Day 66

The camp had an accident earlier today.

Bordin, Brom, and Galadan went out on patrol and got caught by a yeti hiding in the snowdrift. They drove the beast off, but not before it got hold of Galadan with one of those monstrous horns. It was a gruesome sight when they dragged him back to the encampment – the trail of icy blood extended back a very long way by the time they reached our gates. If the poor bastard wasn't dead already, he passed soon after they made it back. No one could have expected me to save him in that state.

But awful as it sounds, that was the first thing I thought about when I saw them coming. I never paused to feel for Galadan, or to process his loss, not until hours after they brought him back. Instead I just felt my heartbeat quicken while I tried to invent an excuse for why I shouldn't be the one to heal him, why someone else should do it instead. And soon as I could, I slipped away to be alone down in the quarry.

It's still an unsettling place, but more and more I'm starting to find it preferable to being around the others. It's not that they don't trust me – just the opposite. To them, nothing's changed. They still come to me as a friend. They believe in me. They don't hold Galadan against me.

But if anything, that makes it all worse. Because I don't feel the same way about myself at all. Their friendship, their faith, their love – it's all built on a lie, if you think about it. And what would they do if they found that out? Would they realize that they're fools to put their trust in me? Would they abandon me?

I don't want to find out. I can't – I just couldn't handle that, not right now. So I snuck away as early as I could. And before I left, I stole a dagger from the armory. In the past I've never felt like I would need anything besides my staff to defend myself. But these days, I fear a staff won't be the much use in my hands.

Stealing from my brothers and sisters, avoiding them at every opportunity, feeling like I'm losing myself in the process… How did it come to this?

I don't have a plan. I don't know how long I'll lay low here. I just know that I need to be alone for a while. Even if the others realized I was gone, they wouldn't be likely to come looking for me here. And I think… that's what I need right now. Just some time to be alone.

Day 84

I heard the voice again! Just now. I'm sitting just inside the quarry, shaking as I write.

I've been spending more time here of late. It feels as unnerving as ever, but when I come to the quarry I can be alone, and that by itself is worth the cost. And I thought that would be especially useful today – because I had been thinking. I've had no end of problems since I've come to Northrend, to put it lightly – but the root of them all is that my ability to use the Light has diminished. My trying to handle that problem is what led to all the rest.

That's why I wanted to fix it. It was stupid, and I know that, but I got it in my head that I was going to do whatever was necessary to get that connection back. It's been so long since I've been able to feel the Light's touch, but I decided I was going to try and find it anyway. Again and again and again if I needed, no matter how many times it took.

So I came to the quarry, out of sight of everyone else, and I tried. I looked inward like I've done a thousand times before. As expected, I was struck by that awful sensation of falling, plummeting into the abyss. And this time, I embraced it, let it wash over me – and waited to emerge into the Light on the other side.

It was no use – but I was determined. I tried again, and waited longer, over and over. Nothing. I tried for hours, but I didn't want to give up. Before long, I was sitting there on the icy ground for unbearably long stretches, minutes in a row, with that horrible feeling the whole time – just waiting for something, anything, any kind of sign to penetrate the darkness.

And that's when I heard it. The same voice from my dream, suddenly there, echoing in my head. It said: "Look around. They will all betray you. Flee screaming into the black forest."

Immediately I was filled with the urge to panic. To run away, close my eyes, plug up my ears, do whatever it took to get away – the words bouncing around in my brain the whole while. Eventually I was able to wrench myself out of the trance, and back into the freezing cold of Icecrown. And that's where I've stayed since, trying to catch my breath and calm myself down.

There was such a contrast between the adrenaline-fueled pounding of my heart and the eerie stillness of the quarry.

I was… terrified. I am terrified. I don't know what words I can write to explain how I felt, but never have I felt more frightened than when I was forced to behold the power behind that voice, echoing out of the void. It was both horrible and awe-inspiring. Primal and incomprehensible. And above all – disturbing. Because as I've been writing this all down, it's been starting to make me wonder.

I had always been searching for the Light. Each time I performed the meditation and said the prayers, I had only ever been looking for one thing. And when I couldn't find it, I assumed that there was nothing else to find – that the blackness I saw held naught but emptiness. But now I know that isn't true. It can't be true – not if something spoke to me from the void. Something that also spoke to me in my dreams! And if the Light isn't the only thing out there… what other great powers lurk in the endless black?

I find myself thinking of old Duke Zverenhoff and his teachings, about powers beyond our ability to comprehend… "Be a part of something greater, like a cog in a great cosmic machine." Perhaps there are other forces at work in the Great Dark Beyond, powering their own cosmic machines.

Perhaps – or perhaps I'm going mad.

Day 90

[This page is marred by tearstains and ink smudges.]

I've done something horrible.

We were out on patrol and we were ambushed. I was with Logan and Mara, making our way through a blizzard as far as the Ironwall Rampart and back. We were nearly there when a pack of ghouls attacked us out of the snowstorm – not many, but enough, and they had us surprised and unprepared.

What was I to do? I couldn't heal them – the Light has abandoned me. I pulled out my dagger, but I was completely helpless in front of those teeth and claws. So I did the only thing I could – I tried to hide behind Mara while Logan charged forward to take on the brunt of them.

Mara… Light save me, I didn't even realize until now – she must have thought I was moving behind her to support her with magic. But when she moved in and got herself surrounded by the monsters… I was so powerless, I didn't know what to do. I can still feel how I was shaking with fear while I watched. One of the ghouls mauled her in the back and drove her to the ground. When she fell, she just… looked at me. She stared at me the whole time, even while they were ripping into her and the blood started pouring out of her mouth.

She looked so scared. And I just stood there and watched her die.

After Logan drove them off, he was furious. He saw my cowardice. He knew. It's burned into my head, the image of him kneeling over Mara's body. Their heavily cloaked figures, the only dark spots in the endless, swirling, howling white that blanketed everything else – everything else except the red quickly seeping into the snow around them.

And when he turned to face me, to demand an explanation, I could see the anger in his eyes. I didn't know what to tell him. What could I tell him? What were the options? How could I keep him from telling everyone else? What if I couldn't even make it that far – was he going to hurt me? It all happened so fast, I had no time to think; I panicked.

When he was close, I pointed behind him. Said there were more coming. When Logan turned to look, I raised up the dagger. I…

I did it.

I didn't have a choice. He knew. And I couldn't let him know. I couldn't. If I did, then he'd tell the others, and they'd all know my secret too. They'd abandon me and leave me for dead. So I couldn't let him live, there was nothing else I could do.

It all happened so quickly – it was almost like an out of body experience, watching myself do it.

I ran. I ran and I didn't stop until I made it back to the quarry. I don't know what to do next – I just know that I can't go back to the Shadow Vault, not anymore. They'll never understand me – if anything they'd try to hurt me like Logan would have. No, they'd never trust me. So how can I trust them? I can't. They couldn't help me anyway – not even the Light can help me. The only thing that's been right is this damn voice whispering in my head. It's driving me mad, but now it's all I have left. Without it I'm… alone.

By the Light, I've killed someone. What have I done?

Day 91

[This page is somewhat of a mess. It looks like a failed attempt at a journal entry. As with the previous pages, it is marred by smudges and tearstains.

Most notable, however, is that nearly the entire first half of the entry has been scribbled through or crossed out. Much of it has been rendered illegible.

The two lines you can make out are:

"It WAS your fault."

"You are a pawn of forces unseen."

Towards the bottom is the one line that is easily readable.]

My head hurts so much. Why can't it just leave me alone? What did I do to deserve this?

[The rest of the page is just the same sentence repeated several times, crossed out each time.]

What if it's right?

[This entry is not dated.]

I think they're coming to kill me.

Or maybe I don't – I'm not sure. I can't keep my thoughts straight anymore.

I don't know how long it's been since I killed Logan. It seems like ages, but it hasn't been so long that the others haven't already found me to take their revenge for him and for Mara. It's only a matter of time, though. I betrayed them all and they're going to kill me for it.

It feels like it's been so long. I can't remember the last time I ate anything, or even the last time I slept. Although it wouldn't be easy to know if I had – the nightmares flow freely into the waking world now, visions that hound and haunt me without end. Sometimes they show me Logan, the rage in his eyes just before I stabbed him. Or else the other crusaders, coming into view of the quarry, armed and armored and merciless. Or sometimes they force me to watch poor, terrified Mara, just staring at me while she died.

It WAS your fault.

They never let me look away.

And through it all – the voices. Endlessly they speak to me, into me, day and night, needling at my brain, never giving me a moment's respite. They whisper of my failures, my desires, my fears. Of the crusaders, and how they see me. Of powers I do not understand, and of dark, terrible secrets hidden deep within the earth. Is it all one voice, or many? Is it still the same one I heard in my dreams, calling out from the void?

Or is it all just me? It gets harder and harder to tell which are my own thoughts and which are not.

They are coming for you right now. Kill them before they kill you.

I'm tired. Tired of nightmares. Tired of looking over my shoulder, waiting for the moment they come for me. Tired of being so scared. I'm tired of feeling like I have to fight to stay in my own head.

It's about recognizing powers in the world beyond our ability to comprehend.

I submit.

[All of the remaining pages are empty, except for one. It has no date or any other heading, and much of it is stained with dry blood.

At the center of the page is a sketch of a grotesquely morphed head, half-submerged in some kind of pool. The exposed "face" is mostly just an enormous, fanged maw. It is rimmed by scores of other mouths, smaller but similar in appearance. The face lacks eyes, a nose, or any other features – just countless maws and teeth. It is unsettling to look at.

The rest of the page is filled with text. The handwriting matches the rest of the journal, but it's all words you've never seen or heard before. The lines bend and cram into the margins, leaving no space blank. On inspection, you notice a pattern. The words spell out the same phrase over and over: "Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh."]