(A horrorfic with apologies to H. P. Lovecraft. The concept is influenced mostly by "The Nameless City", even down to the couplet, and the title is pretty obviously from "The Statement of Randolph Carter", but it's also got, uh, gratuitous gore that Lovecraft would never have written.)

I'm writing this account not because everyone says I'm crazy, or because I'm making excuses about Hershel's death, but because I want to record the grand discoveries I've made and the things I did for future generations. Once the initial shock of what I've done wears off, you'll all think of me as a hero. I, Randall Ascot, have begun something which will be felt throughout England, and throughout the world! Maybe even past the world. The Mask has told me that the universe is so much bigger than just the few stars we can see with our telescopes.

It's the Mask of Chaos that showed me what to do, every step of the way. Oh yes, it's real—I told you, didn't I? I found it all on my own, by decoding the map of the Norwell Wall. No one before me had ever perceived that it was a map, but I did. Who knows, maybe the Mask was guiding me even then. Maybe it wanted me to find it. But I didn't have any idea then what kind of amazing secrets the Mask would lead me to: I was just happy to have it. I was expecting the Azran treasure to be a dead city, and I didn't believe in the legends of the Mask's power, but the legends were true, and Akbadain lives, and it's all because of what I've done. I know things no man's ever known, I've had thoughts that would drive most people mad, I've flown like a bird, and I've held power over life and death—me, useless dreamer Randall Ascot, now the bringer of life, herald to a new era! You've got to pardon me for ranting a little, but this is everything I've ever dreamed and more!

Let me tell you how I did it.

On the inward side of the Mask of Chaos, the side nobody mentions in the books, there are inscriptions, an abstract map like the Azran are fond of. Before I ever went on my expedition to Akbadain, I had to figure out how to get there. And one night while I was working on that, I noticed a strange couplet had been cleverly hidden in the patterns:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie/

And with strange eons even death may die."

Henry's take on the odd thing was that it was some motto of the city or a seal, like the "SPQR" of the Romans. It was unlikely that there was no reason at all for it being there, at any rate. I accepted his theory, because I trust him (only Henry has stood by me since I came back. Shout-out, Henry! Thanks for believing in me!), and I was eager to get out there and prove it; still, I couldn't stop puzzling over it. It just stuck with me, deep inside my mind, like a profound truth.

I planned for my expedition painstakingly, making sure I would have everything I'd need, like a complete translation, a full excavation kit, and Hershel Layton. It was always the plan to have him down there with me, even if I didn't quite know why, and even if I didn't actually tell him until the day before. I took him by surprise because I knew he would be too nice to say no—I've been doing that to him for years, but he never did catch on to it. Or maybe he did, but like I said, Hersh was always the type of guy who was too nice to say no.

As the date of the expedition approached, I started wearing the Mask sometimes. After working on the translation late into the night, still full of excitement, I would climb into bed and fit the Mask over my face and just dream of all the wonderful things I would see and all the fame this would bring me. I was seventeen years old, and about to become one of the most renowned names in the field! I just wanted to be close to the artifact that I owed it all to, my lucky charm.

That was how I discovered one of the greatest miracles of the Mask.

When I put it on, my mental state was changed. It's almost like I became a different person, or like the Mask uncovered some part of my brain that I had never been able to use before. And that new part of my brain was brilliant. Suddenly I could figure out what I had never even thought of before, and I understood things people have been trying to unravel for ages: human nature, what love really is, and even the reason for our existence. I can't tell you any of it because I can't write it down; our human minds can't comprehend it. But with the Mask on, I became more than human. I was thrilled, of course! It became a nightly routine. And this is what I'm talking about when I say throughout this account "the Mask told me".

Without this strange feature, I would never have done any of the things I'm about to tell you.

On the morning of the expedition, I had everything I needed, picks, shovels, torches; and Hershel, of course. But most importantly, I thought I knew what the couplet meant. It had almost come to the forefront of my mind. This isn't a travelogue, and you've all seen the maps, so you know about the trip we took through the desert and the gorge we descended into. Hershel had his worries, of course, but I assured him they were pointless. We found the entrance to the ruins and began our adventure in earnest. He walked in front of me the whole time, and I directed him from the back. It was easier to keep an eye on him that way.

With the Mask in hand, I somehow knew the ruins as well as I knew Stansbury, like I had seen it all before in a past life or dream; even the security system's traps held no surprises for me. I could walk right through them. The ruins favored me. But they went after Hershel, as if they wanted his blood already.

We weren't heading for the gold that the map led to—we were heading for the real treasure, and the Azran had been confident that no one could find it who didn't already know where it was. After a while the traps ended. We went through passages that seemed like accidents, down a hidden spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever. I could tell Hershel was uneasy, and he definitely complained, but he never questioned my directions, not really. That's just the kind of person he was: the kind who follows instructions and plays by the rules. I know his parents were proud of him, much more than mine are of me.

But that's alright! When they see what I've done, everyone will be proud of me.

I wish I could have taken a camera to record all the ingenious architecture down there. Still, I don't think a simple black-and-white image could have captured the amazingness of it: older than all mankind, and still sturdy as the day it was made! And at the bottom of that endless spiral path we took was the grandest room of all. Our tiny torches couldn't possibly illuminate the whole of it. In fact, I don't think calling it a "room" does it justice: it was like a cathedral underground. I knew immediately where we were. This was the end of the line.

The floor of this vast hall was criss-crossed with grooves, like the kind we'd seen the mechanical guards run on. (See my notes, pages 2-3, 5-7, and 12.) On the walls, as far up as we could see, were doors. A certain symbol marked each one. It was all very similar to another smaller room we had passed through earlier in the ruins (also in my notes). Hersh picked up on this.

"We shouldn't have left the swords behind…"

"Trust me, Hersh, no mummies in here! The symbol for them is different."

"Well, maybe it's just a different kind of mummy."

(All dialogue is an exact transcript as best as I can remember it.)

We walked on and on and our footsteps echoed. Down there we were totally alone, but at the same time, the Azran watched us from all sides.

Finally, after walking past what seemed like a thousand rows of doors, we reached the end of the hall. It was magnificent.

I can't describe to you the beauty of what we saw there. I can try, but it's just too unlike any human work for me to draw any comparisons, though I did make a few sketches for posterity. It was the Norwell Wall a thousand-fold. Lush, beautiful, alien artwork circled around a huge carved icon of the sun. I could read the inscriptions there as if they were English. And there was an altar—the grandest altar ever, towering over us, with steps leading up to it on either side. We climbed those stairs—Hershel first, of course—and saw that the surface of it was big enough to be the floor of another room all by itself. In its center, another carved sun matched the one on the wall above, at the center of another network of grooves. Most importantly for me, at each corner of the altar there was a chain, just long enough so that in the center a spread-eagled figure could be restrained.

We walked around the whole thing, and I took diligent notes, of course, even though I felt like I'd already seen it a million times before.

I could start any time I wanted to. Hershel was unawares.

He glanced around. I knew he didn't like it down here. "Well…there's clearly no treasure. We should head back."

"No treasure?" I said. "Au contraire, Hersh! This is where the true treasure of the Azran is."

"I don't see anything," he said, as he looked up at those markings that whirled around the wall. "Listen, let's head back. This place is creepy."

It was the feeling of the mouse who senses a cat somewhere.

"I just don't like the look of all those door things on the walls. It looks like something could come out of them or something. And why are these chains here? What was this room even for…?"

"Come on, Hershel. Don't tell me you're letting some vague feeling of 'creepiness' impact your objectivity."

I saw his eyes travel down again to the chains. The manacles were heavy and secure. He laughed nervously. "No, nothing like that. So then, what was all this for? Some symbolic ritual?"

I understood that Hersh wouldn't go along quietly with what I had planned for him, but I wanted him to know, at least, what I needed him for. And I'm never one to miss a chance to lecture about archaeology. "Well, you could say that, I suppose!"

"Do tell."

I had kept my discovery bottled up inside for too long, and it came out in a rush of excitement. "Hershel, the Azran aren't dead."

He crossed his arms. There was that look he got sometimes—Randall, you're insane. I'd come to resent that look, just a little. But please understand that that's not the reason why I did it. I want you all to know that this wasn't a mad fit that came upon me, or an emotionally-based murder, but an informed and logical decision.

"Through some advancement, some technology we could never reach in a thousand years, they sealed themselves away! Like living mummies, you could say. I don't know why, but instead of dying they locked themselves behind the doors! Like they're asleep! 'That is not dead which can eternal lie—'"

"Randall…"

"'—and with strange eons even death may die'! The 'treasure' was a distraction. Even the map was a red herring, because the real map isn't ON the Mask, Hershel. It IS the Mask. The Mask unlocks the inside of your head, and it told me where the real treasure is: in here. It's the Azran people. They've been waiting for the next civilization to come and resurrect them—"

He shook his head. "Randall…that sounds like a fairytale. Maybe you're mistaking a cultural myth…we should go back…" To make his point, he headed for the stairs, but as he passed me, I grabbed his wrists. The shovel fell from his hands.

"Wait," I said. "I need your help."

He tried, angrily, to get away from me, but maybe the look in my eye was too determined, because I saw the beginning of real fear in his struggles. "Randall…I'm sorry, but there's no ancient ritual that can bring back the dead! I don't think you've been getting enough sleep…"

"No one knows more about the Azran than me, Hershel, and I know they're capable of something like this. Listen, every time I put on the Mask of Chaos, my knowledge of the Azran grows. It's like they can speak to me through it. They can do amazing things, and they want me to do this!" My grip on his wrists tightened. He started to panic a little.

"R-Randall, let go! I don't like this—"He stamped on my foot, but I was wearing thick shoes and it didn't affect me. On his face I saw concern for me warring with concern for himself. "You're hurting me."

I loosened my grip just a little, looked him in the eye. "I'm hurt, Hersh. I haven't even told you what I need you to do. Come on, you know how important this is to me—won't you help me out?"

And, because Hershel was a nice guy who always did what people told him to, he calmed down. His hands unclenched. "Al—alright. What should I do?"

"Just give me a little blood."

He actually considered for a second, but when I started to pull him down, he tried to get away from me. I was the stronger of the two of us though, even if only by a little, and I had determination and his wrists and he just had more and more fear. He struggled and protested, but I forced him to the ground and chained one of his wrists, then the other. To chain his feet I had to take off his shoes. He kicked like crazy and even tried to bite me, but even when he was desperate, he was a nice guy. He never cursed at me, just tried to appeal to my reason. He pulled as hard as he could against his chains, but they were well-made.

He looked at me, confused and dazed.

"Trust me," I told him, "this is the best thing you could ever possibly do with your life."

He strained feebly against the chains one last time. (Angela, this is where you should probably stop reading. I don't want to scare you, and this might be too intense for a lady such as yourself.)

There was a knife hidden in the wall paintings in a way so ingenious only someone with the Mask on could find it. I had to leave it down there after I finished the ritual, which is a shame—it really was a great artifact, a long, nasty-looking knife made of dark metal and perfectly preserved. Frozen in time, like everything else in that hall.

Now this is the good part. There's one more aspect to that heightened state of mind I was telling you about. When I wear the Mask, I don't just become more clever, but also…happier, I guess. More easily amused. Giddy, even. And about things no human today would want to admit to being pleased by. But the Azran weren't like the humans we have today. I don't even think they're comparable. I'd like to say I present all of these acts I'm about to recount impartially, but actually, I enjoyed them a lot. The feeling of thinking like an Azran is so liberating: everything seems so natural with the Mask on, even if you do things that later you think are horrible. While the Mask is on, it's worth it. And later, when you put it on again, that giddy feeling you get comes back and all the regret goes away. I've taken to wearing the Mask almost all the time now.

I put my backpack down and took off my glasses and put on the Mask. When Hershel saw me like that, with the knife in my hand, he knew he was done for. He tried to shrink away from the blade as I came up to him, but the chains didn't have much slack. There was nowhere for him to go, so he watched me with wide eyes instead.

I knelt next to him and cut off his tie and vest and flung them away, and unbuttoned his shirt and cut that away too, so that there was nothing in between the knife and his skin. I just leaned over him and watched him frantically try not to show how scared he was of being hurt. His breathing was getting faster. I could see the faint outline of his ribs, and I swear with the Mask on I could nearly hear his heartbeats. Maybe they were just my own. I pressed the cold metal of the knife to his face just to tease him a little and see his fear increase. It's only with the Mask on that I think to do things like this.

I knew exactly what to do. The Mask told me, and the beautiful wall behind us illustrated the process in a way only I could understand, the exact method of sacrifice that would fulfill the dream I'd had for so many years now. I can relate the exact steps to you.

The first step was minor. I cut two long, shallow lines down his chest, just to bring a little pain, and because the Mask was pleased by it.

I should know, as his best friend, that Hershel Layton was no crybaby. I don't think I ever saw him cry before this, actually. Hersh was more the kind of person to keep his worries to himself and not show whatever troubled him, but this wasn't worry anymore, it was terror, and pain. So I completely understand why the tears started now.

"R-Randall?" he said weakly, "you're joking, right?"

With the Mask on I thought this was quite funny.

"So sorry, Hershel. I'm afraid I'm dead serious right now." I liked the way the Mask made my voice sound: so much older and more sophisticated. "Try not to move. Maybe it'll hurt less."

He actually did it too. He gritted his teeth and tried to hold back his tears and stayed as still as he possibly could. What an obedient kid.

Blood was dripping from the cuts on his chest, and I smeared it on his face with my fingers, making the marks of the Mask of Chaos, the sun of eternal life. That was step two, and it was barely anything.

Now it was time for the main event.

I put the blade at the base of Hershel's ribcage and pressed it to his skin. He tensed and his hands clenched and a new wave of panicked sniffling began.

"Randall, stop, please…I'll do anything you want, just please don't…"

"Are you afraid of seeing your own guts, Hershel?"

He cried.

"Nod if you are…"

He nodded.

Behind the grin of the Mask, I smiled too. "Well, we're just going to have to confront that fear, aren't we?"

I ignored most of his begging and pleading—I did catch that some of it was aimed at me, and a bit at God, and an awful lot for his mother and father to come get him, as if they could hear him down here. The Mask wanted Hershel awake and alive, and so, as I slowly cut him open, he didn't get the bliss of unconsciousness. He got pain, though. He wailed and his fingers curled, and I stuck my fingers in the slit I'd created and felt the warm wetness pulsing around me. That must have hurt him, because his sobbing and squirming and incoherent babbling kept getting worse, and he kept calling out Mom, Mom—I'm just mentioning this for the sake of the account—oh drat! I forgot to mention at the beginning, Hershel's parents probably shouldn't be reading this!

Anyway. I reached both hands inside of him and pulled his guts out in handfuls. The smell was overpowering even in a vast room like this one. And blood was everywhere. It leaked out of the stinking guts I pulled, and poured from the open wound. The symbol of the sun that Hershel laid on was filled with blood, he writhed and twisted and made disgusting noises, and he threw up and choked and retched, but by the virtue of the Mask, I loved all of it.

I think I might have said something strange then—something in some foreign language, something I picked up from the strange Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred—and I took something, the small intestine I think, and held it up so Hersh could see. And he just choked, on all the blood and vomit and tears he must have been drowning in, but still he didn't die. I say 'I think' because this is the part where I started laughing really hard. I'm sorry my perception was obscured, but I don't think I could have helped it. Sharing in the Azran mind must have overpowered me.

The step after that was to pry the ribcage apart, just open him completely. My hands were slippery with viscera, but I managed to get a good grip. Hershel wasn't making so much noise anymore, like he'd gone into shock. That bothered me. (It's true this part wasn't strictly part of the ritual, but it did make for a good show: and I'm mentioning it because I want this to be a faithful account, and include every single detail of what I did. Besides, it's a useful testimony of Hershel's last moments.) I picked up some of the entrails that lay around him and crammed them into the slit in the Mask. The taste wasn't wonderful, but when I saw his eyes get a little wider because of it, it was worth it. I pushed up the Mask just enough for my mouth to show, and I chewed up some of that stuff and swallowed it. He retched, but he had nothing to throw up anymore. The tears kept coming, though. When I put it back on, the Mask was smeared with blood from my hands.

I cut his wrists, legs, throat, just perforated everything to let the blood drain, and then came the finale. I carved the smile of the Mask of Chaos on Hershel's face, and only then did I let him die.

As soon as I willed his last labored breath, I heard stone begin to grind. The blood that pooled in the altar's center rushed away through the crevices as if downhill, and then the grooves throughout the whole room began to—somehow—glow! And even as spent and giddy with triumph as I was, I was a little afraid to see the Azran. This cosmic understanding I had been gifted with couldn't have come from anything even slightly human. Maybe they weren't like men at all, but something like marvelous beasts or giant bugs or something we've never even seen before. I don't know. I never saw them. But I know we all will soon.

The roof of the cavern shifted away like a puzzle of sliding blocks, and through that chimney I flew away. The Mask gave me white wings. And I left Hershel's wrecked body down there—yes, it's still down there, but I wouldn't go get it. The Azran have returned to their ancient city, and I am their prophet. I've seen their mind, and I can tell you: they are nothing like us. They are something much better.

Now, are you satisfied?