MULTIVERSAL STABILITY COMMISSION (MSC) FILE
SUBJECT: THE FACELESS DETECTIVE
DOCUMENT AUTHOR: DR. ADRIAN LESTER
DATE: [REDACTED]
CLEARANCE LEVEL: OMEGA-5
ABSTRACT
The entity referred to as the Faceless Detective is one of the most persistent and anomalous threats recorded within the jurisdiction of the Multiversal Stability Commission (MSC). Despite numerous containment attempts, neutralization efforts, and existential erasures, the entity continues to manifest across multiple realities, timelines, and conceptual frameworks.
The Faceless Detective defies conventional classification, existing in a state that is neither fully corporeal nor entirely metaphysical. It moves through narratives, paradoxes, and laws of causality as effortlessly as a living being traverses space. It does not obey the constraints of time, mortality, or identity.
We do not know what it truly is.
We do not know where it came from.
We only know one thing:
It always comes back.
DESCRIPTION
The Faceless Detective appears as a humanoid figure clad in a long trench coat and a worn-out fedora, the exact details shifting slightly based on the universe in which it appears. However, the constant trait across all recorded encounters is its complete lack of a face.
No eyes. No mouth. No features. Just an emptiness where a face should be.
And yet, it sees.
And yet, it speaks.
And yet, it laughs.
Witnesses often report that its "voice" is not spoken but imposed. It does not resonate through air or vibration but rather appears directly in the minds of those who hear it. The voice varies between encounters, sometimes deep and unsettling, other times eerily casual and conversational. Some describe it as if their own thoughts are being rewritten in real-time.
Most notably, the Faceless Detective is not bound to a single incarnation.
It is a story that tells itself.
Each time it is destroyed, another version appears elsewhere. Each time it is contained, it escapes through an absurd loophole that should not exist. Each time its existence is erased, it rewrites itself back into reality.
The entity operates on metanarrative principles, treating existence itself like a case to be solved—a mystery to be unraveled, manipulated, or rewritten.
BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS
The Faceless Detective exhibits behaviors that suggest a mix of amusement, intellectual curiosity, and raw predatory instinct. It frequently engages in complex schemes, investigations, and absurdly convoluted crimes, ranging from minor disruptions to full-scale universal annihilation.
Known Crimes (Partial List):
• Multi-layered Reality Fraud – Convincing an entire dimension it never existed, forcing it into self-erasure.
• Mass Narrative Manipulation – Rewriting the history of a civilization so that it never invented war… and then watching as it collapsed due to its own naïve inability to defend itself.
• Theft of an Entire Timeline – Removing an entire century from a universe's history, leaving only confusion and blank pages where records once stood.
• Robbery of an Abstract Concept – Stole the idea of gravity from a planetary system, causing all matter to float aimlessly until external forces restored it.
• Genocidal Thought Experiment – Convinced a species that they were fictional characters, leading to a mass existential crisis and voluntary extinction.
• Assassination of Themselves – Tracked down and killed a past version of itself, causing zero paradoxical consequences.
• Total Universe Erasure – Flattened an entire universe into a physical script, then erased it with a rubber eraser, permanently removing it from the multiversal records.
Pattern of Behavior:
• The Faceless Detective rarely acts out of pure malice. Instead, it treats existence like a game, an experiment, or a personal mystery.
• It enjoys loopholes, contradictions, and paradoxes. The more absurd the solution, the more entertained it appears to be.
• Despite its crimes, it follows its own strange moral code. It has been observed to help certain individuals, solve unsolvable cases, and even act as a protector of sorts—when it finds the situation interesting enough.
CONTAINMENT HISTORY
Attempts to contain the Faceless Detective have been met with consistent failure. Notable containment efforts include:
• Site-12 Incident – The entity was successfully captured, only for it to take the entire containment cell with it and continue committing crimes.
• Narrative Lockdown Protocol – The entity was written into a perfect, unbreakable story loop, only for it to edit itself out of the script by exploiting a forgotten footnote.
• Multiversal Avatar Eradication – The MSC systematically destroyed all known versions of the Faceless Detective, only for it to resurface fully intact days later, sipping coffee in Dr. Helbram's office.
• Conceptual Deletion Attempt – The entity was removed from all known records and memories, but it returned through a paradoxical error in MSC bureaucracy.
The most successful containment effort was led by Dr. Helbram, who managed to convince the entity to enter a containment cell voluntarily. However, the entity later mocked the entire process, citing it as "a fun social experiment," before escaping again.
FINAL NOTES
The Faceless Detective is not a person.
It is a phenomenon.
It does not adhere to physical laws, moral constraints, or logical boundaries. It exists because it chooses to. And until we understand what it truly is, every attempt to contain it will remain temporary at best.
We cannot destroy it.
We cannot outthink it.
We can only observe.
And hope that, for now, it remains entertained.
END OF REPORT
MULTIVERSAL STABILITY COMMISSION (MSC) FILE
SUBJECT: THE CITY THEFT INCIDENT
DOCUMENT AUTHOR: DR. ESTEBAN ROTH
DATE: [REDACTED]
CLEARANCE LEVEL: OMEGA-5
ABSTRACT
Among the numerous reality-bending crimes committed by the Faceless Detective, the City Theft Incident remains one of the most confounding and unprecedented. Unlike previous incidents where the entity altered perception, manipulated causality, or deleted fundamental aspects of existence, this event involved the outright theft of an entire city from reality itself.
The city in question, known as Vasundra Prime, was a sprawling metropolis home to 42 million inhabitants, a hub of advanced interdimensional trade, and a cornerstone of economic and cultural significance within its universe.
At exactly 3:14 AM, Vasundra Prime vanished without a trace.
Not destroyed. Not erased. Stolen.
No residual energy signatures, no distortions in spacetime, and no evidence of a collapse. The city had been surgically removed from its universe, leaving behind a perfect, empty circular void where it once stood.
Further investigation revealed that this was not an act of spontaneous universal decay, but rather the deliberate handiwork of the Faceless Detective.
An entire city was missing. And the culprit? An entity with no face, no fingerprints, and no limitations.
INITIAL DISCOVERY & INVESTIGATION
The disappearance of Vasundra Prime triggered an immediate multiversal-level alert. MSC observational outposts flagged the event as an unprecedented large-scale dimensional anomaly.
Surrounding regions showed no damage, no fallout, no residual quantum echoes. Air, water, and all natural forces that once interacted with the city continued as if it had never been there. Birds that had been mid-flight over Vasundra Prime were found in the exact same position but now gliding over the void. Commuter trains that should have been heading into the city were now traveling into nothingness, their tracks cut off mid-route.
Entire highways ended in abrupt nothingness.
The absence was so surgically perfect that even the gravitational effect of the city's mass was gone, causing minor imbalances in planetary rotation.
MSC FIELD REPORT - DR. ESTEBAN ROTH
"I've seen planetary implosions, temporal collapses, and entire realities breaking down due to entropy decay, but I have never—never—seen something so precise, so clean. No wreckage, no displaced material, not even a single floating scrap of paper. It's as if the city was cut out with a scalpel, leaving behind an open wound in the universe."
Further investigation into eyewitness reports provided an even more disturbing revelation. Survivors on the outskirts of Vasundra Prime reported seeing a shadowy figure standing on a rooftop just hours before the event. Some described a trench coat and fedora.
Some claimed they heard laughter.
Others swore they heard a single sentence whispered directly into their minds:
"I'm borrowing this."
SEARCHING FOR A STOLEN CITY
The MSC immediately launched a multiversal scan to locate Vasundra Prime, deploying high-priority agents from both the Dimensional Crisis Response Unit (DCRU) and the Interdimensional Stabilization Forces.
But here's the problem: you can't find something that doesn't want to be found.
The city had not been moved to another planet.
It had not been transferred into another dimension.
It had not been shifted into a parallel timeline.
It was simply gone.
Not erased, not annihilated—but hidden.
Attempts to access the city's previous location through time-viewing technology revealed nothing. It was as if the city had been cut out of history itself. No ripples, no paradoxes, no echoes.
Like a missing puzzle piece that had never belonged in the first place.
Then, six weeks later, the first lead came.
A rogue broadcast signal was detected in a completely unrelated universe, thousands of timelines away from Vasundra Prime's origin. The signal consisted of static, laughter, and a single distorted message:
"The rent's a bit high, but the view is fantastic."
Coordinates embedded within the signal led to an unexplored reality bubble, a pocket dimension detached from the multiverse.
Upon entry, MSC agents found something unbelievable.
Vasundra Prime was there.
The entire city, intact.
But it was… different.
THE CITY IN THE VOID
When MSC operatives entered the stolen city, they found it floating in an endless, dark expanse. No sun, no stars, no surrounding space—just an infinite black void stretching in every direction.
The buildings, streets, and infrastructure were perfectly preserved. Electricity still functioned. Vehicles remained parked. Stores were still stocked with goods. There were even still coffee cups sitting on tables, half-finished meals on plates.
But there were no people.
42 million residents had disappeared.
MSC investigation teams swept every corner of the city, analyzing records, digital footprints, and biological traces. Every apartment, every office, every train station was exactly as it was before the theft. It was as if the people had simply walked away.
The most unsettling part?
Every missing person had been physically erased from reality.
Birth records? Gone.
Social security logs? Nonexistent.
Personal possessions? Still there, but with no name attached.
Even those who had interacted with Vasundra Prime from outside the city could no longer remember its citizens. Parents forgot their children. Employees forgot their bosses. Lovers forgot their partners.
The city had not just been stolen.
Its people had been erased from the story.
FINAL ENCOUNTER & ESCAPE
As MSC forces continued investigating, a new anomaly appeared.
At the very center of the city, in what used to be its grand central plaza, a single figure stood beneath a flickering streetlight.
A trench coat. A fedora. No face.
The Faceless Detective.
And, as always, it spoke.
"Fascinating, isn't it?"
"They always ask 'why.' 'Why steal a city? Why remove its people?' But never the more interesting question—'what does a city become when no one remembers it?'"
When confronted by MSC agents, the entity laughed.
"Don't look so grim. I left you a gift."
And before the agents could react, the entire city collapsed inward.
The buildings folded into themselves like origami. The streets spiraled into nothingness. The entire metropolis contracted into a single, flickering thought—
—And then it was gone.
Vanished.
MSC agents barely escaped the pocket dimension before it sealed itself shut. Attempts to locate the city afterward failed. It was nowhere. It had never been anywhere.
The Faceless Detective had taken it.
And this time, it had kept it.
CONCLUSIONS
The City Theft Incident remains one of the most elaborate and unexplained crimes committed by the Faceless Detective. The fate of Vasundra Prime and its 42 million inhabitants is unknown.
Whether they were erased, rewritten, or stored away for some unknown purpose remains a mystery.
The MSC has since placed an Omega-Level Directive on all further encounters with the entity. However, all evidence suggests that containment is impossible.
The Faceless Detective does not steal for wealth.
It does not destroy for power.
It acts for one reason, and one reason only:
Because it can.
END OF FILE.
MULTIVERSAL STABILITY COMMISSION (MSC) FILE
SUBJECT: "JUSTICE IS BLIND" CASES & THE FACILESS DETECTIVE
DOCUMENT AUTHOR: DR. ARLEN STRYKER
DATE: [REDACTED]
CLEARANCE LEVEL: OMEGA-5
ABSTRACT
Among the many inexplicable and anomalous figures operating across the multiverse, the Faceless Detective remains one of the most enigmatic. Unlike conventional threats, this entity does not operate out of malice, greed, or a desire for destruction. Instead, it functions on its own incomprehensible logic, seemingly playing the role of a detective, an executioner, and a force of justice—albeit one bound by no known moral or legal code.
In countless universes, across countless timelines, the Faceless Detective has been sighted solving crimes that no one else could.
Yet, its methods are brutal.
Its reasoning is unknown.
And its idea of justice is anything but fair.
Many have theorized that the entity is a high-functioning sociopath, one who views morality as a puzzle rather than an ethical compass. It does not pursue justice for the sake of goodness. It solves mysteries because it is compelled to do so.
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS: THE ICONOGRAPHY OF A MONSTER
Across multiple testimonies, certain details remain eerily consistent regardless of the universe or timeline. Witnesses describe a tall, imposing figure dressed in a long, tattered trench coat and a worn-out fedora that casts its featureless visage in shadow.
But the most disturbing part?
The face.
Or rather, the lack of one.
In all recordings, security footage, and even direct eyewitness accounts, the face is censored. Not blurred. Not blacked out. Censored.
As if reality itself refuses to acknowledge it.
Some have attempted to sketch the entity's face from memory. These attempts always fail, as the artists find their hands uncontrollably shaking or their sketches ending in nonsensical scribbles.
The only other consistent detail?
The silver coin it carries.
THE COIN & THE CODE OF CHANCE
Throughout various cases, survivors report seeing the Faceless Detective flipping a single silver coin while contemplating its actions. This coin, much like the entity itself, is anomalous.
• No one can read its engravings.
• No one can identify its origin.
• No one can replicate it.
Yet, time and time again, the flipping of this coin seems to dictate life and death.
In several instances, criminals, murderers, and corrupt figures have been found executed—each death bearing signs of a precisely placed revolver shot.
But in other cases, individuals who were seemingly guilty were left alive—as if spared by some unknowable logic.
THEORIES ON THE COIN'S PURPOSE:
• A Judgment Mechanism: The coin determines whether the Faceless Detective intervenes or ignores the case.
• An Execution Token: The outcome of the flip determines whether a suspect lives or dies.
• A Ritualistic Act: The flipping is an act of focus, allowing the entity to "choose" a course of action.
• An Empty Gesture: The entity does not abide by the coin but flips it purely for dramatic effect.
Whatever the truth, the coin flips, and judgment follows.
CASE FILES: "JUSTICE IS BLIND" INCIDENTS
The Faceless Detective has been linked to hundreds of cases across multiple universes. Below are some of the most notable.
CASE #777 - "THE GUTTED JUDGE"
• Location: Neo-London, Earth-Alpha-9
• Incident: A corrupt high judge known for selling verdicts to the highest bidder was found eviscerated in his courtroom, his gavel embedded in his throat.
• Last Words (Witness Report): "P-please… I can pay… I can pay…"
• Security Footage: Corrupted beyond recognition, except for a single frame of a figure in a trench coat flipping a coin.
• Status: Unsolved.
CASE #922 - "THE HANGED COUNCIL"
• Location: Dimension-42B, Senate Building
• Incident: Seven government officials involved in interdimensional war profiteering were found hanging by their own ties from the ceiling of the Senate Chamber.
• Crime Scene Message: "Justice is blind. But I am not."
• Status: Redacted.
CASE #2012 - "THE WRETCHED INNOCENT"
• Location: Earth-Delta-5, New York City
• Incident: A wrongly accused prisoner, Michael Terrence, was found outside his locked cell—alive and unharmed.
• Last Known Words: "He told me… 'Wrong place, wrong time.' Then he just—just walked away."
• Coin Flip Outcome: Unknown.
CASE #4382 - "THE VANISHING EVIDENCE"
• Location: Mars Colonies, Sector-18
• Incident: A megacorporation's servers containing classified war crime data were erased overnight.
• Security Logs: Showed a single, gloved hand placing a silver coin on a desk before the footage cut out.
• Aftermath: The company was exposed anyway—but the evidence was never recovered.
A HIGH-FUNCTIONING SOCIOPATH? OR SOMETHING WORSE?
Many in the MSC believe that the Faceless Detective operates under the guise of justice but follows no true ethical compass.
Observations indicate that it does not act out of morality, but compulsion.
• It solves mysteries not because it seeks the truth, but because it must.
• It punishes criminals not out of a sense of justice, but because it enjoys playing judge, jury, and executioner.
• It flips the coin not as a random gamble, but as a ritual, an unspoken contract with itself.
But the greatest mystery remains:
Is the Faceless Detective a being of law, or simply a force of chaos disguised as one?
CONCLUSION & THREAT ASSESSMENT
• Threat Level: Omega-Level Uncontainable
• Containment Status: Impractical. The entity evades all known attempts at restraint.
• Recommended Action: Avoid engagement. Do not attempt negotiations. Any encounter should be documented and reported immediately.
It is not a hero.
It is not a villain.
It is something else entirely.
And worst of all?
It never stops looking for a case to solve.
END OF FILE.
THE INFINITE DOPPELGÄNGER MYSTERY OF VALERIA
The city of Valeria was draped in its usual veil of fog, the kind that never seemed to lift no matter the time of day. A Victorian metropolis, its cobblestone streets were lined with gas-lit lanterns that flickered in the midnight gloom, their light barely cutting through the mist that wove itself through the alleys and avenues like the tendrils of some unseen predator.
The people of Valeria were accustomed to the eerie nature of their city, to the way whispers carried through the fog as if spoken by unseen phantoms, to the way shadows lingered just a second too long. But even for a city of strange occurrences, the recent phenomenon was unprecedented.
People were seeing themselves.
Not in reflections, nor in dreams, but walking amongst the living.
It started with fleeting glances—a man locking eyes with himself across a crowded street, a woman glimpsing her own face staring back at her from a carriage window, a child clutching their mother's skirt only to realize their mother was standing across the road, waving frantically for them to run.
Then, the sightings became interactions. People spoke to their doubles, only to find them mirroring every word, every gesture, every subtle twitch of the lips. Some tried to shake hands with their counterpart, only for the doppelgänger to lean in, whisper something inaudible, and vanish into thin air.
And then, the murders began.
A Case Unlike Any Other
The Faceless Detective arrived in Valeria on a silent night, his presence unnoticed at first, as if he had always been there, standing under the flickering gaslight at the corner of Saint Armand Street.
His long, tattered trench coat barely moved despite the cold wind slithering through the streets. His worn-out fedora cast a shadow over his head, but it didn't matter—no one could see his face anyway.
In his gloved hand, he flipped a silver coin. The soft metallic clink was swallowed by the quiet hum of the city.
Somewhere in Valeria, a scream split the night in two.
Without hesitation, the Faceless Detective stepped forward, his movements precise, as if following a script only he could read.
A City of Mirrored Deaths
The crime scenes were unlike anything the Valerian authorities had ever encountered. Each victim was found side by side with their exact double, both corpses identical in every way.
Same wounds.
Same expressions of horror.
Same clothes, down to the last button.
It was impossible. No one could explain it, and yet the bodies were real, lying in pools of shared blood on cold cobblestone streets. The local police had barricaded entire districts, fearing an outbreak of something beyond comprehension.
But the Faceless Detective did not fear the incomprehensible.
He hunted it.
The First Encounter
As the detective walked through the fog-choked streets, he became aware of the eyes watching him. Not from windows, not from the alleys, but from somewhere beyond the visible spectrum of reality.
At the heart of Valeria, in the ruined district of Dunwich Row, he found the latest victim.
Or rather—victims.
Two men. Identical. Both with their throats slit open, collapsed against a wall where the words "IT WAS ME" were written in fresh, glistening blood.
The detective stood over the bodies for a moment, his gloved fingers tracing the air as if reading an invisible thread of fate. Then, with slow precision, he pulled out his revolver.
He wasn't aiming at anything. Not yet.
A whisper slithered through the alley.
"You're getting closer."
The detective did not react. Instead, he flipped his coin. The silver disk spun in the dim light, glinting before landing back in his palm.
He nodded to himself.
Then, he fired.
The Hunter and the Hunted
The gunshot cracked through the silence, and the fog shuddered.
Something shifted.
The air grew thick, pressing against the detective's coat like unseen hands. The gaslights flickered, and from the depths of the shadows, they stepped forward.
His duplicates.
Five of them. Each wearing the same coat. Each holding the same revolver. Each flipping the same silver coin.
They stood in a perfect line across the street, their fedoras casting matching shadows.
The real detective watched them, his coin still spinning in his fingers.
The doppelgängers flipped theirs in unison.
Then, they moved.
Bullets tore through the night. The detective dodged left, rolling behind a rusted carriage as gunfire erupted from all sides. But he wasn't the only one dodging. His copies moved exactly as he did, mirroring his motions with eerie synchronicity.
It was like fighting himself.
But that was impossible.
Wasn't it?
The Final Truth
The battle raged through the streets, leaving shattered windows and bullet-riddled walls in its wake. But the detective knew this wasn't a fight he could win with bullets alone.
No, this was a puzzle.
And he always solved the case.
With a final shot, he shattered a gas lantern, plunging the alley into total darkness.
For the first time, his copies hesitated.
That was their mistake.
In the pitch-black void, the Faceless Detective reached into the space between logic and impossibility—where he always belonged.
He grabbed hold of something unseen. Something no one else could perceive.
And then, with a single pull, he rewrote the ending.
When the light returned, the doppelgängers were gone.
The city of Valeria, still wrapped in fog, had returned to its usual quiet.
The mystery had been solved.
But justice?
Justice was blind.
And so was he.
Without a word, the Faceless Detective flipped his coin one last time, watching it spin through the mist before catching it in his palm.
Then, as silently as he had arrived, he disappeared into the night.
CASE FILE: COSMIC LEVEL PREGNANCY INCIDENT
Incident Designation: The Mother's Embrace
Location: Ludlow, Valeria – A Victorian-era town
Primary Investigator: The Faceless Detective
Threat Level: Catastrophic (Revised to Anomalous Containment Failure)
Summary:
The Goddess Mother of Decay, Motherhood, and Femininity—an entity capable of warping the laws of biology and reproduction—descended upon Ludlow, Valeria in the dead of night. By dawn, every living being within the town limits, regardless of species, gender, or even conceptual existence, had become pregnant.
Yes. Everything.
Cows. Dogs. Cats. Men. Women. Children. The town priest. The baker. The stray pigeons roosting in the belltower. Even inanimate objects had begun exhibiting symptoms of gestation—chairs swelling, lampposts softly humming lullabies, the town clock ticking in the rhythm of a heartbeat.
It was an epidemic of fertility, and only one detective was unlucky enough to handle it.
ARRIVAL IN LUDLOW
The Faceless Detective arrived on the morning train, stepping off the last carriage just as the stationmaster—a plump man with a very visible pregnancy bump—rushed toward him, gasping in distress.
"Help, detective!" The man wheezed, clutching his stomach. "She… she's blessed us all! And I… I don't think I was meant to carry life—"
The detective, as always, did not speak. He merely flipped his silver coin, watching it spin through the air, catching it effortlessly before tucking it back into his coat.
The stationmaster promptly went into labor.
The detective ignored the wet sounds of birth behind him and continued into town.
THE HORRORS OF MOTHERHOOD
The sight of Ludlow was nothing short of abominable.
• Every man clutched his swollen belly, waddling awkwardly.
• Women—many already pregnant before the event—now carried multitudes within them, their bodies distended beyond human proportions.
• Horses in the streets screamed in confusion, their legs trembling as their already swollen bodies twitched with new contractions.
• The church bell, pregnant in some cosmic sense, let out low, pained tolls as if it, too, was undergoing labor.
• Even the town's reflections in puddles and windows seemed to groan as their mirrored counterparts clutched at non-existent stomachs.
The detective strode past a wagon, noting how the wooden spokes had begun creaking like the cries of newborns.
This was not a normal case.
Not that any of his cases were normal.
THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE GODDESS
At the center of Ludlow stood the town fountain, where the Goddess Mother of Decay reclined upon the marble, her form a perfect and terrible representation of boundless femininity.
She was beautiful in the way that a storm was beautiful—an awe-inspiring force of nature that knew no mercy, no limits, no logic.
Her skin was the color of wilting roses, her hair an endless cascade of milk and honey. Her eyes—when they met the detective's—held infinity within them.
She smiled.
"You are a strange one," she cooed, running fingers over her own belly, swollen with some incomprehensible creation. "You are so… empty. So barren. So… fruitless."
The detective flipped his coin.
She laughed. A sound that grew, multiplied, harmonized with itself, echoing in the streets as if a thousand versions of her were laughing at once.
"I wonder," she mused, "if you can be blessed too."
And with that, she touched him.
THE DETECTIVE… PREGNANT?
The Faceless Detective, an anomaly himself, should not have been susceptible to mortal afflictions.
And yet—
Something shifted.
A deep, unfathomable heaviness settled in his being, something alien, something fundamentally wrong.
For the first time in recorded history, the Faceless Detective hesitated.
He placed a gloved hand against his stomach. Beneath the layers of his coat and vest, something stirred.
The town watched in silent awe.
And then—he gave birth.
Not to a child.
No.
To many.
With a quiet, cosmic inevitability, the detective's shadow split. Emerging from his form, hundreds of tiny detectives tumbled onto the cobblestone, each an exact replica of himself—only smaller, pint-sized, and just as emotionally unavailable.
The Goddess Mother of Decay let out a delighted gasp, clapping her hands together.
"Oh, how darling!"
The detective ignored her.
He stared at the horde of miniature versions of himself, all flipping identical silver coins, all adjusting their tiny fedoras, all glaring up at him with featureless faces.
Then, as one, they turned toward the goddess.
And drew their revolvers.
THE GREAT EXODUS OF THE CHILDREN
The Goddess Mother of Decay did not scream.
She laughed—even as the first shot rang out.
Ludlow shook as an entire army of miniature detectives opened fire, their tiny bullets tearing through the veil of unnatural pregnancy she had cast over the town.
With each shot, the unnatural gestation reversed.
• Men clutched at their stomachs as the swelling receded.
• Animals let out relieved sighs as their bodies normalized.
• The church bells fell silent, no longer bearing some esoteric burden.
The goddess took the brunt of the assault, her form shimmering, distorting—becoming less real as reality rejected her presence.
Still, she smiled.
"You are strong, detective," she whispered, her body unraveling into a cloud of wilted petals. "I will not forget you. And one day… perhaps I will return to bless you again."
And then, she was gone.
The Faceless Detective holstered his gun.
The miniature detectives did the same.
One of them gave him a nod—a silent acknowledgment of their shared existence—before they, too, began fading from reality.
Within moments, Ludlow was back to normal.
If one ignored the traumatized townspeople, the lingering echoes of unnatural lullabies, and the one remaining tiny detective who stubbornly clung to his father's trench coat.
The Faceless Detective looked down.
The tiny detective flipped a coin.
So did he.
With a sigh, he turned on his heel—his new unwanted offspring following close behind.
Another case.
Another unsolved mystery.
And another nightmare added to his list.
FILE: THE NOOSPHERIC THREAT
Incident Designation: The Elder Incursion
Location: Multiversal Layer [REDACTED]
Primary Investigator: Dr. Helbram
Threat Level: Absolute—Noospheric
THE DESCENT OF THE ELDER GODS
The Elder Gods did not arrive.
Arrival implied movement. Arrival implied travel. Arrival implied that they had once been somewhere else before coming here.
This was not the case.
One moment, this universe existed.
The next, it did not.
It was not destroyed in any traditional sense. There was no explosion, no collapse, no entropy consuming all in its wake.
It was simply read.
Read, as one reads words on a page.
And with a single flick of an unseen hand, it was turned.
And erased.
The Elder Gods viewed everything below them as fiction.
Stories, layered across the vast, fragile multiverse, were open books to them. They could read them, change them, rewrite them.
And when a story ceased to amuse them?
They would close the book.
And that reality would end.
They did not erase it with fire. They did not erase it with war.
They simply forgot it.
And what they forgot, ceased to be.
But this time—this time—the ISS heard the whisper of a page turning.
And for the first time in their long, long history, they were afraid.
THE ISS RESPONDS
The ISS contained.
The ISS preserved.
The ISS remembered.
But how could they preserve something that had been forgotten?
How could they contain something that existed beyond existence?
How could they remember something that was never meant to be remembered?
The answer lay in the MSC.
DR. HELBRAM AND THE COUNCIL
When Dr. Helbram received the summons, he was not surprised.
It was rare for the MSC—the Multiverse Stability Commission, the Multiverse Safety Council, whatever they called themselves—to interfere directly.
But the erasure of an entire universe warranted it.
He arrived at Site-01, a place that existed between places, where the highest-ranking officials of the MSC held their discussions.
The air was thick with static, reality stretched and bent in unnatural ways, but Dr. Helbram had long since stopped noticing such things.
He was greeted by figures he had never met, though he knew their names.
Or perhaps they had no names, and he simply assigned them ones in his mind.
It didn't matter.
They were MSC.
And the MSC had a proposal.
THE PROJECT: ASCENSION
"Doctor Helbram," one of them said. "You have lived for centuries. You have studied forces beyond comprehension. You have seen things no mortal was meant to see."
Dr. Helbram sipped his coffee. "Flatter me all you like, but I know you're not here for small talk."
The MSC did not smile.
They never did.
"We are working on something," another said. "A project. A chance—however slim—to shield ourselves from the Noospheric entities."