I would tell the story of how I came to be in my new home, but time is short now. It has taken me years to come to tell this story, and many months to write it down, but with each passing day my strength wanes while that of the new incarnation of the Innominatum increases. The next time I lose control, it may be the last, and I must conclude this tale with explanation and warning before that happens.
I did not escape from the realm of the Innominatum. I was released. Hargraven warned that the final survivor would be sent back to civilization to begin its cycle once again. I thought I had destroyed it in the fire at Hargraven Manor and that its flawed plans to reach the heavenly realms had been thwarted with the destruction of its chimeric creation. But I know now what happened. The stamen was only one part of the entity, and it continued with its plan despite knowing it could not succeed in reaching heaven. The Alexander Drenn who once lived, who once had a family, who once had a future, was killed in Hargraven Manor, and the Innominatum concluded its design of the chimera with the final piece from my body. My mind now lives in the body of that abomination. I am only grateful that I have no memory of the operation that was performed.
Soon after its completion I was sent out of the ruins of the school in my new body to present myself to its brood. It truly was reverence I discerned in the Behemoth’s eyes, for it recognized the continued essence of its master living in a new host, a new seed, and it was paying homage to the superiority of its parent. As its last incarnation withered and died within the wastes of its latest trophy—Dennington Cross—the Innominatum’s seed was ready for the next implantation, ready to be sent back out into the world to bring back more food. The Nameless Beast knew it would not breach the gates of heaven, but it was content in the knowledge that it had succeeded in beginning a new cycle. Heaven would wait.
And now here I am, hiding in a deserted barn within a wasteland, inflicted with the same curse that drove Lord Hargraven to nurture this evil intelligence. I exist within a burnt shell, a monstrosity forced to conceal my form beneath a hooded cloak, working ceaselessly to gather the materials and tools needed to construct the creature that will ultimately infest another city or village or town and drag it to the Innominatum’s domain. And I have succeeded. The hell seed—the first metallic strand that will creep and grow under the earth—after months of experimentation, lies in the palm of my hand, ready for implantation. The stamen will grow. It will mature. And then the Innominatum will take this place too. The story of its disappearance will be shrouded in mystery, unexplained and perhaps covered up, much as it was with Dennington Cross and Newton Fremming.
I weep with Elizabeth’s eyes, feel with Beatrice’s heart, build with Stromany’s hands, persist with Breswick’s courage, but with my own mind—when it is not controlled by the growing will of the Innominatum—I mourn.
It will not let me die during these lucid moments; it has enough will for that, but I have at least prevented it from entering into a heavily populated city, just as my predecessors did.
For a time it will be still. But I feel it stirring. It is almost ready to usurp my reasoning, rise again, and cast me aside, my work complete. I can do nothing to stop it now.
I have the Moon Box with me. This was the original container for the Innominatum’s means to infiltrate our world. The seed of its intelligence was insidiously planted within the cryptic words locked inside, the subconscious instructions to program the mind of the reader and begin its inception, a shortcut to its original evolution. With the same instinct it forced upon me to survive, it drives me to use the box, just as it did with Hargraven and those before him. Whether it be his story or mine, and whatever the medium, the result is the same. My only hope now is that my own tainted words will find the right person, and this madness will be over. If that person be you, dear reader, my sincere wish is that you will have the strength to overcome its influence.
The cycle must end. Here.