It was possible that Ewan also considered himself to be two people: a higher self that roamed beyond space and time, and the wretched, physical form, or ‘prison’, that hunted for intoxicants and endured a miserable, transient existence.
Drug use was a constant theme in the jottings, as were his difficulties with finding MDMA, his substance of choice. Legal highs he embraced as something of a divine intervention at one point during his mission. He had been staying somewhere in Yeovil, and then Gloucester, and like an amateur chemist Ewan had combined all kinds of compounds to ‘really burrow down and go much further, to stay for longer’. And yet Ewan’s diary proved that he had little control over when these out-of-body episodes occurred.
As for travelling beyond the remit of his ‘physical prison’, he rarely appeared to make it beyond his mother’s spare bedroom, or from the other demoralizing places that he’d inhabited. For two years the separation ‘never happened once’. Ultimately, Ewan’s projections had remained random, unpredictable and fleeting for the best part of a decade. He’d remained a man unfilled and underfed by the experience, famished, even starving at times for a salvation that slowly ruined him.
How the random acts of disassociating his consciousness had progressed to Ewan’s evident ability to enter the state at will, to control it and to appear as an apparition, was the missing link. Had Ewan found a mentor, or even a substance, that allowed him to take his inconsistent ability to the next level? This SPR and its inducements offered the only clue.
What was legible in what he took to be the later, more inconsistent periods culminated in what Seb hoped were the psychotic fantasies of an addict. And only within these did Seb discover anything relating to what might have entered his home during the last night of Ewan’s intrusion – the very form that had brought death to Ewan in Paignton.
Written in black ink, inside the Hello Kitty jotting pad, were sections that Ewan had entitled: The Greylands.
It was like a blackout. Different. Everything went dark. A loss of consciousness? Complete darkness. Was this the time of darkness that they had told me about? But this was more like a void. More than darkness. It was nothingness.
Consciousness returned. I moved out of the void and was rushing through the cold, in a wind. But I came to be inside the house again.
Partial awakening with only dream-like awareness inside. I was half in the world, but it was very dim and not properly formed, even formless in places. Something always unreal and misty about these rooms. I was only half aware, but the edges of doorways and furniture were vague. Objects doubled, or one thing went over another, like two images in fog. Some of the images belonged to me and I saw things that I owned as a child. So was I projecting that? Never experienced that before. Not what I expected.
But I was definitely still in the building and able to move about more freely.
Another fragment in the Hello Kitty pad suggested a location with a physical basis. It reminded Seb of the SPR reports about the tests set by the mysterious ‘H’ and ‘Diane’. Other participants were mentioned but only referred to as ‘they’.
Found the place. The corridor of black doors. Awake but dreaming in the mist. Couldn’t stop the fear. Was like being a child again. Suspected I was close to something dangerous [text illegible].
Must still be inside the soul-body veil, but never seen this sphere so clearly before. Found the correct room, third on right, and passed inside. Stayed clear from the black windows and slowly seemed to descend to the floor like I was growing smaller and dimmer.
Saw the painting in there. Boy sat on chair with light-coloured hair, holding a bear. Under painting was the same chair with the same bear on it. Actual toy was older, worn to cloth in some places.
There was a row of toys lined up on an old sofa. Before I could look at them I was hit in the face by something soft. A nightgown. Child’s nightgown. Very old and white. It had seemed to hover or float in the corner of my eye, and then it came across the room fast and covered my face. Terrifying!
Fell back into void and woke in the bedroom.
They were very pleased with me the next day for identifying some of the contents of that room. HE was there, they said. Apparently, HE was with me the whole time. ‘HE helps those who come inside his house.’ They keep repeating that.
I mentioned the nightgown and they said it was nothing to worry about. A sign of acceptance, a little trick. ‘HE likes those’, they said.
Reports of Ewan’s assessment continued on the several pages that had come loose from the Kitty pad. Seb had found them at the bottom of one of the bin bags.
Fifth time in corridor with the black doors, but fear is still the same and I was not fully conscious again. Something is holding me back. I’m half asleep and sluggish and a bit [text illegible] confused. But I found the room with the playing cards on a card table.