Even now I wonder about the strange circumstances that brought me here, to this Gothic cottage house beyond an unexplored forest at the edge of untouched lake. Located firmly within a plot of privately owned land it was perfectly secluded from the outside world and its chaotic trappings.
Its true I came to this private realm to escape the world and its banal assault on my sanity. Disgraced in my occupation while what I thought was a divine romance turned out to be a failed experiment in love. I freely turned from the wreckage and the fires of my former life to blindly run toward the promise of a refuge.
I should have been more specific in my request for what I truly desired was a bit of peace and quiet and what I got was anything but. Had I been more descerning in my requests I don't believe I would've entered into conversation with the immaculately attired little man gave me the map and key that brought me here. His only asking price was that I remain until he met me there three months hence to relieve me of what I understood to be house sitting.
This place is more than separated from civilization, It is a sorcerer's looking glass into things that defy the loosely knit logic of society's physical laws. I have dreamed with my eyes wide open and been shook to my core by equal shares of terror and pleasure. The effects of this house have blurred all the lines that once stood between variations of emotional experience.
I am walled in on the West by this savage woodland and taunted by the still waters of an expansive lake to the East. The hours of daylight, that feel all too brief, are shrouded by a fog that seems to fill the air without rest. Coupled with the unnaturally chilled nights that bring echoes of indecipherable beasts, I admit that such an environment lends itself to paranoia but my experiences are too real...
The solitude was at first very conducive to the rest I sought, the large bed on the second floor seemed crafted by Morpheus himself. Perhaps it had been but not in benevolence as I had first supposed but rather as an experiment in nightmares. I remember floating in the rapture of a carnal fantasy, feeling a woman's touch with all the realism afforded by the physics of dreams and then the cold grip of terror.