The wooden chair sat in the center of a room. There was nothing special about the chair; it was old and looked as if it had once been in a fancy dining room, but now it was worn down, and covered with cobwebs. The rest of the room was hardly visible. Shadows covered the far wall, stretching until they reached the back legs of the chair. Vague forms of something that might have been alive once could be seen reaching out from behind the chair, but whatever they were reaching for was not there. The small part of the floor in front of the chair – the part that was visible – seemed to be black and white checkered tile, though it was dirty and cracked.

Someone entered the room. Their form shifted like the creature behind the chair, and their face – or, what should have been their face – was covered by what looked like a mask, if a mask had no specific shape and was a bit too lifelike and covered in something that would like to remain unknown. They carried a small book, like a notebook they had found at their local bookstore, although it was difficult to find anything local where they were now. The cover of the notebook was dark, but that didn’t do much to hide the stains, likely (hopefully) from previous uses.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The person (?) sat in the chair, not noticing (or maybe ignoring) the creature’s increasing attempts to grab them. They crossed one leg over the other as they leaned back in the chair. They opened their notebook to, oddly, the second page – perhaps they had already started – and rested it on their bent leg, or what was probably a leg. Then they pulled a beat up wooden pencil from a pocket on their shirt that had not been there before, and was no longer there now. Pressing the tip of the pencil into the stiff paper, they began to write.

The world began to change.

And it begins.