I have mentioned the Outside and the Things that swarm around our fragile existence, paying us little mind.
I have mentioned that some men, fools above all, seek to calculate the angles and formulæ needed to make themselves known.
What of a success?
If such a fool were able to peer into these impossible places, and maintain his sanity, what would he gain?
He would likely gain nothing yet lose everything.
A mere brush of the cheek from an Outside Thing would consume fleshform and mindform, birthing an abomination of alien countenance and wisdom.
A direct stare would obliterate such a man completely, adding his essence to the Outside and dispersing him across time-space.
We do not care about such a destruction. It is for the best to remove such foolish men from reality.
What of the Changed? The Transformed?
Would a man be turned from good to evil? No. These terms are labels for human behavior. Do we consider a lion evil for catching its prey even if that prey be men?
No. We hold a different set of expectations and morals to an animal as we must hold a different set to a Transformed.
Such a Transformed man would exist among us but no longer of us. His appearance may be human or merely human-like, but his thought forms are unintelligible.
The tall man with shadowed face who bumps into you at market, the laughing child who points at you when you pass, the whispering woman who sparks your interest but disappears before you even catch her name.
But these are human, yes? Perhaps.
What of the liquid darkness that pools itself in dim corners and gives itself weight, observing you with pale eyes and glimmering teeth, transfixing you as a cobra, reaching slowly from behind with tentacles of frigid ethereal mass?
What of the reflection in the mirror that lags behind or the movement seen on one side but not the other?
What of nightmares that plague even the magician versed in such things?
A wise magician would avoid such a Transformed man when possible.
If a magician must face a Transformed man, all logic, honor, and fairness must be tossed aside. The Transformed does not follow any rules that can be known by men.
To decipher them is to risk becoming one of them.
(Excerpt from The Observation by Nathaniel V)
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