1050: Story 1050: Skin of the Ancients 1050: Story 1050: Skin of the Ancients They found the book beneath the old asylum floorboards—wrapped in human skin, bound with sinew, and whispering even before it was opened.
Dr.
Keene, once a scholar of lost civilizations, had come to the ruins seeking knowledge.
What he unearthed was something far older than history, something worn and waiting.
The cover pulsed.
The pages breathed.
It wasn’t a book.
It was a shard of the Ancients, a remnant of the Primordial Flayers, god-things that existed before flesh had names.
The asylum’s records called it “Patient Null.” No birthdate.
No body.
Just the absence of presence, locked in a cell sealed with prayer and iron.
Dr.
Keene should have left it alone.
But obsession trumps reason.
Always.
He opened the book.
His fingers bled instantly—absorbed into the parchment like ink into cloth.
Symbols shifted, snarled, and hissed in dead dialects.
One page turned on its own, revealing a drawing of a faceless man made of many skins.
And then the whispering began.
Keene was no longer alone.
In the corners of the asylum, shapes began to stand.
Faceless, multi-limbed things, stitched from hundreds of faces.
Their mouths hung open in silent screams, their torsos smeared with languages never spoken by mankind.
They shuffled forward, their touch rotting light, erasing sound, absorbing warmth.
He ran, clutching the book like a cursed relic.
But with each step, the asylum shifted.
Walls pulsed like lungs.
Floorboards cracked and wept.
Doors led to hallways that bled.
And still, the book whispered.
He locked himself in the head nurse’s office, trying to burn the tome.
But it did not catch fire—it shuddered and laughed.
It showed him visions: the ancient city of Thy’kahr, built from living flesh and skinless angels; the Flensing Choirs that sang entire universes into silence; and the Elder Husk, a god that wore time as a mask.
Keene fell to his knees.
He began to write—not with ink, but with his nails and blood.
The book guided his hand, carving runes into the walls, floors, and his own body.
He wasn’t the author.
He was becoming the page.
When they found him, days later, his skin was gone—peeled away and hung across the office like curtains.
But he was alive.
Somehow.
His eyes were white.
His mouth never stopped moving, whispering the words of the Ancients.
The book was gone.
But new whispers filled the town’s dreams.
Children began drawing the faceless man.
Cows were born inside out.
The moon began to bleed on alternate Thursdays.
The Skin of the Ancients had returned.
And it was still hungry.