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reason, a power beyond the bid of nature desired the death
of a man who, for all intents and purposes, was only alive
in the most basic of definitions. Doubting this conclusion
enough to inspect the room a second time, I searched through
its every detail, interrogating each pore of pointlessness.
Mercifully, something stood out during my second look. It
wasn’t a detail I found, but a generality—the room was too
eager to convince. It was all wrong, betraying a confidence
born of skill. The furniture, the decorations, everything.
Like a smiling corpse, the room was an expression without
emotion. The interior appeared exactly as it should, but there
was a precision and restraint to it all—a deliberate calculus
of dullness. The room was a mask.
I searched with new eyes, looking for the edges of the
disguise, wishing to pull it back. Of course, I felt like a
fool when I realized what distinguished the apartment from
all the other wan spaces of the fading building. It was the
balcony—or more accurately, its view. The lofty vantage
delivered a fine look at a small church leaning into the
woods, where saprophytic legions searched its cracked skin,
seeking nourishment.
No sooner had I turned to make for the church than I
detected something strange, the implications of which were
entirely fascinating. Through some means I assumed directly
linked to the ominous Red Dream and the list that supplied
it, I somehow perceived an echo of someone else’s dream.
The fading vision haunted the spaces of the balcony, faintly
traced by the silence of lantern light and coiling shadows of
ivy. I could see it as plainly as the moon looking down upon
me. It maintained an etherealness, declaring its connection
to the other side. The fragment was only slightly alive, like
smoldering ashes after a fire. I could barely make out the
dim shape of a singular purpose, timeless and thankless in its
pursuit. That, and a prominence of sorrow nearly hardened
to complete hatred. Before I could contemplate the wayward

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