looking at all the rituals that had been suggested to me in the past few days by those idiots on the message board. We opted for one in particular that revolved around drawing out the spirits into the physical world so that we could fight them with physical weapons. It was some Sioux ritual for battling evil spirits. We were so stupid and naïve. I don’t know if it’s really fortunate that we never got the opportunity to try our idea. I know you were probably expecting me to say we tried the ritual which in turn gave them the power to come and go into the physical world at will. No, what really happened was much worse. They figured that part out all on their own.

We had originally decided to wait until daylight to try the ritual so after we were done making plans, I headed back home. Unfortunately, I found the house without power and a trail of destruction up to my parents’ room. In that room, on the floor, I discovered the decayed body of my father laying next to his bed amidst a whole slew of items I assume he had thrown and used to attempt to fend them off. It was the first time I had actually seen one of their victims. Mom had already been taken away by the coroner when I had gotten home after she died. I fell to my knees next to my father and didn’t have a whole lot of time to grieve before I got the feeling I was being watched and turned my head. The three were simply standing there in the darkness. An arm shot out to try and grab me and I moved my own up to try and block it. The block was successful, but the hand clenched down on my arm.

The next thing I knew, I felt as though I had just used liquid nitrogen to lance a wart, only it was over the entire hand length of Charlotte across my arm. I screamed and tried to pull away but wasn’t successful. I would have lost the arm altogether if at that moment Jonathon hadn’t pulled into the driveway with his brights still on and shining through the window. They vanished and Jonathon turned off his car and with it the lights. They didn’t reappear immediately, so I wasted time holding onto my arm and focusing on the pain. That’s when I noticed Persephone come out from the bathroom, Margaret from the closet, and Charlotte was standing right behind me on the bed. I ran as fast as I could out the doorway and skipping steps to the front door. Jonathon jumped when he saw me and I pulled him with me back toward his car. They came out the door moments later as we drove off.

He explained that he wasn’t sure if my house was really a safe place anymore to stay and had a bad feeling so he decided to drive by. Only when he got there he noticed that the power was out in my house and under my street light while the other street lights down a block or so in the other directions were just fine. That was what prompted him to pull into the driveway in the first place rather than just continuing on. Anyway, I explained what had happened and showed him the arm I was still cradling. As we headed back to his place we deduced their weakness to light and called our other friends, Nathan and Brent who were already up to date on current events barring that night’s of course. They all decided that we would all stay up together in solidarity, making sure to light every crevice of Jonathon’s room. We had about 40 lights going when we finally got settled and countless other flashlights and battery operated lanterns.

We were good for about an hour. Then the breaker blew. At least I assume that’s what happened. There was a small explosion outside and the power went out save for the battery operated devices. I never heard an explosion when the power had died as a result of the three before or since so I think this one really was our fault. We sat there in reduced light while Brent continued to work through an entire pack of ciggs in like under 5 minutes. Nathan gave him shit for it but it was obvious the stories we had been telling him were getting to him. Jonathon whispered to me that he had apparently been having nightmares about my picture of Charlotte from a few weeks earlier. Seeing what she had done to my arm put him over the edge.

Ten minutes after that all of our lights began to flicker and die almost in unison. At first we were all making some comment about the sudden loss of light and then silence.

I grabbed around on the floor by Nathan where I had been sitting and found a lighter (Presumably Brent’s) which I promptly struck. In the small amount of illumination I saw the three holding onto my friends who were all in various stages of death. Persephone had her hands on the bottom of Brent’s cheeks and the top of his neck, Margaret had her hands on Nathan’s temples, and finally there was Charlotte with her trademarked one handed touch to Jonathon’s chest. Each turned their heads together toward me and began their stuttered float in the relative darkness. I think in my panic I caught Nathan’s pant leg and soon after the rest of his name brand mall clothes on fire as well. It wasn’t as though he was in any state to protest.

The fire soon took to the rest of the room and the rest of the house soon after that. Fortunately, his family had been in the midst of a winter vacation to Florida at the time. He had decided to stay home to be at his house and hang out with his friends while he was back from college for the holidays. Anyway, I fled that house and started the existence I now occupy. I’m not sure where I stayed that night. Then again, that first night I seem to recall simply running. I’m not sure I did stop at all that night. They weren’t powerful enough to stop me from running at that point.

I’m pretty sure that we blew the breaker ourselves, and I think given the number of electrically based lights we had going, we had actually prevented the three from being able to short that many out at once. Still, once we caused too much stress on the system it blew anyway, and once the three gained all of the energy from the deaths of my friends it didn’t matter anymore anyway. From that point on they had no problem shorting out any light or any quantity of lights. Trust me. I tried.

Anyway, I have 2 more day trips to make after this one. I’ve kept them relatively short just to be on the safe side. Maybe I’ll find some answers. Though, I’m really not looking forward to going back now that I’ve just relived all that shit again. God help me.

January 29, 2008

I arrived in St. Louis this morning. It was only a short trip so I was basically already crossing the bridge to the backdrop of sunrise. The extent of the reds and oranges typically gave way to feelings of hope but to me all I saw was an inferno in the sky and the darkness the buildings cast in its wake. Save for the occasional car passing by the bus on the highway, the city looked dead. The sky seemed to paint everything else in shades of gray adding to the desolate landscape.

The three had been uncharacteristically absent this morning. It was almost as if they knew where I was going. The fuck am I talking about? They DID know.

With the sun finally up, I headed for the closest of the three’s homes; Persephone. Persephone and I started dating my first year of community college. She lived at home as did I and we met while taking a public speaking class. She was really into me and I even met her parents at some point, which is coincidentally why I know where she lives. Unfortunately, I moved on and left her pretty heartbroken. She transferred schools the following semester. From what I understand, she ended up failing out of the new school as well. I didn’t care though. I was too wrapped up in my own shit. It was just a fling to me.

Anyway I arrived at her midsized two story suburban home finding a car in the driveway. The lawn had been recently mowed and it was pretty clear that someone was there even now. I presumed it was her mom. So I did the only logical thing I could think of. I rang the doorbell. Scuffling feet were soon accompanied with the sounds of someone fiddling with the door knob on the other side. A short disheveled man, her father, peered out from behind the door squinting at me as if he had not seen the sun in ages which didn’t make a whole lot of sense given the yard. Then again, maybe he wasn’t squinting. Maybe he was glaring. I asked if he was alright but did not receive a reply. Waiting a moment I began to continue on spilling some bullshit story about how I had heard that Persephone had gone missing and wanted to make sure it wasn’t true. The dad cut me off and started talking in short bursts saying that he recognized me before going on a tirade about how I was responsible for her running away.

So she wasn’t here after all.

In between bursts of inexplicable sobs I made out something to the effect of that the police had thought she had taken a dive into the river. I found it odd that they immediately assumed suicide and asked the father about this. Suddenly, his erratic behavior came to an abrupt halt and he stepped back from the doorway and told me to “See for yourself” as he indicated the stairwell behind him, presumably intending for me to go look at Persephone’s room.

The upstairs hallway was fairly cramped, but fortunately lit by natural light from a window at the end perpendicular to Persephone’s room. However, as I passed a blackened bathroom I noticed one of their silhouettes simply standing in the middle of the room. Guess who?

It wasn’t surprising. Though I wondered, given the fact that it was her house, if only Persephone would show up here or if all three of them would / could. I pried open the doorway and found a relatively neat room with one principal feature. The window had been painted black… though not entirely. It had been done in erratic strokes allowing for several beams to break through the proverbial darkness. As I scanned the rest of the room from the hallway I finally rested on a lone figure staring back at me from beside the window sill. Suddenly, her father was right beside me and was pushing past into the room.

I tried to grab him and stop him from going any farther in, but the man shook off my protests and my hands giving me a look like I was crazy. It was only as he walked right past Persephone and began straightening her already clean bed, that I realized something quite frightening. Her father didn’t see his daughter’s ghost standing right behind him. Persephone’s head seemed to crane toward her father as he passed but her dead gaze always returned back to me.

For whatever reason, she wasn’t attacking at this point. This led me to two possible conclusions. Either she wouldn’t attack him because the man was her father or she couldn’t because he wasn’t in the way of me. Perhaps if I stepped into the darkness the rules would change. Still it struck me as particularly odd that the farmer from a few days ago had quite clearly seen Charlotte when he had fired at her and yet this man was unable to see this particular ghost. Then again, maybe that man had simply been reacting to the sudden darkness and the sounds of the policeman getting killed. Maybe he thought he was shooting at me…

Still, I knew I had to investigate the room. Using the lamp was, as of the moment, out of the question. I had already drawn enough attention to myself as it was. I also couldn’t risk reaching for a light switch with the other two unaccounted for and probably sitting in wait for me to do something that stupid. At the same time, there was something the father had wanted me to see in this room and I doubted the window was the extent of it. I asked him this question.

Evidently the father didn’t really want me to look around at all as he procured a small leather bound diary from underneath the pillow he had been straightening. He returned to me with it in hand. As he handed it to me Persephone’s torso never moved an inch. Though her head did crane awkwardly following her father each step of the way.

I spent much of the afternoon reading through the diary. I started by skimming but began gleaming bits and pieces of items that struck my brain as important so I had to slow down. Phrases like “anachronistic rituals” and “Sanguine Art” seemed to jump off the page. From what I could gather from the jumbled and borderline dyslexic writings, Persephone had become extremely depressed after she broke up with me before finding new purpose with a cult seeking to streamline ancient systems of different occult works from across the world and organize them into a working guide usable for people today. She referred to a variety of quite horrific procedures and instances that would grant its users certain abilities though typically only for extremely short periods of time. None of them seemed that interesting to me, like one unnamed woman had mastered the ability to lengthen her hair to the floor though it would return to its original length 10 minutes later. Another could change the color in her right eye for about 5 seconds. Weird stuff, but nothing like I had seen from the three.

One did seem to stick out to me as far too familiar, though. Another woman, one who had not been with the cult very long but had somehow amassed an impressive amount of power had developed the ability to disappear into shadows and reappear elsewhere as long as it was also poorly lit. Persephone even added that they had attempted to separate the shadows, leaving the woman in one room, locking it, and then having her exit from a completely different room down the hall. She said it worked as long as each room was dark.

This woman had actually sought out the cult to help her explain some of the odd things that had been happening in her life. Unfortunately, the cult was mostly all talk (though they had a hard-on for their sick rituals usually involving blood and not just animal) so the woman’s questions went largely unanswered. However, they recognized the fact that this woman was the genuine article and wanted to exploit her abilities or somehow imbue themselves with them. In that regard, they failed… miserably. Still some months later it was the woman herself that finally managed to transfer some of her abilities weakly into others. Unfortunately, it was only temporary and when the abilities (that were never quite explained beyond this title) finally faded the individual was significantly weakened. After one sickly man died from the process, the cult ostracized the woman from their circle.

If you haven’t guessed the woman’s name yet, you should have. It was Charlotte. Along the same lines, if you’re thinking that it was quite a coincidence that Charlotte and Persephone just so happened to find the same cult together after dating me, you’re wrong. It wasn’t a coincidence at all. Persephone had continued to e-stalk me after I broke up with her and was well aware of the fact that I was dating Charlotte. So when I broke Charlotte’s heart, it was Persephone that contacted her. Though Charlotte didn’t seem to want revenge, but instead answers. Answers Persephone’s friends couldn’t begin to understand. This does seem to shed some more light on the nature of the Onryu as three parts of a whole. Persephone represents the dark intent to hunt me. Charlotte represents the root of their power. So where does that leave Margaret in all of this? Skimming through the rest of the entries I didn’t see her name mentioned once which is clearly odd given her new friends.

Still, I continued on in the story of Persephone, reading the diary from downstairs while her father paced around randomly fixing this or adjusting that. After Charlotte was expelled from the cult for killing the man, or more aptly draining his life, Persephone still followed after her, not convinced anymore that she had found a kindred spirit in their hatred of me, but that she found someone she could learn from. It’s still not clear if she ever revealed to Charlotte how she found her in the first place. I suppose she would have had to eventually.

It also occurs to me now that Charlotte had called me at one point around the time the cult had expelled her. I let the phone go to voicemail. If I recall correctly when I did finally listen to the message she left, it was jumbled and incoherent. She was clearly upset but not making any sense. She was talking about wanting to get back together and so I passed the entire message off on her having a bad night. I didn’t know about any of this other stuff, though I suppose it wouldn’t really have made any difference anyway. The message really wasn’t that different from the messages she had left right after we broke up. Still, it seems now that this was a cry for help; A cry that I didn’t answer. Perhaps this was the last straw needed to sway Charlotte toward Persephone’s retaliatory thinking.

The diary didn’t go on after Persephone revealed that she and Charlotte were going to go off on their own to explore their abilities. It just ended.

As I placed the diary on the coffee table, her father, who had never gone too far, returned and said, “See. She lost her mind after you left her. Thinking she had special powers or some nonsense! Then she ran off with that woman and we never saw her again.”

I asked him why the police thought Persephone had killed herself if her diary said she had run off with Charlotte. He said, as far as everyone was concerned, Charlotte was just as fictitious as the rest of her diary. A delusion that conveyed the fact that “going off to try and explore her abilities,” meant she was going off into the next world / life / whatever. I found this perception strikingly odd though the ramifications were plausible. Had the Onryu formed as the result of a suicide pact? Still, if this were the case, what in the fuck had happened to the bodies? Anyway, I told Persephone’s father that I was sorry for bothering him and bringing up such painful memories. He told me to eat shit and follow in his daughter’s footsteps...

…and his wife’s.

Yeah, it turned out that after the police had called off the search and interpreted the last entry in the diary as a suicide note, her mom drove her car into the river after her daughter to be with her.

January 30, 1998

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe…

I’m not sure I can go on anymore. After today, they’ve demonstrated such a level of power that I know now that with what I have, with what I’ve discovered, or the lack there of, that I’m incapable of continuing to run. The darkness, every shadow, has always presented an obstacle, a possibility for their entrance, but never to this severity. Never this… Well, I’m getting ahead of myself… I need to start at this morning.

Incidentally, I also knew where Charlotte lived. The building had been recently built and marketed as entire floor studio apartments for students when I first met Charlotte. It just so happened that while the building constituted a great deal of floors upward, it also consisted of a single apartment below ground as well. This was where Charlotte lived… or had lived. Evidently the decision to add a basement studio apartment had occurred after the fact as the main elevator that typically opened into each individual one, opened into a long but straightforward hallway around the periphery of the foundation. That was two years ago. I thought about this as I stared up at the seemingly monstrous structure that had not aged well.

The front doors were clearly boarded up with multiple condemnation notices posted on either of the double doors. However, the most notable feature was the spray painted word that covered the entire length of the barricade. “DANGER” was written in red, dripping in multiple places that had long since dried. Part of me clung to the hope that the building had just fallen into disarray as a coincidence unrelated to my quest for knowledge. The other part slapped me across the face for my unwarranted optimism. Had Charlotte really had such power to manifest herself to the people in her own building? To force them out so dramatically in such a short time?

Naturally, the front door was a no-go in this state. Still, this didn’t stop me from rounding the edge of the building and coming up on the doorway to the stairwell. The door was already slightly ajar as I came upon it. Seeing it in this state with the small sliver of darkness beyond almost made me turn and run at that point alone. The very idea that they had “left the door open for me” was too much.

Still, armed with the lamp and the most oil I could fit in my pockets, I slightly pushed the door open with my foot. The door clanged loudly against the concrete wall echoing up and down the chamber. The stairwell was as I remembered it, cramped with low ceilings and the stairs arranged way too steeply for the norm. There was barely enough room on either side for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder. Still, with the darkness of the stairwell not all that affected by the gray weather outside, I found it particularly curious that none of the three were present. This added credence to the theory that they were waiting for me.

Still, I pushed inside rushing down the stairwell to the start of the long hallway that I hoped would give me the opportunity to maximize the efficiency of my light. The hallway was empty save for the sound of the winds that whistled from the door that I had pushed open. There was plenty of dust buildup but oddly no cobwebs or any signs of rodent life. It was just unnecessarily dark.

I came upon the first corner, making sure to hug the wall with my lamp pointed outward as I made the turn. However, as I came around to face the new scenery I witnessed three homeless men huddled around a metal garbage can with a small fire inside it. I made my way toward the men as quickly as I could. All three retracted with fear still making sure not to flee from the fire, from the light. They were living my existence.

Finally one of them spoke up, “You’re… You’re not her?”

I told him I was not and a different man responded “She won’t let us leave.”

They were still terrified and on less sleep than I had been. What I could gather from their largely incoherent ramblings was that they had broken into the stairwell to try and escape the cold. They drug a trashcan in and set up for the night where they were now. There had been five men at that point. The fifth evidently had decided to go try and explore the rest of the building hoping to find something he could pilfer. The remaining three swore up and down that they tried to talk him out of it, but still he went toward the only remaining door at the end of the hallway and forced it open. He was gone maybe three minutes when they heard him screaming. He made it a step or two back into the hall before an arm grabbed him from inside the apartment and he dropped dead moments later. Turning my lamp toward that direction I could make out what looked like a figure still laying there on the ground.

Anyway, Charlotte had exited the apartment and stayed by the edge of the fire until the fourth had decided to try and make a run for it only to have his body drug back toward her apartment… all the while he was screaming… decomposing… They realized the light was the only thing keeping her at bay and they stayed by it praying for it to keep going while they lacked anymore kindling. About an hour after she had drug the hobo into her apartment, she returned to the edge of the light and stayed there watching until about the time they heard me push open the door. That was a week ago. The stench from the remaining three was palpable. They REALLY hadn’t been able to leave the light for any reason. I didn’t know why this surprised me.

As horrific as this story was, this raised a great deal of questions. Why were these people able to see Charlotte when others weren’t? Or was it just Persephone that was invisible while the others could still be seen by anyone? Was I comparing them wrongly? Did they not share traits as I had initially thought? Additionally, why had Charlotte decided to attack all of these people at all? The one had violated her apartment so it was sort of understandable, but the rest had simply been outside. Did she claim the whole building as her territory? I suppose that made sense. It would explain how she was able to scare everyone out so effectively before she had the ability to kill them. Though, this threw a significant wrench into my thought process. She was willing to kill for a whole lot less than any feud she had with me. This wasn’t like the Charlotte I had known. Though, I guess I had sort of tricked myself into believing that I somehow deserved all of this. Maybe I do, but clearly that’s not the extent of their reasoning… at least not anymore. Finally, there was the one remaining question that I was hesitant on asking, even internally.

Why had she drug the one man into her apartment?

Without saying another word toward the three men, I started on down the hallway toward the body and the open doorway entering from a world of darkness into one that somehow had managed to find a realm even blacker. However, as I moved on one of the three men grabbed my arm pleading with me to use the lamp to get them out. I told him I would but that I had some business to take care of first. The second of the three men didn’t like this idea very much and began conversing with the one that had my arm.

“Look. He’s going to go get himself killed in there and then we’ll never be able to use that lamp of his to get out!”

With that they both tried to rush me but I pushed away taking some comfort in the dark that they were much too terrified to traverse. Still, they continued to yell at me to come back before their words turned violent and they started demanding my death at the hands of Charlotte. So, I pushed on.

The fully decomposed body of the one hobo lay messily to the side of the doorway to Charlotte’s apartment. It had evidently been knocked out of the way when she had drug the other one back inside. I pointed the lamp at the open doorway and stepped through. It occurred to me as I did so that the light didn’t seem to brighten things much if at all despite the size of the flame. However, even in the darkness, I still managed to see enough to get around.

The main hallway extended across the main room becoming somewhat of a ledge, with a steep staircase/ladder leading downward into the apartment proper. However, what had once been hardwood floor was now pulled up and the concrete foundation beneath it destroyed. The dirt appeared undisturbed but that was beside the decomposed, yet torn apart pieces of the former hobo. She had anticipated me coming here and left this disgusting sight here to scare me. It was working. I knew what I would probably find in that dirt. I knew what I would probably find past the random arms… and the legs… and the torso. I looked back up from the exposed earth toward the ledge only to find all three of my pursuers standing by watching me. Waiting to see how I would react.

The concrete made the place impossible to burn though I would have liked to set the entire building ablaze. I knew the corpses of the three were probably buried there but they had been right that I would have been too terrified to dig, let alone remove the pieces of another unrelated body first to get at them. I had come all of this way to try and gain some insight, some idea on how to stop them, and all I had done was walk right into the building, right into the same room, where it had probably all begun with nothing to show for it. Given the steps they had taken to prevent me from probably digging up their graves, I had to assume that this meant that disturbing their bodies, or bones, or whatever was left was the only way to damage them.

So, I ran. What else could I do?

The light gave me enough to clear a path back out into the hallway where I was grabbed and thrown against the wall by a team of at least 8 policemen in riot gear. I can only assume that Persephone’s father notified the police after he spoke with me. Even if he hadn’t been watching the news recently, he had every reason to contact them. Hell, it could have been anyone watching me try and break into the structure for all I know. Unfortunately, as they slammed me mercilessly against the wall, I dropped the lamp which immediately extinguished itself…

The next moments are a blur. I saw Charlotte and Margaret grab two of the officers and then after that it was as if there was just an explosion of hands reaching out and grabbing everything in the darkness. I didn’t stay to find out what was happening. The first moment I was able, I ran and didn’t stop running. I caught back up with the three hobos and the expression on their faces was enough for me to realize that I didn’t want to look back. They followed me toward the stairwell but none of them made it. Not one.

As I threw myself through the doorway back outside I found myself suddenly seized by at least 12 hands tearing at my clothing trying to pull me back inside. I tore my jacket and my shirt off struggling to continue running away. It worked and I collapsed right in front of a lone police officer in his regular attire. From the look on his face he had seen the arms. He didn’t try and stop me. He just stood there trying to process what he had just seen. I didn’t stay to explain it to him either.

The daylight isn’t stopping them anymore. They aren’t immune to it yet, but as far as they can reach into the light without exposing the rest of their bodies, they are now capable. Essentially, from now on out, no amount of light with less than an arms length of power is going to be enough to keep them away.

I am so screwed. If they’ve developed this level of immunity to light how am I going to survive in the dark? I-I don’t know what to do. Writing this all out usually helps me clear my head but now… now all it’s doing is reinforcing the fact that I don’t have an answer for this one. I am going to die.

Nice read. I decided to read it all in one go and would like to see an ending to this.

I have some suspicion that you're going to make him kill Persephone in an attempt to dissuade Margaret and Charlotte from wanting to finish him off, leaving him stuck in some kind of limbo with the other two. Watching, always.

I keep working on it but I've been tied up with school and work. I do have another day of it finished but it's so hectic I'm hanging on to it until I'm 100% happy with it. Additionally, I'm probably going to revise January 30th.