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.