December 29th, 1923-
A new patient has been admitted to Blackreach Mental Institute. Richard Black, a very wealthy businessman who owned several shoe stores across the Southwest, was admitted by his wife, Agatha Black. She complained that her husband suffered from chronic insomnia. When I told her that insomnia was more of an affliction to take to a normal hospital, she told me that there was more to it. She had leftover bromides from a recent affliction that had long since passed, which she slipped into his food as he would not take them himself, stating that he “did not want to go back to it.” What “it” was, she had no idea, but the bromides worked....initially. Two to three hours later he woke up screaming, repeating the phrase “It is coming for me, I shall not sleep” over and over for hours before going completely silent. As unconventional for a director as it may be, I have decided to interview him personally.

December 30th, 1923-
Under the careful eye of Blackreach Security Chief Jackson Stonewall, I entered Richard’s cell. The first, and possibly most disturbing, thing I recognized was the fact that Mr. Black had used a rock he found to draw symbols in his cell. These symbols ranged from satanic, pagan rituals to phrases such as “Please don’t let him find me.” I began to question him on these….occurrences. In an erratic and tortured voice, he told me that he was being tormented by this creature that he referred to as “The Dream Lurker.” All his dreams start the same way. He wakes up in a dark swamp and instantly his nose is assaulted by sulfur (a common smell attributed to demons). Along with the smell, the swamp is blanketed in a thick fog, bad enough that he can barely see his feet. After a time of confusion and bewilderment, he sees “it.” 

Richard says the first thing he sees is the Dream Lurker’s bright, piercing, crimson eyes. Whenever he sees those eyes, he instantly gets the impulse to run. He can’t explain it, maybe he’s being manipulated by the Dream Lurker, maybe it likes to stalk its prey. He runs, runs, and runs, tripping over roots and rocks and anything you would normally attribute to a swamp. Every time he looks back, the thing seems to get closer. He finally makes his way to a clearing, seemingly untouched by the fog, like the eye of a hurricane. That’s where he sees the Dream Lurker in its true form. Richard describes it as a black mass, full of some gaseous substance that seems to writhe around. Other than its eyes, the Dream Lurker has indefinite features other than its long arms that end in somehow sharp claws. Every time he sees the being, Richard is overtaken with a feeling of anguish and despair. 

The dream ends with the Dream Lurker lunging at him, causing him to wake up. I thanked him for his time and had Chief Stonewall lock up the room. I informed kitchen staff to slip bromides into his food as his wife did. This case is unusual in that I have never heard anything like it; it intrigued me. I hope to make more discoveries during his stay here and hopefully bring him back to his former self.

December 31st, 1923
I have disclosed an audio transcript to catalog today’s interview with Mr. Black.

**AUDIO RECORDING START**

Me: Hello Mr. Black, How are you doing on this lovely evening?

Black: Please, d-d-don’t let m-m-me go back to s-s-sleep 

Me: Speaking of that, is there anything else you can tell me about the monster?

-Black shivers and paces for a while before speaking-

Black: The nightmares, they’ve gotten worse.

Me: How so?

Black: I woke up in the swamp, and was greeted by something I have not seen in a long, long time. 

Me: What?

Black: Not what, but w-w-who. It was my brother, he was lying in the swamp, face down in the mud.

-At this moment, tears started to roll down Mr. Black’s face-

Me: And why would this monster put your brother in the swamp?

Black: It was decades ago. We were playing near a beaver dam. I dared my brother, Theo, he couldn’t run across the dam, and being the people pleaser he was, he felt obliged to do it. 

Theo was a portly boy. All the other kids made fun of him for it, so he was always trying to prove he wasn’t just the “fat kid.” I stared in disbelief as he started to climb the dam. Slowly, he walked across the dam like it was a tightrope. He made it halfway before tragedy struck. Part of the dam gave way, and Theo fell into the water.

The water carried him away; he cried for my help, gargling after each scream, and all I did was stand there, frozen. I watched as he took one last breath before disappearing under the water. I ran as fast as I could after that. I didn’t stop until I got to the house. I told my dad what happened, and before I knew it, the entire neighborhood was searching for him. They found him on the riverbank, 3 miles downstream, face down in the mud.

-Tears started streaming down Black’s pale, slender face like a waterfall now-

I never forgave myself for that. Maybe I’m being punished. Maybe this is what I deserve….

Me: Is there anything else you can tell me? 

-At this point, Black completely shut down and stared at the floor, so I terminated the recording-

Me: Thank you for your time, Mr. Black.

**AUDIO RECORDING TERMINATED**

January 1st, 1924-
While the rest of the world was celebrating the new year, the institute staff carried a more somber tone. Richard Black, with whom I have been vigorously studying for the past 2 days, has died under our care. Our orderlies posted in his wing reported hearing screaming, followed by the sounds of flesh tearing, bones cracking, and gargling before being followed by a disturbing silence. When they ran to investigate, they found Richard Black, laying in a pool of his own blood, split in two. The walls were covered in more blood than you would expect from a normal human being. Our doctors at the hospital did an autopsy of what staff was able to recover while Chief Stonewall performed an investigation. Not only had the investigation turned up dry, but our doctors could also find no explanation for how this happened. What the autopsy did uncover though, is that despite being in perfect physical condition when he arrived Richard’s organs were showing signs of decomposition the likes of which would have led any normal person to believe that he had been dead for the two days he was with us. 

What was worse was trying to explain it to Mrs. Black. At first, I attempted to give her the news with as little detail about her husband’s death as possible, but she insisted on seeing the body. I tried to reason with her but she was steadfast in her demands. Reluctantly, I took her down to the institute’s morgue. The mortician showed us to the cooler and removed the sheet. I hadn’t actually seen the body, only read the reports. I had been the director for 30 years, and even during wartime, had never seen something so, disgusting. In a matter of seconds, I was retching my lunch into the nearest garbage bin. After seeing what was left of her husband’s decomposed corpse, Mrs. Black ran out of the room, with a promise to sue us for maltreatment of our patients. 

This day has begun to get progressively worse, and worse, and worse. I don’t know if any of our staff can survive another outbreak of bad news. Unfortunately for them, during our regular patient interviews, we began to see a disturbing trend. All of our patients were experiencing the same dream. 

January 6th, 1924-
I haven’t been able to write in a while or sleep for that matter. Thirty-two patients have suffered the same fate as Richard Black. We are drowning in lawsuits, and almost all of my staff has quit. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this place up and running. Worst of all, I’m starting to experience the dreams too. It started subtly, right after the tenth patient died, I began to wake up in that cursed swamp. 

It was dark and cold, but the fog seemed to glow, illuminating the swamp. As I trudged through the mud and algae, there was a lack of wildlife, but what disturbed me most was that there were...bodies. Bodies in the water, on the land, everywhere. I soon realized that the bodies were the dead patients from my mental institute. That’s when it hit me, that putrid, deplorable smell of sulfur. It was then that I had the extreme fear that I was being watched. I turned around and there it stood: the Dream Lurker, its crimson eyes that I once thought imaginary piercing my body and compelling me to run. The rest of my dream played out exactly like Richard’s account, even the waking up and screaming repeated phrases part. I now know that thing has been infecting people, it seeps into our dreams, feeding on our guilt and absolute terror until we go completely mad, then it feeds on us. I don’t have any way of knowing how it works, but maybe if I die before it is done feeding, it will be trapped in my body. Maybe, I can stop this from becoming the fate of anyone else. As I eye the pistol I own on my desk, the last sane part of my brain tries to talk me out of this. “There’s got to be another way! Some way to beat it!” I tell myself, but I know that it’s too late for that. I won’t let it feed on me. 

If you find this paper, there are two ways this can go. If my theory is correct, then I have done my duty. Throw my body down the deepest cavern you can think of and seal it in. Remember me for the work I did before this incident. If this doesn’t work, then I am sorry I could not stop it. Pray to whatever god or gods you worship that this thing doesn’t find you, or worse your loved ones. 

If you are reading this, goodbye and godspeed.