It is with the remaining shards of my shattered sanity that I, with fear shook hands, 
scribble these words as what may be my final remembrance. In my left hand I tightly 
grip my grandfather’s revolver, and I fear that someone —- or something —- will end me 
before I can dispatch myself. I feel I should recount the terror, and leave some imprint 
what I know before I end my life. It may be of some use, if the world does not crumble—-
which I feel it shall at any moment. If in detailed words I could account for you, O 
morbid diary, the unexplainable horrors that my aging eye has witnessed, the ink itself 
would surely dissipate from your worn pages. That stench! The memory is so vile, so unholy 
and unlike anything from this mortal earth as we know it, that I have come to fear life 
itself more than the infinite confines of death. 

The implications of what I have witnessed go beyond every piece of superficial knowledge
that I once treasured. As a student of alternative theology and an esteemed collector of 
rare artifacts, I considered my personal knowledge of epistemology and contemporary pagan 
traditions to be substantial. In all my years as a student, Christianity and all the blatant 
fallacies of the ecclesiastics never appealed to me. Instead I dwelled in the shadows of 
gloom and despair; dark rites, forbidden incantations and even -— I dare hardly mention it 
now —- black magic. The path that led me —- curse my fate! —- to this state of unexplainable 
fear and brooding mania started somewhere along the cobblestone roads of New England. 

An associate, a Mr. Michael Bolton, had mentioned to me rumors regarding the appearance 
of a strange new sect in the Cumberland region. Coincidentally, young women had been 
disappearing from the outlying rural areas. Various fishermen had also reported strange 
weather patterns immerging in the region. At the time my love for the decidedly odd and 
weird had reached its zenith, therefore this news pleased me greatly, and it became my 
uttermost priority to investigate this cult. It began as a mere naïve fascination, but 
quick as Borthanio’s winged nightmares haunt screaming through the night, I soon plunged 
deep into bottomless obsession. 

As mentioned earlier, I was traipsing along a snow-covered cobblestone road when I first 
sensed the presence of something otherworldly in Cumberland. It may have been the skeletal 
remains of long dead trees that hung all around me, or the baying of distant hounds. The 
stains of some primeval massacre or plague seemed to linger, and there was a slight yet 
never-fading stench that hung in the air. I found that this odor was particular potent 
while passing by the long run-down church on Windham Avenue. 

The peculiar church was appeared to me as a fat black beetle resting on a white asylum wall. 
Its strangeness stuck out so clearly to me in the snow that morning. It called to some horrible 
branch of my unfortunately powerful curiosity, and I decided to return to the church upon nightfall. 
Little did I know the terror that awaited me! If I could only turn back the hours and moons! I would 
never have broken the ancient seal that lay so lightly upon that small town in New England -— a seal that 
held together the very fabric of reality as mortal know it; the fabric that soon would be torn, like my 
now utterly eviscerated sanity.

I returned later that night, clad in suitable midnight attire; lantern in hand, and with tools for the 
breaching of the Churches’ long undisturbed doorway. Doing so proved easier than I ever could have imagined; 
it was almost as thought it wanted me in there. But before I reached the massive oaken door that held the 
entrance to the abyss, I crept through the labyrinth of moldy tombstones and forgotten memorials that stretched 
before me. I felt the presence of unspeakable evil; malign spirits of long dead inhabitants seemed to brush up 
against my neck, whistling through the wind and slithering through the snow. I closed my eyes tightly, and 
approached the door with an air of apprehension most men know nothing of; trepidation shook my knees and 
the wind made me tremble to the bone.

With a sickening crack and the wail of ancient and decaying wood the latch buckled effortlessly and the 
doors gaped open. The windows were like eyes and the door was an open mouth breathing hot and musty air 
into my face. I shuddered as I realized the stench that had violated my nostrils earlier was originating 
from inside that damned church! Even if I had turned my back at that point it would have been to late; 
the seal was already broken. Madness had escaped back into the realm of man.

Decay and life dwelled in that hellish aperture contradictorily; dust covered virtually every corner, 
but dampness dripped from everything. It may sound like nothing more than the words of a gibbering old 
man, but that church was alive! By some suicidal instinct I slowly wandered along the pews, the rows 
seemed to stretch for centuries as the floorboards creaked and moaned under me. Blood boiled at my 
temples, and that rank smell only grew stronger. I can still taste it on my breath! 

As I reached the altar the smell became unbearable. I felt the contents of my bowels hanging high up 
in my chest, and my heart pounded in concordance with the acidic discharges that I tasted on my tongue. 
I made the sign of the pagan’s star across my heart, but in retrospect I’m sure this only excited the 
horrible things that manifested themselves in that church. I know not what kept me from losing my mind 
entirely at that moment, for what I saw is nearly indescribable.

On top of that stained fane lay something worn by time; time so vast and limitless that I fear human minds 
were not made to comprehend it —- if there is some vestige of meaning left in this wretched world! My mind 
skitters and buckles as I recall that image, and more distinctively, that smell! —- it must have been the 
lost relic of some forgotten god, something not of this earth and not fit to be thought of with the 
infinitesimal boundaries of man’s pathetic consciousness. The relic was older than time as we know it, 
and the decaying stench of that fetid burrito opened up doorways into parts of my mind which I shall never 
shut again.

I remember not how I got back to my apartment here in Arkham, and all I know by now is that my life must 
end soon. That blasphemous rotting stench lingers in my mind and on my clothes… I see the discarded wrapper 
of that Chimichanga in my waking dreams and nightmares… God! The smell has returned with brutal potency! 
Great mercy, I hear a knock at my windowpane…  GOOD GOD! THE WRAPPER!!! THE FETID BURRITO HAS RETURNED! 

AIIIIIEEEEE—----