SALLY FACE LORE

1/8 Okay, so I know you already got a link from somebody, but this was the exact
excuse I needed to infodump about my biggest hyperfixation and I PROMISE you
the video will have missed at least a detail or two. For the sake of accessibility,
I’m not going to include the Strange Boxes files, but those do add their own
subsection of the lore if you google them. So. Here goes;

BACKSTORY:

Prior to the year 1663, a tribe called the Greys lived in the area that would become
Nockfell. Legend says their tribe was formed when a giant owl raped a man
walking in the woods. A woman was born fully grown from his body, killing him
when she burst out. She fed his body to some wolves, and the wolves became
human, becoming the first members of the tribe. Descendants of the woman
herself, particularly the women, have psychic powers, predominantly prophetic
ones. The tribe lived in tense harmony with a "Beast" that lived in a lake and fed
on them from time to time - note that the Beast is "not evil, just hungry".

In 1663, a descendant of the woman, the prophet Citlali Grey, predicts the
destruction of God and the rise of man, and forms a fringe group in the tribe
called the Devourers of God that scheme to bring this about. Note that the "cult"
(they aren't really a cult at this point) is not yet evil, just proud. God is not
necessarily "good" in this world, and the "Beast", probably a stand in for the Devil,
is not evil. However, the Beast, based on cave paintings, looks a lot like the
Endless One. This does not mean it IS the Endless One, though that is a popular
theory. There is also a character who bears a strong resemblance to the
traditional depiction of the Devil later on, Beelzebub, but he is actually a Voice of
the Dark, not the Devil - he is just nicknamed the Devil by his family. Also note that
even if the Beast IS the Endless One, it's also possible it became evil later on.

Around the same time, anywhere from 1663 to 1681, a group of colonisers arrived
in the area, and Citlali was married to one of them, Wesley Rosenberg, to form an
alliance, and the colonists joined the growing "cult" - it was most likely their
influence and the genocide they brought that began forming it into an actual cult,
as well as their interpretation of God, as in the Christian God. They built a temple
to commiserate their group, which is the Phelps Temple we see later in game.

In 1703, the Phelps family were married into the cult and constructed a church
over the Temple to hide it.
Citlali gave her final prophecy some time later in the mid 1700s, presumably dying
not long after, warning about a Child of the Abomination and a betrayer of [their]
kind that would be "resurrected by Asintmah". It's worth bringing up that Asintmah
is a goddess in Athabaskan mythology that was a goddess of the earth and the
first woman on earth - this is a direct parallel to the original prophet of the Grey
tribe, and indicates that they have forsaken her somehow, and at this point the
cult is well and truly evil. The cult begins preparing to kill this Child.

In 1887, the Addisons are married in, and they construct a temple and an
apartment complex to hide it. They buy the land from a Rosenberg - Alyson
Rosenberg, the last surviving member of the original Rosenbergs and a powerful
witch and cult member, but crucially NOT part of the Council. At this point, the
cult is "growing in numbers", so it's safe to assume the Addisons were quite
influential and the cult's reach began to expand.

The Addisons have a son in 1905. The son's name is Terrence, and from birth, he
is blessed by the "Council", an elite group of at least 5 cult members, to become
the host of the Endless One, a demon that may or may not be the Beast. He is fed
human flesh from birth to prepare for this, which is a secret even to the wider cult.
About a year later, a descendant of the Greys gave another Prophecy, warning
about a Man from the Sky who would aid them and be brought forth by killing the
Child of the Abomination.

In 1917, the Addisons are murdered and Terrence’s soul is destroyed. It’s heavily
implied by Terrence’s speech to Sal much later that Terrence, ultimately a good
person at heart, realised something was wrong with his family, probably the
Plague of Shadows, and killed his family as an act of mercy before succumbing
to it himself. Over the next few years, until 1932, he was slowly transformed into
the Endless One’s host, and the Council locked him in his room to keep the secret,
but used the Plague excreted by his demonic form as an instrument of control to
further spread their reach.

In 1938, RED (The Red Eyed Demon) enters the scene. It is a shadow, a type of
demon linked to the void that preys on people. It’s worth mentioning that the Void
is the source of souls, so it is EXTREMELY likely, based on the demon’s
connection to the cult and the similarities between infection by the Plague of
Shadows and people possessed by shadows, that the demon is a corrupted soul
in the final stage of the Plague. This particular shadow is the cult’s first
successful summoning of such a creature. Also worth mentioning that 1938 was
the year before WW2 started. As the cult was now worldwide, they may or may
not have had something to do with it, but that is never mentioned in canon.
2/8 Sometime in the 60s or 70s, a distant planet with a human-like civilisation
was attacked and very quickly overwhelmed by the Plague of Shadows in a
weaponised form. A man named Jim Zarinthkampt 42-79 and his sister Evelyn
stole a spacecraft and fled, eventually crash-landing on Earth. Evelyn’s two
children died during the invasion, and Evelyn herself vanished during the crash.
Crucially, she DID NOT die, at least not in a normal way. In fact, her soul was
collected by the Voices of the Dark and she was left in Limbo, a dimension
without time or space that resembles the Addison Apartments. Her soul was
corrupted by overexposure to the Dark, and it’s heavily implied she became RED.
At the very least, she entered the final stage of the Plague infection.

Jim, who renamed himself Jim Johnson, sought refuge in the Addison
Apartments and met Alyson Rosenberg, who attempted to indoctrinate him into
the cult. Jim rejected her, and was taken in by a woman named Lisa Garcia. They
were married a year later, and shortly after Lisa fell pregnant, in 1974, having her
son Larry Johnson in August 1975. Jim was a good father, building a treehouse
for his son. Meanwhile, about a year after, a boy named Sal Fisher was born in
New Jersey in December of 1976, to Diane and Henry Fisher.

Sometime before 1983, probably in late 1982, Lisa fell pregnant again, this time
with a girl, but suffered a miscarriage. Rosenberg threatened Jim again, implying
the cult caused Lisa’s miscarriage. Jim investigated, and, upon discovering the
full extent of the cult, reluctantly allowed himself to be indoctrinated in 1983,
seemingly abandoning Lisa and their son. He left her a heartfelt letter apologising
and explaining as much as he could, but the cult intercepted it and locked it away,
leaving Larry and Lisa heartbroken. Unfortunately, this was the day after Larry, a
mischievous child, had set off fireworks, accidentally killing his neighbour Ms
Gibson’s rabbit, and had had an encounter with RED that he believed cursed him,
leading to him blaming himself for his dad’s disappearance and gaining a criminal
record.

Lisa fell into a deep depression and stopped talking after Jim disappeared, and
sent Larry off to live with his grandmother in another part of Nockfell. It was there
that Larry met a girl about a year younger than him named Ashley Campbell, and
the two very quickly became best friends, with Ash teaching Larry to paint, and
presumably about this time that, unbeknownst to him, a boy named Todd
Morrison moved into the Addison Apartments with his parents Ray and Janis.
Eventually, Larry moved back to the Apartments. For an unknown reason, Larry
and Ash are not as close at the beginning of the game.
On the 16th of August, 1984, an event called the Slaughtering of Children was
carried out by the cult, resulting in the murder of 255 children and 32 adults
across the United States, in an attempt to kill the Child of the Abomination, as the
prophecy provided criteria rather than identifying an individual. This was not
reported on due to the cult’s control over media. The only survivor of the event
was Sal Fisher, a seven year old boy. He was shot at by a man in a dog mask that
had lured him in by making barking noises using a shotgun. Diane Fisher stepped
between Sal and the bullet, taking the hit. It resulted in her death, and Sal being so
badly injured that he was mistaken for dead. In actuality, Sal survived, but was
disfigured so badly he had to wear a prosthetic face and a glass eye for the rest
of his life.

Henry Fisher became an alcoholic and a neglectful, if not outright abusive father
out of grief, and Sal became the victim of severe bullying that gave him the name
Sally Face, which he took up to stop it being used against him, which referenced
not only his mask, but also his feminine nature, as he wore many earrings and
pigtails. At some point, his mask, which was pink as it was his mum’s favourite
colour, was smashed, and he got a new white mask, but incorporated a shard of
the pink mask into it, become the signature mask he wears throughout the game.

At some point after he acquired his new mask, he was admitted to a mental
hospital for at least several months, and was assigned a therapy kitten he named
Gizmo by Dr Zimbardo. It is unknown what for, but Sal takes medication for
chronic nightmares and severe anxiety, and later depression, and also suffers
from cripplingly low self esteem. Henry Fisher also takes medication for sleeping,
and threw out all photos of Sal’s mother, save for one.

At some point, Rosenberg was made a member of the council, but also switched
alignments and began working against the cult from the inside. Her motivation is
unknown.

3/8 In 1980, a girl named Megan Holmes is born in Nockfell (NOT the
Apartments) to Luke and Stacy Holmes. Luke is a member of the cult, and a
zealous one at that, being a Council member. Megan also had a sister, but she is
unnamed, and it is unknown when she died and from what. Around 1987, Stacy,
out of love with her husband due to his cult activities, began an affair with a man
named Greg, who was a resident at Addison Apartments. Greg and Stacy, fearing
for their lives as Luke became close to figuring it out, sought Rosenberg, who
helped them in trying to stop the Council doing a ritual that can only be
accomplished once every thousand years. They burned the books and cut the
power above the Addison Temple, which also resulted in the flooding of the fifth
floor of the Apartments, rendering them unusable. It is unknown why Jim didn’t
help, as he was shown alive only a few months earlier at the beginning of their
affair, but he may have been killed recently, possibly triggering Rosenberg’s
alignment switch.

Shortly afterwards, Luke discovered them and was possessed by the demon,
murdering Stacy and then Megan in a fifth floor apartment, before hanging
himself and feeding the demon with his soul. Greg also died around this point, but
it is unclear whether he was a victim of Luke’s or if he committed suicide. It is
also unknown whether their attempt to stop the cult was successful, as the ritual
would not result in the immediate end of the world, and they mention destroying
books, when later, those books are observed in the Addison Temple and a copy is
held by the Council and stolen (see next paragraph). Finally, the police reports
were falsified, initially reporting Megan as “missing”, then stating all three
members of the Holmes family drowned in the local lake while fishing after a
mudslide.

About four years later, another low level cult member who lived in the Apartments
was becoming zealous enough to arouse suspicion from his wife - Herman and
Cassandra Sanderson, respectively. Cassandra (Sandy) approached Rosenberg,
who told her to steal a book from the Council to protect her husband. She
succeeded, but was murdered by neighbour Charley Manson (possessed by RED)
upon making it safely back to her apartment. Coincidentally, this was witnessed
by Larry Johnson, now 15, hiding in the bathroom where Sandy had asked him to
unclog her toilet for her.

CHAPTER 1: STRANGE NEIGHBOURS

I’m going to go chronologically, so things revealed in Ch1 that happen later will
not be talked about until then.

The Fishers move to Addison Apartments in the summer of 1991, and Sal is sent
to explore the building. He encounters police officers everywhere, as well as
yellow tape covering the neighbouring apartment - the Sanderson’s place. Upon
exploring further, he discovers the destroyed fifth floor, and encounters an eye in
the wall presumably belonging to a ghost, and a homeless man with no eyes who
cryptically recounts to him the cursed nature of Nockfell and the many deaths
that happen there prematurely, before vanishing. His origin is still unknown.

Sal then encounters Lisa, who gives him a keycard to access their basement
apartment. Sal encounters RED but brushes it off as his imagination. Larry and
Sal meet and are fast friends, and Larry confides in him about witnessing the
murder, but says that he can’t report it due to his criminal record. Instead, using
his police scanner, Larry distracts the police while Sal sneaks into the apartment.
Sandy and Charley were both collectors of action figures of Glitter Ponies, and
Charley stole one while committing the murder. Larry gives Sal a baggie and tells
him to find the figure and bring it to the detectives.

4/8 There are two ways the following can play out. One is generally accepted as
canon.

The non-canon version is that Sal knocks on Terrence’s door (he is presenting as
an eccentric landlord who speaks through his mail slot) and receives a teacup
filled with liquid Plague played off as “Addison Tea”, which is frequently
consumed by the adult residents of the building. Sal then adds Henry’s sleeping
aids to it, and gives it to Charley, who is knocked unconscious, and then steals the
toy.

The canon version is a similar method to get the tea, but then involves meeting a
slightly younger kid named Chug, who is convinced the Apartments are haunted
and who has a key to a locked bathroom on the fifth floor where the ghost of
Megan resides. In order to convince him to give Sal the key, Sal takes a quarter
from his dad, who has drunk himself to unconsciousness again, and gives it to
Chug. Sal also acquires batteries from the groceries in his kitchen, his Gear Boy
console from his bedroom, and a mysterious game cartridge in the Lost and
Found. Sal then goes to the bathroom and meets Megan, learning ghosts exist
and are confined to their place of death, while also acquiring moldy laxatives from
the old bathroom, which he laces the tea with. Chug then interrupts, wanting to
make sure Sal is okay despite his terror. The mysterious game then activates,
playing through an 8bit game called House of the Wretched that tells the story of
the fate of the Holmes. The scene with Charley then plays out essentially the
same.

Either way, Sal then gives in the evidence to a detective, and Charley is arrested.
Sal then goes to peek at Sandy’s body, and the chapter ends. However, Charley is
likely killed, although his fate is uncertain, and a doppelganger demon created by
the cult (a low quality early version that does not resemble Charley) is taken into
custody in his place.

CHAPTER 2: THE WRETCHED.

Several months later, Sal has been having severe nightmares that depict his
disfigurement and Larry’s witnessing of the murder. He confides in Larry, and in
exchange, Larry takes him to his treehouse and confides in him about the
disappearance of his dad, as well as his encounter with RED. Sal recognises the
description of RED and resolves to solve the mystery of the Apartments, and
takes a puzzle box that Jim left behind. He goes to explore, leaving Larry behind
to take care of a sick Lisa.

He then goes to Megan’s room and summons Larry with the walkie talkie Larry
gave him, but Megan doesn’t appear even when Sal calls for her. Larry suggests
talking to Todd, who is a genius and someone into the paranormal. Note that Sal
has previously met Todd off screen, but did not know about his interest in the
paranormal, and doesn’t appear to be good friends with him.

Upon heading to Todd’s apartment, Sal is invited in, and meets Ash, who Todd is
tutoring in maths. He is immediately taken with her and develops an immediate
crush. Ash quickly leaves, and Sal, although shaken, tells Todd his story. Todd
agrees to help, and modifies Sal’s Gear Boy into the Super Gear Boy, using Larry’s
walkie talkie and police scanner antenna. They do a “test run” and discover Greg’s
ghost in the bathroom, who is terrorised and kept in line by RED. Todd is shaken,
and goes to do some research instead, discovering the falsified police reports on
the Holmes’s deaths, leading to Sal to proclaim their friendship.

With the added abilities of the mysterious cartridge and the SGB, Sal uncovers
four demonic seals placed around the building, and uncovers 8 chapters of a
game on the cartridge titled In Seeking Providence. The chapters are as follows:

Chapter 1; Rosenberg’s ascension to the council. Acquiring of this chapter reveals

Chapter 2; Jim’s initiation trials.

Chapter 3; Greg meets Stacy.

Chapter 4; Stacy and Rosenberg attempt to stop the cult.

Chapter 5; Megan receives a cross necklace from her mother.

Chapter 6; The cult sacrifices a member to summon RED.

Chapter 7; Luke symbolically murders Stacy and Megan, and then kills himself.

Chapter 8; Sandy steals the book and is murdered.

Sal finds a cross necklace belonging to Megan in the Lost and Found, and he and
Larry go to the fifth floor bathroom and summon Megan, finally proving to Larry
that ghosts exist. Larry is extremely shaken, and agrees to break into the
bedroom of Megan’s apartment to find the demon, but it requires his crowbar,
which he lent to David. Upon going to talk to David, who is a recovering meth
addict who associates ghosts with drugs and is married to a mannequin he
believes can talk, Sal also uncovers the missing piece of the puzzle box, as well
as adjusting a college kid’s party to get David to give him the crowbar.

Sal also summons the distorted form of Jim Johnson going by the alias the
Phantom, who tells him, though garbled, to remember the red ball. He then solves
the puzzle box, acquiring a computer chip. He takes it to Larry and then to Todd,
and Todd plugs it into his computer. Being extremely advanced technology, it
begins bonding to his computer, and then displaying jumbled occult text. Upon
Sal taking a look, it explodes, and Sal finds himself in the White Room, and the
Phantom tells him, still garbled, that he successfully found the cognition chip.
From here on out, Jim has the ability to give Sal prophetic visions that cause him
to dissociate in the real world. Upon returning to the real world, however, neither
Todd nor Larry remember the puzzle box or the chip, and Larry instead
remembers a Rubix cube that Sal now finds in his pocket.

Sal goes to the apartment and breaks into the bedroom, eventually finding Stacy’s
ghost impaled on mattress springs and unable to talk, and a hole in the back wall
that leads to a room with a noose. The ghost of Luke appears, becomes RED, and
attacks Sal. Sal blacks out, and Larry appears with an anti-demon gun from Todd,
blasting the demon with concentrated UV light, then drags Sal to safety. Larry
then breaks down, realising the demon is not connected to him, and assumes his
dad actually abandoned him, and Sal comforts him, not realising the Phantom is
Jim Johnson.

At some point between this chapter and the next, Sal attempts to introduce
Megan to Chug, but scares Chug away.
5/8 CHAPTER 3: THE BOLOGNA INCIDENT.

About 18 months later, Todd, Ash, Larry, and Sal have become close friends, and
have been solving somewhat low level crimes and supernatural incidents in the
months preceding, including something they refer to as the Hotdog Incident. They
have picked up various skills to benefit this, including picking locks and the
analysis of tissue. Crucially, Ash is a skeptic, having never seen anything
supernatural, even with the use of tools such as a ouija board and the SGB.

One particular day, after Sal passes out during a maths test and a bullying by a
student named Travis Phelps, the homophobic son of Kenneth Phelps (who is,
unbeknownst to the main four, the current leader of the cult), Sal is punched and
begins bleeding. Ash, having never seen his real face but too kind to care,
removes his mask and cleans the blood off. While Sal was passed out, however,
he had a dream depicting himself older and in a prison outfit running from a
monster resembling a news camera, as well as receiving a journal from the
Phantom. He also dreamt about a doodle come to life who metaphorically
represents himself, and how he is destroyed by the truth, as well as other stand
ins for Rosenberg, the Beast, and the mysterious homeless man. BOTH DREAMS
ARE PRECEDED BY AN IMAGE OF A RED BALL, signifying they are actually
prophetic.

The next day, Bologna Lunch Day, the group comments on the foul bologna and
decides to investigate, leaving behind Chug and a friend of the group named
Maple, who generally sit out the investigations. The group splits, Ash and Todd
going to investigate the chemical composition of the meat and Larry and Sal talk
to the lunch lady, revealing the meat comes from Sal’s maths teacher, Mrs
Packerton. Sal takes sticky tack from the Science Lab and a paperclip from Mrs
Packerton’s room, and talks to Todd, investigating the meat. Todd asks for more,
so Sal and Larry set about stealing the lunch lady, Kim’s, file by throwing a ball at
a frosted window to distract the teachers. Sal takes Ash’s camera and takes a
photo of a bird to give to Kim upon discovering she used to be a wildlife
photographer. Kim, enamoured, gives him extra.

Sal goes to find the others to give them the meat, and on the way, he stops in the
bathroom. He finds a note on the floor talking about how in love the writer is, and
the fact the writer’s father would kill them for feeling that way, and it’s not how a
boy is supposed to feel. Sal then discovers Travis crying in one of the stalls and
talks him into apologising. Travis pledges to stop bullying him, and then gives Sal
a letter he found on Sal’s desk, which is a page from a journal Sal discovers in his
pocket, which turns out to be Jim’s. Throughout the chapter, Sal continues to
receive these pages, which tell Jim’s story, and not tell anyone, with the last page
being a letter instructing Sal to keep his connection with Jim a secret, especially
from Larry.

Sal then gives Todd the meat, and Larry and Sal go to investigate Mrs Packerton’s
room. He picks the lock while Larry stands guard, discovering a hidden false
bottomed drawer and taking out a number of occult items. He finds a strange
metal key that looks like the puzzle box and takes it, then has a vision, blacking
out for a few seconds.

The group goes to the Apartments to investigate, with Todd going to his room to
hack the security cameras, but Ash has to babysit her younger brother Ben, and
so can’t come. Sal finds more pages by interacting with ghosts and objects, such
as his dad’s computer and his mailbox, and Sandy’s ghost (Herman has moved
out). Upon using the SGB on Rosenberg, she disappears into thin air, presumably
finally passing on, and leaving behind a letter. He also uncovers a photo of his
mum under his dad’s bed. Finally, he does a series of trades, sticky tack fro a
quarter, a quarter for Addison Tea, Addison Tea for chocolate, and chocolate for a
video game, then plays a round in Larry’s basement and paints a dead potato on
Larry’s spare canvas.

Upon breaking into Mrs Packerton’s apartment, Larry and Sal uncover a dead
goat’s head in a locked freezer. The ghost goat then appears, giving them the
code to one of two other locked doors. Upon entering, the two discover Mr
Packerton, comatose and strapped to a mattress, and the room full of his used
diapers. Sal uses the SGB on him and summons his half-formed ghost, as he is
between life and death. Upon his request, Sal unplugs his life support. The front
door then opens, and Larry and Sal hide behind a dresser, confessing their strong
platonic love to each other and preparing to die. It is then revealed to be Ash
approaching them, and, having discovered keys while hiding, the three break into
the third room. The walls are covered in blood, saws, and missing posters of
other children, and there is a locked freezer and a scary processing machine in
the corner. Sal unlocks the freezer, and the three of them uncover pounds and
pounds of human flesh, with the bones removed.

On their way out, Ash discovers a trash chute hidden behind a painting, despite
the apartments not having trash chutes. She falls down it, however. Sal and Larry
panic, but Sal then has a vision and tells Larry to get Todd and meet him in the
basement. The other basement apartment is off limits, but they break in, to find a
rip in the carpet that leads to a trapdoor, which leads to the Addison Temple.
Todd stays at the front entrance to keep the door open after Sal uses the metal
key to uncover the door mechanism, then Larry and Sal split up and go find Ash,
Sal discovering a medieval cult traitor ghost who gives him another page in the
meantime. They discover a maze and the four cult books, and then eventually
meet up in a room with four trash chutes leading to piles of bones, and Ash
unconscious on one of the piles. They get her down and she wakes up fine.

The group briefly considers killing Mrs Packerton, but ultimately decide to sleep
on it. Mrs Packerton is killed by a drunk driver that night, presumably arranged by
the cult to cover their tracks.

6/8 Sometime between this chapter and the next, the group, now considerably
more jaded and taking on more and more serious cases and discovering
connections between them, makes a pact between the four of them. It is unclear
what this pact entails other than secrecy, but Sal, at least, is extremely loyal to it.
Additionally, the four have become best friends and “their own family”, becoming
incredibly devoted to one another. Sal and Todd, along with Todd’s boyfriend Neil,
move into a house together a few streets down from the Apartments, with the
ultimate goal to have all four of the group living together, and Ash goes to “the
city” (unclear which city) to go to art school, resulting in her mostly dropping out
of the case solving. Lisa and Henry get married, making Larry and Sal step
brothers and leaving Larry to live alone in the basement apartment. Sal and Larry
both develop severe depression.

CHAPTER 4: THE TRIAL.

This will include a lot of information from past chapters due to chronology.

Sal has a nightmare, again with a red ball present, in which he encounters
Beelzebub, a Voice of the Dark nicknamed the Devil, but not actually the Devil.
However, he is a twisted artist, creating four works of “art”, behind four locked
doors with a mysterious fifth locked door, including Peering Eyes, Their Sins,
Trapanrot, and Her Fate. Each theoretically corresponds to a victim of the
tragedies at Addison Apartments, with Peering Eyes being Charley, Luke, or Todd,
Their Sins being either the Addisons or the victims of the Addison Apartment
Massacre, Trapanrot being Sarah, who, unbeknownst to everyone except David,
DOES in fact have a soul (which brings into question if David is really as
delusional as he seems or perhaps is supernaturally attuned), and Her Fate
canonically being Evelyn.

Upon waking up, Sal is noticeably subdued due to his depression compared to
previous chapters. He talks to Neil, who goes to work, and Todd is at college. The
news reveals a mill had been burned down, presumably by the cult. Larry texts
him that something is wrong with the apartments, and they walk over together.
They investigate for a bit, revealing all the ghosts have gone missing, but
otherwise find nothing. Larry expresses some extreme nihilistic views about their
own happiness, and they mention the cops from Episode 1 were frauds working
for the cult and also covered up Mrs Packerton’s crimes, and that there has been
suspicious activity at the Phelps church.

Throughout the day, Sal discovers tapes that, when touched, trigger visions that
transport him to the Black Room rather than the White Room, and show him the
slow descent/infection of Evelyn.

Sal walks back to his house, and encounters Ash, who has returned from art
school. The two go out to the lake together on Ash’s motorbike, and sit down and
talk about Ash’s plans and Sal’s depression. Sal confides how troubled he is, and
Ash encourages him to scream his feelings out. He takes his mask off and the
two scream together, then Ash drives him home.
7/8 Upon returning home and meeting Todd back there, Sal receives a goodbye
text from Larry. He calls Larry in a panic, and, upon Larry ignoring it, runs to the
Apartments in the rain, screaming for Larry. He runs to the treehouse, only to find
Larry’s suicide note. Larry got drunk and overdosed. He calls Ash in a panic, but is
incoherent. Ash encourages him to call the police, but he refuses. The two of
them fight for the first time, and Ash leaves him there. Todd drives over, worried,
and Sal tells him everything. Todd gives him his guitar, which he has modified to a
similar magical weapon to the SGB. Upon using it, Sal is dragged to the Black
Room, where he meets the ghost of Rosenberg, now a Voice of the Dark (Jim is a
Voice of the Light). Rosenberg temporarily frees Larry’s ghost from being trapped
in the treehouse and teleports Sal to the roof of the Apartments along with Larry’s
ghost.

The cult then summons a pillar that impales the Apartments, blocking their path.
Rosenberg gives Larry a weapon called the Deadstone, which works in
conjunction with Sal’s guitar to gradually break down the pillar level by level.

Meanwhile, Todd is kidnapped by the cult and dragged to the Phelps Temple,
where he is injured and used as a sacrifice in a ritual to bind RED to a new host -
the unwilling Todd.

As Sal and Larry make their way down through the Apartments, Larry activating
points of weakness in the veil to activate the pillar for Sal to destroy, all the
residents are acting dull and strange, and their souls are coated in Plague. Upon
making it to Terrence’s room, Sal goes in alone with his guitar, discovering the
Endless One. He destroys it with his guitar after a long fight in what seems to be a
pocket dimension. Terrence’s purified ghost meets him in the White Room, along
with the Phantom, and they tell him he has to kill all the residents of the
Apartments in order to save their souls. Sal reluctantly obeys, murdering 10
people in total, including Chug, Chug’s three year old daughter, Mrs Gibson, Henry,
Lisa, David, the three college students, and Rob. Maple, also infected, was visiting
her parents that night and was not killed.

Meanwhile, Todd had been untied and he had crawled back to the Apartments in
blind panic after being possessed, calling Ash, who then called the police. Sal,
shellshocked and covered in blood, found Todd in the lobby, who told him what
happened while not noticing the blood on Sal. Sal went outside and played his
guitar, while Ash tried to talk to him but received no response. The police then
arrived, arresting Sal as a horrified Ash watched.

Sal had been put through therapy under Dr Enon while in prison, who he had
initially lied to along with the police, telling them a story in which he had lost
contact with Larry, Ash, and Todd, looking to protect them. Meanwhile, Ash had
been staying with her parents in Nockfell, and Todd had been held in an asylum
for delusions, suicidal and homicidal intent, and uncontrollable violent behaviour.
Eventually, though, in the last two sessions, Sal began to tell the truth, only to be
dragged back to his cell prematurely. He shouted to Enon to investigate the
treehouse where Larry’s ghost was held.

Enon went to investigate, believing Sal was not as psychotic as he appeared, and,
upon seeing Larry’s ghost, was so shocked he fainted out of the treehouse and
broke his neck and died. The cult replaced him with an obedient doppelganger for
Sal’s upcoming trial.

The day of the trial, Sal was interviewed, by another doppelganger taking the
place of the reporter. Sal was made to tell the story of the Bologna Incident in
exchange for information about Todd. The doppelganger then handed him a
newspaper clipping stating that Ash would testify against him, making Sal cry.

Ash, Neil, Travis, and Maple all attended the trial. Ash did indeed testify against
him, for the purpose of getting Sal off with an insanity plea, as she genuinely
believed Sal had lost his mind but was otherwise a good man. The doppelganger
Enon, however, claimed Sal was completely sane and lying. Sal was convicted of
the mass murder and given the death sentence. Ash protested but was overruled.

Three years later, Ash had been trying desperately to save Sal. Ash eventually
successfully summoned Larry’s ghost and took a picture, the day of Sal’s
execution, and rushed to save him, but she was too late, and had to watch as Sal
was executed and died.

At some point between this chapter and the next, Todd broke out of the asylum
and was taken by the cult (this was eight months before the next chapter), Travis
had been indoctrinated into the cult and was serving as an anonymous insider for
Ash and Neil, and Maple had been slowly succumbing to her infection locked in a
cell in Neil’s basement.

8/8 CHAPTER 5: MEMORIES AND DREAMS

Ash has been going to Sal’s grave regularly and staying at Neil’s house often, and
she and Neil have been planning to take down the cult based on the notes her
friends left behind, including the cult’s location, and have discovered by process
of elimination that they are in the temple below the church. They have acquired
three mysterious pyramids, two from Todd’s research and one from the insider.
Neil has acquired C4 and they plan to plant it around the church, rescue Todd, and
blow it up.

Ash has also been regularly talking to Larry in the treehouse, and, at his request,
she burns it down to try and set him free. Instead, he falls into the void, finding his
way to the Mothertree, the cosmic web that connects all souls and feeds off
those that suffer second death, which is worshipped by the Voices of the Dark
and Light.

Neil and Maple are kidnapped when Ash goes home, and she receives a note
from the cultist insider about the layout of the church and where to plant the
bombs. She sneaks in, succeeds in planting the bombs, and goes to rescue Neil,
Maple, and Todd. She is then caught by a cultist, but the cultist reveals himself as
Travis and as their cultist insider. He drags Ash out and tells her to blow the
whole place up, but she can’t bring herself to do it, so instead she tells Sal’s grave
and leaves the Pyramids there, which a prophecy Todd has transcribed is
supposed to bring him back.

Sal has been wandering the surface of the Void as a broken shadow of himself, a
shattered spirit with no concrete form and guided by the arguing voices of the
Light and Dark. He finds his way to Jim’s House in the Void, and encounters the
Vestige, the emotionless only remnant left of Jim after he sacrificed his soul bit
by bit to contact Sal when Sal was alive. Jim guides him across alternate realities
that appear as different art styles and ever so slightly different turns of events to
find the pyramids while Ash activates them from the other side. He meets Tala
Grey, an out-of-town descendant of Citlali looking for her missing grandfather
with neutral opinions on demons, in one of the realities.

Each pyramid brings his body back slightly more, bones to muscles to rotting
skin. However, the final activation forces him to relive the agony of his death over
and over. Ash is horrified and guilty, and tells him that to complete the ritual, she
has to die. He begs her not to, but Ash, still blaming herself for Sal’s death,
slashes her wrist and bleeds to death. Lightning strikes her body, and she
collapses. On the other side, Sal relives memories of his friends and his mother,
and eventually comes across a pile of everyone he’s killed, including most
recently Ash’s glowing body atop the pile. He gives a speech to her on how he
never blamed her and always loved her, and then chooses to save her. Ash
awakes, with her arm a glowing weapon, one of her eyes white, her pulse stopped,
and Sal’s voice in her head. The two of them resolve to serve as each other’s
anchor to the world of the living and to destroy the cult.

Meanwhile, the ritual is being set up. Neil and Maple, along with two other people,
are stripped, killed, and hung, while Todd is chained to the middle. Sal and Ash
arrive and start attacking the cultists. Larry returns from the void, aged by
decades, and gives Sal his guitar, and the three work together to destroy the cult.
Travis reveals himself, stabs his father after his father succumbs to the dark and
mutates, and the two fall into a pit that leads to the Deep Void. The three succeed
in battling back the demons, and the explosives Ash planted trigger. They save
Todd, Larry disappears and dissolves into the void, and the three remaining
members help each other up.

EPILOGUE:

A third of the world is infected and/or killed. Todd is still infected but fighting it
back. Larry hasn’t been found but the group will not give up on him.