"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown"

~H.P. Lovecraft, A Great Writer

Of Horror.

The fear of the unknown is something that has been with mankind from the very beginning. Man's first instincts and emotions formed his response to the environment in which he found himself.

The unknown, being likewise the unpredictable, became for our primitive forefathers an omnipotent source of boons and calamities that visited upon mankind. Tonight, Timothy came face to face with such a calamity.

Gazing upon the crimson blood oozing out of the book. Timothy shivered in fear. Heart-Palpitating and breath heavy, the scene before him was beyond his mortal comprehension.

Completely paralyzed in terror, Timothy's voice was almost incapable of speech. He could only watch the trickling of blood from the book seemingly mesmerized.

"What..in..the...world..is..happening here!? It's not just the fact that the book is bleeding, it's the way it's being done!"

The blood gushed out, akin to a river of forceful might. It completely dyed the entire floor in it's deep hue of red, the smell was raw and unbearable. A burning sensation started pulsating in Timothy's mind. The pain was minor but it gradually increased over time. At this point Timothy was truly terrified. His safest bet was for his mother to come down and assist him.

"Mother!? Help! Something is happening down here! Please I need your help!"

Timothy's cries went unanswered. Everything in the zone of blood seemed to be disconnected from the reality located out. Timothy was truly trapped.

The blood from the book continued cascading. It eventually reached a stage to where the whole lower floor of the house was seeped in it's contents

Timothy was there, centered in it, completely drowning in it's red. The will of life Timothy had was coming to a close. This was inevitable death, death by drowning, drowning in the devil's blood.

"Am I going to die? Does it really all end here in this wretched town? I didn't even get to see them again. I just want to return to them and see thier faces."

The chain of events to happen next however could be defined as a miracle, tho for Timothy it would just be the start of his suffering, a suffering that lasted both his time alive and his time dead.

"The blood! It's converging. It's reforming, going somewhere. But where?? Where is the blood going!?"

It didn't take long for Timothy's question to receive an answer. The place in question was his right hand. At the center of his right palm, all the blood was rushing in.

Every single drop of blood that bathed the room was being absorbed by Timothy's right hand, even the blood that soaked his clothes simply became a meal for the vortex that now possessed Timothy.

"What the hell is happening!? This isn't making sense! Am I truly fated to die on this day?"

The burning sensation continued on in Timothy's mind, evolving to a point where it was now unbearable. Ghost-like screams and strange mutterings from the dead assaulted Timothy's psyche, his brain was under immense pressure, being driven insane from his encounter. At this point he just wished for a painless death.

Ahhhhhhhhh!... Under the prolonged mental torture, Timothy finally reached his breaking point, his conscienceness was slowly slipping away. He screamed out in pain for a final attempt that someone, anyone could hear him, but none did, for the only company he had was the devil's blood and the cold cruel claws of death.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Hello?

Is anyone here?

Where the hell am I.

Timothy woke up in a world of endless fog. A seemingly uncountable number of tiny glittering stars shimmered through it, creating an ethereal like scene, combined with a cold aura and a dead silence, the space gave a feeling of vast emptiness.

"Is this what people called heaven? To be honest, it looks a lot more lackluster than I thought it would."

Drowned in his thoughts, Timothy decided to take a look around the place.

"What is this place? No matter how far I travel and look, I can't see nor find an end. A blood filled book, endless fog, my assumed death and strange mutterings. This has been too much of a strange night."

"Something feels off tho. Presumably, if I died, why would I be here in a world of fog? Will I be stuck here for eternity? Where are my fellow deceased? Why do I still have the same train of thought?"

"It is unlikely that I died but rather was somehow transported into this world and the only answer to how it would have happened is obviously the book, the book of Melvin."

Timothy's eyes traced to his right hand that now donned a bloodstain tattoo of the inverted cross. With just a casual look, the mental pain returned shaking the foundations of Timothy's mental psyche. While not as excruciating as before, the pain now burned something into his mind, a set of strange words that puzzled him.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"What are these words? Should I say them aloud? If I say this, there is a possibility that another dangerous situation may occur. But at this point in time, what choice do I have."

"This place is god knows how big and I currently have no way out. Who knows how long I am going to be in this place? I have to say the words."

"The miserable denizens of a wretched little flyspeck, living in the midst of black seas of infinity, piercing the scattered vistas of reality and going mad from the revelations of the cosmos, the truth of thier cosmic indifference laid heavy on thier heart."

With each word spoken, a mystical feeling travelled through Timothy's body. As soon as the chant ended a book had appeared. It was the same pitch black book that had been torturing Timothy mentally and been the reason for his demise earlier, the book of Melvin.

"It appeared out of thin air!? I can summon it with the phrase burned into my mind now. This must be actual magic! I finally have the chance to have a better look at what is inside it. "

Timothy felt no fear in opening the book this time turning to its first page, that's even taking into account his previous bloody experience. As far as he was concerned, he was either dead or somewhere in between.

"This is information on this place I'm in!? The word of endless fog and stars called Platonia, it fits the description. Platonia seems to be the name of this place. This mysterious space and the book of Melvin is definitely connected. Let's read what exactly is this place. As it is read."

"All things eventually reach an end, even the conceptual embodiment of ending itself, will face it's expiration date eventually. Whether metaphysical or omnipotent, whether infinite or immortal, whether it exists or doesn't exist, all things will come to an end."

"Platonia the realm hidden behind the stars, a place of endless fog, the place bounded by no laws, is the only realm without any end, a realm that is the true and complete embodiement of infinity, the end of all ends, the end without an end, where both tangible and intangible conceptualizations like dimensionality and spatiotemporal attributes, are merely ideational fragments of fictions in it's presence. All concepts wether platonic, dualistic, or abstract are simply viewed as ideas in this space, this is Platonia the realm that isn't bounded by anything, not even the end"

Just reading the words, Timothy felt greatly confused. A place without an end? A place of true infinity? This felt all too confusing to Timothy who was just recently exposed to mysticism.

"I am more of a believer in science, things like demons and non conceptual realms, are only fairy tales to me. But it seems that now there is no denying that the supernatural exists. Sadly I have died, so now this information doesn't have a chance of reaching to the public."

"But who would have believed me anyways? I doubt people would believe some random kid saying they came in contact with the supernatural, what proof do I have other than the blood tattoo on my right palm."

"Infact it would probably be a terrible idea, if I was somehow able to give proof that the supernatural exists, I doubt people would be joyous, I'll probably be used as a test subject for some random government. "

Thinking about various future possibilities, another thought crossed Timothy's mind. The residual shock from the past events still lingered in his thoughts, so he didn't have time to process anything properly. He had forgot about the life he had left behind, the life before his assumed death.

"I hardly feel anything, I don't miss them. I don't miss the life that I had before. I don't miss the sunset , the laughs or the experiences I had in my previous life. Even my memories and my existence as a whole, are completely irrelevant in this realm. This is the epitome of unbiased."

"But I don't want to stay here forever, the human mind is not one that can adapt to loneliness. I still desire to to return to my reality. But isn't this the end? Isn't this my end?"

"My parents are probably going to be torn emotionally missing me, but as the days, months, years and decades pass by. My existence will be forgotten. I would have slowly became another unimportant cog in the wheel of time, being irrelevant to human history as a whole."

"In a way its ironic, because the position I am in now is a lot more fair than my previous life. At least this place treats everything fair, unbiased to all, even to concepts."

The words seeming to reverberate in the fog, it gave Timothy a thought. At first he thought it wasn't possible, but as he thought about it some more, he realized that it was actually a radical idea!

"Wait!? I never thought about this but this realm is the realm of unbiased right? The realm where all things to exist and all things to not not exist is treated the same correct? Would that mean in turn both me and death itself, are on the same playing field here?"

"I obviously can't escape death in the real world, but in here, death is not more important than I, nor does it have any special supernatural privileges. I could trick death!"

"This world is a world of imagination, anything is possible here. The concept of me and the concept of imagination itself, is no different. This might be the true use of this place, to summon conceptual ideations!"

Timothy had gained enlightenment, his idea should theoretically work. But his only problem was how to activate it. His thoughts traced back to his previous chant, the chant that summoned the book.

"Maybe if I say it again, I could summon death. Maybe this is my only chance to reverse my death and go back to my reality."

Timothy repeated the previous chant, with each word spoken, the mysterious feeling that permeated through Timothy's body before, was now completely absent. By the time the chant was finished, the only magical feeling he had was his stupidity, fresh on his mind.

"Its not working this time, why? I used it to summon the book before? Why isn't it working this time."

Timothy pondered on his situation for awhile until he finally gained a theory on what could possibly be wrong.

"I originally used the chant to unknowingly summon the book, this time I need to use the chant to summon death. Maybe I have to adjust the words a little, this is to make it fitting for what I want, let's give it a try!"

He experimented a bit on his second attempt this time. Just slightly changing the words to fit to the result he desired. It was as he said

"The endless concepts that laid in the world of fog, existing in the ever expanding seas of infinity, with false thoughts of privilege, mad from the equality of the fog, the unbiased ness of its stars laid heavy on thier heart."

"I summon you the concept death."

His words brought forth an extremely terrifying aura. Dense black winds scattered across Platonia, shaking its stars. A being of great magnitude was arriving.

Before Timothy, death was appearing. A being that was unable to be described in words, completely ineffable, undescribable and ever changing, a creature without form and logic. Just attempting to describe it could drive the average mortal to madness. This was the metaphysical aspect of death, the being everyone would see at thier end.