Before beginning to tell everything related to the case under my name, and all the wanderers, misleads, and unlikely things that needed to happen in order to end up diving me into the mess in which now not only me but you, are involved, I need you to be aware of something.

Till this very summer, I was still trying to make it through high school, I was commuting every day, drowned in homework, and hesitant to even raise my voice without making myself look like a fool in front of my classmates, I had to take the garbage off every night, help my mother with her chores, and cook for both me and my brother. I loved going out to skate, watched way too more series than I should, and embarrassed myself chasing girls more times than I would admit to you. I may look unaware of what’s happening to me sometimes, but be sure that I’m not.

Be sure nonetheless, that until some point in the last year, I was just a regular seventeen years old boy.

That’s why I would rather Specter tell my story. He's a way more articulate type of person than I am. But as much as I think that I’m the last person that should be telling this story, it is my story, and as such I found myself in the need of telling it time after time, every time more often as it goes, inside my head. So I can witness that no, I haven’t lost my head yet, at least not in a figurative manner of speech.

In the last year, I have accidentally learned to use what most people would call magic, fought a demon inside my own body, and survived a decapitation. I’ve been hanging on the waist of an Asiatic high-school girl through a Dark Academy of Sourcery and discovered the existence of a Government Agency no one knows about.

None of these things I wanted or sought, and they certainly are something I don't understand yet. I didn't ask to have such a troublesome jump into adulthood, yet I've kept finding myself involved with more and more strange things.

And this just seems to be the beginning, so excuse me if I end up losing track of how things really happened at some point, or even change some of the facts and their order. Most of the time I was just trying to survive.

Keep in mind, I only explain this to you because maybe through the whole development of my story, you’ll come to the realization that as incredible and unlikely as some of these things may sound, I’m far away from being the hero of any story.

Now, if I had to start this story at some point… it would be right after my mother, brother and I arrive at Hollow Creek this Summer.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard this story many times before. A new kid moves out with his family to a new place, but there’s something in the kid, or the place, or even the timing that ends up unraveling a chain of events that will change his life forever.

I wasn’t particularly expecting that to happen, but I wasn’t exactly sad about leaving my hometown. At that point in my life, a change just seemed right, so things like starting a new chapter and having something to kill the boredom were a relief.

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You see, I was never that much of a popular kid back then either, I was the type of boy who would rather spend his time inside comic tires or fantasy stories, TV, or books, it didn’t matter as long as it was interesting. Something that looking back… it almost seems ironic.

Moving out to Hollow Creek, the time ran quickly, and after a couple of weeks, we were already used to the house. Mom had found a job to cover the bills, and I had started going to a Summer prep school just as an excuse to have something to do. After all, College was out of our budget for us.

It was at that time, probably more or less around mid-June when it all started to happen.

I went to bed and woke up suddenly covered in sweat. First I thought there was someone else inside the room. I walked a few steps in the darkness, opened the door, and certified that there was no one awake or around apart from me. When I turned back, I looked at myself quietly sleeping in my bed.

At that moment I realized, that I had begun nightwalking in my dreams.

Now it should be fair to say that I've always had a vivid imagination, which also reflects itself in the way I dream. It may be due to all the fiction or fantasy media I consumed through the years. It was like a game in some way, a fun interaction I had with others, something that I kinda polished over the years. First I would usually try to remember what had I dreamed immediately after I'd woke up. Then I would have fun telling it to others and watching their reaction. One time after another, using my parents and a few friends as guinea pigs.

One time when I was a child, my family moved out from the city and I started dreaming of a fantastic mix of both places, the new and old neighborhood, that was inhabited by memories of our family, lurking around the place like phantoms of better times in the past.

Another time, I spent around a week writing a poem for my class, of which I took inspiration from the Adams Family old TV show, and the next couple weeks I had dreams about our department mixed with the content of the poem, inside of which I would be able to interact with the members of the horrific fictional family.

Another time I dreamed that my classmates and I robbed a McDonald's, and another time I drove a giant mechanic spider to save the doctor who had assisted my father with his shoulder injury.

Not every dream was rich in meaning, but most of them had enough complexity to thread a story, on which I knew somehow my growth depended.

So when I started having these recurring dreams of me out of my body instead of the regular fantasy parade, I took them dead seriously.

After my first night walking I spent approximately a week wandering inside the house and its rooms, watching my mom and brother sleeping, and sometimes outside the windows, afraid of what could happen if I went out.

I discovered that I was able to watch memories lurking around the house, pretty much like before in my dreams. If I touched someone, as I did with my brother, for example, I would be able to experience to some degree what he was dreaming. Images, emotions, and chains of thought would drip from his mind to mine, making me able to see, feel, and hear what his mind was occupied with.

And then, then... I took enough bravery to go outside. I opened the door frightened by the images that I was able to see outside and allured at the same time by the possibilities.

There, standing in the grass with bare feet, our backyard forest in front, and a whole city to explore on the other side, I was able to feel the overwhelmingly liberating sense of adventure... there was a lot more to discover in this world I had so dully experiences till now.

So that summer, both in the living and what I called, the dreaming realm, I started my exploration campaign on Hollow’s Creek.