I wake up with a purple mound of flesh across the surface of my forehead, accompanied by an awful aching. Was all of it a dream? Or a nightmare? I shakily pour myself a shot glass of vodka and it pours down my throat in seconds as I try to brainstorm a list of places I should search for him first. 

What could I possibly tell the townspeople?! I must find and retrieve him before they do, even if it means I must kill him and start this whole search over.

Once the sun rises, I can naturally assume that the wretched thing has found its way into the depths of the cold, moist cave systems I have read of in the area, as that would be as close of an environment as similar its own as possible.

 I make my way inside, wielding nothing for my own self-defense but a single electric torch. The first thing I notice is that, contrary to the books of the aging library, the caverns are not chilly at all, but instead filled with an intense heat, leading me to sweat as if it were a summer afternoon. 

The further I venture inside, the more intense it grows, but a deadly mixture of fear and curiosity urge me onward, and soon I find that have begun to approach some sort of illumination which flowed and twisted downhill at angle like a long stream of blood, all leading up a curving spiral of stone stairs and to a brittle-looking wooden door. Another essential detail neglected by the books.

Slowly twisting the rusting metal handle, I push it open and find a room illuminated by the same glowing liquid which has led me here, something I have to repeatedly tell myself is not blood. The trail ends at the end of the room in its corner, in it the escaped creature. I can instantly tell that he is beyond saving because of the massive sword protruding from his stomach. 

"You..." he says with a hoarse pain his voice, "You mustn't do this... you don't know... what kind of forces you are meddling with..." With those last words a long stream of fluorescent blood runs out of his mouth and dribbles down his chin. "Damn! No!" I pull out the sword, and another surge of blood rushes out, soaking my only pair of socks in a nasty mess. "Can this possibly get worse?!"

"Oh, things can get much worse..." I look behind me, and standing in the door frame is a man in a hideous ringmaster's outfit, along with a bloody mucus yellow wig beneath an oversized top hat. "Imagine my surprise when my missing animal's footprints lead me straight to your basement..." he comes closer, pulling a sword from a sheath. "where I find the lair of a witch!"

I shake my head as he comes closer. "N-no! It's not witchcraft! It's science! Small minded people like you would never understand my methods!" He belts out a nerve-racking laugh and knocks the sword from my hand in a single swing. "I'm afraid you have me entirely wrong, witch. I'm not here to stop you..." opening his coat and revealing a hidden pocket, he retrieves my journal along with a small surgical set of his own. 

"I'm here to assist you! Science, alchemy, witchcraft; the names used by men for this practice has varied greatly, but in truth, they never mattered. Under the guise of a circus ringmaster, I have been doing the same work as you my entire life!"

I shake my head. "Then why did you kill him?!" he cackles once again. "Don't you see? It's the final step! Up until now, you have only employed in the killing of helpless animals, but now, in the murder of an innocent being, we may together bridge the Threshold entirely! We will cross worlds!"

"N-no! The animals were a completely different s-situation! It was only for knowledge! Hellspawn or not, I would never kill another person!"

"But is it a completely different situation? Are you absolutely sure that not even a small part inside of you didn't enjoy the bloodshed?" I stare at the blood on the floor in shame. "And as for the killing of the innocent..." he points at the body in the corner. "You won't have to. The only part of the job left for you is to open the final doorway. Take up the scalpel, witch! Open the doorway!"

"NO!" In a blind blur of rage, my eyes glaze over with anger and I lunge at him with his own scalpel, shoving it blade first into his neck, impaling myself on his sword in the process. I howl in agony as the blade sinks into my body and comes out of the other end in a loud bloody sllluuurp, a red trail rolling across the floor and soaking into my journal lying there.