Account 12: Eye of the Storm

Background information

• Name: Unknown
• Pronouns: Unknown
  
• Date: April 30, 2020
• Occupation: Former café owner, current restaurant worker
  
• City of residence: Atkins, Michigan
• Date(s) of account: 2019-current
  
• Subject of account: An employee's unusual behavior
  

Account
It all started when the weather turned stormy in September 2019. I remember finding it weird because that was around the time of year that it usually starts getting snowy out, but it was raining and thundering almost constantly. That, and there were birds out all the time, even the kinds I'm pretty sure are supposed to fly south for the winter. It was minor at first, a pigeon here, a robin there, but eventually it got to the point where every power line seemed to be covered in crows, and they all seemed to stare at you as you walked by. I actually got attacked by crows at one point, although I ended up okay.

That was around the time one of my employees started acting strangely. He'd always been a pretty reclusive sort whenever there weren't customers around, although I'm not sure if he noticed how aware I was of this fact, but this was when he went from shy to really paranoid. I mean, he was just constantly looking around with this panicked look on his face, like he thought someone was following him or something. At one point, I asked him what was wrong, and he stared at me like a deer in the headlights. He said he felt sick and had to go, and the guy just bolted right out the door.

It was the morning of November 30 when everything went wrong. As I drove to my restaurant, I saw smoke rising in the distance. I became more and more worried the closer I got. My suspicions were confirmed when I came within view of the restaurant and saw police officers standing around the ruined husk of my restaurant.

It was explained to me that my restaurant had been struck by lightning the night before, that it was just an unfortunate accident but that my insurance probably covered it. That was all I really caught, because partway through, my attention shifted to my employee. He was standing there, staring really intensely at the restaurant, with his hands in his coat pockets. His eyes, which were usually brown, were this pale blue color. It made his gaze even more striking. I thought maybe he'd gotten colored contacts. It seemed like the kind of thing he'd do. Still, it was a little unsettling.

I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a flock of crows flying out of the restaurant as it burned, though they seemed perfectly fine. When I turned back to my employee, I saw that he was looking up at the crows too. He looked freaked-out and shook his head a little, like he was trying to convince himself he wasn't seeing what he was seeing. He turned his back to the restaurant and started to walk away, though he turned back a few times as though to check nothing had changed since his last glimpse at the restaurant.

Everything proceeded normally after that, or at least as normally as it could have. I ended up working at my friend Barry's place- which felt like a bit of a step down from owning my own restaurant, but whatever- and using the insurance money from the restaurant burning down to save up a bit to hopefully reopen it. It just really opened my eyes to how much of your life can be destroyed in one fell swoop, one bolt of lightning, you know?

But even that hasn't lasted.

I think my employee's started stalking me. I mean, whenever it storms out, I'll look and he'll just be standing outside my window, or sitting at a table in Barry's, even if he hadn't been there a moment before the weather turned bad. It's really messing me up. Every time it starts getting stormy, he'll just show up out of nowhere. He never seems to get wet from rain, or cold from snow, or scared by lightning. And there are crows surrounding him constantly, too, which is really weird- I mean, it's not like the guy ever liked crows. They've always seemed to freak him out too much for him to feed them. But ever since the day the two of us saw the burned-out restaurant, they're always there, staring at me just as intently as he is.

I've called the police, but nothing's ever come of it. It seems like he can just kind of disappear and reappear whenever he wants. That's why I'm talking to you about all this- people aren't really supposed to be able to do that, after all. Point is, each time I think I can almost get the police to show up in time for him, he'll just vanish. It makes me feel so helpless.

I don't know what he's planning to do. Maybe he doesn't have any plans, just wants to creep me out. Well, if that's the case, it's working.

I keep having nightmares about being carried away by thousands of birds, seeing the ground so far below as it's raining and thundering, bolts of lightning arcing from their wings.

They are so many, and I am so small.

Analysis
For once, we have an anonymous account that I can actually verify. However, to protect my source's privacy, I don't plan on explaining the specifics of my verification process. Suffice it to say that everything Alex and I could find confirms this account as far as mundane details go, although obviously no newspapers have published anything about a man surrounded by crows and able to teleport.

Unfortunately, I don't think Alex and I could really do much to help here, given the nature of this particular account. For now, it would probably be best for us to focus on our own issues, namely Harold Miller- or what's left of him, anyways.

Account 11: Graveyard Shift

Background information

• Name: Trent Moore
• Pronouns: He/him
  
• Date: April 10, 2020
• Occupation: Security guard at St. Cedd Cemetery
  
• City of residence: Atkins, Michigan
• Date(s) of account: 2020
• Subject of account: The journal of Erika Thorne
  

Account
My name is Trent Moore. I'm a security guard working the night shift at St. Cedd Cemetery.

Now, my job can be pretty boring. You don't get a lot of folks trying to steal from the graveyard after dark, you know? Maybe the occasional kid trying to vandalize things, but that's about it. So I tend to bring books to entertain myself. My favorites are spy thrillers, the kinds that popped up a lot in the 80s, when everyone was terrified of getting nuked by Russia. Trashy, I'll admit, but fun.

I'm rambling. The point is, the other night, I brought a book with me, but when I took it out to start reading, it wasn't the book I'd taken. Instead, it looked like a small journal with a black cover. Confused as I was, I opened it up and started reading.

The words are hard to read- look like they were written really quickly- so I'm going to write it down here myself instead of just attaching a picture.

"Trent Moore-

It's me, your partner. Erika Thorne.

"Today, I saw someone pacing around the graveyard. I hadn't seen them enter, but there they were, placing a poppy on one of the graves. I moved towards them to explain that they could come again tomorrow during business hours, but they just turned to stare at me. At least, it looked like they were staring at me, and it certainly felt like they could see me clearly, but they were wearing a blindfold. They stood up slowly, revealing that they were much taller than I'd realized, though it was hard to make out their frame below the overcoat they wore.

"I turned to you, Trent, but you didn't seem to notice anything was wrong. So I turned back to the person in the blindfold.

"'Who are you?' I asked.
"They sighed. 'Nobody at all.'

"I woke up and realized I'd dreamed it. I went about my day as normal, though for some reason I half-expected to see the person in the blindfold. When the time came to head over to the graveyard, I made absolutely certain that nobody came in. I must've gotten caught-up trying to tear you away from whatever goofy book you'd brought with you today, because I turned around, and there was the person in the blindfold, sitting on the same grave as in the dream the night before.

"The person in the blindfold looked up at me as soon as I registered who they were, and they shook their head.

"'Soon you'll be nobody too.'

"And with that, I woke up again. I was starting to feel a little shaken by this point. As soon as I got to the graveyard, I just stood by the gates and stared, ignoring everything you asked me.

"I heard a cough from behind me. When I turned around, it was exactly who you think it was. They were standing right behind me. There was something in their hand.

"'Here. I have something for you,' they said, handing me a poppy. It was the same sickly color as the poppy they'd placed on the grave. 'A housewarming gift, of sorts.'
"'What do you mean?' I asked as I turned it around in my hand. For some reason, I got more convinced the more I looked at it that it was the same exact poppy as I'd seen earlier.
"'I mean nothing at all.' They shook their head. 'No, all I mean is that I believe you will find yourself spending quite a bit of time here in the foreseeable future.'
"'Here?' I asked, pointing at the ground.
"They nodded.

"There was silence as the person in the blindfold regarded me. Then, without warning, they placed their hands behind their head and loosened it.

"What I saw behind that blindfold is... difficult to explain. It's hard to even think about. It was like my life flashing before my eyes, but it wasn't just my life, it was the entire universe, and my life barely lasted for a fraction of a second. But the things I saw behind that blindfold seemed to last forever.

"It's hard to say when I realized it was over. It must have been several seconds, because when I once again entered my own head, the stranger had already put the blindfold back over whatever was behind them, and they were staring at me expectantly.

"I started to sob. Maybe I'd been crying the whole time, but that was the part where you finally noticed what was going on. You placed a hand on my shoulder and asked what was wrong, and when I turned to the person in the blindfold, they weren't there.

"I turned back to you, and you were gone too. The only thing left was the feeling of your hand on my shoulder.

"And then, finally, I wasn't there either."

I can only assume my roommate Jon Chilcott got into my bag and swapped out my book for this journal. It would be just like him to pull a stupid prank like that, though this is a lot more literate than he usually is. After all, I don't have a partner named Erika Thorne. I've always worked alone.

Analysis
Naturally, I haven't been able to find any conclusive records involving this Erika Thorne. Another dead end, just like with Account 03. Speaking of which, the description given here of the stranger in the blindfold is eerily reminiscent of the old man in that account- not in terms of physical description, but in terms of how they work. Still, the lack of sources for either of these accounts makes me doubt that will help much going forward.

Account 10: The Disappearance of Harold Miller

Background information

• Name: Peter Hail
• Pronouns: He/him
  
• Date: April 8, 2020
• Occupation: Hunter
• City of residence: Robin, Michigan
  
• Date(s) of account: 2016-2018
• Subject of account: The disappearance of Harold Miller
  

Account
My name's Peter Hail. I'm a hunter from a small town that's sort of near Atkins.

I usually hunt with a friend of mine named Harold Miller. At least, I did.

It was May 2, 2016. Harold and I were hunting deer, just the two of us. Expeditions with more than two people tend to be too noisy to keep from attracting anything's attention.

Harold and I had always had an understanding between us, I think. I was a more poetic sort than he ever was, and he was more practical than I could ever hope to be. Our contrast in personalities meant we didn't really speak much to one another, but it didn't keep us from being close. After all, when you're hunting, you want to avoid talking too much, and hunting was most of what we did together.

As I've said, Harold and I were hunting deer. I had just spotted one that didn't seem to notice us. I got it in the sights of my rifle, but as I was about to fire at it, it suddenly spooked and ran off.

I lowered my rifle and glanced around, trying to figure out what had startled it. Harold hadn't moved or made any noise, and I certainly hadn't either. I hadn't even heard anything.

Then I started to hear branches cracking. They were quiet and unhurried as they advanced from the direction where the deer had been and towards myself and Harold. It clearly wasn't some amateur hunter getting overexcited and making noise by accident. Whoever or whatever this was, they were being very deliberate.

I turned to Harold. His expression was just as confused as mine must have been.

I suddenly heard a branch crack from behind me, louder than the rest. On instinct, I turned around to see what it was, but there was nothing there. I turned back to Harold, and he was gone.

He wasn't dead. He was just gone.

I started to panic. He couldn't have left in the brief time my eyes weren't on him, and he certainly couldn't have been quiet enough that I didn't hear him move so impossibly quickly. The foliage wouldn't have been thick enough to cover him even if, for whatever reason, he decided to lower himself to the ground. It was like he had never been there at all.

I searched the rest of the forest. When that came up empty, I visited his home. His daughter Calliope hadn't seen him since he set out with me, nor had his wife Lily. Lily started to get concerned, so with Cal out of earshot, I explained what had happened.

After that is a blur. The police were called, reports were filed, nothing happened. I was brought in for questioning at some point, but I didn't really have anything for them.

It was two years later. It was the first time since Harold disappeared that I'd felt safe going out on a hunting trip, and I saw something on the ground in front of my house when I came back.

It was a corpse- no, not just a corpse. Harold's corpse.

Its rotting face was covered in wounds of some sort, maybe claw marks. They were still bloody, and they looked severely infected.

I was too terrified to move, as much as I wanted to. The corpse slowly climbed to its feet. I gripped my rifle tight, though my hands shook.

"You." The corpse outstretched its arm. "I remember you."
I screamed, but my throat was so dry that the sound couldn't come out.
"Did you think I was dead? No, Peter Hail." The corpse laughed. "You gave up on finding Harold Miller. Worry not. You cannot be blamed for your inferiority. After all, you are only human." The corpse shambled towards me. "But I am so much more."

I stepped back as the corpse advanced forward and gave another unsuccessful attempt at a scream.

Suddenly, the husk's expression changed from cruel to horrified. The corpse- Harold- scratched at his face with long fingernails that had been revealed after the flesh on his fingers had rotted away. They were so sharp and yellow.

"There's something inside me," Harold said. His eyes were wide with fear. "Please, help me."
I shuddered.
"Please. You have to. I can feel it moving-"
Harold was cut off by the corpse's howling. It lunged at me, and on instinct alone, I hit it with the butt of my rifle.

The corpse screamed in pain, and I shot it. It twitched on the ground, then slowly climbed to its feet and lurched forward, trying to claw at me again. My body shook, but I shot at it as it approached.

Harold moaned in pain, asking me to help him in a low whisper, over and over. Over and over, I shot him. It was the only way I knew how.

After far too long, my rifle was out of rounds and he stopped moving. I watched his body until it grew dark. Then, finally, I stumbled home and drank myself to sleep.

If I'd thought about it more, I wouldn't have done that. A man disappears and then shows up months later with my bullets in him? Of course they'd think I killed him.

But it doesn't matter. I must have failed, because when I walked by the next day, his body had disappeared without a trace.

Analysis

Let me get the obvious out of the way. This account is worringly reminiscent of Alex's story about seeing a decaying figure dressed in hunting clothes.

I'd be willing to believe this was meant to be a prank played on Alex and myself, but this account matches information Alex (somehow) dug up from a local Robin newspaper regarding the disappearance of Harold Miller, at least up until the supernatural end of things gets involved. I don't think Alex would lie to me about being stalked by a humanoid monster and then contact the person behind the original to back up that lie.

It suddenly occurs to me that it's not obvious just how stressed I feel right now.

Account 09: The Moon

Background information

• Name: Tim Stein
• Pronouns: He/him
  
• Date: April 4, 2020
• Occupation: Poet and restaurant employee
  
• City of residence: New York City, New York
  
• Date(s) of account: March 2020
  
• Subject of account: Strange dreams
  

Account
My name is Tim Stein. I'm a poet in my free time, but otherwise I work at a restaurant, busing tables and the like.

I've recently had some troubling dreams, and although I know something as minor as that probably won't be of much use to you, I still feel like I should mention it on the off-chance this amounts to anything.

It started a month ago. I think so, anyways. Time is difficult.

In the first dream I had, my body was asleep in bed while I looked down at it as a ghost. I moved downwards and touched my body's chest, and suddenly I felt myself enter my body again.

I got out of bed and was about to get dressed when I noticed how dark it was. Checking my phone, I saw that it was still 2 AM. As I was about to climb back into my bed and go to sleep, I happened to glance outside and saw that the moon was far bigger than usual. It nearly took up the entire window, in fact. I could make out a massive crater at the center of what I could see of the moon. As I watched, it grew smaller.

The moon's pupil had shrunk.

I woke up. As soon as I did so, I got out of bed and looked out the window. The moon was back to normal, just as it always had been. It was actually 2 AM, though, so I went back to sleep, this time uninterrupted.

The dreams continued over the next few weeks. There was always that same sensation of being outside my own body until I chose to enter it. Sometimes I'd spend the whole dream just floating through my home, walking through the walls, seeing what I could see. Nothing existed outside of my home in the dreams, though, as I soon learned. Everything outside was just a featureless black landscape, barely distinct from the sky, save for the moon. One night I tried going outside after I'd entered my body, just to see what it felt like to walk on that smooth black nothing- if I even could- but I found the doors and windows somehow locked from outside, and I wasn't strong enough to break through by force.

One night, though, I felt determined to see what was outside my home in the dreams. I searched the entire house in hopes of finding something that could help me. After trying all the keys I could find to no avail, I took a kitchen knife and stabbed it into my door, prying it apart. I continued stabbing the door until enough of it was broken that I could reach into the hole and unlock it from outside.

I opened the door and stepped through into nothing.

I fell forever. I fell forever but the moon never got any smaller. Even when I could no longer see my home for being too far below the world, the moon was still there, watching me like a giant eye.

I've never thought of night or the dark as anything to be afraid of. If anything, I've always liked being the only one awake while the rest of humanity is asleep save for the few others who experience that strange and silent world, alone in their own homes just as much as I am. After that dream, though, my feelings on the matter had changed drastically.

When I finally awoke, it was 4 AM. For some reason, the dreams never let me wake up before it gets light out. They always seem to leave me to the darkness I used to love, back when I could still look at the moon without swearing it was looking back.

That was how the first two weeks passed since the dreams started. I would find myself looking down at my body, confined to that house where the moon watched from every window. But one night, when I'd resolved to try and reach the moon as a spirit before I'd fallen asleep, I found the dream changed. No longer was I in my home, hovering above my bed. Instead, my body was sleeping on a bench in the local park, though I was above it as always.

But just as I was about to enter my body and see whether anything existed outside the park, I saw it stir.

I stared at my body as it twitched in its sleep. I'd never seen anything like this before. I floated over to a nearby tree and watched my body, waiting to see what happened next.

At last, it sat up. Its face turned slowly towards me. Though I could not scream, I tried to when its eyes met my own.

Something in my body's eyes reminded me far too much of the ever-watchful moon.

I was shaking when I woke up that night- not in my own bed, but on a bench in the park.

It got worse from there. Not the dreams themselves, but what they meant for me. I've started waking up in strange places, despite placing increasingly strict measures to keep myself locked inside, and it's become harder to feel rested when I wake up, though I can never quite keep myself from falling asleep. I haven't spent so long feeling fatigued that it's become difficult to tell waking from sleeping, but…

But I'm not sure that's true. After all, as I write this, I can see the moon staring at me through my window.

Its pupil just shrunk.

Analysis
Given that a series of strange dreams is more or less impossible to corroborate, I think I should add a rule against hallucination- and dream-related accounts to my introduction post. Not much else to say here, really, except that I find it odd although Stein claims to have retained a degree of awareness in his dreams, he didn't have the level of power over them that lucid dreamers do.

Tim, if you're reading this, I'd advise you talk to a therapist about this rather than myself. They'd be better-equipped to help you sort through all this than I am.

Account 08: A Tower in the Woods

Background information

• Name: Unknown
• Pronouns: Unknown
  
• Date: March 30, 2020
• Occupation: Unknown
• City of residence: Unknown
• Date(s) of account: 2018
• Subject of account: A tower in the woods
  

Account

There used to be trees here. There used to be birds that sang and worms that crawled and foxes that stalked. Now there is only metal that does not rust.

There is a tower at the center of what was once a forest. The tower is impossibly cold and unendingly high. It watches ceaselessly.

Two years ago, I was going into the woods behind my home for my daily walk when I saw a strange metal tower on the side of the path I was on. It was a foot or so taller than myself and six feet in diameter. I did not know what it was. It had no markings on it that could hint at its nature. It was smooth all over, and there was no vegetation within a foot of the tower in each direction.

When I returned the next day, I saw that a clearing had formed around the tower, which was now twice as tall as I was. Cables reached down from its peak, keeping it firmly in place. I did not know why it was there. I did not know why or how it had grown.

I realized then that I could not hear the sounds of any animals at all.

Each day, the tower had grown in height when I returned to that spot, though I never saw it do so myself. Each day, it was more elaborate in its structure, cables interconnecting with one another in intricate patterns or twisting into one another to form thick ropes of steel.

I did not tell anyone about the tower. The area where I live is very isolated, and I live alone. I did not want to venture out into the world just to tell a strange story about a tower that grows eternally. I knew I would be rejected at once.

One day, I watched the tower. I did not leave and wait for it to grow while I was away. I waited for two days without sleep, my waking and dreaming becoming increasingly blurred, but the tower did not grow. It does not want to show how it becomes.

That second day, I dreamed that cables reached out from the tower to consume me, devouring everything I was and replacing me with itself.

When I awoke, I saw that the tower had grown while I was asleep.

The tower has servants, those it supplies with tools of suppression and violence. They think they are the masters of those they conquer, but they are simply extensions of the tower, its wires controlling their every action. They do not know the true reason they do what they do. They do not know that their only purpose is to bring more under the tower's control.

They do not know what they do.

I have not seen the towerborn many times. They are not keen to show themselves to me. However, I have met them in the past: people whose eyes are cold and lifeless, whose gait is stiff and mechanical, whose laughter is hollow and false. They were once human, but now they are something else, and I do not know what.

I meet the towerborn sometimes on the rare occasions when I go into town to get what I cannot make or grow for myself. They wear many guises, but all of them are in positions of power: police officers, businessmen, priests.

They do not know what they do. I do not know what they are. I do not know what the tower is or why it grows or why it births or why it feeds.

All I know is that even now, even as the tower stretches high above the clouds, it is still growing, and it is still eating.

And I am so afraid.

Analysis
My instinct is to say that this account is either a conspiracy theory or a hoax. It certainly reads as one. Not only that, but Alex and I couldn't find any claims of a tower anywhere that matched the claims of our source, who refused to provide the details of their location necessary for us to investigate.

To put it bluntly, this account is interesting, but unless future developments prove otherwise, it isn't worth our time.