112
LEO04 - Brent Hearse
From the Journal of Brent Hearse
January 6th, 2021
How fascinating yet perturbing. I should have known my humble butcher shop would not be immune to the ever-enigmatic tendrils of the Cafe and Diner’s scalding (and often burnt) coffee. Damn. How is it that I can spend so many years on the Otherside without a care in the world, but once I crave a bit of normalcy? Denied. This morning, we had an incident in the shop, one that cannot be swept under the rug. Something peculiar was etched into the frost on the freezer window—the number 112. A number I had once dismissed as a mere artifact of superstitions and archaic rules. Then again, I never knew what to make of the Cafe and Diner’s “AND” Rules. Rule A, after all, insisted that the Cafe and Diner should deny the very existence of 112. Yet, how can I deny what was lying before my very own eyes?
The day naturally took a darker turn when I discovered U.R. sprawled in the freeze [sic], unconscious but muttering feverishly. In their delirium, they spoke of a ghostly figure by the very name of 112. The apparition, they claimed, whispered hushed secrets and warnings to two other figures. A king crowned with the morbid and everebon crown of a sunken land and an ancient evil wrapped in bloody cloth. How fun. What choice did I have? I entrusted U.R. to the care of the Cafe and Diner… conveniently located just down the street now. In Long Island. A far cry from Long Beach, wouldn’t you say? They’ve set up shop, and now my poor employees are outright haunted. Funny how that works.
However, this convergence of numerical prophecy is more unsettling than any trouble the Cafe and Diner could bring on its own. The Original Owner’s secret AND Rules are suddenly feeling less like the ramblings of a paranoid and Blighted mind and more like a coded manual for events yet to come. Never trust 223… ignore 111… ask 323 for help… if 323 is gone, ask 111 for help… do not ask 111 for help… do not ask 112 for help. What does it mean?
6 + 1 + 100 + 5… 112. Fate. Of course. But then…
…Debt… Lucifer… Indrid Cold.
Then that means… no. I should warn U.R. I should warn Jackie. He can’t be serious.