[currently untitled]
an excerpt

Chapter I. Endings and Beginnings

The stars that shone across this particular night sky were no different from any other night. They might have seemed a bit brighter than was typical, but this could easily be attributed to the clear weather, and to the generally agreeable temperature that had persisted for the past week or so. The Moon might have, in contrast, seemed slightly larger and duskier than normal, but this was scarcely extraordinary, as it often appeared this way at this time of the year when the crops were growing ready to be harvested from the fields many countless miles away. Even the sky itself was the very same dark velvet tapestry it had always been, stretching from one horizon to the next and standing sentinel watch over the placid sea of buildings that made up the endless city below. And even these were, for the most part, the same as they had always been. Their worn stone facades, and dusty brick masonry, radiated the heat of the day before and kept to the same guarded pact of silence that they had upheld since they were first raised. Each one kept silent vigil over the other so that it seemed as if the whole city was holding a collective breath as it listened to the heated disturbance emanating from the brightly lit study belonging to Aloysius Laurent. This argument alone seemed to be the only thing deviating from the set rhythm of normality. This argument was indeed different from every other typical night.

[exerpt from chapter fIV.: What Became of Daylen Lecher]
He could make out nothing to arouse any interest and let out a disappointed sigh. He desperately wished something would happen. He fell back upon the bed and fell into a shallow disgruntled slumber where the dreams that chased each other through his mind where dark and unsettling.
It was very dark, and slaughtered hogs danced in a circle upon their hind legs even while they screamed viscerally and vomited forth blood and defilement. One of the pigs was in actuality a man: possibly the man that Greene had wanted killed, he was completely naked, and he thrashed around wildly as tears poured thickly from his eyes, and he was jerked around helplessly by the disturbing creatures that twirled eerily around him. But now Jonathan could see that it was actually the boy that he had murdered. No. That Marcus had murdered, and blood poured forth from his gaping stomach and pooled on the ground as he danced on in the macabre ballet. But could it be, there was Marcus himself, but he seemed much different in a way that was impossible to isolate. He was off in a way that conveyed danger and corruption, and where his eyes would normally be there appeared to be a sinister white light that he could not seem to focus on. As the perverted form of his former friend approached him, Jonathan found that he seemed to grow smaller and with horror he realized that he was utterly naked an impotent, but there was nowhere he could flee to. Marcus loomed over him malevolently and regarded him in a way that was both calculating and terrifying. But as his twisted features grew closer to Jonathan’s the cry of pigs grew louder, and now they were eating Marcus as he continued to gaze unemotionally on. They devoured him with voracious abandon tearing him to pieces even as he continued to watch without appraisingly. Jonathan was reminded of a terrible picture he had once seen of horses eating a man, but even as the pigs gorged themselves on his slippery entrails and ragged flesh, the seemed to grow even more emaciated until they seemed all protruding skeleton and loose sallow flesh. They began to scream and roll wildly upon the dark earth until he was sure that they were dying, but they began to move closer to where he was crouched defenselessly until he could hear nothing but their unearthly howls and the prancing of hooves…