Journal Entry 01 (and Only)
by Agent Dorian Grieves
They told me to write something to contribute for the good of all. “To help with clarity,” they said. “For future agents,” they said. What a load of sanctified shit.
This isn’t clarity. It’s surveillance. They want to track us. Control us. Turn our memories into footnotes in someone else’s Codex. I’ve read the other entries. The ones that get printed, passed around like bedtime stories for rookies. You people are dying neatly. Well I don’t do neat.
So here’s my contribution, if anyone’s dumb enough to read this:
I’m not here to write down what happened. I’m here to make sure it never happens again.
And I won’t go out like the rest of you did—clutching crosses and hoping the right light’s still on.
You want a legacy? Kill something that matters.
I intend to do what no other Agent has done before. I will find them. The real ones. The real Demons aren’t coming from the nether, they’re already here. What we should be fighting are those betraying bastards who help bring these Demons over.
And I will make them remember what fear tastes like.
tenebrae vigilantia
—DG
Appended Entry — Internal Review
Filed by: Angela Harrow
Title: Special Counsel, Psychological Oversight Division
Date: November 17, 2023
Regarding the journal fragment recovered from Agent Dorian Grieves:
It is the opinion of this office that this so-called “entry”—scrawled in a blood-slick field satchel and wrapped around what appears to be a fractured EMF reader—should be archived under psychological anomalies for training and forensic review.
For the record, Agent Grieves is currently under posthumous inquiry related to unauthorized use of relic-class items, breach of protocol regarding containment rituals, and suspected pursuit of extra-mandated objectives. In plain terms: he went rogue. Not all at once, of course. It happens slowly, and with great conviction.
This is what Demons do. Not just to bodies. To boundaries. They erode your “self” like rot under wallpaper. They whisper in your moral language. They rewire revenge as justice. And the more you understand them—the worse it gets.
Grieves wasn’t weak. He was brilliant in the field. Banished five. Maybe more. But unfortunately, the mind wasn’t built for this work. We borrow time from our sanity the way we borrow bullets. Eventually, something runs out.
Note: Future Agents exhibiting similar ideological breakaways should be routed to Psychological Oversight prior to Demon exposure.
—Angela Harrow
Netherwatch Special Counsel