The Hearse Of Brimstone

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”—H. P. Lovecraft

Never before has one experienced such episodes of dread as those stirred by the terrifying visions of the hearse from the inferno of hell. Its indelible form reflects the entombment of the wailing cries of the souls, their voices shrill and stentorian. Its shrieking wheels spin relentlessly, grinding the lonely stretch of road that leads to the eternal gates of the point of no return.

The anonymous town by the river that will be described bears no significant relevance, except that you will come to know it as an insignificant town in the Midwest of America, called Rock Island. What truly matters, however, is the devious man who collects the countless souls of the dead with chilling efficiency. If you ask about the nature of this story, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Jeremiah Baines.

He is no ordinary man to be dismissed lightly as a mere august figure of propriety. He is unscrupulous, yes, but there is one thing you must be aware of: his strange and unsettling fondness for death that has never escaped his keen attention. Perhaps it is nothing more than a peculiar interest, or an obsession teetering dangerously on the brink of madness. There is, however, one detail I must confess that may strike you as particularly odd: his sinister attachment to his imposing hearse. There is a hidden secret about this unusual vehicle, but that mystery, I assure you, is for you to uncover in time.

The familiar power of persuasion is a mighty and magnificent force, one that is willingly imposed upon the susceptible minds of those who are primed to believe in preternatural events. It is frightening to imagine, within the depth of the human soul, that evil can exist so visibly and boldly among the careless fools who remain unaware.

There is an invaluable truth about death that we unreasonably ignore, and that is that the day of reckoning has no limits nor boundaries. When it arrives, it does so suddenly, with a Machiavellian guise and twisted delight. I will not suggest that you try to befriend or seek mercy from this duplicitous fiend—after all, the fiend has no compassion and is indifferent by nature.

Indeed, what truly matters to this flagitious fiend in the end are the countless souls it possesses and claims. If you are the unfortunate one chosen, then know that the fiend will not hesitate in its mission when you see the hearse drawing near. It is more than just a symbol of deceit—it is a harbinger of imminent death.

This chilling tale began on a quiet day in October, when an unknown stranger moved into Rock Island. His name was Mr. Jeremiah Baines, as I’ve mentioned before. It was the year 1900, and the people of the town began disappearing gradually, mysteriously. No one knew what to make of the strange circumstances surrounding the disappearances.

Rumours quickly spread through Rock Island, instilling deep fear in the townspeople. The local authorities, however, failed to connect any consistent criminal activity and insisted that the scant evidence found was insufficient to determine the true cause behind the series of disappearances.

The newspapers and media, though limited in resources, had followed every lead attentively, but they too were unsuccessful in uncovering any crucial clues that could resolve the mystery. There were false accusations and supposed sightings, but none were accurate or reliable.

Weeks and months passed by, and soon the disappearances were regarded as a normal part of life in the town. One person would vanish each week, then another, and another. The cycle repeated itself, growing more and more ghastly with each passing day.

The only plausible explanation for the disappearances was a telephone call made by family members, who reported the missing persons afterward. The mayor of Rock Island, Mr. Melvin Beauregard, had promised that the disappearances would be resolved soon, but the bizarre occurrences continued, and a new one emerged.

The person who had disappeared was someone our protagonist, Samuel, knew quite well—his beloved sister, Lizzy. He could not recall with certainty the exact hour she vanished, but he remembered the day. It was a Monday, though it seemed no ordinary Monday. Lizzy had been in her room upstairs, just as he had been in his. She was always mischievous and playful by nature, rarely reflecting the serious demeanor that her brother often displayed.

Samuel, by contrast, was diffident and sheltered, ever since childhood. He had been a child who suffered and grew up ostracized by society. Sadly, his parents were both dead, and since he was older, the responsibility of being his dear sister’s guardian had fallen to him. Her care and well-being had become his sole concern. The only notable recollection was the cautious, dark horse-drawn carriage that seemed to pass by their street at every procession. It appeared to be a hearse, but at the time, he made no connection between the hearse and Lizzy's disappearance.

When she did not return, Samuel immediately assumed something was amiss. His instincts were correct, and his concerns deepened. Lizzy had not returned, and worse, he feared that she had disappeared like the others. He searched for her—street by street, house by house, through the entire vicinity.

She was nowhere to be found, and desperation overtook him. When he reported her disappearance, the police told him there was nothing they could do. He was powerless to get any meaningful cooperation from the authorities. All they offered were tentative responses and expressions of regret.

How could this event have remained unnoticed? Surely, there had to be a witness, for no one simply vanishes without a trace. It couldn’t be the result of some unfortunate fate; instead, it seemed like a ruthless campaign of terror, Samuel thought.

Terror was evident in the eyes of the residents, and he was determined to uncover the shocking truth behind the strange and unexplained disappearances. The nights were becoming unbearable, and no one dared to walk the streets past evening. A curfew was imposed, and fear spread like wildfire from neighbor to neighbor, until, one day, the disappearances stopped. The missing persons were presumed dead, and funerals were held for them, despite the lack of bodies. Soon, the people of Rock Island had forgotten about the events. Samuel did not. He continued his search for Lizzy.

It was one day when he noticed that the strange hearse had not passed his street at the usual time. It also hadn’t been seen on any of the other streets around town. That was when he began to have haunting visions of the hearse, and he grew convinced that an unknown driver had taken Lizzy. In his terrifying dream, he saw how the driver had grabbed her and forced her into the hearse.

What startled Samuel was the fact that the face he saw in his dream was that of a demon. The face was elongated, with a narrow nose and thick eyebrows that overshadowed piercing eyes. His chin was strong, and his ears were pointed. The horrifying nightmare would be brief, only to repeat itself, each time in the same dreadful sequence. Samuel would wake in a cold sweat, filled with anxiety and dread.

Afterward, the telephone would ring, and the eerie voice of Lizzy could be heard giggling. What she said would horrify Samuel, sending a chill down his spine: “The hour of death is near. The hour of death is near, Samuel!” Samuel had heard the terms necromancer and spiritualist before, but he had never encountered one in person—until he met a woman named Mrs. Grange, who practiced this mysterious discipline. By sheer coincidence, he found her. Her home was just a few streets away from his own.

Some time later, Mrs. Grange stood at Samuel's front door. He heard a knock, and when he answered, she revealed that she urgently needed to speak with him. She wanted to talk about Lizzy and what she had seen in her visions regarding her strange disappearance. What she told Samuel was absolutely unbelievable. According to Mrs. Grange, Lizzy had perished—and she had been murdered. When Samuel asked who the murderer was, she looked into his eyes with a chilling gaze and said, “Jeremiah Baines.”

"Who is Jeremiah Baines?” he asked her.

Her reply was simple: “He’s the undertaker of the town—no one knows his true origins. He is an evil man.”

Samuel invited her inside, and the conversation shifted to where Lizzy’s body might be—and where the others were. But Mrs. Grange couldn’t answer that question directly. Instead, she could only offer a solemn truth as a grim consolation. Samuel realized then that there was at least one other person in town who had envisioned the same terrifying things he was experiencing.

Mrs. Grange eventually departed, but before she left, she warned Samuel that Jeremiah Baines would soon come for him—or more precisely, that his horrific hearse would. She gave Samuel her address and urged him to be secretive and extremely cautious of the watchful eyes and ears of Mr. Jeremiah Baines.

After she left, Samuel spent hours lost in thought, going over everything Mrs. Grange had told him. He wanted to believe her, but there was still no real clarity about what had truly happened to Lizzy. And so, he continued to ponder her mysterious disappearance—or possible death. Jeremiah Baines became the embodiment of his deepest terror and dread. The hearse tormented him, as Baines began to taunt Samuel with his devilish games. Not long after, Samuel learned that the necromancer Mrs. Grange had died—just a few days later.

It was reported by the authorities that Mrs. Grange was found dead in the front yard of her home. She had jumped from the roof of her two-story house. The fall broke her neck instantly. When Samuel learned of her untimely death, he felt even more alone in his search for Lizzy and the others. If Mrs. Grange had been silenced, then surely he would be next to vanish. This terrifying possibility didn’t escape his attention—or his growing fear.

The disturbing nightmare had transformed into an inevitable obsession, with no sign of diminishing, plunging Samuel into an unstoppable delirium. It became predictable in its nature, haunting him with relentless intensity and merciless passion. The consequences loomed uncertain, as did the ambiguous fate of Lizzy.

As the months passed, the nightmares only grew in terror and intensity. He could neither eat nor think rationally. It all felt like some twisted opium dream. The fact that the disappearances remained unsolved seemed incomprehensible. Driven by desperation, Samuel stepped up his investigation, scouring every part of the town, searching for any clue. But there were none—no concrete leads, nothing to move forward with. His despair deepened, and he began to confront the grim possibility of Lizzy’s death.

The descent into madness was tormenting Samuel, and the incurable nightmares dragged on, showing him the ghastly faces of the dead inside their coffins. Among the many caskets, he saw clearly the dead body of Lizzy, now in an advanced state of putrid decomposition, lying in an open casket. Beside her stood the sinister undertaker, Jeremiah Baines—identical to the driver of the hearse in his visions. It was a vivid, horrifying image to endure. Yet, for now, it seemed to be only a calamitous nightmare.

Therefore, it was extremely difficult for Samuel to know where—or even if—he might find Lizzy alive. The creeping thought of her being dead was becoming a stronger probability with each passing day. The recurring nightmare always led him to a daunting place of the dead. In those dreams, he began to see the façade of an eerie house at the corner of Jamison Street.

Then, one gloomy day, as Samuel was walking down the street, he saw the house from his horrible dream standing right before him. It was a bleak, white Victorian house—one of the most frightening sights he had ever seen. The house had three wings, but what impressed him most was the north wing, which jutted out in front of the porch. Its gabled roof was pitch-black, and the narrow windows looked like the vigilant eyes of the house, watching his every move.

The wind began to blow, and the fallen leaves swirled into piles under the sturdy oak trees. Suddenly, Samuel started to hear whispering voices, faint yet distinct. The eerie whispers seemed to draw him toward the house, luring him closer until he stepped inside of his own accord. Once inside, he made a chilling discovery: the house was a funeral home.

There, he encountered a stranger, busy embalming a deceased person—the undertaker, Mr. Jeremiah Baines. On the surface, Baines appeared to be a typical middle-aged man in his forties. But there was something about his demeanor that deeply unsettled Samuel, something that eerily reminded him of the demon from his nightmares. It was the undertaker’s sly smirk, a look that radiated persuasive confidence and a false charm—an apocryphal façade that made Samuel’s nerves stand on edge.

"Good afternoon, young man. Are you lost, or have you come to see me?"

At first, Samuel was completely silent. Then he managed to utter, "See you?"

"Of course. You must have come to arrange a funeral for a loved one. Or is there something else you’re here for, Samuel?"

"Why are you in my dreams? How do you know my name?" Samuel asked, his voice trembling with anxiety.

"In your dreams, Samuel? Indeed, I’ve been told that before. I wonder—do I truly spook you with my presence, or is it all a figment of your own mind?" He replied, almost playfully.

"I’m not crazy, and you are Jeremiah Baines! Why did you come to Rock Island? What have you done with my sister, Lizzy?"

Jeremiah looked at him with a profound, unsettling stare and said, "Yes, I am Jeremiah Baines. But as for your sister…I believe you already know where she is, Samuel."

"Where is she? What have you done with her?" Samuel shouted, desperation breaking through his fear.

From the corner of his eye, Samuel suddenly noticed a row of skulls neatly aligned on a shelf. A wave of terror seized him, and without another word, he bolted from the funeral home and ran all the way back to his house—never once looking back.

The horrifying image of the skulls clung to his mind, stirring absolute dread. Yet despite the horrific encounter, Samuel knew deep down that he would have to return to that dreaded place again. The nightmares wouldn’t stop, nor would the endless funeral processions.

At night, he could hear the heavy wheels of the hearse rolling past his home, the sharp clatter of horses’ hooves striking the road outside. Death had begun to sweep through the town, claiming more and more lives, and the foul stench of decay lingered everywhere.

No one knew anything about the undertaker, Jeremiah Baines—where he had come from, or whether he even had a family at all.

Soon, everyone in Rock Island began to treat Jeremiah Baines with deference. Everyone except Samuel—for he could not forget Lizzy. He owed it to her memory to unravel the mystery behind her unexplained disappearance. He struggled to comprehend the ineffable events that had unfolded, along with the strange changes he was beginning to notice among the residents of Rock Island.

There was no reasonable conclusion to draw, no solid theory to formulate, without evidence—nothing to give him the slightest foothold of understanding. He found himself increasingly isolated, cut off from the rest of the town, trapped within his own spiraling detachment. Nothing about the unnatural behavior of the townspeople could be easily explained.

Was he imagining all of this? Exaggerating the situation? Could this phenomenon be nothing more than the ill effects of a sudden hysteria overtaking his mind? He was wasting away, becoming like a walking corpse, unable to sleep. He had long moved past the early stages of insomnia. He felt the relentless palpitations of his heart and sensed death’s presence with every ragged breath.

Amid this daily torment, he began to succumb to the overpowering influence of Jeremiah Baines. Baines was a master of manipulation, skilled in exacting fear without mercy. Samuel dreamed about him constantly and woke each time in the grip of sheer terror, paralyzed by dread and panic. Rock Island had become his intolerable prison, an immurement of despair.

He could not escape the horrific image of the undertaker’s hearse, rolling by slowly, inexorably—as if it was always watching him, waiting.

Every day out on the street, Samuel glimpsed the insidious smile and piercing eyes of Jeremiah Baines. A creeping mortification began to shake his resolve, causing his thoughts to waver as he struggled to grasp the shifting, precarious situation that seemed to empower the vile undertaker. Baines’s mere presence unsettled him deeply, a sense of unpleasant coincidence gnawing at his conscious mind. This unavoidable premonition of death weighed on him constantly, yet he could not fully understand it without uncovering the metaphysical transformation behind Jeremiah Baines. He had to know more—more about the man and the diabolical nature of his deceit.

Whenever Jeremiah Baines appeared with his shadowy hearse, Samuel stared him down defiantly. But the growing madness refused to subside, just as Jeremiah Baines refused to disappear.

Then came the day that haunted Samuel miserably—a day when he envisioned himself inside the undertaker’s house once again. He could not explain this ill-fated experience in mere words of logic, nor could he truly convey the horror it provoked in him afterward. The subliminal perception of death had taken form, embodied in a chilling vision of premature burial, sending an untimely shiver through his soul.

A week later, after summoning enough courage, Samuel returned. The nightmares had become unbearable, and now even his neighbors had turned cold and intrusive. He could no longer walk freely through the quiet streets of Rock Island.

The townspeople watched his every step, their eyes tracking his movements with unsettling precision. He knew he was not alone—not truly. These were the spying eyes of Jeremiah Baines, who seemed to have bewitched the entire town under his dark influence.

Jeremiah Baines, as I have said, is no ordinary man—for he is the reaper of souls.

Samuel felt an overwhelming urge to scream out to the world that the seemingly charming Mr. Jeremiah Baines was, in truth, the monstrous scoundrel behind the disappearances and deaths plaguing Rock Island. That night, under the cover of darkness, he left his house with bold determination. He was fully aware of the risks—and the watchful eyes of his neighbors. Trying to mimic their air of indifference, he walked calmly through the quiet streets until he stood once again before the house of Jeremiah Baines.

The indelible Victorian house loomed before him, glaring down like a grim sentinel—a chilling reminder of the lethiferous embodiment of death. The night was cold and solemn as Samuel ascended the porch steps, inching closer to the Devil’s lair. As he approached the door, it creaked open, as if the nefarious undertaker had been expecting his uninvited guest.

Samuel whispered a desperate prayer, invoking the powers above for divine protection, and stepped into what felt like sacred ground—a resting place for the silent souls of the past. There, in the shadowed main hall, he froze. A coffin lay open before him, a dead body resting within its polished frame. He knew instantly it was another poor soul who had crossed into the afterworld.

But as he drew closer, his breath caught in his throat. It was Lizzy—his beloved sister. Her body lay perfectly embalmed, serene in appearance, her face untouched by decay. Heart pounding, Samuel moved nearer, staring in disbelief.

And then it happened.

Before his eyes, her appearance transformed grotesquely, shifting from the calm repose of embalming to the horrifying, putrid state of advanced decomposition. The flesh darkened and shriveled, her features twisting into the same ghastly image that had haunted his nightmares without end.

Was this a macabre hallucination he had conjured—or worse, the actual corpse of his beloved sister Lizzy? Samuel’s heart thudded violently in his chest as Lizzy’s corpse began to rise from the casket, slowly and stiffly, like a puppet pulled by unseen strings. He watched in frozen horror, a heavy lump forming in his throat, his entire body trembling uncontrollably until, at last, he screamed, “No! It cannot be! Lizzy is dead!”

He staggered backward toward the entrance, desperate to escape—only to be met at the door by Jeremiah Baines himself, who loomed in the doorway with a fiendish smirk curling across his lips. Samuel’s eyes locked on his, wide with terror, and saw the dreadful glint of reddish eyes burning like embers.

“I see you have returned, Samuel,” Baines intoned, his voice as chilling as the grave.

He was dressed entirely in black—his tailored suit, polished shoes, and tall top hat all immaculate. In one hand, he clutched an urn, dark and foreboding, the ashes of the damned souls from the charnel house of doom that lay behind.

“What have you done to Lizzy?” Samuel cried, his voice cracking. “Why did you kill her? Did you kill the others too? Why?”

Jeremiah’s smile deepened, cruel and knowing. “My boy, soon you will understand everything that has happened in this town.”

“Understand what?” Samuel demanded, his voice rising in desperation. “What do you mean?”

“The nightmares. The disappearances. The terrible truths… and, above all—who I am… and who you are.”

Suddenly, the four walls of the house began to ignite, enormous flames erupting as if straight from the bowels of hell, engulfing the corridor in a fury of fire and smoke. Samuel gasped, feeling the searing heat of the flames lick at his feet as he stood, paralyzed, watching the inferno consume everything in sight.

And then, before his eyes, Jeremiah Baines began to change—his human form melting away, twisting and contorting into something monstrous and unholy. The undertaker’s body expanded, horns erupted from his head, and his skin blackened and cracked, revealing the true face of the demon of Pandemonium.

Jeremiah Baines laughed—a wild, psychopathic cackle that echoed through the blazing halls—and snarled, “You can run, Samuel, but you cannot hide from the truth!”

Samuel bolted from the infernal Victorian house, sprinting into the streets, gasping for breath. But as he looked up, his heart plummeted—there, lining the streets, was a throng of Rock Island’s townsfolk, standing eerily still, their eyes glazed over with a lifeless, possessed stare. One by one, they slowly lifted their hands and pointed at him in silent accusation.

A chilling clatter of hooves and wheels rang out behind him. Samuel whipped around—Jeremiah Baines was coming, riding down the street in his ominous hearse, its presence towering and menacing.

It was a horse-drawn carriage wrought from dark, twisted wood and cold, blackened iron. Tall spikes jutted from its frame, each holding flickering, ghostly candles. A memorial epitaph was nailed to the side, glinting in the firelight—and as Samuel’s horrified eyes locked onto it, he read the dreadful words carved deep in scorched letters: “BURN IN HELL, OR ROT IN HELL.”

The air grew suffocating with heat. The wheels of the hearse burned as they rolled, and from the nostrils of the black horses poured thick, smoldering smoke. Their eyes gleamed like molten coals, and their wild forelocks crackled with unnatural light. Flames licked along the sides of the carriage, turning it into a chariot of damnation.

Those dire words—“Burn in hell, or rot in hell”—felt like a death sentence branded into Samuel’s very soul.

Panic erupted among the crowd. The townspeople, their faces twisted in frenzy, let out an unearthly howl and surged toward Samuel. In a frenzy of fear, he ran, his mind blank with terror, his feet pounding wildly against the cobbled streets. There was no clear path, no safe haven. Everywhere he turned, walls of bodies hemmed him in.

Instinct drove him toward the cemetery ahead, its iron gates looming in the distance like the last hope of escape. But as he reached it, heart hammering, he found the front gate sealed shut—rusted, locked, immovable.

Behind him, the thundering of hooves and the roar of the maddened crowd drew closer. Samuel spun around, chest heaving, eyes wide with dread. He was cornered—trapped between the graveyard of the dead and the army of the damned.

Growing desperation consumed Samuel, his breath ragged and chest tight. The townspeople closed in, their piercing red eyes gleaming with malevolence, their footsteps deliberate and unrelenting. The creaking hearse loomed ever closer, the echo of Jeremiah Baines’s cold, triumphant laughter twisting through the night air. Samuel glimpsed the tall, sinister silhouette of Baines, his trademark top hat outlined against the flickering flames.

The winds of the night howled in sudden, violent gusts, whipping through the graveyard. Samuel’s eyes darted to the iron gate—there, two black cats sat eerily still, their glowing eyes watching, unblinking. Above the graves, crows cawed harshly, perched like dark sentinels atop the weathered tombstones. And then—a new horror. The ground began to quake softly, and from the earth, skeletal hands clawed their way up. The dead were rising, their hollow eyes and decayed faces dripping with the agony of their demise.

Samuel’s heart thudded in his ears. In the distance, he spotted salvation: the silhouette of a church, standing alone on the horizon, its steeple piercing the night sky like a sword of hope. Without a second thought, he turned and sprinted toward it, his legs driven by sheer terror and resolve.

Reaching the heavy church door, he pounded furiously with both fists, his eyes darting back to see the swarm of townsfolk, the skeletal dead, and the hearse hurtling toward him in a horrific convergence. The door suddenly swung open, and a lanky pastor, clad in somber robes, grabbed Samuel by the arm and yanked him inside—just in time.

Gasping for breath, Samuel dared a final glance back. The streets outside were now empty. The menacing crowd, the ghastly hearse, the black cats, the crows—all gone. Not a single trace remained. Silence fell, thick and absolute, as if the night itself had swallowed every shadow of the horror he had witnessed.

The pastor closed the door gently behind them, resting a hand on Samuel’s shaking shoulder. “You are safe now, son,” the man said quietly.

Later, after Samuel had regained some composure, the pastor shared a chilling tale. “Fifteen years ago, in the year 1885,” he began gravely, “this town suffered a dark curse. A wave of deaths and disappearances plagued Rock Island—people vanished without a trace, their bodies never found. Rumor spoke of a young apprentice, a drifter who worked for the undertaker. He was a stranger—an outsider who brought death in his wake.”

The pastor’s eyes darkened. “They say he and his master both perished in the flames of their own funeral home. But...some stories refuse to die.”

Samuel sat in stunned silence, his mind whirling with the images of that night—the inhuman eyes, the spectral hearse, the rising dead. Try as he might, he knew one thing for certain: the inconceivable horror of Jeremiah Baines and his hellish chariot would forever haunt his waking hours... and his dreams.

When Samuel inquired about the killer’s identity, the pastor delivered a gruesome revelation. The name of the undertaker was Mr. Jeremiah Baines. Yes—the same Jeremiah Baines whom Samuel had recently encountered at the corner of Jamison Street, in that old Victorian house.

It turned out that Samuel himself had been the lone survivor of that horrific string of murders back in 1885. He was merely an adolescent then, and the trauma had buried the grisly memories deep within his psyche. Lizzy, his beloved sister, had fallen victim to Jeremiah Baines—fifteen years ago.

Now, Samuel found himself confined within the cold, echoing walls of an asylum, a prisoner of his own shattered mind. Day after day, he relived the terror—the hellish hearse of brimstone, the monstrous visage of Mr. Jeremiah Baines, and the nightmarish wail of the dead.

One night, as Samuel lay in his asylum bed, the air grew thick and oppressive, pressing down like an invisible hand. He heard the faint clatter of wheels on the cold stone floor—impossible, yet unmistakable. Dragging himself to the window, he stared into the moonlit yard and saw it: the same infernal hearse, idling silently beneath the skeletal trees. Standing beside it, Jeremiah Baines tipped his top hat and mouthed words Samuel couldn’t hear but somehow understood—“We are never finished.” Samuel stumbled back, clutching his head, as the walls seemed to close in, whispering his name over and over until he could no longer tell where his thoughts ended and Baines’s began.

If there is one thing to learn about death, it is this: death is a force of unfathomable complexity. It does not discriminate; it cares not for who you are, nor where you come from. Death seeks only the soul that belongs to it. And when its hour comes, it will announce itself—suddenly, without mercy, without delay.

Do not be tempted to ignore its looming presence. Know that fate and death are bound together in a pact that cannot be broken. Avoidance is an illusion; inevitability is the truth. Death has been woven into our destiny since the dawn of existence.

And Jeremiah Baines? He is no mere man. The insidious Mr. Baines wields power that transcends mortal understanding. He commands dominion over those who stray into the dark expanse of his illimitable domain—forever binding them to the eternal shadow of death.

Perhaps, you too will have the unfortunate fate of meeting Jeremiah Baines in person. And when that time comes, be warned: any generosity you perceive is nothing but a calculated facade. There is no need for formality, no purpose in clinging to manners or decorum, when the narrative I have shared with you is nothing but the unvarnished truth.

You see, there is no escaping him—no bargaining with the inevitable. Jeremiah Baines is not merely a man, not merely a monster. He is a truth, a hunger buried in the marrow of existence itself.

Perhaps, you too will feel his eyes upon you one day, when you least expect it—watching, waiting, ready to pull you under. And when that moment comes, remember: all gestures of kindness are illusions, all mercy is hollow.

And now, as I sit alone in this festering silence, I can no longer deny what gnaws at the edges of my sanity. The veil between Jeremiah and me has thinned beyond repair; his thoughts have become my own, his vile cravings etched into the sinews of my brain. I am no longer certain where he ends and I begin… or if there was ever truly a difference at all. Madness, you see, is not a descent—it is a reality.

If I have not yet disclosed my name, allow me now—at long last—to offer a most cordial introduction.

I am Mr. Jeremiah Baines.

And he has forever existed… within the dark, labyrinthine recesses of my mind.

Ha… ha.

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