I don't know when it started; I have lost my concept of time. That hasn't been all I have lost, though I struggle to remember those things I have lost, and even this I am losing, having only a vague memory that I was once something much more than I am today, a mere shell of a man. I can assure you, whoever you are, that the one thing I have not yet lost is my sanity, and I beg and plead that you do not dismiss me. Despite what you are about to read I have not lost my mind, not that, not yet.

I purchased this inn in the Spring. I cannot be sure what year it was, but I know it was springtime. The last bit of frost had just left and the trees in the courtyard were beginning to bud already. I think I had a wife, and maybe some children, but I remember moving into the inn with dreams and plans of a grand re-opening. The inn had been abandoned some years before I found it; if only I knew the reason it was vacated and stood empty for so long. In my haste I didn't inquire about the building but considered myself lucky to find a furnished inn on a picturesque estate. This proved to be my downfall.

I cannot remember if the dreams came first or the oneiric visions. I suppose it doesn't really matter. They were so alike that soon I lost that sense of being asleep or awake. I can no longer discern between the two, for when I sleep the dreams assail me, and when I awake they continue, but as visions. Never in my life have I had such vivid dreams, vivid to the point of mirroring reality.

It was sometime after I lost that barrier of sleep that I started to lose things. I remember, though vaguely, encountering people I had never met and being startled at their presence and dress. I recall I thought they seemed to be out of place, like they belonged to a different decade or century. Many of them have spoke to me, and have reassured me that they are attending my grand opening, and in period costumes as I requested. Maybe this is so. Maybe I forgot I did open my inn to the public, but I'm not so sure.

When I bought the inn I went through every room, walked the entire grounds, and attempted to familiarize myself with every inch of my new purchase. I knew enough to know what I did and didn't have, and I didn't have a cellar, but I do now. I saw some of my guests, a pair of ladies dressed in layers of petticoats, descend a flight of stairs I had not seen before, and I followed them. I followed them into that pit and saw. . . .

Damn my accursed memory! I went down into the cellar and I saw something roiling about but I cannot remember anything else. There is something in this inn, something underneath it, which is eating away at my mind. I've lost sense of time, I've lost my inn, I am losing my mind, and there is no telling what else I have already lost and cannot remember. This inn is damned, I know that now. As my last act upon this earth, if indeed I am still on our blessed earth, I will burn down this accursed place. But if you are reading this I have failed. Don't spare another moment and get out now!