Darkness licked at the edges of the dying candlelight, clawing ever closer towards the Ancestor's hunched form. One hand rested at his temple, his palm pressing at his skull to stifle the aching in his mind, while his ink-stained fingers grasped anxiously at the greying strands of hair above his ears.

In the other, whitened knuckles firmly grasped the shaft of a quill, etching words into ancient paper. The feather swayed back and forth in his hold, scratching lines and curves into the page before him, leaving behind ink so crimson it was nearly black. The man wrote with such force that it seemed almost as if the paper itself were bleeding from the deep pen-scratches, rather than ink flowing from the tip of a quill.

The stationary had belonged to someone important, once. The surface had been smooth, neatly and expensively crafted, stored inside a delicate case. But many years had passed, and now, the rest of the pages lay scattered across the cold stone floor, weathered, yellowed, and torn at the edges. Some sheets had been crumpled, some ripped into pieces, some burned into ash. But all had met some form of misuse.

All but one.

The shine faded from the ink as it dried in loops and lines upon the single page, forming a beginning the man had heard echoing in his mind again and again. 'Ruin has come...'

The quill clicked on the ancient desk as he set it aside, fingers now trembling. His freed hand rose to his temple, and his grasp cradled his head between palms—a feeble attempt to quell the roiling, ever-growing storm of agony within his skull. Even just those few words had taken something out of him, had left him haggard and weary.

He simply sat there for a moment, resting the weight above his shoulders upon his wrists and forearms. Nursing his aching head. He could feel his own blood pumping throughout his body; his pulse pounded to a rhythm he could only just feel through his mortal form. Like the beating of a heart, though not his own.

The pain was righteous, he reminded himself. The pain was necessary. It was his future. His meaning. His duty, all bursting at the seams of his flesh and bone.

It was a guide. An invitation. A calling home.

Although, the throbbing of blood in his dilated veins did not make writing any easier. Nor did the swimming of his vision, the blurring in his sight. He could feel a grand periphery bordering at the edge of his psyche, his inclusion within it limited only by the flesh in which he dwelt.

But this letter was the final step. One last thing he had to finish in order to set his plan into motion. His last words, before he could answer the calling that thundered throughout his veins and writhed within his muscles.

It had to be done. The final piece of this grand design rested in his yet feeble, trembling hands. His ascension would soon be at hand; if only he could push through and commit wretched word to page.

He picked up the quill once again.

The page was filled with lies, of course. Well, mostly lies, at least. The weariness, the numbness to conventional vices—then the fascination and the discovery... Those were true. But the flesh beneath his flesh writhed when he began the final paragraph.

A festering abomination! What slander! The muscles of his own body rejected the notion that it should be destroyed with painful undulations.

Oh, but these lies were the most necessary part. There would be no deliverance from these shadows, but the Heir would indeed deliver in their own way. They were the final piece in this enduring puzzle. The blood they would spill in their fruitless endeavors to halt the inevitable would only feed the Thing below—the Thing with and within him now.

But they would not arrive without substantial and suitable motivation.

This, the man thinks, setting aside the ink-black quill at last, would be enough. The words had settled, though his heart had not.

He folded the paper, making the necessary creases as blood thundered in his ears. A candle yet burned beside him, and he put the stick of sanguine sealing wax above its flame, before letting a crimson drop seal the lies within the letter.

His hands trembled as he took the signet ring from his finger and pressed it into the ruby pool, yet the resulting impression seemed without flaw.

His eyes drifted from the letter and now roamed across his desk. The candle. The quill. The wax. The ink. The letter again.

The flintlock.

The Caretaker would hear the shot. The letter would be found. Delivered. The Heir would, of course, arrive.

With that, everything was in place. The moment of his ascension was at hand.

He took the handle of the gun, feeling the weight. The heft.

Blood coursed through him like a raging river, overflowing after a storm. It pressed at every twist in his veins, as if there were too much inside him. As if it wanted out.

There was a click.

His flesh contorted beneath his skin, twisting and writhing. Eyes, additions, cavities all danced amongst themselves, hidden beneath the mask they called 'individual'. That they called 'human'.

The implement rose.

He could hear the call beneath him, a song pulsing through his heart and body. He would join them, Herald as he was, and sing alongside them. He was ready.

There was a bang. And all at once, his blood was no longer only his.