Autarkhos: A Guy Edrich Story

By Vanda Denton

A tragic incident filmed for viewing on social media exposes the truth of post-takoloshe suffering in the human world. The wealthy were unharmed by that alien invasion and are now taking advantage of the misery left in the wake of it.

Attacks by vicious aberrant creatures further highlight the dangers of hunger, homelessness, fear, despair and confusion, plaguing the survivors.

Guy Edrich, floundering in a maelstrom of expanding psychic faculties, is moved to restore a once familiar lifestyle in an effort to re-establish personal equilibrium. He sets up a team to investigate the plunderers of public funds.

His new psychic abilities enable him to see more clearly than humans, the reality of world politics/corporative industry, along with a peculiar association of that to the new threat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781326901684

Book preview

Autarkhos

The second Guy Edrich story

Vanda & Tom Denton

© 2021 Vanda & Tom Denton

All rights reserved by the author. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers and/or authors.

ISBN: 978-1-326-90168-4

Published by Vbooks

This book is available from

www.vinctalin.com

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Prologue

It hovered by her shoulder. A small, ghastly, ghostly wraith, whispering in her head.

Only distantly aware of her unkempt appearance, she drifted along the drinks’ aisle, searching for the opportunity long-since planned. Her furtive glances were observed by fellow customers but no message reached shop security in any time that mattered.

The young woman heaved down a litre bottle of vodka from a high shelf, and though a little dazed, appeared to be studying it, before placing it in a gap on a hip-high shelf. She then selected a half bottle of rum to place in her basket. An alternative choice so far as anyone watching would be concerned.

Shoppers with their own agendas moved on and the moment the aisle was vacated by the last person with his beer-loaded trolley, she slipped the large bottle of vodka into her shopping bag, picked up her basket and aimed for the toilets.

She left the basket outside the toilet area so there’d be no question of her shoplifting, before entering the disabled cubicle. Experience gained during the depressing roaming of stores she could afford to buy little from, told her this was the most distant of the cubicles, so far as sound would carry.

Once safely locked inside, she moved swiftly, drawing out and unscrewing the lids of four empty, plastic water bottles retrieved from public bins, a hammer stolen from a church shelter where a man worked at repairing the door, and a funnel she’d raided someone’s unlocked van for.

Previous study of security tags on bottles of spirits had her following this clumsy plan. She wrapped the neck of the vodka bottle in a towel she’d brought for the purpose, held it upright against the wall and knocked it with the hammer.

The first blow was not hard enough, and the second too heavy. Never-the-less, only a little was spilled and most of the broken glass was caught in the towel, along with the security device. All of that she pressed into the bin by the lavatory.

Fine glass fragments fell from the jagged break in the bottle along with the liquid being funnelled into the plastic containers.

Far past panicking over anything, she repacked her bag with precision, checked the cubicle for any obvious evidence that might be discovered too quickly, and left the supermarket at a slightly faster pace than would be considered leisurely. Three surreptitious glances over her shoulder satisfied the hope of success in that, the hardest part of the plan.

However, fulfilment of the aim was far from complete, even a kilometre from the shop. She followed a lonely footpath running alongside a canal. Having given up all hope of being killed in this isolated area, she now feared having her stolen goods, stolen from her.

She was not merely lucky. Sue had chosen the early morning for this mission because the homeless of this area, and students alike, were safely holed-up for another hour or so, sleeping off hangovers of one kind or another. One mumbling old woman clutching her few belongings tightly, pushed past her, a boy sat on the bank vomiting and a middle-aged man who’d been eyeing up her bag, staggered aggressively when she shoved him. But when he caught the expression in her eyes he made no more effort to touch her.

On reaching the students’ house with its carelessly half-closed windows, Sue picked the one at the back that opened into the messy lounge.

She found the laptop where Harry always left it, propped against the side of the filthy sofa. She took it with her to the downstairs cloakroom, which she’d discovered on an earlier recce, still had a functioning lock. As expected, he’d not changed his codeword since she lived in this house six months ago.

After much fiddling she had the computer set up with its camera running and streaming live to five social media sites.

Chapter 1

Guy Edrich

I continue to write my accounts; for the record, as it were. These accounts were to be added to the records for my new organisation. What experience did I have other than serving in the Credentes? Naturally, I would maintain that method until, and unless, I discovered something better. Thus, in effect, I was reporting to myself. I hoped that a future generation could benefit from my work. Herein is my situation at the beginning of this narrative.

Guy

How can I describe this, within the limits of vocabulary? Allow me to try.

I cast my mind further and further afield, to other realms, unspecified locations and endless voids, before pulling it back to the extent I could comprehend. There I found much of interest and nothing relevant to my personal life. No purpose.

I’d begun drawing closer, returning to this world, when clear messages flashed warnings.

My Credentes side recognised a specific, imminent, danger, coupled with an unknown power. Not a blatantly malevolent power. Yet something that could eventually prove worse. A power in possession of intelligence and no care for right and wrong.

I delved deeper into my regular routine of surveillance. My mind flowing smoothly along the Boundary, showing it, thus far, to remain unbreeched, when a sharp voice attempted to pierce through. It was intended to pull me from my reverie. It did not.

It had become familiar, this strident, indignant, insistent, often fearful demand for my attention. Being close to the completion of my cerebral tour, afforded relaxation. Once finished, I opened my eyes slowly, with care, knowing how the abrupt return to this dimension would impact on me. And that it would be all the more severe with Celeste’s blatant aggravation on display.

‘I said, wake up, Guy! Have you seen this?’

I did not immediately turn my stinging eyes to the inevitably over-emotional ones, I would feel obliged, shortly, to acknowledge.

Celeste, tired from dealing with actual needs, found fewer conspiracy theories than of old, to fret about. Yet her general, low, rumbling paranoia continued to plague her. And thus, also me.

‘Guy! Look at this!’

She thrust her laptop onto my knee. Flashing images, a bright screen and negative emotion bombarded my not yet grounded senses.

I tried pushing it away. Ready for that, and knowing I’d never hurt her, she held it firm.

‘This is awful! If you don’t do something to help people like this, no one will. Guy! Look!’

Despite my best efforts to continue my habitual avoidance of any social media, and by way of reducing Celeste’s constant moaning, I’d been obliged to furnish my London flat with a television set. When her arms weakened, I stood, leaving her holding the laptop, and strolled over to where the offending screen, faced by a two-seater sofa, was fixed to the wall, around the corner of the main area of my L-shaped lounge. I watched with interest as Celeste skilfully began hooking the computer to the television system.

‘You said,’ she came to where I stood and pushed me down into the sofa, ‘that if Sky and BBC were omitting anything being reported on other world news channels, the government probably had something to hide.’ She had an increasingly, uncomfortably accurate mimicry of my manner.

I looked to the moving image on the screen, as the woman there set what could soon be seen as a laptop computer onto what I could discern to be a lavatory seat. She was adjusting it for the camera to capture her clearly as she sat on the floor with her back against the cloakroom door and her knees rising, careless of modesty, splayed either side of the toilet bowl.

While the film ran, showing a broad view of her actions, I noted with concern the items she arranged on the low ledge boxing for pipes, by her side. She lined up four bottles of water before she began emptying strips of paracetamol from small boxes and popping them out of the blister packaging. Those pills were spread and piled along the dirty shelf next to the bottles.

Along with Celeste I observed a figure so miserable that she had at some point moved on from depression to doom.

With the bottles and tablets lined up, she leaned in to adjust the camera which then focused more closely on a head and shoulder frame. The dirty, shaggy, light brown hair, now displayed in sharp focus, framed a face that had at some point, not recently, been wiped relatively clean. That attempt had left grimy lines down the sides of her cheeks, along her hairline and under her chin. There were telling black lines beneath her sunken grey eyes. No make-up.

She peered directly into the camera as she reclined back again and spoke, ‘My name is Susan Cassidy. A couple of weeks ago, I was evicted.’

She reached to her side, slowly retrieved one of the bottles and opened it. A large mouthful had her grimacing before swallowing.

‘That’s not water,’ Celeste whispered.

Obviously. I had that worked out at the start. ‘Vodka, probably.’

‘Yeah.’

Susan continued speaking mechanically, ‘When I was working, that is on the days I was given work on my zero-hours contract, I passed the house of my employer as I walked home. He and his family are entirely untouched by the apocalypse. I lost everyone. Both parents, boyfriend, two brothers, all aunts and uncles and cousins. They attacked my home village while I was living here in this house with my friends from Uni.’

She took another pull at the bottle. A bigger mouthful that stung her throat and had her coughing.

‘Sorry, Harry. Had to use your computer. Flogged mine soon after I left here looking for work, food and shelter. You know how I was then.’

She revisited the bottle slowly, thoughtfully, several times, before continuing.

‘Anyway, my boss lives in the huge, ugly, garish, red mansion on Queens Street. Feel free to chuck mud at it. He lived there securely while others were being slaughtered by demons and when that was over, having offered no help or sanctuary to anyone, he continued to live there. He was comfortable in that enormous property while I was worried about meeting the demand to repay my student loan. He was still there when I was told, like thousands of others, to repay all of it immediately or get out of Uni and this house. And he lived there in luxury when I found the only work I could. On the days when he deigned to allow me to enslave myself to the housekeeping firm that made his fortune, he soaked up the peace, security and joy of that house. He was still there while the low pay from occasional days’ work kept me going when the food banks closed. He lived in that bloody great house with a wife and two kids, while I crammed into one of his flats with nine strangers. I missed one rent payment and he had me thrown out, physically, by his big beefy minders, who also threatened me with rape if I returned.’

She worked at finishing that first bottle and unscrewed the next, nursing it against her stomach.

‘Now the government has relaxed housing regulations, he’s systematically emptying those flats. They’re in a prime location now. A blight on the landscape for others like him. They’ll be refurbished for a better class of people as well as an investment bonanza. The people I knew there are begging in the streets. They get moved on to less desirable areas by the police.

He’s planning for the future. Not my future. Could be your future, Harry, since your parents paid off your loan quicker than a rich man can say, Your fired! No, it’s the future of the super-rich. They’ll need fancy flats in west London. Anyway,’ she downed half the bottle, choked and scraped a handful of pills off the dirty shelf and crammed them into her mouth. They were washed down with more large swigs of the spirit. ‘Anyway, who cares?’

When that bottle was empty and the next being prepared, she looked to her side, telling someone or something there to, ‘Shut up!’

‘There’s someone with her,’ Celeste whispered.

‘No,’ I breathed, unable quite to grasp the identity of a malevolent presence that I sensed.

‘What?’ Celeste’s voice emerged sharp and tense. In spite of living with me for nine months she was only partially aware of the nature of my changed state of being.

I voiced the smallest part of what I knew, ‘She’s hearing voices.’

‘Well, we’re all a bit nuts from the demon invasion.’

With an effort, I ignored Celeste’s ignorant aggravation to focus on the television screen, where poor Susan Cassidy seemed to be trying to flap away ghosts in between swallowing the rest of the tablets and most of the drink in the penultimate bottle.

‘Oh,’ she slurred, ‘did I mention the name of the rich bastard who’s killing me? Won’t hurt to repeat it. You all know him. The self-made man. The clever entrepreneur. The hard-working businessman. Your hero and mine,’ she drained the bottle without flourish and finished flatly, ‘Graham Kent.’

‘Never could stand him,’ Celeste stated quietly, whilst squinting at the poor girl opening the last bottle.

Susan Cassidy drifted into unconsciousness before she finished that one. I took the remote control from Celeste’s hand, ignored her objection, and fast-forwarded the recording of her insensate form, watching it slump deeper and deeper until she was clearly dead. And then longer, wanting to see who would find her. But the social media company had cut it off before then. Too boring, I guessed sadly. They’d left enough to grip the macabre attention of a desensitised audience.

Celeste was crying. I noticed distantly that she no longer sought comfort from my arms, before I rose stiffly, leaving her with her television screen and the still picture of a dead stranger.

My mind drifted back to the last time she lectured me. She had been absolutely right. The super-rich lost nothing and remained in their positions of power following the takoloshe invasion. Times change but there are eternal truths. Following the most extraordinary, horrific, infestation of earth, amazingly, some ignorant people continued to honour those names, their wealth and their power.

Whilst aiding the recovery from that terrible disaster, I fought despair in my judgement of human nature.

Chapter 2

Guy

The rest of the day was a considerable strain for both of us, naturally. Susan Cassidy had provided a very graphic illustration of the awful conditions the majority of people were forced to endure since the world recovered from Cacodaemus’ unleashing of takoloshes in this realm.

There was also the difficulty of our individual, very different, reactions to stress and trauma. Celeste tended to be over-emotional and vocal when I wanted to quietly, privately, make assessments and seek solutions.

Eventually, because I’d not responded, in her opinion, with adequate care to her ranting, she stamped out of the flat shouting something about ‘checking the orphanage’ because ‘someone’s got to do something’. In fact, I’d provided the funding for her project. To be honest, my motive was only partly to provide shelter for the three children she’d seen begging near our block of flats. There were families in the area, I’d noted, that were showing signs of being ready to take them in. The fact was, Celeste needed useful employment while I, all too often, floundered between this reality and others.

Once she’d left I could think more clearly. Susan Cassidy had me focusing at last. Life for me, finally, and if only for a short time, became less chaotic. I could accept some of the truths Celeste had been trying to make me understand while I was actively working on something beyond even her imagination. I had constantly to work at monitoring earth’s Boundary. To be certain it remained firmly closed. I could sense occasional attempted incursions. Including from the takoloshes.

They’d learned something. They’d developed a taste for our flesh. And they’d left a world of bereaved people, orphans and criminals. When, at last, I was certain I’d prevented any possibility of a breach in the Boundary, I began to cogitate on further inevitable results of that appalling onslaught.

I could know much of this by scanning some reports that remained on my computer, from my old life. Certainly without doubt, the world’s wealthiest people were once again becoming a menace to all others, and had been unaffected by that terrible period. I calculated that in reality, they would be making money and gaining power out of the misery suffered by the majority. Susan Cassidy was just one person who had managed to highlight the hunger, homelessness, loss of hope and fear for the future along with a descent into a modern form of slavery. I knew, for example, that jobs with bed and board were never advertised more than once in the same month. Yet frequently, re-advertised. I feared the fate of those who’d taken the jobs earlier. I feared it because I could sense an evil connected to it.

By the time I’d exhausted my ability to concentrate on written records and consumed the meals Celeste had prepared for me, I was resting on a sofa, casting my mind around the world, trying to locate the source of my negative emotions, when she crashed back into the flat. Although I did not open my eyes I could sense her standing over me. Staring.

‘What are you doing?’

I told her briefly some of my thoughts.

I heard her take a place on the sofa opposite. She sounded depressed. ‘It’s like the dark side won.’

‘What?’ I opened one eye to check on her.

‘Nothing you’d know anything about.’

I opened the other eye.

‘A film,’ she explained.

‘I see.’

‘Of course you don’t,’ she sighed. ‘I’m going to bed.’

The following morning we shared a meagre breakfast. She nodded sullenly when I promised to restock my larder. I was growing increasingly outraged over paying the inflated prices that most people could hardly afford. All grocery shops were aiming their prices at a level that the majority could just manage, so long as they didn’t have to meet other costs apart from essential, survival bills. That alone, was arranged. I had no proof of the food price conspiracy reaching as high as the government but I did know that some government ministers had shares in supermarket chains along with a variety of corporations involved in unethical methods of mass producing food.

During the day, despite my reservations, I bought plenty of basic food for the two of us, along with some supplies for Celeste’s orphanage. When I delivered those to the house she used, I discovered she’d acquired two new children and another new volunteer. It was interesting to note how thoroughly Celeste vetted any adults offering to help her. None of those children would suffer further harm, or have their food stolen. With this new helper, as well as getting more adult guidance and sympathy, they’d have the aid of a professional therapist. I decided to increase Celeste’s budget. She was grateful. I also felt her flash of resentment for being reliant on me.

In the evening, following a boring, though filling meal, I, suffering from a guilty conscience, prepared for her return to the flat, Celeste took herself to the small, secluded area of my L-shaped lounge. And her television.

I could tell, because it was impossible to ignore the sound of the programmes, as well as her comments on them, that most attention was being given to the recent ‘apocalypse’: a sobriquet everyone seemingly insisted upon.

I suspect she was selectively viewing programmes that reinforced her old conspiracy theories. The favoured one at that time was that the takoloshe infestation was part of a nefarious plan for creating a New World Order.

She turned to me as I walked past to lower the blinds. ‘It’s like the dark side won.’

‘So you said.’ I softened my tone as her spirits dived further from my sharp response, ‘Sorry. Tell me more.’

‘Instead of the second coming we got hell, the antichrist and now his minions are running stuff.’

‘How?’

‘Probably no different from what was happening before the demon invasion anyway, I guess.’

‘In what way?’

‘Greedy bankers working together at our expense, beggaring good people, enslaving the poor…’

I switched it off.

‘Guy! What the hell! You’re so bloody controlling!’

I took her hand, pulled her from the seat and took her over to the twin sofas in the area I preferred; from where the offending screen could not be seen.

‘You are very aggravating!’

‘Those people are contorting facts. There is a difference between wisdom and knowledge. The world is run by the wealthy…’

The arms were flung up in her habitual reaction to being disavowed of her belief that I might finally be coming to understand her extreme view.

I cut off the words forming on her lips, ‘They get wealthy by understanding a tiny part of life, usually specific bits of finance. Once they have the power, they make the rules. They make decisions that affect many lives but only for their individual gain. There is not enough cooperation amongst them to form a wholesale, worldwide conspiracy. Much of the time they are stealing, in effect, from one another.’

‘It still stinks.’

‘Yes.’

‘I keep thinking about Susan.’

As did I. But for a quite different reason. The young woman had been focused on a place in the air by her shoulder, when she heard voices. She saw something there. Although I could almost grasp what it was, the harder I tried the more it eluded me. I did not want Celeste applying her imagination to this mystery. With that she would soon sink into notions of the supernatural. Certainly I would not be confiding in her, telling her of something that flashed into the outer reaches of my conscious mind earlier in the day. Something alien. Something accompanied by what I could only grasp as ‘many’ and ‘loosely connected’. Something that presented as a brilliantly lit golden orb, of constantly changing magnitude. It was not something I felt to be of immediate danger to this realm but I was aware of almost refusing to believe there could be another incursion taking place in the world struggling to recover from the first.

I slipped across to sit by her side, took her hand and encouraged her to prattle about an old fixation.

‘I’d like to hear your theories about New World Orders.’

‘Yeah.’ She had every reason to treat that with suspicion.

‘No, really. I want to listen to you.’

‘You don’t ever, just listen.’

‘Alright, discuss it with you. You start.’

‘OK,’ she glanced sceptically into my eyes. But she was eager to repeat old, paranoid theories, ‘There’s a…’ she hesitated while I mentally filled in what she took care not to utter for fear of my mockery, ‘group of people with immense wealth.’

I provided the parts she’d stopped herself saying aloud, to settle her, ‘A financial elite based in Europe and America.’

Though I’d kept my voice neutral, she knew me well. I vaguely recalled scathing criticism from the days when I had less control of my psyche. For that reason I furnished the conversation with a notion she had become shy of expressing. And I did it in a convincing tone. ‘You fear there is an oligarchy that controls apparently democratically elected politicians, courts at all levels, educational institutions, food supplies, natural resources, foreign policies, economics and the money of most nations. They also have control of the dominant media and that’s why we know nothing about them.’

‘Honestly! That’s everything in the world, isn’t it!’

It was, and it could be something I should give thought to, unlikely though it was to be a formal arrangement. ‘For it to stretch to your beliefs and fears, it would have to be run by a cabal.’

‘Exactly.’

I stifled a sigh concerning the egos of the super-rich and the greater likelihood of them fighting one another, in favour of maintaining her engagement in this discussion.

‘Modern western democracy is only about two hundred and fifty years old. Other methods of control worldwide have been far more common.’

Celeste drew closer, finding comfort in my willingness to take her fears and suspicions at least partially seriously. ‘They could dominate people by force, on a global scale. Like a totalitarian world government.’

Their armies would more likely clash and in so doing kill vast numbers of innocent people, including children.

I said, ‘You believe they are arriving at a single world governing body benefitting oligarchs across the earth. That would leave the majority of survivors in a role of serfdom.’

‘Exactly! They could control the population so it doesn’t get too big.’

That would not be difficult. ‘Using viruses, faulty vaccines, even gm crops …’

‘Yes! Easy to control and they’d only need a few slaves, in comparison to the population numbers, even now.’

‘They’d need to promote an ideology, inculcating the inevitability of their establishment as the culmination of human progress throughout history.’

‘What?’

‘Otherwise even the under-educated would want to hold on to the sovereignty of their nations.’

‘What?’

‘Right-wing populists have been trying to achieve this since long before Hitler.’

‘Yeah,’ that was drawn out in a tone suggesting I was the one lacking logic. ‘Now we’ve had the apocalypse the populists warned us of. If you think I’m hysterical you should hear what everyone else is say…’

‘Everyone?’

‘A hell of a lot more than you imagine…’

‘Political alienation.’

‘Mainstream is failing so they’re looking elsewhere. It only takes a few big ones like Borya Aminev and then dictators with an American president in their pocket, to take over the world.’

Another sigh was stifled, as I endeavoured to aid her in achieving a more balanced view. ‘There have always been those trying to take over the world. You must know of Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte.’

‘But they didn’t have worldwide media access. Or the ability to hack in and fix ‘democratic’ elections.’

I did not manage to stifle the cringe response to her habitual airborne quotation gestures. That hurt her feelings. Which in turn meant I must hang on to my patience for much longer.

I sought to keep her engaged at a level I judged she would enthusiastically support, ‘Some social analysts have expressed concern of ‘mind control’.’

I’d underestimated her. Again. Thus causing further offence.

‘That does not need to be…’ flapping quotation marks on her fingers were flashed in my face for two heated points, ‘…brainwashing or subliminal advertising …’

Clearly, she was aware that those cold war propaganda claims had been disproved.

Now she was the one sighing heavily, ‘There are more straightforward methods of influencing peoples’ beliefs and views.’ She met my eyes earnestly, rather than with hurt over my judgements. ‘When you pull facts together from a variety of sources…’

I mentally questioned ‘facts’.

‘This is governments, corporations and mass media developing a culture of fear, which those in power then exploit.’

Something in her words scratched at an old memory. I dragged it to the surface. ‘Tactics that could subvert a person’s thinking, and thus emotions, decisions and behaviour.’

She relaxed in the comfort of feeling that I was, in what would have been her words, ‘getting it.’

The conversation triggered a clearer recollection of an old study I recalled hearing part of as it was presented to the Elect. The discussion revolved around the notion of democracy being something like a paper tiger, in that it exists only so long as everyone adheres to the laws and regulations. And is easily destroyed. Or taken over. Humans can easily be ruled through deceit, false information and any number of other artful methods.

Historically, there had been attempts to take control of public support through the efforts of individuals and groups. This was a popular topic for conspiracy theorists. One I would not entirely dismiss out of hand.

‘I would like to investigate Susan Cassidy.’

Celeste gave the look that questioned my purpose in that remark but quickly softened in response to my sympathetic smile.

‘I feel there was more to her plight than she made clear in the video.’

I suppose my morals could be questioned, in the successful manipulation of her care for me. Frankly, it was all always too easy.

She put a hand lovingly to my cheek, ‘Sometimes I forget what you’ve been through, Guy.’

Even she could not imagine the reality of that.

‘I’m really sorry. That’s a great idea. You really should try to get back into something like your old, familiar lifestyle. That would be a good place to start.’

I found the kiss she followed that with, as irresistible as I always had done. Celeste called it love. Perhaps it was; of a kind. Mostly, for me, it was physical and emotional release.

Chapter 3

Guy Edrich

In spite of all my newfound gifts I remain as bound by time as ever I was. Yet within that constraint I have come to understand my father’s people more and more deeply, whilst acquiring simple facts concerning them. Their name, never revealed in this realm where they identified themselves as Credentes, is Empyrean. There they enjoy a lifespan I can grasp only in the abstract, for though it is counted in centuries by earth’s standard, it is experienced in a state of timeless theorising and exploration by the very nature of that dimension.

They have forgotten us. I no longer feel their probing but instead sense their mass attention focused on realms and worlds that know nothing of closing the Boundaries.

I now can be fully certain that the Boundary enclosing this place remains firmly set and that only I can open any portion of it to allow in any other beings, or indeed, allow any people of earth who could become awakened to the possibility, the access of crossing over.

I sense the existence of scores of half-breeds here. I do not sense the awareness of that state in any individual but Jerome Funk. They suffer in the confusion of memories unexplained, visions and hauntings. Although the Wisht Hounds, Takkennman, Black Shuck and so on, no longer filter through in reality, those vivid memories persist, burned deep into their psyches, pestering their victims still.

Yet, how can I help them? The truth, far from setting them free, will push them further away from human society. That can never be healthy. Quite often, I grasp one in my thoughts, and calm them, but as soon as I let go in order to pursue my own aims they revert to self-doubt, night terrors and the shunning of society in general. It had taken nine months to find a slower, more effective, approach, nine months in which I