From Darkness It Comes

Learning More Than He Wanted

Darrin walks into the large library, which despite it being bright daylight outside is still dark and shadowed within. The stacks of books he seeks out are located in the darkest, mustiest, and most shadowed part of the library. They are the old records and manuscripts they keep locked up in the protected section of the basement. He saw this when he was here earlier in the week. You have to check your bags with the librarian and sign in before they let you enter. You then have to be let out, but can't take any books with you without a special request from a senior staff member. That won't be an issue today, since he has no bag and doesn't plan to take anything with him.

He passes through the main hall of the library and sees a number of people sitting around. Some are talking softly, while others are reading or looking up books. Several of them seem to be reading the morning paper and talking in strained whispers. "Right here on campus." He overhears one of them say. "Before classes even start."

Darrin mostly ignores them, set on his goal, until he overhears one more thing. "Looks like some sort of murder." He pauses to listen some more for a moment. "They say it was some kind of animal attack, but then say they don't know what kind of animal it could be and if it was something large enough to do this there is no way it could have gone unseen."

He walks over and picks up one of the papers and there it was, right across the headline. A woman died on campus last night and nobody saw anything happen. It reads like a watered down police report, but lets a few things that seem important slip through. It does mention they are calling it an animal attack, but they don't know what kind of animal. They say it has to be something big, but also that nobody saw anything that would fit the description at all. There are quotes from campus security, police, and others who saw the scene that let a few words slip like: "Carnage", "Several pieces", and "Ripped apart." One of them also mentioned they have not ruled out "Cult activity" as one possibility.

He puts the paper back down and continues down into the basement of the library, trying to put thoughts of that horrible scene behind him. Could it be connected? he wonders to himself. Is this just the start of whatever evil or strangeness is happening here? He shakes his head to try and put it out of his mind again.

With nothing more than his notebook and a pencil he sits down in the caged in protected area of the library, trying to ignore the strange looks from the librarian who let him in as she walks passed every few minutes. She seems to find it odd that a student would want to study old books before the classes had even started, especially an obvious freshman like Darrin.

The first book he grabbed was the old tome about the history of the school and township it was built on. It was penned back in 1894, only about 60 years after the school was founded, so it should have some accurate accounts of what went on here in the early years of the school. It was not written in chronological order and seemed to ramble around a bit, seeing as how the first three chapters only covered the founders of the school, but after reading them Darrin was able to glean some interesting information out of it's brittle yellowed pages.

"Gabriel Newton Satterholm, one of the founders of Northern State University and it's first Dean, mysteriously disappeared only six years after the school opened. Strange markings were found throughout his room and office, but no body or explanation was ever discovered. He seemed to have become obsessed with the history of the Port Chupal settlement in the years leading up to his disappearance."

"A few of his closest staff members spoke out about him after he went missing, since he appeared to have no friends to speak of. Most said be was quiet and kept to himself, spending long hours in his office and often even sleeping there. A few of them made mention of his collection of strange and ancient artifacts that seemed to have questionable origins, some even saying they were related to the occult."

"The school itself was built on the ruins of the Port Chupal settlement, which had been sitting uninhabited for nearly a hundred years. Until the founders bought the land, just outside the growing town of Weatherview Bluff, the ruins had been a place of rumor and superstition. Ever since the mysterious disaster that killed the inhabitants the locals, who thought it cursed, feared the land. It was allowed to crumble and fall into ruin until the founders of the school bought it."

Darrin mulls over the information he has come across and begins to see this problem, whatever it is, goes back much farther than just his year here at the school. Perhaps even much farther back than the school itself. This dark mystery pulls at his mind to learn more, but he can't seem to shake the thoughts of the more recent events. The death last night. Thinking on it a moment he decides to...