In which I cease my wanderings

It's been a day since I last made a post here, hasn't it? I should probably update my progress in finding a place to stay within this city. An unlocked door, an open window, any invitation for me to stay put instead of wander.

So far, there has been nothing. All the doors have been locked, all the windows shut.

I wish I had my camera. Even broken, it would have helped calm me. Perhaps it was the only thing keeping me sane. My camera and my story.

I still have my story. Down the Labyrinthine Ways. Except it doesn't seem so important to write it now. Because I am living it now. All the wandering my character did, I am now doing. Shall I wander for forty days and forty nights before finding shelter?

I...I have looked back and what I wrote. It is gibberish. It wasn't gibberish when I wrote it. It turned to gibberish. Like the books in the library. It became unintelligible. Unreadable.

I have to stop. Even with no shelter, I have to sleep. I feels like I've been walking for weeks, instead of days.

This bench is as good a place as any to fall asleep.

And if I die before I wake, I pray

my soul

the city

take.

why did i write that

February 8, 1923

Today I saw very little outside my window. The scene remained the same one as yesterday, and nothing moved. However, when the sun began to disappear over the horizon, I saw a man limping down the street. He was dressed in a black suit, with a black tie, and was convulsing as if in great pain. I saw large growths all over his body, and his bones seemed twisted somehow. The result was that his overall shape seemed almost inhuman, to the point that I almost believed him to be a monster at first.

And then, before my horrified eyes, I saw the lumps recede, and I saw the man's skin turn pale. He fell to his knees and clutched at his stomach, and he vomited onto the cobblestone below. He vomited until nothing but bile came forth, and then he screamed and writhed in his agony. The color continued to recede from his skin until he was perfectly white, and then his golden hair began falling from him in clumps, and lumps formed over his facial features, obscuring them until they were completely invisible. The man stood, though he was still in a great deal of pain, and limped away, his limbs moving in a stiff manner.

Diary Entry: One of those days.

I woke up starving in the middle of the street about an hour ago. No idea how I got here or how long it's been. I have a camera with four nearly identical recordings made on a beach and now my glasses are gone.


I do at least have an idea what I was trying to do. I have no idea where to begin looking for this woman, but I did see a bookstore not too far from here. It usually worked when I was trying to find my dear husband (may God rest his soul) to start looking in the bookstore first.

February 10, 1923

The page I typed for my journal yesterday is gone. In its place, I have found a sheet of charred black paper, and upon was inscribed, in the most barely visible, barely legible letters: "Forever."

The world outside my window has changed four different times today. First it was a city made of glass, then it was a cabin built by a lake, then it was a cobblestone street surrounded by trees, and now it is a field with a single tree in the center, from which hangs a noose.

In each of these scenes I have seen the great black beast, always in the distance, always looking directly at me.