An Excerpt From A Chemist's Diary

I don't know what to make of these strange occurrences, and I fear that if I explain them to anyone else, I'll be branded a lunatic by society. So I write my observations this diary, both to keep my sanity and in hopes that if the unspeakable were to happen to me, someone in the future may be able to explain these events. Or, if not explain, then avoid entirely.

What I am about to write in these pages are true events, written to the best of my memory. At times, it may seem more like an outlandish horror story, but I swear, on my mother's grave, that these incidents are not fictitious. I realize that the bulk of the text may be overwhelming to some, so if you happen to come across this diary in the future, I offer one piece of advice to you.

If you ever find yourself alone, and you feel like you're being watched by something. Or, if you enter a room by yourself and are suddenly subject to inexplicable chills and feelings of panic, then it's there. Behind you. Hidden in plain sight. Staring you right in the back of the head. And if you ever find yourself in those situations, the only advice that I can offer is...

Do not look behind you.

My story began after a mildly amusing night of discussion at the duke's castle. A night of revelry and light drinking, with jests of Dwarven invasions, debates on advances in crystalline weaponry, and remembrances of the recently deceased squire of Sir Epicure. The Dwarven clock struck 10 as I bid my farewells and departed the stone castle.

The azure bloom of the moonlight bathed the town in a gentle blue spotlight. An ambient orchestra of cricket chirps and owl hoots set the stage as shadows and silhouettes of pirouetting birds and shuffling branches danced across the cobblestone ground and against the wooden walls of sleeping houses and drowsy shops that had just closed for the day. I remember it struck me as a beautiful sight, and for all intents and purposes, should have been completely relaxed in the tranquility.

But I was far from calm. A feeling of dread overcame me at some point during the lengthy promenade home. A feeling that made me tug at my collar in unease and glance periodically behind my shoulder. I didn't know why I felt so nervous at the time. I had absolutely nothing to worry about, I had made this short trek a hundred times before, within the exact same circumstances.

But as I got closer and closer to my home, the nervousness followed. At last, when I finally grasped the doorknob of my home, I turned my head one last time to see if there was anyone behind me.

And a brief blur, as something darted behind a wooden house. Much too tall to be any wild animal, much too agile to be an orc, and elves were scarcely found in this area. But it was probably midnight by then, no sane person would be outside of their house at this hour. What could it be?

I was curious, but my fatigue took the best of me, and I ignored it. I went to sleep.



The next day, I had inquired several patrons to my potion shop about any suspicious occurrences that they noticed overnight, like misplaced races, or wild animals, or stolen goods, but out of my 50 customers, not one reported anything different. Therefore, I concluded that my mind, in its exhaustion, had been mischievous, and played tricks on me.

Until later that day, when the last patron was about to leave and I prepared to close shop. I saw it. Pressed against my window.

A bald, featureless face. Deathly pale, like a corpse. Eyes sunken in like deep black craters that managed to pierce the abyssal veil. No nose, no mouth, no ears. Just an empty, blank slate face and voidal chasms.

I froze in sheer terror. The last patron had bid me farewell, but the face absorbed all of my attention and the words shattered to the ground, unheard.

"Is there a problem?" The gentleman asked, when he noticed I hadn't replied. He walked toward me and I slowly thawed, pointing my finger at the window. He looked where I was pointing.

And he could not see it. The inhuman abomination, staring us right in the face, and he couldn't see it. I wanted to scream.

"I think all this time indoors has taken a toll on your brain, my friend!" He laughed a hearty laugh and exited my shop while I was locked in an unwilling, perpetual staring contest with this monster, heart racing, separated only by glass.

Without losing visibility of the creature, I felt my way around my shop, looking for a weaponized potion, a sword, anything. A metal glassblowing pipe. It would have to do.

With utmost caution, I approached the beast. It pressed its hideous face directly against the glass, still as a stone.

And I smashed the glass into a thousand pieces with the pipe and the beast shattered along with it. It was gone. No longer behind the glass, and it wasn't a reflection either. It was as if the beast had been inside the glass somehow, thought it looked completely three dimensional.

Regardless, I was happy that it was gone. I repaired the window with a drop of a simple reparation potion, and I went back to sleep.

I had horrifying nightmares. The Faceless, they were my town's only inhabitants. From windows, behind half-open doors, I walked down the blood red cobblestone floor and The Faceless watched me. Mocking me. Tormenting me. I screamed and clawed my eyes out, begging for the dream to end, but it wouldn't, and second after every second of burning agony seemed like eternity as I gauged my eyes out, not wanting to see The Faceless.



I woke up. At long last, I woke up, bedsheets drenched in sweat from the horror I had just gone through.

Suddenly, a knock at my door, and my heart raced once more. I tiptoed around my shop a bit longer and found a blacksmith hammer by the furnace. I was ready.

With a deafening creak, I opened the door just a crack, so only half of my face were visible to the outside world. I saw a decent sized crowd gathered around my house.

"We heard the screaming. Is everything all right? You've been yelling for the past five minutes," a man stood in front of the crowd, talking to the sliver of open door. I assured him everything was fine and was about to request that he and the crowd leave while I prepare to open shop.

But then I saw it. Adrenaline and fear pumped into my veins as I saw it, in the midst of the crowd. It thought it could hide from me. It thought it could blend in with everyone else.

A Faceless. Staring right at me.

Quickly, I slammed the door open, much to everyone's surprise. I pushed aside heads of people and kicked The Faceless to the ground. The people screamed in shock as The Faceless fell to the ground. I rose the hammer over my head.

And I felt great. I destroyed The Faceless. No longer would its evil visage torment my dreams. I grinned.

But the townsfolk around me were horrified. Panicked cries of women and tearful children. Angry men, sorrowful men, they had gone crazy.

"You monster! What have you done!" I was shoved to the ground.

"Fools! Do you not see the monster that I had just slain! Do not treat me as a villain, hail me as a hero!"

"A hero?! You've committed murder!"

"Murder is only murder when the victim is human, and this foul creature's far from that!"

But they kept protesting. Their protests turned into screams, and their screams dug like razors into my ears. I dropped the hammer and pressed against my ears with the palms of my hands, charging my way through the crowd, hoping that their noises would go away, until at long last, I escaped the town and their screams ended.



I now live as an outcast, in an aged, abandoned home in the middle of nowhere. The nightmares haven't ceased. If anything, they've gotten worse. Shrieks of agony echo through my mind as I slumber, the scent of rotting waterlogged corpses burning my nose, the taste of filth burnt into my tongue, all becoming more and more vivid in my nightmares. Always the same nightmare, every night. Walking down the same, blood red cobblestone path.

And the worst part are The Faceless. I can't take the sight of them. My dreams always end the same way. A crowd of The Faceless, circling me, shrieking as I claw at my eyes, begging for them to stop.

And I wake up to blood-caked nails.





Author's Note: Really quick genre fusion I wrote in a day because someone requested it on my Ask Box. Prompt was "Fantasy Horror," so you can be the judge as to how well I managed to fulfill those two genres.

I'm actually really happy how this story turned out. I didn't really outline it, I just kept writing and going with whatever ideas popped into my mind as I typed, and it worked out pretty well. In my opinion, a bit better than my first horror story that I posted here and certainly a lot better than my first genre fusion on here.

Shorter than usual story because I'm preoccupied with SO MANY THINGS right now. AP Testing, CSTs, but most importantly, the name story that I'm publishing next week. Already have outlines for all of the names that have been submitted to me as of today, but of course, you have until midnight, Friday to submit a name for me to write about!