Property Date: June 28, 1953
June 29, 1953
My name is James Stanton, and what follows is an honest, unfiltered account of my lookout of the Demascus brothers—an account I fear may never be believed. The details are as real to me as my own breath, yet they skirt the edge of madness. I write this with the full knowledge that some may read it as fiction. But I swear: what I have seen, what I continue to endure, is as true as daylight. The Demascus matter... bears all the hallmarks of a cult—though even that word feels too small.
July 4, 1953 – The Start of Everything
Out here, everyone knows the Demascus family. Quiet, reclusive farming folk. The father, John Demascus, had a calm sort of presence—wiry and weathered like the trees that edge his property. He'd nod to you in town, speak when spoken to, never more than was needed. Respectable in his silence.
The Demascus ranch sits way out on the edge of the southern forest, past where the road starts to lose its shape. You'd have to want to visit them; you don't just end up there.
John's wife died in '43. After that, it was just him and the boys—Brad and Neey. When John passed a few months back, the land went to Brad. Neey, still just a teen, stayed under his brother's wing.
They tried to keep the farm afloat, but it was too much. Folks said they sold the fields, the outer barns. What remained was the heart of it all—the manor.
For a while, nothing seemed off. Brad came into town now and then. They sold what little they could—eggs, preserved fruit, hay bales. Enough to scrape by. But slowly, that trickled away too. Brad vanished. Neey would come alone, eyes sunken, smile practiced. No more goods. Just silence.
July 7, 1953 – Silence
It's been nearly a week with no word. I called—nothing. Drove out to the property. The trees were wrong. The kind of quiet that presses in behind your ears. No birds. No insects. Even the wind seemed to tiptoe.
Something is wrong. I'll return tomorrow.
July 8, 1953 – Call
Tried the phone again. No answer. Drove over.
Found Brad in the field behind the manor, hunched beside their family horse. His clothes were damp with sweat, but he wasn't working. He just... sat there. Staring.
He watched me approach. Didn't speak. I tried to joke, ask after Neey. He said the boy was sick. Wouldn't say more. "We're not taking visitors," he muttered. The words seemed to echo, like they'd already been said a thousand times.
I nodded, left. But something gnawed at my gut.
This isn't over.
July 12, 1953 – The Day Everything Changed
The morning felt strange. I kissed my wife's forehead. Checked on my children. But everything was... off. The light came through the windows wrong—too pale, like paper. The clock ticked in a way I didn't... trust.
And then—they appeared. Brad and Neey. Not in front of me, but in me. In my thoughts, uninvited and vivid. Their faces flashed behind my eyelids every time I blinked. My heart beat faster.
I got my horse and ride to their place.
The road felt longer. The forest denser. I tied my horse to a tree nearby. Went out. No sound. The hush was thick. Unnatural.
"Brad? Neey?" I called while I approached their place.
Silence.
I should have turned around. But something guided me forward—not fear. Not curiosity. A presence. A pressure in the skull. And then, a thought that didn't belong to me: Go in.
And I did. I kicked their door,
and the door gave way too easily.
Inside, the air was still. Dust hung like it didn't know where to settle. Everything was normal: a hallway, a sitting room, books on the shelf, boots near the door. Cozy.
But beneath the ground what seemed to be—chanting. A low, rhythmic hum, like voices buried in soil. I followed it.
I found a trapdoor in the floor. Hidden under the carpet. I opened it an descended.
The basement was colder than it should've been. Damp air. Stone underfoot. The hallway stretched ahead, and at the end, a wooden door glowed with light underneath.
The chanting grew louder. And louder.
I felt it inside my skull.
I reached for the handle.
Opened it.
And there it was.
An eye. Looked human, but at same time not. Floating. Watching. Massive, yet not bound by space. Red—no, it shifted colors, like oil on water. It wasn't just looking at me—it pierced me.
Brad and Neey knelt in a what seemed like a circle of chalk and ash, whispering syllables no tongue should ever be possible to shape.
The eye blinked.
I fell to the ground.
Then—woke. In my own bed.
But I... know what I saw.
July 13, 1953 – Despair
I told my wife. She said I hadn't left the house. That I slept beside her the entire night. She swore it. The children backed her up.
But the memory is too real. Too textured. I can still feel the cold stone floor, the Eye... piercing through me, invading my mind.
They say I'm imagining it. I know I'm not.
August 9, 1960 – Insanity
Seven years have passed since then.
The Eye lives behind my eyelids now. I see it when I blink, when I sleep, when I stare at nothing. The memory won't fade. But the world around it has.
I've lost time. Lost friends. Lost the thread of what's real. Lost myself.
They speak of psychosis. Call me unwell. Try to medicate me. Tell me I should see a therapist, go to an asylum.
But I remember. I always will.
August 10, 1960 – Hopeless
My wife packed her stuff and left today. Took our children. Said I'm not the man she married anymore.
She's wrong. I know she is. She doesn't remember as I do.
I'm the same man. Just broken in ways no one could understand.
I don't know how much longer I can stay tethered.
August 11, 1960 – Visit
Neey came. Knocked softly. He's older now, but his eyes are the same—unreadable. I noticed his hair color changed, it's plain white just like a new blank paper.
He said they're leaving, Brad and him. That "its intent hath been fulfilled." What intent? Whose?
They made money, he said. They needed to finish a "quest" he said.
He asked about my family. I told him. He looked down. Said nothing. But I saw in his eyes what appeared to be piety. Like what one would feel for a lost puppy, but not being able to do anything to help it.
Before he left, I couldn't let him go without making some sense of the last couple years, I had to ask... "Kid, a few years back, when you were sick... did I ever break into your house?"
He smiled.
"No, I wouldn't know." he said. Then laughed. Quietly and walked away.
Was it mercy? Or mockery?
August 12, 1960 – Invitation
Brad came by today.
Said he'd been thinking about me. That his brother told me what I told him. that he believed me.
We sat. I told him everything.
He listened. Patient. Kind.
Then he asked if I wanted to come with them. To discover oneself. That it was my destiny.
I said yes.
I'd already lost everything anyway.
September 17, 1960 – Crazy…
I'm not crazy.
not
not
not
I was made to follow.
The eye remembers.
It wants me to remember.
Every thought I have is watched.
Every dream: recorded.
This will be my final entry.
My mind is unraveling—slowly, deliberately.
The voices are constant. Inside. Beneath. Around.
Always whispering the same thing:
Remember.
The Eye never forgets.