Entry 25

On Plants (continued)

I started with a clump of simple grass. It died the very day I planted it. I continued with a long, stringy plant, but it died within the week. Finally, I planted one of the only flowered plants I’ve ever seen as close to a dreamer as I could get it. The next day, it had grown by about two inches. The third day, it was standing about three feet tall, with the flower on it’s head the size of my opened hand. It stopped growing on the fifth day, but on the sixth, thorns the size of my little finger had sprouted among the stalk. By the time the two weeks had passed, the flower was so covered in spikes it seemed a maw of a horrific beast. I believe the Veil covering the Dreamers are somehow connected to the Hollow Men. 

Entry 28

Marvin injured his hand today. He requested I make an entry on his behalf.  

This journal is quite durable. It shows some degree of craftsmanship. Marvin can't remember how he made it, or how long it took. Paging through it I can see patches in the spine where more paper has been added, and the far more curious parts where pages have been ripped out. It's full of blunt transitions from one source of ink to another. I don't think he ever uses the same type of ink twice. I doubt he remembers how he made it the last time. That would be a useful thing to write down. The man is terribly absentminded. There are dozens of entries highlighting the most trivial things, but it's nigh on void of anything practical. 

A few hours ago, I expect, we were in the woods. Marvin spent a good, long while staring at a small hollow. It was docile, inactive, and small enough to not cause me worry. It must've been hours I let him watch. Likely, he was lost in a pensive cycle. Repeating the same strands of thought and forgetting them just as quickly, over and over. It really won't do to have him so befuddled. If not for his journal, I doubt he'd be any better than any other meandering figure. When I called to him, he flinched as if he'd forgotten I was there, and ogled a few seconds longer as if he'd forgotten who I was. I think it was in those moments, before his eyes widened in recognition of me that I decided I am not a patient man. I killed that hollow. It left it's taint on me, and I wiped clean the filth it left upon the earth. I was slow and deliberate, letting Marvin take note of it. I wouldn't have him forget the process, because I am not patient enough to let him take the slow path to enlightenment. 

I am aware there is more than one way to achieve clarity. And Marvin, as he is, already holds the mark of it. It is a clue to where another source may lie. Perhaps a cleaner source. But it is not for me. I know my own way.  

He's asked why I see so clearly. There is a set purpose I've in mind. I kill hollows. I take the taint of them on myself. Each time I do, the world becomes sharper. More detailed. I remember things. Sometimes, things I'd rather forget. But ignoring them won't make them any less true. Denial is disrespect.

As I told him, I will answer to Regret. I suppose this is all I am now. Names hardly matter. Empty labels. This early in, and yet this late.

I was never much of a drinker. I prefer to keep my wits about myself. I dislike grasping for words and not finding them, or numbing my senses till I'm nearly blind to whatever goes on around me. Thus, here, I take the sobering elixir, vile though it may be. 

Entry 24

I can’t fathom how wrong I was. I’m still not sure if he’s lying or if I’m crazy. More than anything, I suspect I’m merely confused. Confusion runs rampant in Asphodel.

I stepped outside of my home, grabbing the poker whose end I’d sharpened. I took a deep breath, ready to die, and rushed at him, half expecting him to disappear again. I lifted the spear and thrust it at his midsection. He seemed surprised at my outburst but moved like water flowing, sidestepping my attack easily. I tumbled, falling into the dirt. I was terrified. Part of me just wanted to lie there and wait for him to attack me. The other part wanted to live, or at least die fighting. I twisted on the ground to face him. He hadn’t moved. He just stared at me, a quizzical look in his eye. He had to be disoriented. Confused. He’d woken up less than a year ago. He should be walking around, I thought to myself. Not caring where he went. Or sitting down for days on end. He should not be following anyone around. He should not be killing hollows. He tilted his head. “Why did you attack me,” he said. His voice was jarring. He spoke in the same half-whisper everyone else did. When they did speak. More often than not, those who woke were as silent as the Dreamers. His question startled me. But, more importantly, it angered me.

“How dare you,” I said to him, getting to my feet. My intelligence screamed at me to leave it be. That he could kill me without thought. But emotion won. “You dare stalk me, follow me around, scare me half to death, stare at me through my window, and question me for thinking you might be dangerous? You killed a fucking hollow with your bare hands! You-” He held up a hand. “What?” he asked. “What was that?” “You don’t remember. Of course you don’t. Why have you been following me around?” He smiled at me. It was not a warm smile. “You write. None of the others do. But you do.” “You’ve been stalking me because you saw me with my journal?” “Not stalking. I’ve been trying to get your attention for months now. I see you walking and you stop for no reason. I snap, I clap, I tap you on the shoulder, but nothing seems to get your attention. You just stand there until I leave. I’ve stood outside your house, waiting for you to notice me, while you just stare into the distance. This is the twelfth time I’ve knocked on your door. You can imagine my surprise when you finally opened, with a sharpened metal stick and tried to run me through with it.”

I simply stared at him. My hands grew cold and the hair on my arms lifted. It couldn’t be true. I had known I’d been forgetting things, but this was something new. In hindsight, staring speechlessly probably wasn’t the best reaction to what he’d just told me. He snapped his fingers in front of my face, starting to panic. “No, it’s okay, I’m still here,” I told him. He’d seemed nearly ready to shake me. Relief showed on his face as he looked at me. I invited him inside and a few minutes later, we were sitting on the floor of my basement. I told him of my experience with the hollow I’d locked up. That stood him up straight.

“You captured the leader?” Skepticism colored his voice. “Yes,” I said slowly. “How?”  “I don’t remember.” “Didn’t you write it down in that book of yours?” I laughed wryly. “No. I meant to do it later, but the day after I wrote my first entry, the memory was gone. How do you know him? How do you know he’s their leader?” “He’s the only one with a home. Not much of a home, to be fair. It’s a hole in a wall of rock. A small cave at best. I was lucky to get as close as I did. As it was I had to put down 4 of the beasts to get away.”

“Do you know your name?” I don’t know why I asked the question. It was random. There was no real reason for it. I expected him to say no. I did not expect the affront in his eyes. “Do you?” he asked derisively. “My name is Marvin.” He muttered under his breath, something that sounded very close to “glass bowl.” Whatever the hell that means.

“Why were you following the hollows?” I asked, as politely as possible.

“Hollows?”

“The creatures with the gray skin.”

“Hollows. Did you come up with that name yourself?”

“It was Hollow Men, at first.”

“Hollow Men. From the poem? By T.S. Elliot?” I was shocked. How did he remember so much, in so little time? How did he know anything at all? So many questions. He was an anomaly greater than any other I’d yet encountered. I asked him if he knew that he was different.

“A blind man could see that I’m different,” he laughed. “You’re different too. Why so surprised that another like you exists?” Then it was my turn to laugh.

“I’m nothing like you, boy. No one is. My ‘differentness’, for lack of a better word, comes from many, many years of life. More years than I can count.”

“Interesting. Is there any way to tell how old someone is, here?”

“No. At least, not that I know of.”

“Hm. We should work on that. So why Hollow Men?”

“’Shape without form, shade without colour,  Paralysed force, gesture without motion’,” I quoted.

That didn’t happen. What the hell did I just write. I didn’t remember the poem. I didn’t know why I chose it. That’s what I told him. But. Now I remember it. The poem. I remember all of it. I used to have it memorized. I guess I do again.

“Hm. We should work on that. So why Hollow Men?”

“I have no idea. The name kind of fits. I don’t suppose you remember what it says?”

“Just the ending. ‘This is how the world ends. Not with a bang but a whisper.’”

“There’s something I want to ask you about,” I said nervously. I couldn’t fathom doing something like that. It’s… filthy. Like drinking sewage. I wanted to be as delicate as possible.

“Yes?” he asked warily, no doubt responding to the tone of my voice.

“When you kill the hollows. Do you… Do something to them? Or rather, to their corpses?” He chuckled loudly.

“Is that what you were afraid to ask? Yes. I… drain them somehow. I don’t know what it does. Only that it feels right.” Right? It most certainly was something wrong. I didn’t press the issue. I simply said “Oh,” and moved on. We spoke at length, but (and I’m not sure how we got to this point), this is how it ended.

“So you study them as well. These “hollows” as you call them,” he said calmly.

“Yes. They’re fascinating, aren’t they?”

“Is fascinating the right word? It seems too grand a word to describe the mangy savages that roam the woods.” I disagreed with him greatly. They were fascinating. And, despite how this may sound I’ll say it anyway, they were, and are magnificent in their own, twisted way.

“The confusion that haunts you, and all of the others that have woken from the Dream. I may be able to help with it.”

“How?”

“What one can figure out without thought, two should be able to figure out with.” From that moment, he had me hooked. I was determined to escape the invisible prison that enclosed the living of Asphodel. If he could help me, there was little I would not give.

“What do I call you, then?”

“Call me whatever you like, Marvin.”

“Names tell a lot about a person. That’s not something I’m qualified to do.” He sat, silent, for nearly a minute, simply staring at the ground. I was just about to say that he didn’t need to put so much thought into it when he breathed the word “regret.” Certain that I misheard him, I asked him what he’d said.

“Regret.” This was the first word I’d heard him, or anyone, say without the breathy whisper of Asphodel. “You may call me Regret.” He looked at me with intense eyes that dared me to ask what it was he regretted. I bit off the question and the perfunctory “that’s not a name.”

So I was that Regret came to live with me. Well, in a manner of speaking. He prefers sleeping under the stars, or so he says. I’m not certain that he does sleep. I plan on joining him upon the conclusion of this entry. Confusion runs rampant in Asphodel. But I believe I’ve found a gem of clarity amongst it all.

Entry 13

On the forests 

In my many years, I’ve often wondered where the forests came from. I haven’t gotten any sort of answer but when I think back, I am sure that the forest was smaller then. I’ve seen houses in the forests. Torn apart by hollows. I have no doubt that the forests are growing and that if they grow to the village, the village will be destroyed and its inhabitants killed. I fear that eventually there will be nothing left but dreamers, forests, and hollows. 

Entry 15

On beasts

Today I saw a hollow that looked like a dog. It's uncommon to see bestial hollows. I mean, I've seen one before. Howard says he thinks he once saw a bird, too. Most hollows take on grotesquely deformed shapes, only vaguely recognizable as humanoid. I guess you could say a lot of them look like apes, but that's not really the same. All the bestial hollows I've seen have been more purposeful than is usual. And by purposeful, I mean violent. What other purpose do hollows have? Stood there staring at him. He was an oddity. But before I got a proper eyeful, he turned right round and looked me in the eye. I didn't linger after that. Turned and ran home fast as I could. I could hear howls behind me. Everything else is so quiet. Sounds like that really carry. I think I lost him along the way. I hope so. At least, I can't hear him anymore. Why do some hollows look like animals? Somehow, they seem superior to the bumbling grotesques that meander about the fields… More like predators. I don't like it.

Now I'm trying to remember who Howard was.

Entry 17

Two weeks. It has been two weeks since my 14th entry. Two weeks since I’ve begun to be afraid that insanity is around the corner of my mind. I figure it’s about damn time I accepted it and wrote it down. The man I saw kill the hollows. I’ve been seeing him everywhere. I see him out of the corner of my eye when I go for a walk in the forest. I see him when I go into town to study the other people. Every time I look straight at him, there’s no one there. I’m sure that I am going mad. I pray to whatever god it is that brought me here. I pray that I am not losing my mind. It’s been lost before. I refuse to let it out of my grip again.

Entry 18

I’ve seen him twelve times in the past month. Not even the hollows frighten me as much as this man does. I was walking to the town earlier today. (the man seems to prefer the forests). I was walking to the town and I saw him just out of the corner of my eye, moving alongside me. I did not look at him. I simply pretended I didn’t see him. I walked, waiting for him to do something. Anything. Once he seemed to be close enough to reach out and touch him, I threw myself sideways into his direction. There was no one there. Not a soul in the world but a handful of Dreamers laying in the dust. I screamed. I cursed. I screamed at him to come and find me, tears streaming down my face. No one replied. I walked back to my house and found it torn apart. All of my things strewn across the floor, with scratches everywhere. I suspected the man before remembering the long-tailed hollow. I’m losing my grip on my mind. I’m not going out anymore today. I fear to go out at night.

Entry 19

I’ve seen him another six times this last week. I don’t leave my room at all, anymore. I cried myself to sleep last night. I wake up shaking. Waiting for whatever that thing is to show itself and not disappear. I don’t know whether I am more afraid that this will happen, or that it won’t. I have lost all doubt that the thing is a hollow itself. A monster beyond my comprehension. For three days I simply stared out of my window, glancing around furiously, waiting for the thing to rear its head, but nothing. The following day I simply sat, peering outside the window with the sides of my vision. I saw it twice. The first time it merely stood. It was hard to tell without looking straight at it, but I am sure that it was looking straight at me. The second time it merely walked by my house without a glance in my direction.

Entry 20

I went out today, despite my better judgment.  I’ve decided that I will simply ignore it. Hallucination or devil, if it will not move against me, I refuse to let it chase me into my house. I’ve found I can keep it at bay simply by keeping my vision moving. It doesn’t seem to wish being spotted. I don’t know why it’s following me. Or even if it exists. I suspect I never will.

Entry 21

23 times today. I can’t do this. I just can’t. Something is going to have to change. I don’t know what. I don’t know what I can do. It’s always there. Always. I screamed at it again today. Please, please, God. Please, come to my aid. In times like this, I remember strings of words. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me. I feel like there is more, but I can’t for the life of me remember another word. There was something of righteousness in there, I think. Righteousness. How can anyone be righteous if the right no longer exists. I pity myself. Studying. Writing. Looking around. What’s the point in any of it. Four others grew self-aware. All dead, now. Slaughtered. We’re all just meat under the butcher’s axe. Knowing it’s so doesn’t make me less afraid. I’m still afraid. Just show yourself, devil. I may not be ready, but I doubt I’ll ever be more so.

Entry 22

I dreamt last night that the thing was a friend. He stood beside me and together we fought a horde of hollows. I hurled fire from my fingertips and he wielded a set of long knives. The one in his right hand was longer than my forearm, while the one in his left was barely half that. Inscriptions covered the short from hilt to point. They were in English, but, in the nature of dreams, I could not read them. The other was entirely plain, yet somehow I knew that it was the more dangerous of the two. Beyond that, I knew that it had a name. Zost. I don’t know how I remember that. I don’t know what it means, but part of me felt like it was significant. Once they all lay dead around me, he took a deep breath and the filth of their corpses seeped into him. He glowed with darkness and the look he gave me spoke of death. He was death incarnate.

  Entry 23

Entry 3

Brief notes on the veil

Sometimes I envy the dreamers. The hollows aren't usually aggressive, but sometimes they are. And there's no real way of knowing when they're in a mood. Always got to be wary. The dreamers though, they ignore completely. Couldnt hurt them if they wanted. I couldn't either. They're just plopped down randomly like boulders and no one can do anything about it. I had a dreamer appear in front of my door once. I couldn't get out of my house for a week. Sometimes I want to go back to sleep. I'd be safe from the hollows, yes. But for some reason I'm worried that if I fall asleep, I'll forget everything I've remembered.

Entry 5

On Plants

Surrounding the forest there is a surprising amount of vegetation. Plants of all kinds. However, upon entering the forest itself, there is nothing but the tall, looming trees. I have several theories concerning this. My first is that the hollows somehow require the plants for nutrition. Another is that the trees suck the nutrients from the soil, allowing nothing else to live. And the third is that the prolonged presence of the hollows kills the plants through the emission of some sort of dark energies. I have little patience for superstition, but upon the death of a hollow, I have felt a… darkness seep into me. It is most likely my imagination. I plan on seeing if a plant from the outer ring of the forests could survive in the tough, rocky ground of the land around my home. I will attempt it and write on it later.

Entry 7

On light

I've lived in this circle for quite a long time now. Longer than most others. It is the only thing I've ever known in all that time. Today I saw a vision. That's not quite a correct term for it. I did not stop in my tracks and gaze blindly into the distance as it commandeered the attention of my mind's eye. I cannot say what conjured this image, but I remember it quite clearly. Perhaps that is what it is. A memory. It depicts a wooden chair in a house. Not a particularly special chair, just a common wooden frame, slightly adorned at the ankles of the legs and the arch of the back. I knew it was not ordinary for many reasons, but the first and most important two were these; it is colorful. Not these faded tints and hues I see amidst the monotony of this land, but a strong, pure brown. And secondly, it casts a shadow. The lighting is all wrong. Half of each of the legs is much darker than the other half. Such simple differences make it otherworldly. This circle— it's a dark place, seemingly illuminated dimly and evenly by an intangible light source. The glow is simply there, though nothing seems to emit it. Or perhaps everything emits it, to some degree. The softness of it means there are no harsh shadows, and everything has a rather flat appearance. For the most part, visibility is low. One cannot see very far into the distance. This helps the illusion on those who wander in confusion; that they can neither see where they are going or where they came from. Often the terrain is so similar, it almost seems as if you haven't moved at all. I have found, however, that the longer I've been here, the better my vision has become. I can see farther than most.

Entry 12

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve visited the forests. At least, a few weeks that I remember. Most of the entries have been over what I’ve learned in the past. I headed out today, though. I never could keep away from knowledge. No matter how dangerous the getting of it got. Something interesting happened recently, but, in the interest of chronology, I’ll start at the beginning. I awoke to the sounds of laughter. At least, what I thought was laughter. As I listened more closely, it was more of a snickering. More of a cackle. I peered out of the window by my bed and saw two of the most hideous hollows I’d ever encountered. With tails as long as the rest of their bodies lashing about like whips, they closely resembled hyenas. Their skin seemed to be made of the same smoke-like material as all the hollows I’d as yet seen. But when the dull light of the morning hit them at an angle, they appeared to be covered in short mottled fur. Their dark eyes burned as they stared at me and their lips curled into a smile as they cackled again. One of their tails flew toward my window, cracking against the wooden frame.  As curious as I am, I had no desire to entertain the beasts’ in their game. I turned to enclose myself in the safety of my basement, rapidly grabbing my few valuables on the way, when suddenly one of them leaped to the window half its size and forced its way inside. It’s sharp fangs darted toward my face as its tail wreaked havoc through the room. I threw myself backwards and tried to scramble to my feet as the second hollow tore through my door. Another snap at my side and I twisted just out of it’s reach as it sank its teeth into my shirt. Desperately grabbing at anything I might use as a weapon, my fingers wrapped around my wood axe and I heaved it toward the monster’s head. The thing easily sidestepped the attack and chuckled in amusement. It glanced at its partner and they attacked as one.  I shoved the handle into the face of one of them and threw myself down the stairs leading to my basement. I slammed the door shut and ignored my bruised body’s screams of pain as I barricaded the door with whatever I could find. As they pounded against the door with the force of bears, I started a fire in the fireplace and began heating a long, iron poker in it. Suddenly, the pounding stopped, and I heard the thumps of them leaving my house. With two broken bones in my left arm and my right shoulder a mass of bruises, all part of me wanted was to sit in relief and thanks that I’d survived. But my curiosity won over.

I warily stepped outside of my home and saw them running toward the forest. Grumbling under my breath, I chased after them, white-hot poker still in hand. As soon as they started to slow, I hid behind a large tree and peered around it cautiously. They were sniffing at a Dreamer still incased within the Veil. The Dreamer shifted. He felt a pang of sadness. They were poaching an easy meal in lou  of one that fought back. Better him than me, I thought to myself. I almost turned to go, but indecision gripped me long enough for me to see two hands tear through the ephemeral membrane incasing the victim. The hollows pounced as soon as his protection was gone. I very nearly called out a warning, but I thought once again to myself, “better him than both me and him”.  I started to turn to run back home; they would turn on me as soon as the Dreamer was dead, but as I glanced back, what I saw I nearly couldn’t comprehend. Hands twisted around the hollow’s neck and lurched, shattering its spine. As he did this, the other grabbed hold of his calf in it’s maw. Wincing, I forced myself to keep watching. His left hand darted out grabbing the thing’s skull and digging his thumb into its eye socket. It cackled in agony and released its grip enough for him to pull free and dispose of it the same as he had with the first. Already, the Veil was beginning to seep out of the first’s corpse. He knelt beside it and scooped it with his right hand. It dripped like a liquid though it looked more like fog. He clenched his fist and the substance seeped into his closed hand. He shuddered, drawing it all in, until nothing remained of the beast and then did the same with the other, and yet again with the remnants of his own Veil. He knelt for a little while longer and then stood and left, without a glance for his surroundings.  He stood tall, walked surely, and had a dangerous glint to his eye. I almost feared to follow him.  Almost.

I followed him for several miles until he spun around and looked me in the eye. I turned and I ran. I ran as fast as I could, hoping against hope that he wasn’t following. I didn’t slow until I was out of the woods, and then only enough to glance behind me. He was nowhere to be found. I stepped into my home, contemplated getting a lock for my door and bars for my window, and pulled out my journal and wrote. 

         Thomas would, in time, remember the old man who had given him the book, and his reason for receiving the journal. He would also remember his way back to the man’s house and the conversation they’d had. However, this would not occur for several months and, the elder, frantically searching for the boy he’d given his most valued possession, would eventually give up hope and leave his home to wander the nearby forests. His depression and hopelessness would continuously grow, until he no longer resembled his former self. But, for now, Thomas read the journal, quill and ink at his side.

         This journal would later become Thomas’s own, and it would be as a holy book to him. The journal contained hundreds of entries, with several times as many illustrations. The entries spanned from narrations of the old man’s life, to philosophical thoughts, to explanations of things he’d discovered. Essays, prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, history; these things filled a book of true scholarship in a mindless, thoughtless world.

         The Eagle comes. Thus the journal began. 

             The Eagle comes,

it comes to all.

         Not a soul is spared,

not one.

         Yet after the Eagle

has had its fill,

         chance at the Tree, and at its Fruit,

appears once more.

         For all were wronged,

and all have wronged.

         And so a second

chance arose.

         Chance to fulfill

deepest desires.

         Yet some lay dormant

for a time and a time.

         All do fall,

or have fallen,

         or will fall

below the earth.

         And below that too.

Below the lowest of lows,

         to the lowest of nethers.

Amen.

      Entry 1

         I made this yesterday. This book I mean. Bound. Empty. I made it to write my thoughts I guess. Yeah. Write my thoughts. Keep track of them I guess. My thoughts aren’t all that sophisticated. But I think it’s time I started keeping track of them. I decided to do this because yesterday I remembered something. It was different from the last times. It didn’t, I don’t know. Fade? Yeah. It didn’t fade into my memories. It exploded into my head. Like a bolt of lightning. A bonafide bolt of lightning. I’m telling you. It hit me hard. It left me shocked. I was walking down the street. Same as I always do. I do it every day. I’ve done it every day for decades, for centuries. I’m old, see. The oldest in this whole Circle as far as I know. My years tend to run together these days. I guess that’s what happens when you get older. You have to decide what to remember and what to forget. The poem at the beginning is pretty incredible isn’t it? One of the Hollow Men wrote it. I was studying them at the time. I was walking through the forest, observing and shit, just like I always do, and I found the most human-looking Hollow Man I’ve ever seen. For a split second I thought it was one of us. A human. And then it faced me. No eyes or mouth. Different from all the Hollows I’d seen. It was tall. Must have been at least twice as tall as me. Maybe three times. And yet I caught him. I’ll talk more on that later. It was damn hard. A damn good story too. Anyway, I locked it up in my basement. For a long time it just stood there. It’d face me every time I opened the door. Or rather, it’d be facing me every time I opened the door. Like it could see me through the walls. Or it could smell me, or some creepy shit like that. It was creepy. Damn creepy. Creepier than all the other Hollow Men I’d seen. And that was even before it started speaking. I never knew that Hollow Men could speak. But it spoke anyway. The damn beast spoke. It only spoke a little bit at first. Small things. It’d just say “hello” when I walked in and “goodbye” when I left. For the first few weeks I ignored it. I figured it was just repeating what it’d heard other men say. Hollow Men didn’t speak. At least they didn’t talk. They could form words, like a parrot, but they couldn’t understand them. One day, though, things changed. I walked into the basement to look at it. It was staring at me, just like always. For the first time, I spoke to him. I said to it “hello” and it replied “good day”. I told myself it was just repeating what he’d heard. Just like I’d been telling myself for weeks. It was only a coincidence.

         “How are you?” I asked him. I asked out of a perverted need to know. To know if I was imagining things or if this Hollow Man truly could speak.

         “I’m doing well, how are you?” it replied. And so I asked him, freaking the hell out, if it was talking to me.

         It screamed at me, “yes, you little pussy, do you see anyone else here?”

         That scream. It sent my hairs standing up straight in the blink of an eye. It chilled me to my core.

         “What do you want?” I asked him. Looking back on that day, that was an awful silly question. I was the one who had it locked in a cage in my basement. If anything that was a question for me to answer. As soon as I asked it, I expected him to tell me that he wanted to leave. To escape.

         “To exist” it replied. And then I left. I sat for hours in my desk chair. I avoided the forest. I avoided the basement more than anything else. But after a few weeks, my curiosity won over my cowardice. I came downstairs. He was still staring at me.

         “Let me out” he said. I asked him if he would hurt me if I did. He said no. I didn’t believe him. If he could talk without a mouth, I didn’t doubt that he could bite. I’d already died once before. I didn’t want to die again. I forget some of the details of that time. It was a very long while ago. At some point I began to go down there every day. After a time, he realized that I wasn’t going to let him out. And at that point he stopped speaking entirely. Until, after almost 3 months, he asked me what I did while I was away. I told him that I went for walks in the forest. When he asked why, I told him that it was because I enjoyed watching the Hollow Men. He asked me why yet again. I told him that they interested me, that they were far more interesting than the dreamers and even more interesting than the other humans. At this he laughed. Loudly. I remember it clearly. He laughed in such a cruel way. He laughed the way someone else would curse and scream and spit. I ran from the room and didn’t return for several days. I was a coward. I still am a coward, but not near as bad as I used to be. When I returned the following day, for the first time, the Hollow man was not facing me. He was looking straight up at the ceiling with his back to me. In that moment I realized just how big he was. He was tall, lean, and powerful, with broad shoulders. His immense height made his shoulders seem narrow but they weren’t. Not at all. I hadn’t realized how hunched over he’d been this entire time. Not until I finally saw him with his back straight and his head high. His skin was oily. Like smoke made solid. His hands were hugely disproportionate even as his feet were small. Only a tad larger than my own. I’d found the Hollow Men fascinating before then. I’d found them grotesque on many occasions. Yet that was the first time I’d ever found one, for lack of a better word, beautiful.

         “Is something wrong?” I asked him.

         Without facing me he told me “You call us hollow men. Why?”

         “It’s from a poem. I remember little things like that. From before I came here. I remember I liked the poem. I can’t for the life of remember what the hell it said. But I remember I liked it.”

         “You were surprised when I spoke. In all of your walks through the forest am I the first of these ‘hollow men’ who spoke?”

         “Yes”

          “Many of us speak, little one. And we call ourselves the Lifeless. We lack life. And so we cannot die. We lack joy as well. Freedom is the one thing we do not lack. We do what we want, when we want to. We go where we want, whenever the fancy strikes us. And still you, you who have all that we wish we had. You steal from me the one thing God Almighty has bothered to throw us. You get the bread as we get the crumbs and still you throw those crumbs into the flames. What gives you the right?"

         I didn’t have a response. It was a beast. It was an intelligent beast, but still just an animal. Wasn’t it?

         “What are you?” I asked him.

         “Answer my question.”

         “I will release you if you answer my questions. What are you?”

         “Then I’m afraid I’ll be here forever because I don’t know the answer to your question.”

         I felt bad. I’d thought of them as animals. But this one seemed like something more. I left the room, wondering what to do. He screamed after me as I closed the door. I thought about it for days before going back down. I’d decided to let it out. But once I got there, my curiosity once again got the better of me.

         “What’s your name?” I asked him.

         “Let me out.”

         Frustrated, I asked him again.

         “I don’t have a name, little one. What is your name?” He asked this question mockingly, as if he knew the response already and found it amusing.

         “I don’t know.” I replied.

         “I know more about this little world, and of the old world, and of all the others, than your tiny mind can begin to comprehend, child.”

         He spat out the last word with a vehemence that was startling.

         “So tell me what you know.”

          He laughed at me. The same laugh as before.

         “You lock me in this dungeon and then expect me to teach you? Do you kick your whore and then ask her to your bed for free? Am I your loving slave that you expect me to jump at your every command? With every shred of the respect that you are due, I refuse. Fuck you, little one.”

         “Then there’s no deal we can make?”

         “Let me out, and I’ll wait until you’re dead to eat your flesh.”

          “You’re an asshole.”

          “Get the hell out of here.”

          I don’t know what was in his voice that compelled me to obey, but I did. I left. I pretended that my basement didn’t exist. I went about my business. I wouldn’t speak to it again for two years. After a long, long while, I heard him call out while I sat in my bedroom. In the years since I’d locked him up, he’d never once called me to him.

         He called to me, “are you still there, boy?”

         I went to the basement and opened the door. He looked the same. He was sitting in the middle of his cell.

         “It’s been a long time”, I said to him.

         “Yes it has.” he replied.

         “What do you want?”

         “The same thing I’ve wanted since you brought me here. I want to leave. I’m willing to tell you whatever you want.” He said this with a sigh of resignation. I was excited. Part of me thought he was lying. Bluffing. Cheating. But the other part thirsted for knowledge.

         “Tell me everything you think I’d want to know.”

         “Release me first”

         “You’ll kill me”

         He sighed again loudly.

         “It’s been a long two years, little one. I only want to return to my jungle and run with the other Lifeless.”

         I believed him. God as my witness I believed him as much as I’ve ever believed anyone. I opened the cell. He stepped out, stretching to his full height. After walking up the steps to my main room, he walked to my desk, grabbed a pen, and wrote down the poem you see at the start of this book. Opening the door, he stepped out into the darkness. Without turning, he said to me, “Until next time, child. Enjoy your life until then.” I haven’t seen him since. That was over a century ago. I remember that question though. I remember that entire moment. “What is your name?” he asked. See; remember what I said at the start of this entry. It hit my like a bolt of lightning. A bonafide, goddamn bolt of lightning. My name is Marvin.

         Three ghosts dressed in tattered clothes escorted him to the Fields of Asphodel. It was a long walk. What the hell am I doing? Thomas thought to himself. He contemplated making a run for it. He’d rather die than this. But he was dead. Oh, good god, I’m dead. I’m dead for good now. It’s over, Thomas thought. He felt despair rise up in his throat. I can’t do this. He began to count the minutes that passed. It was of no comfort to him. Asphodel itself was not a place of punishment. It was suspension. He looked around. He was here, the entrance into the Fields of Asphodel. There would be no escaping this time. He wouldn’t lose himself this time. He wouldn’t. He took a step past the gate. He wouldn’t lose himself. I won’t lose–

         “Where am I?” He asked himself.  Looking around, Thomas saw dark gray grass covering an expanse as far as he could see A thick forest stood in the distance. There were no hills, no mountains. He thought he heard a river flowing. That aside, it was as quiet as a library, or a cabin of sleeping men. He looked around and saw no one. He looked in the sky. No sun. He’d say there was no light, if not for the fact that he could see. “Where is everyone?” He shook his head vigorously. He was missing something, something just beyond the reach of his memory. Thomas vaguely remembered that this happened to newcomers. Newcomers to where? He thought to himself. His memory would return with time. He took a second step.

         He was standing in a village. Houses stood scattered randomly throughout the space he’d been sure was empty. The forest was closer than before. A man was walking toward him. He looked… different. Thomas blinked hard and tried to focus on the man. His eyes didn’t seem to want to. He turned aside, an ache building in his head from the effort. Asphodel. That’s where I am. 

         He became aware of a dull, muffled tone. A moment later he realized it was he himself who produced it. He was in pain and screaming, but the sound was muffled as if cried into a pillow. Silence seemed an unbreakable law of Asphodel: a sacred and ancient understanding. 

         The creature Thomas had dismissed had wrapped its teeth firmly around his left shoulder. Not a man. His dull shout continued. Nobody came. From the shapes moving about within the houses, he knew they must hear him, but nobody came. He attempted to fight the monster off, but it was far larger and far stronger. His shoulder was now a bloody mess. Everything was gray, gray, gray. No blacks, or whites, or colors. His now soaked shirt grew dark with gray blood. He scrambled harder, trying to claw at the thing’s face. Nothing seemed to phase it. The pain grew exponentially as teeth sunk deeper and deeper into his skin, into his bone, drinking the marrow, severing the tendons. The muffled sounds of his screams became more acute. The creature joined in his howling, though his cries were muted by flesh. 

         Thomas stepped into a house, rubbing his left shoulder. It was sore. He wondered how he’d hurt it. A dim memory floated to the surface of his consciousness. He flinched and shoved the painful memory deep down. The house was small: a single-story house, built from strange gray wood. It was his now. He wondered who built it, or where it came from. Who lived here before? The thought came unbidden. As if in answer, a sleeping man in a corner of the house became suddenly apparent to him. He was startled, but his body was lethargic in answering. The only physical indication that he’d even noticed the man was a slight widening of his eyes. He walked slowly toward the body. “Is he dead?” Thomas muttered to himself. That was funny for some reason. He didn’t feel like laughing.

         He couldn’t touch it. His arm resisted moving closer than three or four inches away from the man. “That’s… odd.” Thomas shook his head, putting the sleeper out of his mind. He walked around the rest of the house, which consisted of one other room. A room filled only with a bed and a small desk. He walked back into the other, slightly larger room. It was empty save for a single chair. “Why am I here,” he said to himself, sitting down in it. It wasn’t a question. Just something he felt he should say. It felt right on his tongue. “Why am I here. Why am I here. Why am I here. Why am I here.” He continued with the non-question. He knew he should be doing something. He just didn’t know what.

         A time and a time passed. He hadn’t grown bored of sitting there, but he felt like he should be by now, so he left his home and wandered the planes littered by houses made of the same, strange wood as his own. He wandered and wandered, inspecting the houses as he passed them. “That’s odd,” he said quietly. The door to one of the houses had an iron doorknob. He reached out and turned it, pulling toward himself. It didn’t budge. He pushed it away from himself. Still nothing. Locked. “Odder and odder,” he continued muttering.

         “What was that?” a man called to him, his voice unnaturally loud.

Thomas glanced at him. The man had a worn beard, streaked with white. Thomas was irritated by the volume of his voice. This was a quiet place. The quiet should not be disturbed.

         “The door,” Thomas replied, stubbornly keeping his voice to a whisper. “It’s odd.”

         The man stared at him. “Odd, you say? Odd how?”

         “The doorknob. It’s metal. Also the door seems to be locked. Do you know who lives inside?”

         “There’s nobody in there,” the bearded man answered, an indecipherable tone in his voice.

         “People don’t leave their houses,” Thomas said with certainty.

         “How do you know?”

         “I–,” Thomas began to reply. “I guess I don’t.” He didn’t like this man. He was loud. He asked questions. And certainty was a difficult concept to grasp. 

         “You’re right, though, child. That you are. Would you like to come in? I can tell you’re a curious boy. Curiosity is hard to come by these days. If you have questions, I may well have quite a bit of answers for you.”

         “Why do you lock your door? Do you have something to hide? People don’t hide things, here.” Thomas asked, suspicion coloring his face. The man let out a long sigh and, inserting a heavy key into the iron lock, turned back to Thomas, saying, “I’ve seen things to boil blood and curl hair, child. Do not presume to pass judgment when you know so very little. Come in, or go home. I have little patience left, these days.” The man turned the key and swung the door inward. As Thomas followed him in, he wondered how it was a man could lack patience when time was such an expendable resource. It was a large home, easily four times larger than Thomas’s own. It was littered with things. A lit fireplace burned below a mantle. The mantle itself was covered with lumps of metal. A table stood low to the ground beside a long wooden bench. The bench was the only surface in the room, other than the floor itself, without things on top. The table was home to hundreds of pages, neatly stacked in a dozen separate piles. Some were covered with writing, others with drawings, and yet others were blank.

         “What do you think?” the man said, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

         “It’s… incredible. Where did you get all these things?” Thomas cried out, not a care in the world that his voice was raised.

         “Most of it comes from the forest. I like to go there to think, and to study. How long have you been here, child? What’s your name?”

         “I don’t know. How does one keep track of time here? My name…” Thomas thought hard. He hadn’t used it in so long. “Tom. Thomas. That’s my name.”

         “For the longest time, I couldn’t. Now I keep a clock. It makes a racket like all God’s armies once a day, so I know to make a mark on my calendar. I realized a while back, that, if you go deep, deep into the forest, you could see the stars at night. I used that to judge the length of a day and spent the next month or so building a clock. It’s harder than you’d think. It’d have been impossible, but I found pre-prepared gears half-buried in the mud one day. To this day I have little idea where they came from. Or who built them. In any case, there are tests we can take to see how long you’ve been here, if you’re up for it.”

         “Are they… painful?” Thomas asked, shoulder twitching.

         “Not at all, child. No need to fear. I’m just going to need a piece of your clothing.” At this, Thomas took off his shirt without a word and handed it to the strange man. He took it gingerly and laid it across his arm, walking down stairs Thomas hadn’t even noticed. They appeared to lead to a basement. Thomas started to follow him, left shoulder twitching once again, but the old man shook his head, asking him to stay upstairs. He sat on the bench and waited. It was nothing new, but the restlessness he felt was. He quickly grew tired of sitting and doing nothing and longed to see what the man hid downstairs. He fought the feelings, though, and sat waiting silently. And then the clock went off. Thomas jumped straight off the couch, and into the air, his eyes wide, shoulder spasming violently. The sound was that of metal scraping against metal, but louder than anything he could remember. 

         It was a sound loud enough to wash away all his lethargy, to sharpen his mind, loud enough to wake the dead. 

         Finally, blessedly, the sound abated. The old man returned up the stairs, Thomas’s shirt in hand.

         “So?” Thomas asked, curious, still shaken from the violent noise.

         “You’re… young. Very, very, very young. I’ve never met anyone become self aware before his fiftieth year. No one except a boy I met a few years ago. In fact, he was just a little bit older than you yourself are. But he was a special case, to say the least. Special indeed. You’ve been here for less than three years, child. Tell me everything you remember. No, better yet, write me everything you remember!” The elderly man was surprisingly spry, and went sprinting around the room excitedly, searching through the clutter. He found what he was looking for and tossed it to Thomas. “That’s my old journal, Thomas. Treat it with respect and with love. That journal is the single most valuable piece of writing I own. Just start where my writing ended. Write down whatever comes to mind. Feel free to read through it. I can lend you some ink and a quill. Your new life has just begun, Thomas, boy. Nothing will ever be the same again.” Thomas smiled and stepped toward the man, words of thanks on his lips.

         He sat on his bed. A journal was lying on the desk beside him. The journal was important, somehow. His shoulder twitched, he opened the book, and his eyes began to trace the lines of words scrawled on the page. 

         And, after a few moments, he began to remember how to read. 

The Underworld. 

            Dark. Lifeless. Pretty much how one would imagine it. 

            A ferryman stood at the banks of the Acheron, waiting for him to board. His face was contorted into an unnatural expression. Thomas's best guess was that it was an attempt at a look of pity, but he could be dead wrong. Considering how abnormal it looked, he guessed Charon probably didn't make this face too often; otherwise, it would probably win over as his perpetual expression. The fact that he tried to look sympathetic, something he obviously didn't do often, was a thoughtful gesture. But to be honest, it made Thomas feel a little worse. Like a bitter 'welcome back'. 

            He stepped onto the S. S. Le Faerie. This was his second trip on the vessel. His first time, he'd been fortunate enough to have been buried with change for the ferry. He imagined he could still taste the copper on his tongue…but not this time; this time, his fare was covered by another. 

            He was not the only passenger on the ferry. He would have expected the others to be old, but knew that was an unrealistic hope. Several were of classes familiar to him, people he'd seen come and go. People he'd outlived. 

            Well. 

            Not exactly. 

            But it was fair to say he'd stuck around longer, longer than the trio of women with pointed hats and the burly men in fedoras with revolvers at their hips. Others were even burlier and wore more warlike contraptions of automated machinery slung across their backs. What use is an instrument of death in the land of the dead, really? The two groups seemed to eye each other tensely, and it was a genuine concern amongst all the passengers that at any moment they'd drop their pants and compare sizes. 

            Were they even wearing pants? Did they have dicks?

            Augh. All these levels of abstraction made his head ache. Funny how, even in death, he could have those kinds of sensations: the taste of copper and the headaches from packs of assholes running uncensored. 

            He'd gotten a lot of headaches aboard the Argo. 

            He was relatively proud of how he'd managed in the Void. He was quite sure he'd remained the sanest, and that was something to be proud of. Disembodied spirits were prone to insanity, or to cause insanity; he wasn't sure which, though one seemed to make more sense than the other...

            No. Nope. If anything caused them to go looney, it was prolonged exposure to the Void, and by that he meant prolonged exposure to a whole lot of fucking nothing. That, and the fact they were never quite stable to begin with. After himself, he'd probably say Jedezekiel was most sane, which was a wonder, seeing as he held the gift of direct linkage with his patron god. And they were not exactly models of perfect sanity. Jamie was not nearly as sane. 

            Nor was Jedezekiel the first...

            But we don't talk about that. 

            The ferry was pretty packed. A fellow in a white curly judge's wig at the end of the boat was being pushed steadily nearer the edge by the crowds. Strange how Thomas seemed more corporeal here than he had amongst the living; maybe it was a two negatives equal a positive thing…like he couldn't be touched by the living, but could be by the dead. It made sense. Sort of. 

            As dead began shoving up against him to make room on the boat, he decided he missed being incorporeal. 

            The plank rose. The ferry was untied from the dock. Slowly, Charon moved the boat away from this side of the river and pushed deeper into the Acheron. 

            The river was vast, the boat slow, and the voyage not short, but aside from the lack of personal space, it was not much different from travel through the Void. The other shore was not visible, but he supposed he trusted the ferryman who had undoubtedly made this journey millions of times. Not like he had a lot of options. The waters of the Acheron did not look particularly appealing. Of course, if they had, the souls who died without passage for the ferry would have been able to swim it instead of remaining stuck in eternal limbo, or perhaps they just could not find their way in this blasted dark. Everything was black. Well, everything except for a little lantern on the head of the ferry. Through its light were visible the solemn faces of defeated passengers and the outline of the boat's front half, along with a few glittering reflections along the surface of the river. The only force that seemed to disturb the water was the ferry and the oar that rowed it. Aside from that, it was unnaturally still. There was no wind underground to move it, nor, he supposed, precipitation cycle to keep it flowing. He wondered if it were still considered a river if the water wasn't moving. It'd be more like…

            A long lake. 

            Eventually, they did make it to the other side. He was about to chuckle at his unintentional pun, but then realized this is where the expression fucking originated. He wasn't sure if that made it morbid, or even funnier. 

            And, there, on the shore, were the rest of his crew. They didn't look at him. He was okay with that. He understood why he had to be the one to stay. 

            But he hadn't wanted to come back down here, and it was they who had forced him to. Were they too cowardly to acknowledge his sacrifice?

            Jedezekiel looked at him and gave a solemn nod. No. It took too much energy to be angry with them. They hated the situation as much as he did. And then, without another word, they were off.

            One figure, cloaked in smoke, stayed behind, and had gazed at him directly from the start. His expression was neither cruel nor victorious; it was businesslike. Impersonal. Like a man accepting his inheritance. No words passed between them. There was nothing to say. The smoke dissipated slowly, despite the lack of wind. 

            All the faces he knew were now gone. What was left to do?

            Follow the crowds. That made sense. 

            And, as promised, standing 'twixt the gates of the Underworld, stood a creature of four legs, three noses, six eyes, and…a hell of a lot of teeth. He didn't even know how many. Who even knows things like that?

            Is mythical zoology a thing? Is that a profession?

            Whatever. 

            He gave the creature as wide a berth. He knew this would be the last friendly encounter he would ever have with the beast, yet was not inclined to take full advantage of it. And he wondered vaguely… if it were Cerberus's job to keep the dead in the Underworld, wouldn't it make more sense for him to be facing into it?

            Then again, he supposed it was not quite as intimidating to have a gigantic dog’s rear welcome you into the afterlife. 

                        Minutes later, he was standing in an empty court with three tall terraces, far above him. Then the three judges peered over the edges of their balconies. The image recalled memories of a similar building he'd seen in life, a long time ago. The judges had nameplates, but they were so high up they were illegible. 

            "You've been here before. Your case was already discussed. In life, you were talented, but showed no heroic action meriting Elysium, and were therefore assigned to the Fields of Asphodel."

            "The situation has changed. He's become an adventurer since he was here last, even sailed with the Argonauts."

            "Yes, but though he may have been in the world of the living and participating in their ventures, he was still technically dead. And we are only to judge what he did in life."

            "I believe the point is moot. The child bears the favor of his patron god. This should factor into account, as it basically equates to a letter of recommendation, a personal vouch for this soul's merit of Elysium."

            "Note that those who die a sacrificial death merit Elysium by default."

            "But this was not a sacrificial death, was it? His return to life was not merited, and his return to death should bear no reward."

            "But in resumption, he led a good first life and a heroic second one, thus leading me to believe that had his life not been cut short unjustly in the first place, he would have lived to merit Elysium. I am willing to factor in his actions as a visitor in the world of the living to my final decision. All in favor of Elysium say aye."

            "Aye."

            "Aye."

            "Nay."

            Every head in the room turned to the source of the fourth vote. There, leaning casually against the walls of the courtroom, was Satan. 

            Just knew this motherfucker wasn't going to be helpful without being a dick later to compensate, Thomas thought to himself. 

            Thomas was seriously worried right now. He didn't want to go back to Asphodel. He'd lost so much of who he was in just the short time he'd been there. It was a place that seemed to make no sense, and the longer you stayed, the less sense anything made. It was difficult to describe. 

            "Lord Satan? Why do you intervene? Is this case of any particular interest to you?"

            "It is. Not that Thomas in particular is of any interest to me, but his party and I now share a common enemy. That means I've been far more helpful than is in my nature. Have to balance it out with a random act of cruelty, don't I?" He lit a cigarette and raised it to his lips. It was an accessory that had remained constant throughout his different phases. “As the overseer of the fields of punishment, I want to take the kid into my own domain," said Satan, with his usual air of evasive calm. 

            "He's not done anything wrong enough to merit the fields of punishment. The only thing pulling him there is your request," spoke one of the judges. 

            "Yeah, but you know my requests count for something," he answered. 

            The three judges stared at each other uneasily. After a few moments, they seemed to come to a sort of silent agreement. One stood up and spoke, "Though we credit the soul as meriting Elysium, we cannot ignore the request of the overseer. Thus, the two cancel each other out.

            "Thomas. You are hereby assigned to Asphodel."

            Satan sighed in an 'oh well' sort of way. Then, he lifted his gaze and smirked at Thomas. "Nothing personal, eh? I'm sure you understand."

            He passed right by him as he exited the court. "It's really not about you."

            It really wasn't, was it? Thomas had been traded for a more important Argonaut without a second thought. He was expendable. 

            He was a sacrificial pawn. 

              So Asphodel. Again. 

            Now, maintaining his sanity was a talent of his. He'd been in Asphodel before. He'd been raised by a madman, and, at one point, mind-controlled as a ghost. He'd sailed the endless void for weeks, surrounded by a crew whose mental health slowly deteriorated, but if he had to stay in Asphodel again, he was not sure how long he could hold out. 

            He'd just been sentenced to a timeout forever.