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CHAPTER TWENTY

Willard, a strange and abandoned place, was home to the
Wasting Houses—structures wherein its entire population
had once been interred for suffering from a mysterious
madness. No one knows precisely—or even approximately—
the cause for the madness that had drowned the city, but
whatever the source, be it supernal or supernatural, its
effects cannot be denied their place within the canon of the
supremely strange—and the supremely wonderful.
I approached the city like a moth drawing upon the sun,
foolish and fascinated. I could feel dangers seething beneath
the ground like glowing coals fresh from a fire, just begging
to burn. Yet I didn’t—couldn’t—care. Here was the truest
freedom, early proof of a world tread upon by dreams.
Madness is the one darkness the light cannot kill—it
screws up its face in utter defiance. It’s a nightmare that
survives waking, wandering upon bruised feet through the
fever heat of blistering white banality. And much like old
shadows, madness is often reposed within ancient places,
locked up and forgotten, tended only by the wisps of ghosts
and whirls of dust. However, it should be noted that madness
is only considered such due to the broad consensus of the
mad, each suffering equally from delusion. In their superior
numbers and broken wisdom, they have concluded that their
madness is the one true reality. Poor fools, all.
The place, if indeed it qualified as merely a thing with
geographical specificity, slowly became a silhouette against

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