Lore

To whoever finds this,

If the margins are scorched, ignore them. If the ink is still wet, leave the room. I learned both of those lessons the hard way, and in one case I learned it twice.

My name is Clancy Summers. I was a Hunter before the word meant anything to me, before the old network went quiet, before I understood that yesterday can bleed into tomorrow if you cut it in the wrong place. This guide is what I could save, steal, remember, and write down before the next door closed behind me.

The world you know is real. Unfortunately, it is not alone. Something presses against it from the angles we do not have names for. We call those things Horrors, not because the name is clever, but because every better word fails when one is standing close enough to breathe on you.

For a long time, Hunters kept the pressure from becoming a rupture. We had safe houses, signal codes, dead drops, old favors, older grudges, and enough bad coffee to drown a chapel. Then the chain snapped. Files vanished. Mentors stopped answering. Whole cells became rumors overnight. I have seen three different explanations for the collapse, and two of them were written in my own hand. That does not comfort me.

The Horrors noticed. They always notice. They are bolder now, testing fences that used to bite back. A thing that once haunted one road starts claiming a county. A bargain whispered in a cellar becomes a mayor's campaign promise. A child dreams of a door, and by morning every lock in town is warm to the touch.

That is where you come in. I would dress it up if I could, but recruitment speeches are for people who expect applause. You are reading this because you saw the seam in the world and did not look away fast enough. Maybe you want answers. Maybe you want revenge. Maybe someone you love is standing too close to the dark. All three are acceptable reasons. None of them will keep you alive by themselves.

This book will not make you safe. It will make you harder to kill, harder to fool, and harder to erase. It contains rules, methods, warnings, and the occasional confession. Treat the first three as tools. Treat the last one as evidence.

You will be afraid. Good. Fear is a smoke alarm, not a weakness. Listen to it, then move anyway. Trust your crew. Question clean rooms, generous strangers, and any mirror that shows you what you want. Keep records. Burn records. Learn which is which.

If we are lucky, you will never meet me. If we are unlucky, you already have.

Stay breathing,

- Clancy Summers