THE JOURNAL OF LUCAS BROWN. PART 1

PREFACE

In submitting this to the wider world and minds a lot sharper than my own, perhaps more sense will be made of what has somewhat eluded me.

On 25th of November 2007 I moved into a small room that had been advertised in the local paper. It was on the third floor of an old building (my knowledge of such things isn’t great) and had probably once been the servants quarters. Stone steps led from the back of the main house beneath up to its sole entrance. I had only looked around the place briefly before agreeing a rent with the landlord. It only took me one car load to transport all my items, and after about an hour and a half the abode was kitted out to be something I would call my home.

I didn’t find it until the third day of my living there. Not having enough things to fill out the large chest of drawers, I had had no cause to open the bottom compartment. Why I did so that day is something I can’t figure out and if I think too much about it in relation to chance, fate and destiny my head starts to hurt in a way that makes me feel hollow.

Since that day, my life has been completely overrun by an unquenchable intrigue. It started as a casual curiosity; I would spend perhaps an hour of free time a day examining my bizarre discovery. Yet slowly but surely, I found myself drawn towards it in a way I cannot articulate. My curiosity snowballed into obsession and I found myself renouncing most other activities in order to spend more time investigating and contemplating the journal. Once I had read it, I never seemed to stop looking at everything around me through a lens that shattered every feeling I always thought was certain.

I have tried to find out more about the man that left it behind. The landlord claims the room has always been uninhabited since he purchased the house, that I am the first occupier under his watch. This completely contradicts the dates Lucas wrote on the first few entries to the journal.

I don’t know why, but the possibility that this is all some strange joke does not seem feasible to me. The feeling I get, the feeling I am getting now as I write this cannot be part of a joke. Lucas Brown left something behind, but it wasn’t a joke.

I have promised myself this is the last I will say on the matter. With these last words I move out of that place, both physically and mentally.

I hope.








March 22nd, 2001

At first, they fascinated me. I didn’t know why, nor did I particularly care, all I knew was that they held some strange significance. Back then, I found them so compelling that I would seek out locations whose contours would allow for such vibrations and shout out in open invitation. I attempted to beckon them forth from chasms, great hallways and anywhere else where a successful invocation looked possible.

But slowly, for reasons I cannot conjure, that all changed. It started with a gradual loss of interest. No longer would I troll for spaces in which to summon them (this wasn’t a conscious choice, I just found myself not doing it). The fascination began to leak out of my head, dripping away until I couldn’t even remember the joy they once instilled in me, and I didn’t seem bothered about trying to revive it. For once, I was comfortable in my own skin and gave my periodic fixation no further thought. They were now only slight echoes in my memory.

It was a strange reversal.

Something had happened to me which caused them to have an effect my former self could never have predicted. I had parked my car in an underground lot, It was dimly lit by the artificial glow of overhead fluorescents ( that seems significant, although I’m unsure why). I automatically went through the vacating routine, culminating in me slamming the heavy door. That was the trigger! It shuddered back at me through quivering layers. Surprised, I called out a frightened “Hello?”. That only made things worse. Several me’s (although not actually me’s) returned the question (greeting?) in quick succession, each delivered by a voice more faint than the last (or maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe it was that the me it returned was being slowly extinguished, its cries becoming more faint as the universe suppressed its existence until it simply ceased to be.)

Or maybe it’s not that either.

At least here, in my writing, there is little chance of them coming. I dare not speak these words aloud.

Why do I find this so terrifying?