One Oh One

In a town not too far from anywhere, but closer to nowhere than you think; there is a town where, for a period of no less and no more than an exact one minute (first timed by “Heinrick J. in 1965), shadowy, shroud-draped figures appear on the streets and in the parks and sway, slowly back and forth.

That is to say, strange apparitions appear in this place, visible for only one minute. It is generally considered undesirable to encounter the apparitions and so, at exactly 1.01am (for that is time when they appear) the inhabitants of this place where said apparitions appear make sure they are inside at the time.

In truth, that isn’t much of a problem, for most of the people who live in town are medicated and asleeping by 9pm.

Factors to consider:

  • Who, or what, are these shambling figures?
  • Why do they appear for only one minute?
  • Why do the figures only ever appear outside?

We will be revisiting these questions in a later portion of this textbook.

Dissonant Song 2

Don’t accept average. Don’t merely be “good”. Your only option is to be the best; to be the greatest.

To do this you must destroy everything that stands in your way. You must erase them. You must demolish each obstacle and reshape the world around you until you are indistinguishable from the dust that remains.

Silence all dissent. Burn and destroy.

Forge your will the way the earth forges diamond. Become the hardest substance. Become the only thing of value. Become invulnerable.

Become everything until nothing is left except you. Become the forbidden light and the blindness that results.

Know only darkness and that you have become the greatest. You have ended everything. You are the only. All that exists are you and you are all that exists.

Now: Let there be light.

A Series of Unlikely VHS

In 2009 received in the mail a nondescript package containing two dozen brown plastic VHS tapes.

Each tape was labelled “Westcrest”, along with a series of episode numbers.

A handwritten note, in simple cursive, was stuck to the first tape. It said:

Sorry for dumping these on you,

but you seem like someone

who might be able to use them?

– A

(I believe I know who “A” is, though the answer does not make sense.)

I watched the tapes, which were plainly in a state of advanced decay. Each tape contained three episodes of an animated show called Westcrest, which was about a group of extraordinary characters who lived on an invisible island in the middle of a lake.

No record of the show exists and nobody I’ve spoken to remembers it. Yet here I was, in possession of two dozen episodes on VHS.

I transcribed the major events of each episode and inspired by them I compiled my own (incomplete and imperfect) version of Westcrest. Those stories are no longer plainly available, with the exception of Nessie.

Recently, amongst a box of old memories, I discovered some of my original notes about the Westcrest tapes, taken during my initial viewings. Now, the tapes only display garbled static.

Throughout the year I will be reworking these notes, not only to reintroduce the world to a lost classic of 80s animation, but to also to seek answers to that burning question:

What is Westcrest?

Content Round Up – January 2023

Despite experiencing one of my worst depressive episodes in… maybe forever, I managed to update the site more times in a single month than any other during its inception in 2018. Here’s a round up of all the content published on the site this past month.

ARTICLES
Put on the Hat
Dissonant Song
Into this New World

POETRY
Witherbank
The Door Strains
Kind of Dramatic
Skies Grow Dark
Punching Gravel

FICTION
The Michaelean Library
Excerpt from Elsinore’s Diary
Monolith Protrusions and Their Effects
Containing Chaos
The Fifth Disturbance
Of the Cherax
The Eighth Day of Apollo

DRAWINGS
And the Stars
Broken Torch
Space and Time
Saskatchewan

As always, there’s extras on my ‘gram and you can also follow me on the twitter.

I’m a real person who has been making art and sharing it on the internet for free since 1998. If you can afford it, please consider supporting my art by using one of the following methods:

Patreon
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NEXT MONTH: What is Westcrest? Satanic horror and much more.

:coolface:

The Eighth Day of Apollo

In Apollonian Caladon, each week was divided into eight days. The eighth day was reserved exclusively for worship at the Apollonian temples around the city.

The most notable feature of this worship was the process of blood-letting, during which members of the congregation would be selected for scarification. Although this scarification was believed to be random, although there is no specification along these lines in any of the remaining literature pertaining to the subject.

In truth, the Apollonian cult ruling over the city was a blood cult secretely devoted to summoning Nergal, the dog-faced poisoner.

Apollonian Caladon was ended during the Pythonite revolution, after which the city succumbed to the God-Craze.

Of the Cherax

Of the Cherax, that terrible species that was responsible for the destruction of Los Pelos, little is known.

Typical Cherax range between 7′ and 12′ long, possess six legs, two strong front claws and jagged, gnashing mouth-pieces. Their bodies are protected by chitinous armour; only the underbelly, eyes and antennae are vulnerable to attack.

The Cherax are an aquatic species not known to leave the water except to carry out rapid and brutal invasions of landborne settlements. The purpose of these invasions remains a mystery, as the Cherax quickly abandon the ruined cities they have destroyed, taking nothing with them, and return to the water.

Many believe that the Cherax may be controlled by some separate guiding intelligence, but whether this would be in the form of some “Prime Cherax” or alxeetnr unencislef is unknown.

Punching Gravel

i’m so sad
that i want to punch gravel
until the flesh of my hands
is stripped away
and only bloody stumps remain
bones snapping and crunching
mangled remains
useless now
i strain and i scream
because it hurts so much
i have no hands left to punch with
and i’m still so sad

The Fifth Disturbance

When the glowing water was churned up and the bubbles rose to the top of it and the sirens screamed. Even as metal broke and bent and there was a great exhalation of corrosive steam and high above, control panels sat untouched. Even as the seats were empty and yet the office lights still hummed and a cursor blinked on one computer screen and the sirens screamed.

That rumble, that exhalation of corrosive gas that shreds the metal and opens to a sky that is the colour of infection. Glass breaks and the offices blink out of existence as they are plunged into sudden, obliterative darkness.

And the glowing water rises and spills and pours out of the building in every direction and with it the screams of the sirens. And the unknowing trees rock back and forth and a packet of crisps rolls across the road and the empty houses are silent as they suddenly blink out in one sudden, silent implosion of space and time.

Containing Chaos

Beyond the first eternity–that seventh primal element which had come into being as a result of the meeting and mixing of the other six, previously disparate, elements and came to be regarded as the Trickster (see Interviews with the Gridwalker, The Adventures of Autolycus) spread chaos wherever it went and destabilised a great many worlds.

Not bound by the philosophies of Love or Strife, nor guided by the primal impulses of the Manifest Elements (see Manifest Elements: A Beginner’s Guide), Chaos walked where it could and changed what it would, rapidly undermining the unsubtle laws of logic, reason, time and space.

Thus, a pact was formed around the Meeting Stone (see The Dark Place) whereby it was agreed that the Trickster should be captured and contained.

With the assistance of the Cerebellum (see Welcome to the Cerebellum) a prison was created in a form so labyrinthine and inconceivable  that any mortal to set eyes on it would be driven irrevocably insane.

But Chaos could not be restrained, for insanity was the Trickster’s very strength. And so they escaped and chaos spread across the multiverse.

It was clear then, by the non-Euclidean bendings of the Mad Prison (see Warren’s Companion to Strange Places) that Chaos could not be contained, but must instead be mitigated (see The Mitigating of Chaos).