The Witness

by Nino Lupin

1715. The following records were collected from the New England’s Department of Safety and Security. They showcase the writings of a man whom we have established to be deceased. The writings date far back, assumedly half a century after the settlement of Boston. We wish to publish these records with the hopes of acquiring more information about the town and its possible inhabitants. Please be advised: content may be disturbing.

The strange knocks and shrieks heard in the gloomy corners and alleys of Mort Hill are dauntless stings of worry and distress, as they lay dread upon even the most tranquil of nights. Casting mania upon my senses through even the sound of an innocent chatter, the cunning and cursing traits of Mort Hill have rewarded my insoluble greed for knowledge with nothing but agony and torment. However, where once I would grasp for mere specks of light in my younger years, I now delve into darkness with vigor and gusto, eager to find certainty. I must elaborate further, for you must think of me a petty pile of misery, likely moping and wailing about my sorrows in some dull and dark attic. Nay, my observer, you will soon discover that this not the case, for I am not sad, nor mad. A wee bit of despair may be present, yet this is merely a drive for my quest. Yes, a quest is what I am on. A venture, if you will, into a realm whose existence many tend to disregard or seek to avoid, for it is vast and inscrutable, not to mention terrifyingly real. A foolish idea, that is one certainty I can offer, but it is bound to reveal to me a magnificent truth.

Before I lay upon you my present endeavors, I must return with great melancholy to a time of rest and purity, a time where my current greed for knowledge was still but an innocent seed of curiosity. It is the era before Mort Hill of which I speak, an era of humanity that found its core in solitude and independence. My years as a child and young adolescent knew no whimsy, saw not many smiles, and heard all but laughter. My father, who was what my uncle referred to as an “adventurer”, I had never met. The poor soul met his death whilst conquering a tremendously large and spiky hill. The words my uncle had selected to illustrate the gruesome event surely cannot have done my father any justice: “I recall hearing a very odd shriek, thus I turned around and wham! An enormous chunk of rock, massive I tell you, comes down crashing without relent and pulverizes your father like a brittle acorn!” (Sadistic as my uncle was, he would not put any effort into withholding his chuckles). As one might figure, my uncle had no contribution to my amicable features, merely my despicable ones. My mother, devastated by her man’s fatal accident, failed miserably in finding any motive to advance in her life, not even in her son could she find sparks that would reawaken her joie de vivre. She ended her relatively short journey with an old, bludgeoned rope and the large, mighty oak tree that held watch over our town’s square.

Thus, I was left with my wretchedly disgusting uncle, whom even I, as a young, clueless boy, knew to lack sanity altogether. I eschewed his disparage and unimaginable arrogance for as much as I could, spending days and nights by the old harbor, hunting the rotten boardwalks for odd-looking creatures of the ocean. By very sneakily eavesdropping on the discourse between enthusiastic tradesmen, I learned about the horrifying cruelties that the wealthy white had laid upon certain “savage beasts”, only to discover later that these beasts were in fact in no sense beasts. They were men, men of darker skin and larger stature, but men, nonetheless. From that moment I could no longer stare down from the boardwalks into the still, reflective ocean water without feeling utter disgrace, for I was too, a white man. “How could one look down upon an essentially and naturally equal with such vile loathsomeness?” I would wonder with incredulity. Humanity became far and far less appealing. I had barely survived nine odious years under the poison-coated wings of my uncle, yet I had already committed every slightest bit of my determination to finding sanctuary; establishing undisturbed and solitary grounds for my presupposed brighter prospect. For seven more abominable winters the only frame that offered structure in my life consisted of isolation, self-exploration and endless yearns for a home. I wandered, ventured and traveled across all the lands and waters my eyes could take hold of. Where one hill would reveal to me a hundred more; where one river split into multiple; where one forest would only reward in disorientation, my mind would dwell away further and further from the holy grail I was set upon finding. Then, at last, my deeply vexed mission had finally come to an end, as I set foot on Mort Hill.

I found myself entangled in a cryptic web of emotions as I first processed the image that was set before me. I was delighted by the extravagant shapes of the large, almost mansion-like lodges; surprised by the antiquity of the single burning lantern that somehow managed to illuminate every visible corner of the town; terrified by the exquisitely dead, yet likewise alive atmosphere of the hill in its entirety. I had never seen anything in the vast and diverse land I had scavenged so long that could awake a sense of familiarity in me, for the obscure hamlet I had stumbled upon screamed at me in a tongue that seemed from another world. Yet, despite the alienation and raw estrangement, I had never in my life felt more welcome.

I could not begin to wonder about the men that had settled on this peculiar hill, or about what cursed occurrence must have eradicated this village from its inhabitants. I could not even speculate about the mysterious lantern that was still blazing vividly. Yet, the initial shock that had petrified me to the bone was soon to be replaced by moments of sheer euphoria, as I realized that my long expedition to sanctuary had finally brought me to the most isolated and tranquil of all sanctuaries. In excitement and certain disbelief, I dashed towards the largest premise in sight, for this one had been suited with what appeared to be a watchtower.

Still caught in a net of amazement, I struggled greatly in breaching through the hefty, tightly shut door, and then I could finally discern that the men and women who once inhabited this hill were long gone and possibly, not among the living any longer. A hint of sorrow was now traceable in the wave of joy that had engulfed me earlier, but this hint vanished into the void as soon as I succeeded in unlocking the barricaded door and entered what I knew to be an old inn. The common room I was now standing in did not aid me in constructing a more comprehensible and logical image of the hill and its history, as I was astonished yet again: the chamber had been furnished beautifully and thriftless, with large chairs and tables, chandeliers that splendored with intricacy, carpets with colors new to my eyes, and a bar that could provide plenty of sorrowful drinking for any sorrowful man. Yet, more remarkable than any of these lavish accommodations, was the large rifle that rested on the wall in the far back of the chamber, for it was this rifle that seemed to be the single untouched entity in the room. It was a striking image, that rifle. It sat there on the rigid and busted wall steadfastly, like a proud, autocratic king, looking over the room vigilantly and with an inexplicable sense of superiority. The time I had now spent standing in the room was mind-boggling, for each uncertainty struck me with a force that, like many of the hill’s traits, felt eerily unnatural.

For centuries I could have stood there and pondered, but my quest had not yet been completed, and so I hurried to the magnificent set of the circle stairs that would lead me to the top of the watchtower. Like inaudible whispers in the dark the stairs called to me, and as I mounted the first step I felt its curse creeping into me, right through my numb, cold feet, inhabiting every inch of my body all the way through to my buzzing crown, which had already endured an abundant portion of perplexity. The stairs constricted me in their puzzling bedazzlement as I looked down and embraced the loophole I had been lured into, endlessly spiraling up and up the steps. One might consider it foolishness not to be scared, but I assure you, my observer, that fear would have been nothing but kindness, for I would have much rather been afraid of something than certain of nothing. For what felt like an eternity I raced up those stairs, hitherto the point where my looking down had presented a major flaw and caused me to fanatically bash my head into a door. Though the collision had resulted in a painful bump on my head, with a concussion supposedly on its way, I was still choked by relief as I realized the curse of the stairs had been lifted. This door was too, a hefty and old one, but the ancestral inhabitants had taken no measures in securing it and so, I entered the watchtower.

Comprehension of the latest hours was a stretch as far as the broadest horizon, and I speak not of the moment that had just recently occurred to me on the stairs, but of the very moment when I laid eyes upon Mort Hill. Yet, I had achieved my arguably feasible goal of mounting the stairs and making my way up to the watchtower. It was a dodgy chamber, that watchtower. The bright sun rays filled the rooms with a limited amount of light; the roof of the tower looked as if the slightest whiff could blow it apart; there was also smell that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant but not a smell my nose had met before — this was an odor I did not believe to be of a known origin, and the sheer anxiety it inhabited made me sick to my stomach.  Finally, and most disturbingly, the floor was not only covered by the thickest layer of dust I had ever seen, but also by a ghastly amount of bones, as if some putrid, necrophagous being had feasted upon the men and women present in the chamber. The sighting had demonstrated a particularly unnerving effect on me, as it took hold of my imagination like a puppeteer and treated me to a barrage of displays that would make even those with the coldest hearts weep. Newborns freshly flayed; mothers ridden of their eyes, so they could merely hear their children scream; fathers mangled beyond recognition. Most petrifying were the images of the old: they had rather simply lost their ability to speak, but were forced to witness the sinister acts of savagery and torture that their precious ones were victim to, leaving their minds so molested that their hearts could no longer bare.  Perhaps, this malevolent presence was the carrier of a greater amount of malice than the mere extermination of the watchtower I found myself in. Perhaps, it was this presence, which had asphyxiated me with the withered, abominable scene it had left behind, that has led the ignorant, innocent inhabitants of Mort Hill to their exodus. Of one thing I had at last established certainty: whatever nebulous entity had brought insufferable doom upon these people had met no success in covering its tracks, as for the very first time in my petty life a sense of duty had found its woke. I was a witness, I thought. I was no longer a young man in search of sanctuary. I was a witness to a peculiar town that was once a sanctuary for many; a witness to oddities that were most probably once rather ethereal than odd; a witness to some monstrous and fiendish daemon that once seized the people of Mort hill and siphoned them into its abyss and most presently, I was a witness to the mystery this daemon had left for me to unravel. Challenging my sanity, I resided in that chamber for the entirety of the night, scoping over every single inch of wall, floor and ceiling. I cannot tell you what I hoped to find, for my memories started to lose their clarity during this very night. I had not slept, nor eaten or drunk, but tired and hungry as I might have been, the fire of duty that was burning inside me kept me sharp enough to proceed on my quest. I spent another full day in that chamber, and by then I had made acquaintances with every single spider that found refuge in it. As night fell, my sanity finally prevailed over my sense of duty and forced my eyes shut. What happens next, my observer, you must not take for granted, for I swear upon my deepest feelings of love that what happens next is a leap towards the beyond.

I speak of that world that many enter whilst asleep, a world that offers whimsy and joy, but also dread and fear. Your image of me as a credible man that is in control of its senses must gradually be finding its end and for that, there is no one to be blamed but myself. Yet I urge you to take my observations as a truth, even though it may be an inscrutable one, for this world is not merely in our heads; it surrounds us all, at every given moment in any given place. In the realm we call dreams and nightmares hide certain truths that are too devastating for mankind to hold certain. The gruesome history of Mort Hill, I believe, comfortably sits with those truths, but I have seen the scars it has left behind and I have hinted at the terrors that must have caused them. I am aware of my inconceivable goal, and more even, my delusional claims, yet I cannot stray. The path that fate had laid out for me prior to my arrival was an empty, purposeless path, full of despair and melancholy that would slowly strip me of my empathy. The new path that is presented before is undoubtedly a grim, dark path of mental and physical suffering, but it is one that at last will fill my chalice with wine. To grasp the ungraspable, to see the invisible, that is something I can live for.

No further records were found. These writings were found in the watchtower, buried underneath a large pile of human remains so large we could hardly estimate the number of victims to have been slaughtered in the room. Peculiarly, the New England’s Department of Safety and Security believes that a portion of the human remains are younger than those of the person who wrote the above.  Perhaps even more distressing is that none have been able to determine to whom any of the remains belong.  We urge any reader who might have information about Mort Hill and its supposed inhabitants to contact the New England’s Department of Safety and Security immediately.