Hello again, this time Will and her parents will learn a little more of what happened at the time when the asylum was open... It doesn't seem like a nice place to me.

Disclaimer: I don't own W.I.T.C.H.

Will continued reading, something out loud and other things she just mumbled. While she did this, Susan walked over to a window and stared out into the dark night. Light from the window where she stood illuminated the ground just below on the outside, and it was hard to see more than a couple of meters further because there were no other lights and it was snowing heavily. The whirling snowflakes were dancing wildly in the wind, making it seem there was other motions at work out there. Susan suddenly started to shiver as she felt herself being watched by unseen eyes and quickly stepped back from the window. She was an adult woman and up until an hour ago, she wouldn't have been afraid of anything she would consider as supernatural. But now, all unaccounted sounds, every unseen corner, the cold air and each dark shadow seemed to be threatening.

"Have you found anything yet?" she said to her daughter.

"Yes, I think I got the picture now," said Will. "Shall I read loud again?"

"Yes please, "her mother said, "I would really like to understand what's going on, I am still very confused about all this"

"Ok, here it goes"

27. December 1971.

Yesterday I excavated the basement where the creature appear and I found a piece of wood that must be one of the so-called sacred objects. There was only one there so I guess the monk must have hidden the others around elsewhere just as he said, but I think I have come up with a solution on how to find them. My hypothesis goes that, in lack of a better word, the spirit of the creature, is strongest close to the objects and that peoples' fright somehow make it strong enough to materialize there. For a short moment. If two or more of these objects are close together, it should be possible for it to stay visible for a longer time.
Therefore, when spring comes, I will take some of my more "sensitive" patients out for a walk in the woods and see if I can scare them there, and if the creature reveal itself, then it know I will be close by.

28. December 1971.

One of my patients is often tormented by nightmares and often wake up screaming in the middle of the night, so because of that he gets sleeping pills before he goes to bed. Earlier this evening I replaced his usual pill with an ordinary aspirin pill, he will not notice the difference anyway. Then I took the little wooden object I had found and hide in under his bed. If my theory proves correct and he has a nightmare, his fear will cause the creature to appear in his room and I will know for sure that it is the closeness to the object that is the trigger.

29. December 1971.

My theory was correct! I volunteered to take a night shift in order to be close to the patient, and right after midnight, I heard a scream from his room. I rushed to the room and when I opened the door, I could see the semi-transparent creature facing the patient before it disappeared. As for the patient, I brushed it off and told him it was an ordinary nightmare and I would give him a new sleeping pill. Now I know for sure it will work. If I can prove the existence of creatures from beyond this world, no matter how grim it might be, it would be one of the most important discoveries of all time, and my work, my fame, my legacy will live on forever.

"That seem to be the most important he wrote until spring came" said Will, "The following months he mostly write about the usual matters regarding his patients and how to treat them."

"So when does he start writing again?" asked Dean.

The teenager flipped through the pages and read bits and pieces until she found the answer and began reading for her parents again.

26. April 1972.

For the last week and a half, I have gone for long walks in the woods around the asylum, looking for likely places to hide the objects. I have marked a few spots that I found interesting and today I took one of the newly arrived patients, Mr. Norris, out for a walk. I chose him for he seem to be one of the nervous types who always look himself over the shoulder to see if there is anyone there. Perfect.
There is an open space in the woods that is an old overgrown swampy lake. You have to step carefully to avoid getting stuck there, and the surrendering is spooky with dense vegetation and a black pine forest you can't look far into, the ideal place to hide something you don't want to be found.

Luckily, I was informed that my new patient enjoyed hiking in the mountains, so I suggested for him that we should take a walk while we talked about his illness. As we spoke, I led him through the forest until we stood at the edge of the swamp thereby I told him I needed to go for some "private business". He excused me and I walked away.

Out of sight, I hurried to a place I had rigged a record player with eerie sounds. I started the record player and walked over to another place from where I could see both Mr. Norris and the swamp. To the playing sound of night animals and creaking trees, I found my binocular and started to observe from between branches and leaves. Mr. Norris seemed to be both impatient and nervous as he started to walk back and forth; I saw on his face that he must have let out a curse when suddenly his foot got stuck in a swampy hole. The muddy water squirted around as he tried to pull his foot loose and he began calling for me to help him, but I didn't answer. A howling sound from the record player gave fuel to his rising fear and soon he started to panic. I let my binocular sweep across the swamp and the puddles to see if there was anything there, and just my luck, right above a small puddle, some eerie dark shadow began to take form. It crept across the surface and floated towards Norris who was standing approximately two hundred meters away. Mr. Norris had his eyes on the forest edge so he didn't see the creature that approached him from the opposite direction. When the misty shadow was just fifty meters from him, it started to take form of the nightmare creature with it's skinny arms and skull like head. By this point, Mr. Norris stiffened and became all quiet, slowly he turned around to look behind him. The shriek that escaped him must have caught the attention of every living creature in the forest, and in his fear, he managed to pull loose his foot before he fell on his back and started to crawl on the ground to get away. The creature speeded up and managed to get within perhaps ten meters of him before it started to fade away again. But that didn't slow Mr. Norris' attempt to run away, and I found it wisely to accidently "run into" him before he could get himself lost in the forest.

Next Sunday, I will go back to the swamp and look into the puddle to see if I can find one of the objects in it.

Will stopped reading there as the paragraph ended and promptly skipped forward to the date that marked the next Sunday.

"And he did find it" she said, "The question now is, did he find all of the objects, and what did he do with them?"

"I guess you have to read the rest to figure it out," said Dean.

Knowing if she did not, her stepdad certainly would, so Will hurried through more pages and made a comment each time she came across a paragraph that told of a finding. As she red, it became clear that the more of the artifacts the doctor gathered, the more solid the creature became. It was when he had found six of the twelve objects that bad things started to happened.

16. August 1972.

I have now found half of the objects and the creature is getting stronger and more "physical". When I put the objects together, it can appear without having a frightened person close by. It also seem to be sentient so I have tried to speak to it. The creature haven't spoken anything at all with the one exception of when I first discovered it in the basement, but it respond to my orders. If I ask it to move itself it does so, and it can do other things as well. Perhaps the creature is tired of being sealed away and want to be released, if I play my cards right I might be able to control it as long as I can bargain with the objects that keeps it trapped. Yesterday I told the creature about this place and what we do here, and if it do as I say and let me study it, I will find more of the sealing objects. When I did that, it stared back at me with it's empty eyes and clicked it's teeth.
After that, I left the room and hide the objects on different locations such that it wouldn't appear solid if one of the patients have a nightmare, it wouldn't do well if some others learned about it's existence yet.

17. August 1972.

When I went to work early this morning, it was to learn that one of the patients had died in his sleep. I have been informed that he had a weak heart so I guess it was of natural causes, he was however the first to die here since I started working here. I have heard some people talk that the nurse who found him had said his face was stretched in what appeared to be a painful grin. The patient's room however was not close to any of the object I have hidden, I am not sure if the creature had anything to do with his death. But just to be cautious, I will hide the objects better when I find more of them.

"Well, what do you think?" said Will and let her hand glide through her fire red hair.

Dean shifted his position on where he sat on the sofa "It's impossible to know for sure, but I would bet my mustache the creature had something to do with it."

"So you think the creature killed him in his sleep?" Susan said to her husband.

"Yes."

"But why would it do so? Don't you think it at least the creature would have kept a low profile until Mr. Henderson had collected all of the artifacts?"

"Oh, maybe the foul creature sensed that the doctor would seek them out no matter what it did." Will shot in. "He must have been too eager to let an obstacle like a dead guy get in his way. People seeking out the supernatural seem all to be like that for some reason."

Dean and Susan looked uncomfortable at each other, thinking of how Will had come to learn that, but decided it would be a question for another time.

"Hey, listen to this" Will said, obviously having found something more.

19 August 1972.

The first thing that came to my knowledge this morning was that yet another patient had died in his sleep. The nurse that found him described his face making a similar painful grin as he who died a couple of days ago, but no obvious cause of what killed him. I guess I would have to have an autopsy conducted just in case; it may very well be an illness that has to be addressed.

21 August 1972.

Today I got back the result from the autopsy, the cause of death was in both cases heart failure. Everybody has to die of something, and heart failure is a quite common cause of death, however, I have told the staff that none is to talk about the strange grimaces the dead wore. Any rumor that may disrupt my "special studies" will be highly unwelcome, especially now as I may have located another sealing object. I will go looking for it tomorrow.

23 August 1972.

The seventh object was easy to find. I brought with me the six others and somehow, the creature made an appearance every now and then to guide me forwards to my goal. It was close by a newly built road for the timber men. However, I felt like being followed during the trip, it is not the eerie feeling I get from being watched by the creature, but something else. What more, from time to time I think I heard footsteps. Perhaps it is the presence of the strange creature that play tricks on my senses, or is it somebody else? The strength or physicalness of the creature increased enough to be visible for me as I walked back. As I went, I spoke to the creature, I said I wanted something back for the objects I gathered and this time it seemed more interested. I said that I would like to ask some questions and that it should nod or shake its head in response. The creature stopped and looked at me with its eyeless face, then it slowly gave me a nod. Good I said, first of all I would like to know more about you.

Here follows what I learned from my first "interview" with the creature and it's following answers:
Firstly, when you appeared in the basement in the basement the first time I saw you, you spoke some words; are you able to speak? It shook its head.
But I heard you say something, you repeated some of what I had said some moments earlier; are you able to repeat sounds or words that you have heard? Now it gave me a nod.
Ok, do you have your own language? It shook its head slowly again.
Satisfied with those answers, I decided to push for more, so I asked;
Where do you come from, are you from earth? No, it wasn't.
I followed up. Do you want to get back home from where you came?
This time the creature didn't seem to answer, and I was about to ask it again before when it gave me a nod. Interesting.
So you say you come from an another world, is it far away? Again, the creature seemed to linger before it decided to give me some sort of answer; a tilt of its head. I take that as a sign that it mean that it didn't know.
Are there more of you from where you come? It grinned and gave me a nod. Very interesting.
Fear! You seem to be drawn towards people who are frightened; what is fear to you? I knew it wasn't a question of yes or no, but it is fascinating and I wanted to see if it gave me a reaction, it did. The creature looked glazed into the dark forest and the sinister smile grew enough to highlight every tendon on its face, and the being itself seemed to grow bigger and darker for a moment.
This was my cue, so I took the chance and said: Tell me everything about your world and how you came here, and in return I will give you fear. In my profession there is easy to get hands on people who are easily frightened. The creature answered by click its teeth quickly as if it was freezing, but no, it was eager.

Suddenly, Will felt a shiver jolt down her spine, she stopped reading and looked up from the book and around herself. Everybody had been still while they listened to her reading, but now, the groaning sound of slow moving footsteps against old wooden floor could be heard.