Many have asked why I do not attempt to have myself released from the institution. They do not understand when I laugh and say there is no place I can go that is any safer--that we are all institutionalized and it is only a matter of time before we realize it.

Let me explain to you how this all began. After all, barely a few months ago I was a tenured and well-respected professor of history at Miskatonic University. And now I am here, once more reciting my testimony of one summer's night, from a memory that is so terribly clear to me that I shall never miss a single detail. I tell you these complete details of my fantastic story, knowing well that you will think me mad. I tell you this anyway, because there is no other tale to tell.

Three weeks before the night of the incident, George Denton, my companion and collogue, wrote me. Denton and I studied together at Miskatonic at one time, but had invariably gone our own ways afterward; I pursued education while he took it upon himself to travel. Many number of artifacts and tokens of native culture have I received from him, each with a return address more remote than the last.

I had not seen Denton nor heard from him in nearly seven years, save that he was now an antiquarian living in New England again and doing quite well. But now before me was a hand-written letter from Denton, inviting me to stay with him for a time. Eager to hear of his travels and adventures, I corresponded a few times more and it was agreed that I would drive to his cabin property and spend the week hunting and fishing.

[several weeks later, approaching the cabin. fill]

At this time I quickened my pace in the forest, eager to retreat into the shelter of the cabin. The hour was late and the only light illuminating the way before me was that from the moon. I cursed aloud that Denton's cabin should be so recessed from the only dirt road. Only a mile or so perhaps, but to one unaccustomed to the woods it was a chore. I quickly glanced around at my surroundings again. At this angle the trees struck me as distorted earthly figures, haunting as they blindly peered down at me. Although I am not usually prone to nervousness, the late hour was adding to my discomfort.

My attention sparked away when I heard a rustle of leaves behind me. Slowly I turned, but there was only silence. I walked on. Again I heard the leaves dance, and what sounded like something in the brush. I picked up my pace. Not that I actually feared that it was something threatening, but the woods at night has a certain power over the mind. It is the unknown, the dark, the potential. It is not what you know that is frightening, but rather what you don't know that stirs the dark recesses of the mind. Truly, imagination has its darker half. So the sooner I was indoors the greater my ease would be.

Abruptly I realized I was not alone in the woods. There came a whining sound from the night that can only be described as a terrible meow. It was drawn out and low, and grew into a sort of growl. Then I heard the sound of scraping movement, which transformed into something much worse. It was the thrashing of something large in the brush yards away from me. My blood ran ice cold as the adrenaline pumped through me. I immediately began running through the forest, dropping all pretenses of remaining calm, simply giving in an older instinct: survival. Wind rushed madly across my face and the trees above me, stirring their limbs in silent excitement.

The sounds of the night were lost to me, drowned out by the sound of blood rushing through my ears. I wasn't able to determine if the sound I heard was giving chase to me or not. But again, at this time that no longer mattered, only fleeing. But then something loomed before me, a darker shade of black in the night. At last I had reached Denton's wooded retreat. Instantly I burst through the door, slamming it behind me as I slumped against the hard oak with all my weight.

Silence once more, only much welcomed this time. I sat unmoving for many minutes as my let my breathing become more relaxed. Eventually I sat up and looked about me. My eyes adjusted to the light being emitted from a fireplace. The cabin was of rustic log walls and consisted of only one room, but quite well furnished. A mantle hung above the fireplace, on top of which rested framed photos, a clock, and a carved wooden figurine. The clock read half-past midnight. There was an antique writing desk in one corner of the room, which was cluttered with dozens of papers and books. On the walls hung several paintings of great skill. [describe one]. Bookshelves lined nearly all of one wall. I had never known before that Denton collected books as well.

In the other corner there was a great leather chair, seemingly guarding a shelf of novels beside it. I let my body collapse into the chair, closed my eyes for a moment and relaxed. I wondered briefly were Denton was. Probably collecting firewood or the like. How cruelly impossible it was for me to have imagined his true fate. After a few minutes I opened my eyes and focused on the books near me. They turned out not to be novels, but volumes on the occult. Such titles as Cultes des Goules , Book of Dzayan, and Revelations of Glaaki left me in the dark, figuratively if not literally as well! Oddly there was only one bed in the cabin.

There was a stirring beneath me, below the floor. I hadn't realized the cabin had a cellar. Again I heard sounds below, and then something crashing over. Thinking that perhaps my friend was retrieving a cot or the like for me to sleep upon, I rose to assist him.

I found the trapdoor near the cabin's wash basin. I opened it and descended. As I did so the musty damp of earth seeped into my nostrils. Dank, but mingled with something sweet. Upon reaching the base of the ladder I dusted my hands and again looked about me. It was dim, but not completely dark. There were candles warring against the gloom, but rather than in candleholders they rested on the earthen floor. Trunks lined the walls of the small room, and even more books were strewn upon the heavy dirt. It struck me as unusual for only the briefest of moments, because next I saw the most unusual thing I have ever seen.

At first I saw a giant slab of rock, in the shape of a crude table or altar. It must have weighed a tremendous amount as it appeared to have been hewed from a single stone. The slab was decorated with glyphs, cryptic in nature. Here too, were beeswax candles. On top of the stone were only three items. The first was a small bowl of burning incense, the source of the sweetness in the air. The second was a tome of some sort, and the third was a metal box.

I walked towards these items with slow, almost dream-like curiosity. The book was open and of immense age judging by the withered parchment paper. I was about to turn its cover open for inspection, but paused when I looked at the metal box next to it. I could see now that the box was not a box at all, but a small metal cube roughly the size of a fist. Its surface was etched with running lines, some running parallel and others curved. There were a number of arcane runes engraved in between the etched lines. Even though I have no experience with artifacts, I knew it was very old. I leaned forward to lift the item, when I noticed something previously hidden. Lying behind the rock altar was a large mirror. It was an antique as well, silver and polished. This was doubtlessly the source of the crash I heard only moments earlier. I stepped behind the stone table and looked down into the fallen mirror. It seemed a simple thing at the time. But how it would prove disastrous to the integrity of my mind for I simply could not have forsaw.

I shall not call it a beast, for to do so would imply something akin to that of our natural world. This was no beast of nature. The body of the creature was large and hunched, resembling a man's. Yet there was no mistaking this for any sort of man. It struck me as immensely powerful, due to overly muscled limbs. At the end of each heavily corded forearm the thing's claws splayed and clenched. Its skin was smooth looking, rubbery and black as tar, much like a seal's. Most freakish were the wings stemming from its shoulder blades--black, featherless and leathery like that of a bat. A heavy tail swayed slowed back and forth.

The demon's head was abysmal and terrible. Two small gray horns curved inward. Its maw hung open and panting under a sleek nose, revealing a surprisingly even set of slightly edged teeth. But the eyes. Two black orbs of darkness, pupil-less and solid. And yet this creature emitted intelligence, possibly of a sort like no other on this earth. The eyes drew me in with a hypnotic quality. I could look nowhere else. My legs were useless to me for I could not move, and doubt there was anywhere I could escape to even if I could. I could do nothing but stand gape at my destruction.

And then something happened. The image of the creature in the mirror's reflection began to fade. After a few moments it dissipated completely, back to whatever foul place it came, leaving only my own deathly pale reflection.

My mind and will power were lost to me, streaming off into the unknown depths of mental instability. Something that terrifying and unspeakably evil sent my mind reeling into thoughts of things which should not be. My vision vanished; the thing's awful imprint the only image remaining. It took all I could to keep from drowning into that image, yet still it pulled me deeper. I struggled with it, resisting the gnawing fear which merely begged to surrender. Then something else happened. I saw--no, felt--the presence of another image.

Its presence was faint at first, but growing; a dim shape, becoming clearer. Edges became defined, its body shimmered into view. The metal cube on the stone altar. Words foreign to me echoed in my mind; a chorus of sounds raising to a crescendo yet still unclear, as if I were beneath the surface of water. Glyphs that were previously unknown took on definition, their meaning vaguely familiar. The cube was clear to me now, but it seemed of impossible dimensions, for I could see all of its edges in utmost clarity. How much time had passed I did not know. Minutes or hours, they were all the same moments of eternity. Eventually the items next to the cube on the altar came into focus, and then the altar itself, until once more I found myself alone in the cellar.

I staggered back and rested on the stone table. For the first time I looked at the ancient tome's cover. Cthulhu Liber Ivonis, it read. Upon a weak inspection of the text I saw it was written in an arcane script unknown to me in all my years of study. It was obvious now that Denton was not only a collector of the occult, but as participant as well. What he had in store for my visit troubles me still. But soon my eyes drifted back to my salvation, the cube glittering oddly in the candlelight. Reaching to touch it I stumbled, not due to my weakened state but rather over something lying on the floor.

Looking down, my insides rippled in eternal disgust, and then I began to howl as a beast--an earthly beast'mortally wounded. For I recognized the ripped apart and ribboned strands of flesh oozing beneath my feet to be all that remained of George Denton.