Story October quietly and repeatedly says the words from forgotten, sacred tomes, he speaks them aloud and speaks them alone,

“I shut thine eyes, so that I shall see,

visions of past, present and future shall be. . ."

Slowly, beginning like a tiny crack in reality, the light, the sound, like distant thunder rolling across the prairie, the eye inside his mind opens, his third eye. Story has a Vision of the earth torn open and burning unnaturally from within. A tall bald man in a top hat, laughs maniacally. His Vision shifts to a large standing stone ring covered in ancient runes carved into the surface with swirling eerie light inside the ring. In front of the stone ring stands a winged silhouetted man. All manners of nightmarish creatures are coming through the stone ring into our world. These creatures are in many forms: some winged, some with many eyes, some cloaked in shadow. Distant screams echo and the world is in ruins, civilization destroyed, the world completely consumed in a black void. . . the end of days.

Through many years of practice combined with various mind-altering substances, Story has learned to let go of the Material World and allow himself to have Visions. To experience Visions of the past, the present and of the future. From this tangled web of sights, sounds, images and feelings he is able to decipher the information to assemble a mosaic of possible truths.

Suddenly Story opens his eyes, eyes so blue they are violet, they narrow as he speaks quietly and reluctantly to himself, “it's. . . a sign. . .I guess it's up to me to slow them down. . ." he lets out a sigh making a slight flatulent sound with his lips, then continues speaking to himself, ". . . was kind of hoping for next week's lottery numbers.” His voice trails off when he says the last part.

Up in the loft area where Story was sitting cross-legged wearing only leather pants, he stands up from the center of the pentagram that was painted on the old hardwood floor. He's a handsome six foot tall thirty-something Caucasian man. His blond hair is wavy and medium length. Strange tattoos are on his back and arms resembling some kind of arcane symbols and runes. He is fit and slim with the athletic build of a runner. Adorning him are various silver rings, bracelets and pendants. Surrounding him is an old library of tomes, books, candles, and strange symbols on the walls and floors of his loft area. This is the area he prefers to attempt to induce Visions.

Echoing throughout the space is an old Slayer album, blasting at an unnecessary volume. Story walks down a wrought iron staircase that spirals down from the loft area. Around the interior are black iron candle operas that he blows out, he uses candles for his rituals. Throughout the interior is worn out Victorian-style furniture. The apartment has old red brick walls that are covered with bizarre paintings and various old-looking tapestries from various cultures from around the world.

Story puts a t-shirt on and grabs his black leather jacket and exits the apartment building, it's an old brick apartment building clad in early twentieth-century industrial windows. In the background there are the sounds of a never-sleeping modern city. Brown leaves are scattered by the wind on the sidewalks and streets below. It's Chicago during autumn, where a cold wind blows in from the northwest, Story gets in his black van and drives off.

Later that evening Story is on the stage, he's a guest speaker at the Chicago Ghost Con Convention with about 2200 people attending. It's held every year, and this is Story's third time as a lecturer. From his blog and YouTube channel, Story has achieved a modicum of celebrity status among the paranormal enthusiast crowd, especially the paranormal crowd and is actually paid for these appearances.

Story is lecturing to the audience and continues explaining his theory and model of the Cosmos, “. . . And so the Age of Aquarius approaches and a new age dawns. As the barrier between the worlds weaken, the barrier that separates us from the Aethereal, Astral and other worlds beyond imagining, so too does the incredible begin to take shape all around us. Supernatural, possibly magic, creatures of myth and legend are returning to our world. . . at least as far as I can ascertain from my Visions.”

In the crowd is an attractive woman, sitting in the front row hanging onto every word Story utters as if it was the Gospel, she is Claire Oberhauser and she is obsessed with Story, in the unhealthy dangerous way. Claire is in her mid-twenties with long dark hair, yet if you look closely, she hides a tormented soul behind her pale blue eyes and prefers to wear black clothes in the emo/goth fashion. She subscribes to Story's YouTube channel, watches all his videos on the occult and the supernatural.

Story continues speaking, “Up until about six Epochs past, creatures of the night ruled the world and kept humanity pushed into the shadows. That is where humans hid, where they were waiting, biding their time until the day the Nocturnium would be cast out of our world. That day did arrive, but it was not only because of deities or higher powers that cast them out from the constant warring amongst them, it was simply the great wheel of the Cosmos turning that moved the realms apart, taking the beings of legend in tow. So, for 12,000 years humanity has thrived, building greatness and a world-spanning civilization as the Nocturnium faded into myth and legend. . . Some worshiped as gods while others were forgotten.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

In the back of the convention auditorium, standing in a dark corner is someone far more sinister than Claire. He is in his 50s and stands six-and-a-half foot-tall with a rugged but not displeasing face and facial hair resembling a Vandyke. He is watching, listening to Story speak with an intensity burning in his light brown eyes, light enough they almost look golden, eyes that could burn right through you, eyes without a shred of humanity left and full of torment and hatred. He is wearing a high-end black suit with a tall top-hat to make him an even more imposing character and a red velvet cloak draped over his wide shoulders.

A few minutes later, Story October is sitting at a booth table doing book signings and enjoying the attention of his fans, especially the attractive ones. He gives a pretty woman a wink after handing her a signed copy of his book. The next man in line is the tall man in the top-hat. This tall man in the top-hat says, “You're right about a lot of things but you failed to mention the Outer Realms of Chaos and the Forgotten Gods but at least you mentioned the Nocturnium,” spoken with disdain as he looks down at Story smugly.

Story doesn't really pay much attention to this guy, but simply grabs the book and immediately gets a flash of a Vision that something is terribly wrong about this man, disturbing horrific images quickly flash through his mind. It's the man from his Vision, it's hurting his head and making him grab his head and say, “Fuck! What the. . ." because he's never had a Vision hurt his head before. Then he looks up at the tall man in the top-hat and sees the amulet he is wearing, with Story's special vision he sees something no one else can, the amulet is shining like the corona of the eclipsed sun, with the center of it as black as the darkest night and it seems to drain your soul of all hope. Story immediately stands up and says, “Who the hell are you!?”

Story's abrupt action causes a huge, bearded man standing near the tall man in the top-hat to take a step forward as he reaches into his suit jacket through the breast opening but he is stopped by the tall man in the top-hat with a hand gesture.

The tall man in the top-hat says, “Me? I'm known as the one and only Dark Mage, but you may call me by my name: Hibberdibblecan,” with a deviant grin as he takes off his top-hat like a gentleman, to reveal his bald head that has various tattoos of arcane symbols.

Story says, “Hibber. . . what?” but then remembers that his pseudonym sounds vaguely familiar, but he never really paid much attention to these other guys that speak at these conventions because most are full of shit.

Over the PA they call out for the Dark Mage to take the stage.

The Dark Mage says, “Now if you'll excuse me Mr. October, I have a REAL lecture to give,” implying that Story's lecture was of amateur quality.

The Dark Mage steps on stage and says an incantation over the PA,

“Breath of Dragons

Burning bright

Breath of Hatred

Through the Night

Soul of Darkness

and the Pit of Hate

Flights of Demons

seal your Fate!”

leans his head back with his arms straight out from his sides and blows fire out of his mouth that reaches about twenty feet high. The crowd stops cold and is totally silent, then he takes off his hat and bows dramatically to the crowd as the crowd screams and cheers for him.

Story is still standing up from being disturbed by the Dark Mage and is in total shock because he has special sight, he can see that it was no fancy pyrotechnic trick. It was magic, real magic.

The Dark Mage grins for a moment before speaking to the crowd, “Thank you, all you lovely people and my future disciples,” as he smiles and the crowd laughs, “But seriously, I am glad to see you all, let me tell you a tale of the true nature of reality. I'm going to touch on a few topics that my colleague, Mr. October mentioned but I'm going to take it a bit further in the important areas.”

Story October stands there with a concerned look on his face because he knows the incantation that the Dark Mage just did shouldn't even be possible and even if it was somehow possible, doing that kind of stuff takes a tremendous amount of power and energy and something must be given up. . . that something is usually one's sanity.

The Dark Mage continues talking, “Let's talk about the Order of the Nocturnium, the Forgotten Gods from the Outer Realms of Madness and Chaos. They offer REAL power, real power for those brave and bold enough to seize it and use it as thou wilt. . . like I have done and just demonstrated!” while looking straight at Story October for the part about being brave and bold. Then he continues, “The Forgotten Gods were cast into the far reaches of the Cosmos many eons ago by the Earth Goddess and the invading interloper, the Tetragrammaton. Not to fear, they have found their way back from the Outer Realms of Madness and Chaos, to once again cast their cold, inhuman gaze upon our little world. Do not confuse my reference of the Tetragrammaton with the secret society of the Ordo Tetragrammaton, for clarification, I'm speaking of the deity. There is no stopping them, your best chance is to join me to side with them, to be a part of their reign of the Cosmos.”

Story October is horrified and shakes his head slowly, knowing that the Dark Mage is probably quite insane. . . even more insane is that Story sees some people actually nodding and hanging on every word. Story figures the Dark Mage will get a few fresh recruits today for his doomsday cult. The most disturbing thing about him is that his information about the metaphysical nature of the Cosmos and the history of the World seems to be fairly correct. . .

Now let us cast our gaze upon a small, insignificant community in the American Midwest. With small beginnings can sometimes initiate cascading changes that will profoundly alter the World.