Neal and the Unknown

How would you react if for no apparent reason you began to dream about worlds you'd never visited? What would you think if you alone could see creatures unlike anything you've ever heard of? That's the situation Neal has been grappling with in Arkham Files. He's narrowed down his choices to (1) he's hallucinating, (2) he's the victim of supernatural forces, or (3) he's somehow become able to perceive other worlds and extraterrestrial beings.

Warning for minor spoilers for Arkham Files.

I suspect for most of us the only logical solution is that our minds are playing tricks on us. Neal doesn't use drugs. He's not a heavy drinker. He believes the most likely cause is mental illness. He's researched John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia. Nash's illness first manifested itself as paranoia. Neal can identify with that. His initial dreams of an abyss and his vision of a jackal-headed monster attacking him in a rare bookstore are not unlike what Nash described.

Neal's fears are justified. When his visions started, he'd been teaching for barely a week. He doubts his university will retain someone who suffers from mental illness for very long.

But his friend Mozzie, a celebrated astrophysicist, picks Door Number 3. Mozzie believes that the creatures are real. He can't explain why only Neal can see them, but suspects something in his body chemistry provides the mechanism. According to Mozzie, the night Neal wandered into St. Jude's Church in Visions from Beyond, he wasn't hallucinating nor was he dreaming. He actually traveled through the ruby crystal to other worlds and possibly even parallel universes.

So far Neal has seen ghasts on the streets of Arkham and winged creatures flying overhead. In The Locked Room, he believes he spotted a rodent with worm-like tentacles on its snout. And then there are those golden-eyed animals living in the rafters of Lavinia's office. What are they?

The unknown has manifested itself in otherworldly creatures and fantastic realms. It hides within people who look human but transform into ghasts. In Arkham, the unknown is always lurking just below the surface, and what appears familiar can be deceptive.

The Locked Room on Archive of Our Own
The Locked Room on FanFiction