PROLOGUE: The Letter at Saratoga

The following letter was found outside of the area formally known as Saratoga County, NY during the Colonial Rebellion. Hidden inside a metal container, the letter has become widely known as one of the last correspondences of the rebellion, as well as one of the most cryptic. Many believed it related crucial information--in code--that never reached its intended target. Instead, the letter resides at the Colonial Rebellion Memorial Museum where it is seen by thousands of guests daily. The letter reads:

Dear [illegible],

It comes. It comes for all us. You likely ask of what I am speaking, friend, and I only wish that I could describe it to you. Yet no words conceived by our mere mortal minds can hope to communicate the true atrocities I have seen, the true horror, lurking behind that very shadow we call fear. He KNOWS EVERY move WE make. He knows WHAT WILL come TO be. How can we HOPE TO stop that? How can WE BRACE for what is to happen? HOW CAN WE?

I’m sorry, I must do my upmost to compose myself, friend. These are dark times. We--I have made this POSSIBLE. It is I who have erred in this endeavor. Through my own faults, the course of EVENTS THAT should be have altered; it has all changed. Dark is day day is dark. He repeats this over and over in my mind; he taunts me with such words. I know not how to escape his grasp now for his HOLD IS tight on everything regardless of time or space. I have FUCKED THIS shit up. Dark is day day is dark time and time and time

moves

around and

around

without regards to what we want or how we feel and his hand churns the waters on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and

Dear God, I hope this letter finds its way to you. I fear that it matters not. That no matter what I do, this letter is doomed to never reach its audience. Every step thus far has been a miscalculated failure despite knowing what would happen at every turn. Except, that is not the case. We should have known, we did know what happened at every turn, but there was another. Another came with us who should not have been. He was like me but is not, and he sought to undo our every move, unraveling any modicum of a plan we had. I have failed. Part of me searches for an explanation as how this doppleganger might have made his way back with us, but I see only darkness in my mind. Darkness and his hand, reaching out towards me, attacking my mind, trying to seize my last vestibule OF HOPE. But no, no, no, no, no he must not have it. He CANNOT have it until I have written this, my last, my final, my only chance.

I will not hesitate to say that I have little of knowledge of what will happen next. In fact, I have never physically seen him, but I know he is there, beyond the veil of time. Somehow, what has happened here, what this doppleganger has caused has allowed him to manifest and diffuse across all time. I FEEL HIS presence, even if I cannot see it. He now CONTROLS WHAT HAPPENS on that BATTLEFIELD, and we ARE ALL sure as HELL DOOMED to a horrifying fate. As I write this, my hope fades, but I do not know for what reasons. Perhaps, I am realizing the idiocy of this final move. I am in check, backed into a corner and am no longer thinking straight. Logic has failed me thus far, though, so why should I choose to rely on it now? If indeed everything has changed, who then am I writing this too? Who do I plan to receive this letter? I know where to leave it, for such is why I have moved to such a grisly scene of human destruction, but will you be here? I no longer know. Even if you do receive this letter, what then? It is not enough for YOU TO SIMPLY know that all has failed. It matters not if I take that step, although I must to be here. Perhaps this letter changes nothing then; perhaps we have made such a change that it cannot be undone by something so slight. PERHAPS WE have nudged the flow of time onto another rail, another course, and it will take something EQUALLY AS drastic to set it back. If such can ever be done. I doubt anything will be the same. We have destroyed this country. I have destroyed this country. Somehow, I, Constantinople, must undo the damage I have done, the fate I have created before he possesses my mind and prevents me from doing so. My resolve must strengthen and hold and strengthen and withstand and hold and. I know

not

what to do

for i feel all of reality

spiraling away

from me

God where do I

go from here!

what moves must I make

to be set free

and be happy

and happy

and happy

and happy

and

HE IS here! He is HERE! in my mind, holding on, tightening tightening tightening tightening grasping fightfightfightfight I must. Lord in Heaven save me from this fate I pray and pray and pray and pray but just grow old and wait for answers that never come but He shall give answers He shall give us all answers and we must bow before Him and praise Him for He is above us and around us and we can never fully perceive Him for his GREATNESS ELUDES OUR own perception AND SENSES He shall MAKE AND MAKE AND MAKE and we shall WATCH AND PAY and watch AND PAY and WATCH AND pay forever and ever BACK AND FORTH He is all. We are nothing nothing nothing

nothing

NOTHING

NOTHING

into the ABYSS FOREVER and ever we WILL FALL for we cannot stop Him. NO ONE CAN stop Him. He HAS THE BIGGEST and IS MORE than G--

Here a massive line pulls away from the letter as if the author had literally torn his own hand away from the writing. Not much else is known of the piece other than it must have been sealed shortly after in its protective casing, eventually being buried beneath the ground. Whether intentional or not, the letter was not discovered until some years later, after the rebellion had been squashed and order reestablished to the American Colonies.