Chapter 1
Deep in the overgrown woodlands of New England, far from prying eyes, Dr. Eugene Robertson pursued science that had long ago gotten him expelled from the ranks of scientific peers. Driven by an insatiable passion for knowledge, he pursued through malevolent trials a perception not meant for mortal man. Scouring ancient tomes and forbidden science, he delved into a realm that could only lead to madness and despair. His former colleagues had shunned him, ridiculing his obscene trials and urging him to discard his horrific pursuit. But he was driven by truth, and he wanted nothing more than to see what lay beyond the veil of common understanding.
Beneath his modest home, Dr. Robertson worked in a dilapidated laboratory worn down from countless experiments in his profane pursuits. Surrounded by abhorrent instruments, vials of unstable concoctions, and voluminous notes, his only witness was the field mice subject to his unholy trials. Seeking to extend one’s visual perception beyond the natural capacities in order to see the realms of energy that engulf the natural world, he believed the eyes could be mutated to gaze at such ethereal wonders.
Night after night the experiments continued with unrelenting pace. Through horrific surgeries distorting and mutating, and loathsome injections of harsh chemicals he inched closer to his goal. He garnered what he could from the mice, by watching for their reactions to otherwise unseen forces. The mice seemed to react, although doubts filled his mind since he could only speculate about their reactions. His trials would have been swifter with human subjects, but he had long since given up on that route as his work had already garnered disdain from colleagues who had long ago dismissed his work. His hopes of moving to human trials had been at best scoffed at, and at worst ridiculed as risky and inhumane.
So, he had continued with the small insights gained through mice. Always beginning with severe reactions to the formula, an initial discomfort to the changes underway. But even after the initial reaction, a constant state of fear would take hold. The mice cowering in their cages, while unceasingly following something with their eyes that didn’t seem to exist. In time, he had slowly pulled every piece of acquirable knowledge from his less than ideal test subjects. Inevitably realizing that the only way to continue would be to move to a test he could more readily assess the results of.
Fatefully he began conducting nauseating trials on himself. Through sheer will of determination, he pursued through unbearable agony, subjecting himself to mirror glass surgeries and the torment of his chemical concoctions. It was his unwavering belief that he would unlock secret perception known to no other man that drove him forward on his quest.
Night after night, week after week he forged ahead. He had successfully altered his vision with his chemical formulations, stretching color and faintly seeing patterns of the energies all around but unknown to man. Yet always were his alterations fleeting. Only for brief moments would they appear and just as quickly would they vanish.
It was in the autumn of 1893, when the leaves began to turn, and the air became sharp and cold that he finally pierced through the veil to see beyond the limitations of the common man. Previous attempts having given him glimpses of success propelled him with unparalleled vigor. Soon realizing that for the effects to be lasting, he would need to endeavor with a process more permanent in nature.
Wasting no time he worked into the night preparing for this conclusive step. Now at the precipice of his desires he filled syringes with the elixir born of dark pursuit. Eagerly he grabbed the first syringe, slumped into his chair and prepared for what he believed was the final trial. Trembling with anticipation and fear, he steeled his will, narrowing his mind only on the goal at hand, and plunged the needle directly into his eye. Pain shot back through his head like an icepick driving through his eye and into his brain.
Crying out, he mentally urged himself to persevere towards his aim that had transfixed him for so long. Through excruciating pain, he steadied himself and swiftly pierced his other eye. As the pain overtook him, he writhed on the floor. He could feel his eyes shifting in their sockets as they morphed into their new form. Blood curdling screams reverberated within the laboratory walls that night. He bathed in his own lamentations, completely unaware of how long he suffered collapsed on the floor. Minutes or hours he wasn’t sure, but he submerged his face under water over and over for relief. When he could at last bear the pain, he opened his eyes.
Forever altered in grotesque distortion his eyes looked upon the waves of dancing forces that coursed all around. Spectral patterns revealed by the undulating forces of the universe, stretching his feeble grasp of reality.
He wiped his face of tears or blood, unsure of which was streaming down his cheeks. Overcome with joy that he had finally crossed the threshold and stepped into this new world which he had sought for so many years. All night and into the morning he simply looked on at the wonders undulating before his eyes. He was filled with the sense of a child lost in a dream.
In the light of morning, he climbed the stairs out of his laboratory and collapsed into his bed, thinking of all there was waiting to be discovered, now that the door to this reality had been opened.
In the ensuing weeks he was imbued with a vigor known only to those who have succeeded in imposing their will upon the world around them. He devised tests to demonstrate and prove the effect his serum had imparted on him. New ideas sprung forth with a chaotic agenda, torrents of unprecedented scientific discoveries, as if some eldritch knowledge had been unleashed within his mind. It was in this time the visitations began, though their presence and danger he didn’t yet realize.
Shadows began to shift, subtly inviting him to dark reflections. Faint whispers of daemonic tongues, divulging secrets best left unspoken. The unholy forces he was now attuned to creating drafts where none should be. Yet he ignored these insipid warnings, pursuing his studies with a childlike ignorance. Noises occurred with no source, though he would search in vain. His sanity being taunted by fears fed by unseen visitors. He could feel their presence, their goading influence, enticing him to act on horrible instincts newly awakened. But committed as he was to his pursuit of truths, he carried on in search of things never meant for human understanding.
As he unraveled mysteries beyond normal comprehension, his visitations, as he began calling them, intensified. Low murmurings of daemonic languages haunted him constantly, intoxicating his senses. Grotesque forms appeared in the corner of his eyes, dissolving before he could meet their gaze. He struggled against the otherworldly pull, relying on science as the crutch supporting his rapidly deteriorating psyche. Despite his efforts, the markings of a pen were feebly inadequate to recreate the torments before his eyes. Soon smooth research notes devolved into quickly scrawled ravings.
Before long he had all but abandoned his research, for the frequency of these hellish manifestations had surged to a near constant. His consciousness weaved between supernatural terror and a waking slumber brought on by the fiendish invocations whispered to him in late hours of the night. The slumbers only served to intensify his fear, recalling only afterward like the memory of a dream, the horrors which words lack the ability to describe.
Time was lost to him, and as the indecipherable whispers became more and more malicious he feared he would succumb permanently to the unholy desires of the daemons he awakened with his peering presence. Having pried open a connection into this realm of abominations, he had been the inventor of his own torment. Unwittingly offering up his sanity to the ravenous entities that now prayed without remorse. In his haste to push beyond the limits of mortal man he overlooked that he might not be able to close this portal once opened. He realized he had but one option. To rid himself of the instruments in which he could perceive his horrors.
That night one final brew was concocted, one severe and unsuitable for human contact. Which he administered feverishly into each of his ears. Searing, bubbling pain entered him, but it took with it his ability to hear, leaving a silence he had long forgotten. He didn’t waste any time relishing this peace yet, fearing he would lose his stomach for what was to come. Quickly he ransacked through drawers, dispelling contents until he held in his grasp an old metal spoon. He plunged it into his eye sockets, separating the one remaining connection his hellish nightmare had on him and he sank to the floor.
In a puddle of his own blood, chemicals and tears, Dr. Eugene Robertson sat, now bereft of sight and sound. His trembling hands clutched at the frigid floor, gasping for breaths that did little to ease his agony. Here he remained for some time, the once ambitious scientist reduced to a shell of his former self. Dr. Robertson’s remaining days were spent in darkness, murmuring incoherently as if in silent prayer against the memories that haunted him.
With time the woods began to reclaim his home. Trees and foliage conspiring to bury this now haunted ground and the secrets therein. Thus, the world remained oblivious of the indescribable horrors unleashed in that dark forbidding forest where man tampered with forbidden knowledge, daring to gaze just beyond the thin veil of our reality.
