There are a thousand reasons to suspect a Grimspawn is nearby. Mysterious deaths. Missing limbs. Shapes in the stone that make your eyes bleed.
All of them dramatic. None of them concrete.
If you really want to be sure, look for the Gloom.
Gloom is the creeping rot Grimspawn spread about your delightful little world. A physical substance, yes. Dark and malignant and growing.
It seeps in through black fissures in reality, collecting in ruins and abandoned places. Depending on the creature, its rules and appearance can vary drastically. Signatures of the species, really. We simply group them all under the name Gloom for the sake of efficiency. You’re welcome to propose an alternative. We will, of course, ignore you.
Despite appearances, Gloom is not merely a passive byproduct. Gloom is aware. It perceives through the spaces it occupies, through embedded eyes or repurposed tissue. Through its slow, patient crawl into unseen corners. Oh, Gloom adores unseen corners. Which is charming, considering how closely it watches back.
So do try to remember: nothing enters Gloom’s presence unnoticed. Or unreported. If you can see it, the monsters are close. If you feel watched, they already know you’re there.
Welcome to Nightholme. Mind where you step.
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The work doesn’t change. Salt and bone dust at the threshold, marks etched into the walls. If my ends are frayed, I’ll burn what needs burning and seal it in glass. To assure nothing followed me. And nothing ever does.
Only then do the boots come off and the whiskey comes out. I light a cigarette and scrape blood off my gear, slow and easy.
It takes a few drinks for my shoulders to drop. Eventually, I stop glancing out the window. My auntie used to call me paranoid, but we know how that turned out.
I should have left days ago. But the contract’s rich, and the room works. It’s one town over, above a smoky bar. Reminds me of home.
I stumble to bed around sunrise. The last thing I notice before drifting off is a visible crack in the ceiling above me—nicotine-yellow edges and a dark centerline. Stress fracture, sure enough. Big one.
I smile at it. Just like home.
The next day I stay in. Preparations, chewing herbs and fixing oils. My skin feels tight, but the sigils are holding just fine. I figure I’ll run it off.
On my way out, I mention the ceiling to the bartender. He shrugs. If it doesn’t collapse on me in bed, I don’t care either.
The run is rough. By the time I get back, I’m running on fumes. I check the salt, the marks. No omens, but my eyes keep darting to the window, so I lay more anyway. Then I pass out in the armchair, glass dangling between my fingers.
I wake up, gasping, from a nightmare.
It’s still dark. Oh, and here’s that old feeling again, the one everyone knows. A sense beyond the polite five, pricking at my spine.
You’re not alone.
But I am. Nothing followed me. Nothing ever does.
I sit with it, frown etched deep, then tell it to go. I’ve carved enough seals around this room to turn any trouble at the door. Sometimes a nightmare’s just a nightmare.
Trying to get tired, I center myself on the crack above me. Trace its shape over and over. They really should get that checked.
I close my eyes. My fingers twitch. No good. Grumbling, I clamber up off the ratty old armchair—
Armchair?
Wasn’t the crack over the bed before?
I’m cold now, staring. Nicotine edges, dark center, but it’s organic somehow, the curve of it, like angelica root.
I reach up. I need to feel plaster under my fingertips.
My touch grazes the pale edge, then slowly inches inward. And I start to realize something as I go.
It doesn’t recede into the ceiling. It protrudes out.
It’s a glistening, pulsing ridge.
Gloom.
I think of all these nights spent sleeping beneath it. Stubbornly, I tell myself, Nothing followed me.
Maybe not. But some things are there when you walk in.
Beneath my fingers, the ridge starts to squirm. Then the line splits, and opens one yellow eye.
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Stay vigilant, Grimrunners,
— Studio Ellipsis Team