Let us take a moment to appreciate the exquisite arrogance of the waking mind. All those sturdy little thoughts and sensible memories. All those charming little lies you tell yourself so your ego doesn’t wither. Adorable, really.
Small wonder the Nameless have taken an interest.
They come from beyond the outermost door, from that grand dark cradle where worlds are dreamt and devoured. Lesser offspring of much greater horrors, really, though that is rather like calling a shark lesser because it cannot swallow the ocean.
The Nameless slip easily through the cracks in dimensions, breeding in the hollows between madness and reality. Their corruption twists once-familiar places into horrific realms where space folds in on itself and every angle becomes impossible. And do rest assured, your meager human perception will find it quite difficult to survive.
Though they do not create worlds in the proper sense, the Nameless are lethal architects of the mind. Your nightmares are their brick and mortar, your senses their playground. They might roost for ages inside your skull, building vast kingdoms of imagined terror until your mind collapses beneath the weight. Or they might extend into your physical surroundings, until you cannot tell up from down or dream from waking.
Yet make no mistake: the Nameless do not merely induce nightmares or toy with the senses. Rather, they twist the very fabric of the cosmos into insanity, until your mind cannot help but follow suit.
Oh yes, and one last thing: merely thinking of them is enough to invite them in. Lovely little trick. We really should have led with it.
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The Hayashi Case
People ask me about Patchboy a lot. One of the greatest street alchemists in living history. He runs his own chain of rag houses—best product this side of the Atlantic. People expect some wise old vulture hunched over a tome. Instead, they get a barefoot twelve-year-old with a thousand-yard stare.
He wasn’t always like that. Maybe the story’s for him to tell if he ever decides to. But confidential doesn’t mean much in our circles. Everyone knows I was on the team that saved him.
“Saved.” That’s generous. We just woke him up.
This was Okinawa, a few years back. Four of us on a contract to kill a Nameless. I’d dealt with a couple before, but just the shadow figure variety. Sneaky little shits, never quite where you expect them to be, but manageable. I had no idea what we were walking into.
The brief said the house was showing signs of corruption, which meant the Nameless was strong enough to manifest psychic energy onto the Plane. I should’ve been more scared.
The Hayashis owned the place. Two parents and a son. The kid had been asleep for over a week, and no one could wake him. That was Patchboy. Though he didn’t go by that then.
From outside, the house looked ordinary. A nice suburban three-bedroom, grass getting long.
Inside, it was as big as a hospital. A maze of rotting paper screens and tatami rooms, where physics had abandoned ship. Some halls were so tight you couldn’t squeeze inside; others opened wide as cathedrals. The walls were black and peeling upwards, and none of the spatial stuff made sense.
That was the worst part. You’d step into a room only to find yourself on the other side of it. You’d turn a corner and be standing upside-down. A light bulb would shatter a yard ahead, and you’d feel the shards on the back of your neck.
Oh man, and the water. Everything was soaked, dark droplets from the ceiling and pools on the floor. Some places, we had to wade through waist deep.
I guess that was the nightmare manifesting. Nameless corruption is specific to the dreamer, and Patchboy was afraid of drowning.
Kid must’ve had a hell of an imagination.
It took hours to reach the bedroom. His parents were there when we entered, floating face-down. A couple days gone by the smell.
But Patchboy was still alive. Black veins ran from his body, into the walls and pools, leeching his nightmares into the world. A hammock of mildewed blankets held him above the water. Still don’t know if that was the Nameless protecting its host, or a nine-year-old kid trying not to drown.
We did the rites, baited the Nameless out. Huge, twisted thing, tentacles the same texture as those veins. Hell of a time killing something that attacks from exactly where you’re not looking.
But in the end, it went down. And as the water started to drain, Patchboy finally opened his eyes.
He glanced at his parents’ bodies. No emotion. Then he looked at me.
“How long have I been sleeping?”
A week, I told him.
He shook his head. “I endured that dream for one thousand years,” he said. “I have outlived mortal measure. I reached through the endless dark and touched what waits beyond. What I saw there, I hope you never see.”
Then he closed his mouth. Far as I know, he hasn’t spoken since.
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Stay vigilant, Grimrunners,
— Studio Ellipsis Team