My eyes could not leave the frightful apparition that floated outside of my window. I was at a loss to explain how the figure could appear, and what it was doing outside my window. Yet, more the point was how the creature made me feel.

At once, the creature seemed wrong. As if something about it did not make sense. Mere words don’t quite do the thing justice, as there are no words to that can adequately describe what I saw outside my window that dusky even.

It seemed vaguely humanoid, though a thorough examination of the creature seemed impossible. As you would look, and think you had the measure of the creature, the creature instead would seem to change, as like the curious statue, without seeming to move at all. The strange circles, that seemed to be wrong in the statue appeared in the fibrous skin of the creature as well.

Physically, I could see nothing inhuman about it, other than the fact that you could not see the creature in full. It seemed either enormous, and a great distance away, or small and yet close to me, as though the dimensions of this world did not apply to it in some form or fashion. Yet, I somehow knew that it was roughly human in shape and size, as much as that can apply to someone, of course.

As I watched it outside my window, I could see the creature near my window, its arm outstretched, the arm formed what looked like finger, long and pointed at the end. I sat frozen unable to look away as the creature approached, those wretched hands ever coming nearer and nearer to my location.

It is only by chance or providence that I am able to write this now, and even then, I have my doubts as to what I am writing. At that moment when I knew that the creature and I would touch, and I dreaded it, but all the same could do nothing about it, what felt like a scream from a being either far away, or else done so quietly I could not tell from whence it came. I say a scream, for that is the closest our base tongue can come to what I heard on that dreadful predawn morning. The sound I heard could not have come from anything even closely resembling a human set of vocal chords, nor anything any live being could possibly make.

I dived under the covers of my bed, desperate to block out that hideous noise. Even as I lay there, I could feel the fear begin to erode my sanity, and I am thankful that I could not hear it fully, for I think I would have gone mad from the shock of it all.

I stayed under the covers until the morning had passed by several hours. I could not bare to think of what I had seen, and thus it was the next morning. The day passed normally enough, and that night, the statue that I now hated went back in its box, and the box into my closet.

It stayed there for many years, each time it gave me strange visions in the night that I am thankful I ill remember. The mere thought of what they might have been still fills me with indescribable horror. Each night I could feel my sanity slowly chipping away, and knew that the hated statue was a part of it. Yet, I could not bear to part with it either, as if it had some sort of magnetic hold on me. At times, I would find myself, wholly unconsciously, walking to my room to gaze upon its hated, ever changing surface. When I would catch myself at this, I would put the hated statue that I loved back into its box, and throw it once more back in the closet where it would hide away until the next time.

This occurred for a further six years, and I then moved away to university to study. I spent my time studying geology, as one likely would have expected me to do, given my penchant for rocks. I had achieved a certain measure of success in that regard, and hoped to achieve more.

What I was most anxious to find out was the composition of the strange crystal statue I had been given. Even after careful study of available types I could not tell what kind that dusky crystal was made of.

I was certain it was the statue that had given me my nightmares, for the first night I had slept in the crowded dorm rooms was the first night that I had no dreams at all. I slept well those days, and felt my sanity slowly returning to me bit by bit.

In the end it was only my Grandfather’s death that brought me back home again. I have mentioned before that the old man was strangely fond of me, but it still struck my as a surprise that he would give me his home that he had lived in for longer than I had been alive. Yet he had willed it, much to the chagrin of many of my relatives, whom I’m certain would have wanted it for themselves.

The house was much as I remembered it. It was near the ocean, which was enviable enough, I suppose. And the town of Finnley Bay was a fairly friendly one, at least if my grandfather’s accounts of the place could be believed.

It seemed almost as if Grandfather had stepped out, rather than died. Food still sat in the fridge, and notes of places he was to be, and other such appointments sat on his calendar as if waiting to remind him of what was to come.

The biggest thing I noticed, however was when I entered the study. I had never been allowed in there as a child on our infrequent visits. I think largely it was to keep me from disturbing my Grandfather’s various projects.

As I looked around the room I had never been in, something caught my eye. On my Grandfather’s writing desk sat a sheaf of papers with my name on them. His inkwell pen sat there as well, waiting for a new hand.

Curiosity struck me, and I picked up the sheaf of papers, and began reading in earnest.

To be Continued