Chapter 1 The Journal
I found a book on the history of my little town. It's less a book more a.. journal of sorts of one of the founding members of my home. Oh I should mention I live in a little town in North America named Carcerem, which is Latin for Jail or prison or cell... Creepy right? Yea that's not even the half of it. This "journal" is a bunch of assortment of stories and facts about monster and how too hunt them down and kill them. It has lots of stuff in it from the obvious Werewolves and Vampires too stuff like... Gremlins and The Tall Man... Demons and even angels even the fucking toothfairy, but that's not even the weirdest part the journal says that underneath my town there's a facility that holds and studies the ones they managed to capture and notes about how they look and let me tell you alot of the "known" monsters are nothing like you would imagine....
A few days after I had found the journal I finished reading it's contents and was baffled at what was written inside. It was cover too cover monster facts 101, how too hunt monsters for dummies and everything about the facility which I have learned is a company named "STRANGE". This company houses, holds, studies and hunts down all of these things... And yea sure some of them are on point like werewolves are described the same in movies as they are in this journal, big hairy beasts resembling wolves standing on four or two legs depending sometimes but there are more then werewolves... There's werebears, weretigers, hell I just finished reading about a wereshark. And then there are some monsters that are almost nothing like there cinematic portrayal... Vampires for instance sure yea they still drink blood but it says here they have a night time form where they shed there human skin like a snake only no skin underneath just the muscle tissue and whatever would be under normal skin... Along with three rows in the top and bottom of needle like teeth and they lose there eyes.. although it's said they can still see. There are even some I've never heard of before like the journal has a whole five pages on this Crooked Tall Man. He's a man dressed in a black suit with a cane and top hat but everything about him is tall and crooked... The drawing in the journal of him is terrifying, even his hat is tall but it bears off left as if it had a kink in it... He's nose, face, ears, neck, torso all of it.. was long and had kinks... But it was his smile it was the only thing about him that had a perfect curve of shark teeth.
None of this journal made much sense but at the same time it made alot of sense, my town was full of murder and random people dissapearing all the time that go unsolved. A couple days after I finished reading the journal I started my own investigations on the missing people and murders in Carcerem. And ALOT of these journal entries match up with the dissapearances of this town. A man beheaded savagely and drained of blood along with two other people around the same time a vampire was found in Carcerem and brought too STRANGE. Another cold case with missing children around the same time a toothfairy was caught and another where three men where brutally murdered in there vehicles by a woman in white which is a ghost or spirit of a women that was betrayed by a man this particular woman in white haunted our main stretch of highway. The journal alone had almost convinced me that this was all real but now.. seeing all the connections... I was one hundred percent sure that STRANGE was a real thing.
I had started digging around town looking for any clues or hints at where I may find this company entrance or at the very least someone who worked for it but I found nothing. Nothing that would lead me too any sort of employee or door, not even a haiku or small nonsensical phrase too give me any sort of idea how too find this place. It was my only doubt if I'm being honest. That if I couldn't find anything too do with STRANGE I would assume the journal was written by some cold case crime enthusiast and move on with my normal life in this strange little town, but that's when I found my first clue. I had read just about every book in our small library on Carcerem and it's history, all our folklore which honestly wasn't much, the history on the mine our town was built on, I had even read up every newspaper article I could find since 1945. Then it clicked the old mine which turned out too be a dud must be the entrance on STRANGE it had too be that was the only thing I could think of. It had been abandoned for years so I tried again in the journal too find anything about a mine or entrance or door just incase I had overlooked it the first time, and I had.
I found it, the mine anyways so far and beyond the mine I'm almost ninety nine point nine percent certain is the door too enter STRANGE. How do I know? Well in the journal at the beginning there is a note from the man who wrote the journal my grandfather.. which I guess I forgot too mention at the beginning of this... Well his name was Gerald Parker and he was the coolest man ever even before I found this and now he's become that and the greatest monster hunter. My name is Eddie Parker and I will live up too his name. Anyways the note. It was one word on the front page and I thought and I'll explain why in a second, that my grandfather was referring too me. He always called me Nux don't ask me why it was just his name for me it was latin for nut or peanut. This is why I thought it was directed at me, because on the front page in latin it read "NUX" which was me what I didn't clue in until now was that the mine that my little town was built on was also called Nuts Mine. The man who owned the mine was named Tyler Nuts, what a name right? I know it's a stretch but it's my last hope at this thing being real so I armed myself with my knife which was a hunting knife not a pocket knife, my dad's hardhat with his headlight a bag with food and a flashlight with my Nintendo switch and all my games and off too the mine I went.
