Chapter 3 — Shadows of the Past
The sound of the city outside was muffled, distant, as if separated from him by layers of walls and time. Eidolon Ashcroft sat at his small wooden desk, the surface scratched and uneven from years of use, his black eyes fixed on the notebook before him. The pen hovered above the page, paused mid-thought, though his mind was elsewhere—long ago, in another world, another life.
The orphanage.
He could remember the sharp scent of disinfectant mixed with the faint sweetness of old laundry, the grey linoleum floors that reflected the overhead fluorescent lights in a dull, unflattering glare. The walls were bare, save for occasional posters warning children to obey, to be careful, to listen. But no one had ever explained why misbehavior mattered, only that it did. He had observed everything. Every look, every sigh, every whispered secret behind closed doors. Every interaction had consequences—small, arbitrary, cruel—but it had consequences nonetheless.
Even then, he had been different. Other children screamed at shadows, at imagined monsters, at the small and mundane fears that haunted the young. He did not. He watched. He cataloged. He memorized. He studied patterns: which children screamed at which shadows, which missteps led to punishment, which small acts of cunning avoided reprimand. Every detail mattered.
It was there that he first became aware of fear—not as an experience to endure, but as a system to understand. While others panicked, he dissected. While others cried, he calculated. He had learned, early, that survival was never about strength or speed; it was about knowledge, observation, and anticipation.
He remembered one incident vividly, more than a decade later. A boy had dared to hide a small notebook belonging to one of the staff. The punishment was swift: a humiliating, public chastisement, executed with surgical precision to instill terror and obedience. But Eidolon had watched quietly from a corner, noting the exact sequence of events, the timing, the reactions of other children. No one had noticed him, of course. He was careful. Observation required invisibility. Presence without detection.
Even at that age, he had begun collecting fragments—stories whispered in corners, tales passed down from older children, urban legends they had scavenged from television or books left behind in dusty corners. Ghosts that walked the halls, monsters that hid beneath beds, curses that punished those who disobeyed. These stories were trivial to others, entertaining at best, terrifying at worst. But to him, they were data—patterns waiting to be analyzed.
As he traced a line in his notebook, he remembered the first time he had felt the thrill of understanding fear before it had a chance to touch him. One evening, a story circulated about a ghost haunting the attic of the orphanage. Most of the children refused to enter, trembling at imagined footsteps and unseen eyes. Eidolon, by contrast, had climbed the creaking staircase carefully, flashlight in hand, eyes scanning every shadow, every beam, every irregularity. The attic was empty, silent except for the faint whistle of wind through the cracked window. But he had noted every detail, written down every observation, cataloged every possible source of fear. And he had survived. Not by luck. Not by chance. But because he had understood.
Years later, he could still recall the feeling of that first exhilaration—the almost imperceptible thrill of standing at the edge of fear and seeing it as a predictable system. That thrill had never left him. It had grown, shaped his life, driven his obsessions. Horror was not entertainment. Horror was study. Horror was survival.
The pen moved across the page, writing observations as he recalled them:
Patterns of fear in children—predictable reactions, triggers, escalation.
Importance of observation—visibility of fear affects outcome.
Cataloging myths and stories provides predictive advantage.
Distance between understanding and emotion is survival.
The apartment around him faded as he remembered the sounds of the orphanage—the distant cries, the shuffle of feet, the low murmurs of staff. Even now, decades later, he could hear the echoes in his mind. And still, he did not feel nostalgia. He felt clarity. The past had been preparation, the past had been training, the past had been a laboratory for survival.
As the morning light deepened, brushing across his notebooks and scattered equipment, Eidolon allowed himself a rare smile. The man he had become—the precise, meticulous, observing Eidolon Ashcroft—was the product of those grey walls, those strict routines, and the endless, unspoken lessons of fear. And it had served him well.
He rose and moved to the window, black eyes scanning the city streets once more. Patterns emerged everywhere. People walking in predictable lines, cars stopping and starting with mechanical consistency, pigeons fluttering in arcs that could be mapped and anticipated. Observation was effortless in this world. Survival was trivial in comparison to what might lie beyond it—the unknown, unscripted, uncontrolled.
A faint shiver of anticipation passed through him. He did not fear it. He did not doubt himself. He only prepared.
Eidolon Ashcroft had survived the horrors of the mind before. And soon, he would seek the horrors of the world itself.