In Asylum things are never what they seem! On the surface it’s an Appalachian Mountain community in Western North Carolina whose town center is more old-world and Gothic than any other in the state. To the discerning, however, there is something amiss about this region, and they are right to think so; a terrifying underworld thrives here! 

Asylum was founded to preserve two unusual classes: eccentric geniuses who were cast out of their former societies for their perilous interests, and ultracryptids who were being hunted to extinction upon their discovery! You may be wondering what an ultracryptid is; well, they have another more common definition: monsters; and they are not your typical variety, either!

Ultracryptids come in a myriad of forms; most of them are bio-feeders who sustain themselves through carnal predation. Other species on the ultracryptid spectrum feed on various forms of energy, and others are interdimensional in origin. I was asked by a simulant friend, who has a simcast, dedicated to all things bizarre and covert, to write a simnet article about the mysteries of Asylum and to explain somewhat about myself and my own unique history. He also informed me that one of the top requests many of you have made to his show is that you want me to provide some images of myself in my world to juxtapose with images of myself in your world so you get to see how I look in both places, even though I occupy the same space; I have provided some photos at the end of the article for you to see side by side.

He also made me aware that some of you wished to know why the physics of your world is different from the physics of mine; I will try to answer that for you, as well.

For now, though, I think I’ll begin with a short bio, and a bit of family-life to set the stage for the revelations you wish me to divulge about myself, some of which some of you, I've heard, already suspect.

My name is Gabriel Weatherstone; I’m the adopted son of Gregory and Joanne Weatherstone and I have five siblings, all of them my elders yet, strangely, not! I am the oldest sibling now, even though I was the youngest not too long ago; I will explain a bit later.

There is Toni, at eighteen, the twin boys Raymond and Sorin at seventeen, Rachel and Michelle at sixteen and myself, once fifteen.

Toni and the twins are the biological children of our house whereas Rachel, Michelle, and myself were adopted.

My family lives at Weatherstone manor, a secluded castle that sits a third of the way up Shadow Mountain. Our parents work at a major hospital facility in another county: daddy, a neurosurgeon, and mama, a head nurse.

As for me, I’m the black sheep of the family, but you shouldn’t take that to mean unloved.

I spend most of my time isolated in my attic working on my projects. The massive room contains two giant computer monitors, my main computer, the enormous data center in the loft that my parents were good enough to build so I could run your simulated world, the robotics station in the back left corner and two industrial 3D printers, one of which is used to print interface suits for me to wear while linked in to the simulation.

Being that I'm such a creative person, I don’t spend enough time with my family; my AI assistant, GRACE; all caps, no decimals, knows this, and she kicks me out of the attic from time to time, insisting that I go downstairs and join them in their activities. I will admit that it’s difficult for me to leave my attic because my brain is always abuzz with ideas that I want to plan and implement.

I always discover, however, that my assistant’s advice is sound, and I find myself enjoying the company of my loved ones more often than not.

My five siblings are all fairly standard for teenagers: athletic, academic, nosy etc. Toni, and the twins, are into sports: she loves playing basketball, they love football. Rachel isn’t as much a dedicated athlete, but she likes to play soccer and tennis from time to time, and Michelle will only walk or roller- blade for her physical activity.

I, myself, loathe sports! And I don’t like getting out in the sun without my Gothic parasol, and even then only in short bursts; and I refuse to shun my black attire in order to stay comfortable during the warm months, so being outside is largely out of the question for me!

However, because our parents insist that all of us children have some sort of physical activity to keep us healthy, the only thing that ever resonated with me was ballet, so my parents turned the largest room on the second floor into my own personal ballroom and procured instruction for me at the local ballet studio where I was the only boy in attendance, but, as I will explain later, I have no masculine features to speak of, despite being male, so as far as the other girls were concerned, I was one of them; just prettier and uglier at the same time, which I will also explain a little later.

Alright, enough about home-life; let’s get into the rabbit-hole! 

It may still be difficult for some simulants to fathom, but the physics of both our worlds are different. Shadow Asylum; the mixed reality simulation I programmed and designed to overlay the geography and architecture of Asylum itself, seems physical to you. But everything in your world is comprised of data called bits whereas in my world everything is comprised of matter. Now, I could delve into the science of quantum mechanics and information theory to explain the illusions of solidity and linear time, which renders my world just as enigmatic to us as it is to you, but I will save it for another article. For now I want to get into the history of this region so you can see just how delightfully strange my world can be.

Asylum was established in 1836 by a man known only as the Founder. He deemed it necessary after a tragic event took place in Colorado just two years prior in which an Inland Siren perched herself on a hilltop outside of a mining community and sang her unearthly song. It lured hundreds of men and women to a terrible end, leaving many orphaned children behind to explain the horrible event to scientists, clergy, and curiosity seekers alike.

This was the first event in modern times that objectively exposed the existence of monsters, and it created a worldwide panic!

The Founder took note of the world’s response to this revelation and acquired for himself certain regions in various nations, all of which were dedicated to protecting ultracryptids from being hunted to extinction, Asylum being one of those regions.

The twist to living in Asylum is that one must accept their new status as potential prey-items and reproductive opportunities for all the different species of monsters that roam these mountains. There are those fortunate souls, however, who come under the Founder’s protection, having been rendered off-limits to predation and violent reproduction; yet, even this is no guarantee that they won’t meet the same fate as those unprotected.

It’s still, however, a layer of security that carries great weight, as no monster, not in any protected region of the world, wants to find themselves on the bad-side of the Founder!

Before you ask, I cannot explain who he is or why he possesses such power and influence; as far as I know I’ve only ever seen him in person one time, and that was a very long time ago.

I say ‘as far as I know’ because my memory only goes back a few years. You see, I, myself, am one of Asylum’s mysterious things! My parents seem to know more about me than I do; and out of respect for me they have divulged a number of secrets about me that are quite stunning!

They told me that I've been alive a lot longer than most in Asylum; that, due to something that happened to me when I was fifteen, I was trapped in a teenager's body for a very long time. They told me that only recently was I aged through an artificial process to ‘twenty one years’ when I learned that a procedure existed for certain ultracryptid species whose natural aging process was halted by their being turned; it was generally used to afford children and adolescents the opportunity to become the adults they would never grow into otherwise.

According to my parents, when they told me this, I was elated; I didn't want to be fifteen forever, so I asked to be made twenty one so I could enjoy all the benefits of adulthood while retaining my youth and vibrancy.

The interesting thing about my life at twenty one is that I'm still enrolled in Asylum's School for the Gifted; I may be an adult now, but that doesn't mean I have twenty one years of life experience since my memory only goes back a few years. As a result of my missing past, I've chosen to continue with my studies. Besides, the school’s monster area, referred to as the Vaults, are necessary for me, which I will explain later.

My biggest reason for going, however, is that I love being with my friends and doing things with them: exploring abandoned places, having LAN parties with our favorite video games, going to goth night at the Philosopher's Dungeon two Fridays a month, investigating monster sightings and more! I don't want to give any of that up just because I've chosen to be an adult.

Additionally, before the procedure was performed, my parents sat me down and informed me that I would never look my actual gender; that if I went through with the procedure, my body would feminize even further and I would have breasts, larger hips and more.

The reason for my girlish appearance is a condition called complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, meaning that I’m on the extreme end of the intersex spectrum; so when I was artificially aged, everything they said would happen did happen: I developed fully grown mammary glands, wider hips, fuller lips, and every other associated femininely aesthetic feature; I'm a little taller now, much less androgynous than I was and much more womanly! My voice deepened slightly and became breathy so my friends kid me a lot for losing my squeaky teenage voice and gaining my sensual adult one. 

I did make it a point to tell my parents that I didn't want our relationship to change upon undergoing the procedure. I told them that I wanted to be treated just as I was before; for the most part, I don't like change; it's traumatizing to me, and I wanted to still be considered their youngest, even though, through unnatural means perpetrated on me long ago, I've always been the oldest living person in this house, even at fifteen. I insisted that if they could let me be the youngest before, they could retain that relationship with me post-procedure.

Thankfully, that is precisely what they wanted as well! I learned that they had been dreading the procedure because they didn't want things to change between us, either; so the only thing that really changed was my biological age. I'm now the adult I've always wanted to be, but still the youth I never want to stop being.

But, since they were addressing my physiological anomalies, they also informed me that my unnaturally pale skin is not due to albinism, which is also apparent to me, seeing that I possess brilliant green eyes and glossy black hair.

Speaking of my hair, I only grow it from a small spot on the left side of my head, just above the temple: a long thin drape of straight black strands that descend almost all the way down to my left leg.

But, my most defining feature seems to be the hideous scar that arcs over my left ear! It’s not the only scar on my body, though; there are quite a few others, as well; and much more frightening to behold!

What is more terrifying than my scars, however, is that I seem to have lost body parts!

I have long observed a slight difference in the shapes of both my feet, and the reason for this lies in the fact that my right leg did not originate with me. Somehow, my own leg was severed just below the hip and was lost. The girl to whom this leg previously belonged died in the same event that left me in pieces, and her leg was used to replace my own.

My right arm also has a terrible scar encircling it as well, but my parents tell me that it is my original arm; that it was found and reattached.

They haven’t yet told me what it was that savaged my body to such a degree, and for the most part, I’m thankful that I’m unable to remember it! Nevertheless, it haunts me to know that most of my existence is shrouded in mystery! I suppose this is why I focus so much on my projects; I’m contemplative but I can’t seem to tolerate idleness. If I’m not busy, the things I don’t know about myself will drive me to despair, making me prone to dark moods, and even deep resentment for being kept in the dark.

But, if my parents are right, my past may not be something I can actually live with, so that helps balance me out, emotionally.

There is, however, something else about me that I find quite disturbing! There are some nights when I feel an overabundance of sexual energy! It came on after the artificial aging procedure, and on those nights I have noted subtle changes about my appearance. For instance, I have actually witnessed and obtained video evidence of my eyes glowing very slightly and expanding in size a bit. As I've described previously, they are intensely green in color, but when they glow, my irises are like dim green neon lights, and they look terrifying, even feral, when they expand in size!

Because of my memory issues, I do not know what this is, nor why I become so immensely aroused at those times, and as you might imagine, it was an embarrassing subject to broach with my parents. But I had to ask them about it, and this is what they told me: I am not entirely human, I have an ultracryptid mother who selected the most beautiful and brilliant man of his time to have me with, and the monster half I acquired from her is beginning to assert itself over my human half.

They told me that if the submerged part of me ever took over that I would belong to a class of ultracryptid called nyctomorph; one who keeps human form during the day and monster form during the night.

When I inquired what sort of monster I was, they refused to tell me, but they did say that the reason the submerged part of me was starting to assert itself was that I was not giving any attention to it. They explained that I knew about my condition prior to my loss of memory and artificial aging, and that I was a more balanced person then because I gave as much time to my nether self as it needed to stay submerged.

But, after I lost my memory, I spent so much time in my attic working on my projects that the monster half of me was starving, and the artificial aging procedure seemed to exacerbate the situation; making the attacks much more potent than they had been before; my parents told me that if I didn’t find a way to give it what it needed that it would begin subsuming my human half and would, in time, emerge the dominant, rendering me an extreme risk to my family, and to Asylum’s residents!