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Saturday 24 March 2018

Dirty Curtain

Sat at home doing nothing much, the investigator hears a light tapping at the window. Upon drawing back the curtains to see what is causing the noise the investigator is greeted with . . . nothing. No sign of what caused the tapping is visible. Perhaps it was the wind?

When he closes the curtains however, the investigator sees an image ‘burnt’ into the material. The image of a face. The face is human, non-descript and not completely clear but is definitely there. The image is reminiscent of the Turin Shroud. The face appears to be that of a human male, clean-shaven, hawk nosed and bald. There is no discernible expression except possibly an air of expectation.

Possibilities

1 The image is impossible to remove. The night after its appearance footprints start appearing on the carpet. Footprints very similar in style to the image in the curtain; bare feet, definitely human and nothing more than a dark stain on the carpet: a stain impossible to remove. Night by night the footprints disappear and reappear a little bit closer to the investigators most prized possession, be it a picture, a tome, a pet or a child. If no action is taken this most prized possession goes missing along with the footprints, but not the face, never to be seen again.

2 Recent investigations have left the investigator more than a little paranoid. This severe paranoia combined with a windy night and a few condensation and smoke stains have driven him to believe that the face is real. Nobody else sees it as clearly; “Yes, there’s something there,” they say. “A faint stain but nothing to be worried about. It’s just your paranoia, relax, stop worrying, it can’t do you any harm.” Can it?

3 No matter what the investigator tries the face cannot be removed. It can’t be washed out and stain removers don’t work: it’s there permanently. If the investigator replaces the curtains, the image reappears in the new curtains. Even if he removes the curtains completely the image just comes back, but this time in the glass. Worse, the investigators work against the Mythos starts to go downhill. Every move he makes the cultists seem to be expecting, they always know what the investigator is going to do next. It is almost as though the investigator is being watched…

© Ric Norton

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