Dear Reader,
The promenade at Corax Asylum has always been a place of quiet menace, a gravel path lined with iron spikes that bear the heads of those who once dared to challenge the order of things. It winds from the great gates, past the barren garden where the triffids lurk beneath their deceptive purple blooms, and curves toward the chapel that is no longer a chapel but my theatre. For centuries, it served its purpose: a reminder to the inmates, the tributes, the occasional wandering thesapien fool who thought the asylum a place of refuge. Heads rotted in the eternal dusk, eyes pecked out by ravens, mouths frozen in silent screams. A promenade of the damned, if you will.
But promenades are made for walking, are they not? And walking implies purpose, direction, an audience. One dusk, as the twin suns bled their last light across the horizon, I decided it was time for the promenade to serve a grander function. No longer a mere gallery of decay, it would become a public stage, where the line between spectator and spectacle blurred into oblivion. The inmates deserved entertainment, after all. And I, being the generous soul that I am, would provide it.
Chives, that shambling relic of a ghoul, was dispatched to gather the performers. Not the usual rabble of tributes, mind you, but something more fitting. The serial killers I had recently acquired—Holmes, Jack, Kurten—would do nicely, their appetites whetted by the promise of fresh canvas. The chapel theatre was primed, its stage rigged with Webster’s latest contrivances: trapdoors that swallowed victims whole, mirrors that reflected not what was but what might be, and a chandelier that could drop like judgment from on high. But the promenade? That would be the true centrepiece, a runway where the condemned would parade their final moments before the adoring crowd.
The inmates were herded out first, those shambling husks of thesapiens and lesser vampires, their eyes hollow from the washrooms and the nerve harps. They formed a ragged semicircle along the path, murmuring their dull complaints until I silenced them with a flick of my cane. The air hummed with anticipation, thick as the scent of impending rain. Then came the volunteers—those peculiar thesapiens who craved the bite, the drain, the edge of oblivion for a handful of ardents. They lined the spikes, their necks bared like offerings, whispering prayers to gods who long since abandoned The Deep.
Holmes took the stage first, that methodical fiend with his surgical precision. His tribute—a plump baker from Threnodyl, her apron still dusted with flour—was marched down the promenade, wrists bound with my finest silk cord. The inmates jeered, the volunteers watched with hungry eyes, and Holmes… oh, Holmes smiled that thin, knowing smile as he positioned her beneath the chandelier. One pull of the rope, and she dangled, her feet kicking futilely above the gravel. The mirrors caught her every twist, multiplying her agony into a thousand reflections. Holmes circled her slowly, his scalpel glinting, carving shallow lines that wept crimson onto the path below. The promenade drank it up, the gravel darkening like a thirsty beast.
Jack followed, that brute with his love of the visceral. His chosen, a wiry fisherman from Sapari, stumbled forward, eyes wide with the realisation that his luck had turned. Jack wasted no words; he drove the man to his knees at the garden’s edge, where the triffids stirred beneath their blooms. The plants sensed fresh meat, their tendrils snaking upward as Jack pinned the fisherman’s arms and forced his face toward the purple maw. The triffid lunged, coiling around his throat, pulling him down inch by inch. The inmates howled their approval, and I allowed a small rain to fall, washing the screams into the gravel.
Kurten brought the crescendo, that artist of the slow unravel. His tribute, a seamstress from Doloros, was the picture of defiance, her chin high even as he bound her to the promenade’s central spike. Kurten worked methodically, his tools a symphony of pliers and hooks. He started at the fingers, peeling nails like petals, then progressed to joints, dislocating with clinical snaps that echoed off the asylum walls. The mirrors turned her torment into infinity, and the volunteers pressed closer, their own hungers stirring. By the time Kurten reached her spine, arching it backward until the vertebrae cracked like dry twigs, the promenade had become what I intended: a stage where suffering was the star, and I the director.
The inmates dispersed in a haze of sated bloodlust, dragging their spoils back to the cells. The volunteers lingered, eyes glazed with their own dark appetites, until Chives herded them away. The promenade returned to its quiet menace, the gravel stained anew, the spikes bearing fresh trophies. I stood at its centre, cane in hand, the eternal dusk settling like a curtain after the final act.
And yet, as the last echoes faded, I could not shake the feeling that the true performance was just beginning. The promenade had served its purpose, but stages demand encores. And in Corax, there is always an audience eager for more.
Immortalis Book One August 2026