His body has been repatriated a month after the last record and the autopsy report was filed confidential the moment his legs, before him, landed in...

At first I was hysterically confused by the terrible new.

The funerals were sober and accompanied by federal agents who ensured that the coffin stays closed until completely buried. Fairly common, isn't it?  I tried to discover why he went there by turning his office upside down, but someone already did. I tried to get his autopsy report illegally but the report was missing. I asked his wife but she had no clue herself. I wandered night and day at the very edge of madness to find a way to know what happened to this man. After two long years of relentless juridical, illegal, violent, or peaceful attempts to quench my thirst for knowledge, I attempted the unholy and unforgivable.

In a grim and desperate determination, I decided to dig up the grave of my very special friend. I remember that night perfectly. I took my coat, my shovel and walked in the night silently. Unburying him was the only decent thought I had in a while and knowing that, a strange serenity soothed my torments. It was the only and inexorable way. I knew God could be wrathful, but you know... he forgives everything, I hoped that tomb robbery was in the long list of things He could forgive. The one thing I knew is that if the truth were to come out, his family would probably not understand, for they were done mourning him...

I managed to enter the graveyard on that decisive and ghastly night and headed to my friend's tomb. I remember that iron fence creaking in a dark complaint as I started to dig. After 5 hours of relentless digging I finally managed to uncover the coffin enough to allow me to open it. Covered in sweat and my heart menacing to break apart, I pulled the cover and saw the poor remains of M. Vimont. He was deeply rotten, but that is normal indeed. His jaw was extended and weirdly shaped to allow some kind of teeth mutation I can hardly explain or describe. But of what I reckon among all his blood tainted clothes that were ripped close to his neck. I think he was still alive when they entombed him for the lid of the coffin was covered in scratches, blood and occasionally broken nails. I looked down and saw that his rib cage was broken, revealing a deep cavity into his chest (along with insects I will not describe), probably at the emplacement of his heart. I am ashamed for what I did next is to loot his body, seeking for some kind of clue I could manage to exploit... that is where I found the first mentioned journal.

Indeed, in the journal I found the incomplete story he managed to keep note of and realised that the truth was hiding in the Republic of Congo. I got home in a hurry and prepared my luggage. After 30 minutes of argument with the airport receptionist I finally got a rebate on an economic class flight for my destination, and left within an hour for the departure site. I only took my breath once seated in the plane, exhausted, panicked and thrilled by the events that happened. After I calmed down, and only then, I realized that there was going to be great dangers to come, and feared the future a little more and fell asleep, soundly, for the first time in a while...

When I woke up, we were almost at destination. I managed to get my luggage back and move on to the closest village. I asked for the emplacement written in the book but, without the name of the village it was hard to find. I finally found some buy-able guide who, with all my cash in hand, guided me up there. I finally arrived at the village, where Vimont landed. I was experiencing a weird feeling, a feeling which only archaeologists and such can experience. The sensation of being on the trail of history, uncovering mysteries lost by time... Anyways, I asked my guide to lead me to the village in the mountain, which he did with a lot of hesitation. After a short night of sleep in a hut, we left for the mountain. The road was abrupt and the climate so hot and damp that I feel this perpetual sensation of discomfort just thinking of it...

After an exhausting walk up the hill, we arrived in sight of the dark temple. The place was magnificent but something was wrong about this temple. The architecture was impossible, the stones' shapes were improbable. The whole deteriorated building seemed to come from somewhere else. Unlike my lost friend, I decided to not sleep and venture fourth in the direction of the temple, just in case. My guide abandoned be at this moment, deciding that it was too dangerous and that he had done enough for the money I gave him... selfish bastard.

I walked in the sparse jungle silently, approaching the lake and the temple. There was a heavy supernatural silence, so intense that I had the feeling my steps were loud bangs upon the earth. I entered the temple's gate, leading to a very weirdly designed sanctum. The whole place was built in a way no human civilisation could fathom. I pushed a wooden door covered in strange sculptures and penetrated in an even darker room. I lit up my flashlight, and kept going. The walls were angled as if I was inside a pyramidal room. They were covered in strange drawings of creatures being adored by the Pygmies, just like they were gods. Then I saw paper on the floor. It was a ripped page of my old friend's journal...

"I am in the temple but it's owners are close. They still exist! Those godlike beings they speak of in the paintings are real somehow. I could decipher some of the paintings. The beings they were worshiping were some kind of homo-phages. They speak of demons, but I think more of a genetic mutation. I saw one a few minutes ago, and he bit me savagely in the neck. I am bleeding now, he is not far. The door will not hold him forever, and I am in the middle of nowhere... God please save me!" - Last Record

When I read those last words, I left the temple in a hurry. Now persuaded of the truth of what I read I ran out the jungle as fast as I could. I don't know why I was left alive, but I could manage to take a plane back home...


When I tried to tell the truth, they laughed at me. When I gave them the journal, they saw me as a delusional mad man. Then after a few attempts to reveal the truth I was put in a mental institution... The government knows but remains silent... This is my good bye letter to the world, hoping that somehow, someone will believe this anthropology lesson, and be more careful at night.

"The common curse of mankind,—folly and ignorance."
-William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II.

I learned about the story of Philippe Vimont from the crackled and rotten pages of his diary buried six feet underground with his carcass in 1998. He used to be my friend a long time ago but  his sudden death and prior utterly strange behavior obsessed me to the point that beyond all sanity and comprehension, I dug up his grave to know what really happened on the night of his death, the September 24th 1996.

Considering my now very feeble credibility, weakened by being held against my will in a mental institution, I would understand you if you didn't believe the terrible yet nearly impossible events that occurred to that man I respect with all my heart. He was an anthropologist of renown (graduated from Harvard in 1986) for he had made proof that the Laetoli footprints were issued of our very genus, but this is an other story.

His diary, that I will partially quote in this informal and mainly sentimental report begins with a trip to Africa he forgot to mention to me, his old friend. The events take place aboard a plane on destination to a village in Divéné in the no longer socialist Republic of Congo during the night of September 17th 1996 and are constituting the first record of his diary.

"I am currently on the plane. I do not know what I will find in this country but I am confident that the translation I accomplished is authentic and reliable. The only thing I fear is the severe effect of time which must have laid its inescapable curse upon the proofs I seek. I have been told that I will not lack of labor force, for the village I am leading to is primitive and desperately crave for investment. However, the nature of my researches is economically potent but highly risky so I must keep the purpose of this travel untold." - Record 1

His explanation is vague but I discovered later that he speaks of a location he found in an old book that were extracted from a passage reproduced by consonance from a very occult dialect proper to the lost Kingdom of Anziku. Apparently, the purpose of this initial excursion was to find proofs of a different humanoid yet unknown to the modern representation of Mankind evolution, along with some ancient archaeological artifacts of great value. Interested by the possible discovery that would result in a critical revolution of modern anthropological conception, he had left quickly and arrived in the small airport in the morning of the next day.

The airport was on the side of the very moist and dense forest of the Republic of Congo. He was amazed at the exotic beauty of the landscape and the kindness of the people he met. The firsts days he spent in this remote place were fully spent to reach the village of which name he does not mention. While he was in the rabid jungle of Congo, he mentioned a passage worthy of attention :

"I am sitting under a strange tree waiting for the guide to come back with some fresh water. His daughter is looking around nervously, there is something bugging her. Despite of her worried face I must admit that she is as beautiful as the Venus of Azombeii. Her eyes reflects intelligence and her ebony skin is perfect, this country is not always easy on the natives but she seemed untouched by time and roughness of life. She has long and strong legs revealed from her army  teared up pants and her breasts are generous and firm, veiled by her very thin and old green tank top. Now I am pulled out of my oneirism by the guide coming back, he looks as worried as her, but has the water." - Record 3

I never knew that my friend was so aware of the beauty of a woman. I do not doubt his virility but his capacity to be romantic. Again, I was surely wrong about him... His diary has four or five other short records leading the story to the unknown and enormously remote village he finally managed to venture to. Closing in to the village, his guides claimed their due, the girl kissed him on the cheek and he left them to walk the last yards.

Arrived there, the anthropologist described the village as "an eery slum drowned in a warm fog". There was an uneasiness building up with the locals as they seemed to hate the strangers, and looked at him with a gaze severe enough to chill your bones. Nevertheless, some of them liked the money, so after a few refusals he managed to find an intrepid and strong looking man named Mabwé who promised to know the emplacement of the thing he was looking for. Completely exhausted from the flight and the long walk in the jungle he had just ended, he slept in the back of Mabwé's rusty truck (which was also his house), and they both left on feet, after a troubled sleep, early in the morning.

"I just woke up and take the time to write this for I do not know when I will be able to write again. The ruins are close from this village apparently, I could reach them before the night comes. I am eager to visit the forgotten place I am looking for, if I am right, I might make a revolutionary discovery. I do not understand this man Mabwé, he came to me and woke me up asking for me to take my money back, hopefully I convinced him to complete our journey." - Record 10

They walked in the jungle with all day, surrounded by very tall exotic trees that obscured the narrow trail we were following. He could tell that the so called "trail" was almost never used for the vegetation was all over it. After walking a few hours, they began to ascend a hill. The guide remained silent during the whole excursion. He lead M. Vimont in the twilight until they had reached the end of the trail.


The path became harder than it was when walking on the moist earthen trail for the floor was now covered in some yellowish cobblestone. At the end of this sinister pathway was laying the ultimate structure he was looking so desperately for. He described his vision of the ruins :

"I have stopped a few minutes for we attained the first objective of this excursion. The sun will set soon so I must hurry. I found the ruins of a temple used by the pygmies who once inhabited the region. The ruins are the hint of a once magnificent stone carved temple, ingeniously built upon the back of the mountain. In front of the ruins (showing only the first floor of the antediluvian fortification), was a small lake forming an inner bay, bathed in fog. The nature, like the landscape laying before my very eyes is silent and still, like the time had spared the whole sanctum. I will now set up the camp. I cannot wait for the morning to come, I hope I will find the evidence I am looking for." - Record 11

Those where the last words of his diary, and thus, this marks the beginning of my own journey, on the trails of his mysterious disappearance.
To be continued...

The night was going to be long on the road to Jacksonville, Illinois.

After driving for two long hours I began to question myself about the utility of this pathetic attempt. Eddie was old when I was young, and I had no idea if he was alive, or still living his old house on the West Beecher Avenue. I remembered his perfectly trimmed grass and his luxuriant flower beds, and these thoughts distracted me from the lack of purpose of my excursion. I had joyful thoughts about my childhood in Illinois. My mother was very sweet and my father was virtuous, strict, but played baseball with me every Sunday. Everything went more complicated when I entered the police in Indiana. The dreams I had about dark places far beyond our time and space made me very stressful and seeing all the crimes the streets can bear made me loose interest in God and his senseless gospel. The dreams intensified and I finally left the police and became detective for a private office. This kind of work suited more my headaches and lack of sleep. There is a lot of other reasons concerning my disinterest in the police forces but they are... complicated and bitter. I knew all the policemen that died that painful night...

I finally arrived at my destination around 6A.M. and was fairly sad to see how the house was neglected. It was a small stone house, the only one made from such expansive material on that street. There was a little tower with cone-like roof tainted in blue shades. The vines had infested all the walls letting them show only a hint of stone. The once magnificent flower beds were icons of wilted and time lost vegetation and the grass was worthy of the most savage jungle. I decided to sleep an hour in the car before going out, by sheer politeness to the homeowners. I think I was more scared of what I would or would not find in the house, and wanted to wait a little more before affronting reality, as always.

I lit up a cigarette, took a sip of Jack and left my car. I walked to the door and knocked. I waited for a minute or so, and knocked again but there was no answer. After an other minute, Miss Brown finally opened the door. She was Eddie's wife, the most kind person I knew in all my life. Anyways, she stared at me silently and hugged me strongly in a most familial fashion like only a grandmother can. She looked bad. Her eyes were vitreous and she was extremely pale. She told me to enter, so I did. I walked in the dusty kitchen where she offered me a cup of tea and had me sit down. I ate a cookie and then, after a few words, she explained to me that Eddie was no longer living here, but he was still alive. I was surprised at first, because she told me that he was at Jacksonville's mental hospital. I asked why but she didn't answer, she asked me politely to leave a few minutes later. I got back in the car, thinking that this situation could never get weirder and decided to visit Eddie at the mental hospital.

I arrived at my destination after eating in a pub, I was a little drunk, but it was making everything easier. I was accepted by the hospital as a visitor and was lead to my old friend's room by a nurse. The place was very weird. A strange feeling you can only get in a mental institution overwhelmed me, the kind of feeling only a place tainted by the insane and the wicked can inflict. I finally entered Eddie's room where he was peacefully writing a letter at a small desk by the window. He asked me to sit down, so I sat on his bed. He turned his chair around and smiled. He told me he was very glad to meet me again. He looked very healthy and sane to me. He explained me that things we simpler here, that he was here by himself. I finally gave him the rusty band I found and he manipulated it while I was explaining the unbelievable incident that occurred. Eddie was apparently newly blind but he seemed to recognize the ring. His face expressed contrition and discomfort. He told me to stop asking questions about that and to throw the piece of metal away, but I refused and confronted him. All the time and sanity I had invested in this could not be wasted by an old man's delusions. He agreed to speak to me about it if I promised to stop this investigation, so I lied...

He told me that the hand I found with the ring was the brand of a very old and evil creature that he had encountered once. He explained to me that the elder and dark being fed on the very body and soul of mortals. The creature always left the decayed hand of the dead body it had possessed and a link of the chains that kept him in this world. He told me that the only way to find this thing was to summon it through a painful ritual lead by some kind of medium.  I lost all hope in solving this case when he told me that, how could I believe such thing!? If only I knew...

I thanked him and left for Indiana. I was discouraged and profoundly sad. I found myself very stupid to go ask an insane about all this. I drove all the way back, entered my apartment without care. Too tired to think clearly, I slept soundly until the night. I awaken in my apartment, surrounded by the darkness of the night. I took a shower, dressed up, picked my gun and left for the Willow Cemetery. Arrived there I lit up a cigarette, took a sip of Jack and entered the precincts. It was a moonless night and the wind was cold and strong. I walked up to miss Erskine's tomb and I saw the thing. A dark silhouette in the night with apparently one hand missing walked slowly to me. I was paralyzed by fear as it approached, almost gliding on the ground. The bell of the church aside knelled for an unknown reason and I pulled out my gun slowly. I saw the face of the thing. It was a woman visage, rotten and decayed by time, her skin was blueish and damp. Her eyes were liquefied. Her smell was horrible and warm like she was rotting under the sun. She talked but there was no voice... I was still alive but I had no breath. I felt the blackness of the soul inside this corpse and almost fainted. How could this be true? Why did it came to me? I felt my blood bursting out of my skin by every pores and felt my body dragged. I was not dead, but yet bloodless... and then there was darkness and pain. When she was finally done with eating my body, breaking my bones and devouring my soul... there was darkness again...

Some things are to be unknown.