• Nyctophobia, an acute and irrational fear of the dark, is one of the most common fears among the living. It encompasses a fear of what can't be seen and from that, what can't be understood. In the darkness, anything can be. In the darkness, that little comfort blanket of light and warmth is gone, and you're left naked and alone at the mercy of things you can't understand, because you don't know what it is. Many people live their whole life without confronting their fears, living in blissful understanding and contentment with their little handicap.

    If this describes you, please read no further.

    Sat at the end of a particular sewer pipe was a rather unsightly individual, a member of the 'bump in the night' club, and one of the old school monsters. This particular monster hails from Minsk, Russia, with a past as dirty as the curved lead floor he was seated upon. His understanding of darkness is near insurmountable by those of the 'norm' of common culture in the United States, but even with all the experiences of a young monster (and an accomplished one at that) he has much to learn. Hence, he sits, waiting and watching the darkness so many would cower from, filled with a hope that has no origin and no real explanation. An Irrational Hope. Phobia's little brother.

    Mortal man is not ready for what this monster knows. They would call him insane, lock him in a room untill they could find that one piece of logic to disprove his theory, and let him turn to dust before they gave up. No, they would rather stay hidden in their veil of sunlight and comfort than take the step into the shadow where the muck and filth live, where the monsters come from. A human willing to get his hands dirty is about as rare as the monster himself. Besides, those who would venture into the Darkness would have a hard time making it out alive as it was, but at least they'd die knowing the truth instead of living a lie shared by the masses. This is what this monster, dubbed Hugo Kessen, calls rational.

    Now, this hope mentioned before is not completely without reason as I had stated, but staring at the red, dripping unnatural moss that called his name made this hope dwindle with the passing seconds. It had been a month since the discovery of a new type of life, a sentient type of mold that grew in the sewers where the monsters dwell and thrive, driving them away. Hugo, the monster without a home, was the only one of a city of creatures to step forward and take the burden onto his shoulders. Its been a month, a long, painful month, and the total of people who give a s**t has climbed to a whopping 2. Whoopee.

    One wonders in the night, in the dark beneath the covers, what do the monsters fear? Those things that bump in the night must have some emotion, the animalistic drives that fit every living being. If so, what are they afraid of? what bumps back at them? The answer is simple, and rather blatant once said out loud, and as if to mark just how blatant it was, Hugo's rather shark like mouth opened after a brief twist into a smile one could call devilish to speak it just one more time... "The light." The luminous light filled world of the surface scared him, made him worry and angry. In comparison, he'd much rather be fighting through otherworldly mold and mildew toward a goal for the greater good than to be buying a house and a white picket fence and paying bills and letting media and post men and local law enforcement harass him. No, the darkness was just his style, as life threatening as it was. This sewer pipe had become a hobby, and the mold his friend, giving him a reason to stay beneath the surface just a little longer to enjoy the rancid smells and putrid decor of the sewers that had grown on him so quickly. This was his space, moss or no moss, light or no light, and he would never let it go.

    Odd, that a monster would be so willing to let the things he 'bumps in the night' go in return for a greater purpose. Before he had come to Kansas, he was not beyond killing and black mail and theivery. Now, the guilt and second guessing of his nature plagued him. It was his specialty, it was his art, and now he was breaking the brushes and burning the canvas's in hopes of getting a modicum of rest. All that was left now were the pipes, the mold, the jobs, the money... no, not even the jobs or money. All that was left was the greater good, the greater good that was shaped and molded by thirty years of living in shadow and praying the sun never rose. The greater good that many tried to warp and turn and mold into their own image. The greater good that he, Hugo Kessen, decided upon himself.

    He stood now, watching the sewer pipe bend and moan out to him like an old lover. A life of its own, a consciousness, these sewers had seen more than Hugo would ever understand, and more than any human would ever care to. It had seen murder, blood, death, and pure unadulterated evil. Before it stood the young accomplished monster, Hugo Kessen, professing a perverse love for all those horrors and the ones he'd yet to find, and the ones he himself had caused. That's what awaits in the darkness, the thing that so many spend their lives hiding from, this justified phobia. And before those horrors would stand Hugo Kessen, the short Russian monster, twirling knives and licking rows of teeth with something soft and devilish in those jet black eyes before speaking...

    "Welcome to the World of Darkness."