The following tale is mostly true, after a fashion. It is not my will to present anything other than the truth, and these events must be told. However, I must admit the contents of this diary seem, at best, odd. While I do not doubt the original text is still held within the pages, much has been lost from damage and "revisions." If these rewrites and strike outs are penned by the same hand that wrote the original entries or not, I cannot say. What I present now are the pages of the diary in their fullest...

July XX, XXXX

It's been a year since her death, my dear, sweet ________. I remember the first night I met her. It was a chilly December's eve and she had forgotten her coat at the restaurant. We had all met for our monthly get together. Jim had brought her. Jim was always a sporting chap, but not very coy with the ladies. He thought by bringing ________ he could somehow woo her. I was at once enraptured.

Enraptured may even be too soft a word! Oh how beautiful she was! The light of the sun would pale in comparison to her radiance! No master sculptor could every create this kind of beauty. No artist ever paint such a masterpiece. No dress nor jewelry was ever beautiful before she wore it. But I'm rambling... I cannot think. I cannot truly write, for I am a man haunted by memories...

July X5, XXXX

Oh torments of torments! Oh woe of woes! Last night as I lay restless in mine own bed, I dreamt the most unfortunate of nightmares! My love, my sweet ________ was calling out to me from the beyond. I know not how she came to be in my dreams, but there she was! I ran to, as quickly as I could, but alas, I could not reach her! As I neared my love, a swirling darkness overtook her!

Try as I might, the darkness would not subside so I could rescue ________! Oh how I wept upon awaking. The tears now still in my eyes as I pen this entry. My very vision blurred by their presence! I fear sleep for it might bring much of the same misfortune as last night. However, this experience has drained me, and I must rest...

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Ah, how refreshing an afternoon in the garden can be! My earlier dementia is no longer present. I have come to realize that the mind plays strange tricks on one, especially when reliving the death of one's wife. It is hard to believe it has already been a full year since I lost her.

Her illness overtook her suddenly, unexpectedly. No one could understand how she fell with the disease, nor could any of the many doctors we tried in desperation find a cure. Oh how many restless hours we spent in fear. I spent... Even while dying, my dear ________ always smiled. Every morn, even though I hardly slept from fear she would die in her sleep, her smiling face always greeted me. She always smiled, even though I always worried...

July XX, 1XXX

These dreams! Oh how I am tormented by these dreams! As my earlier entries describe the madding nightmares I am faced with near nightly! For the past couple of weeks my sleep has been disturbed with tormenting visions of my ________! Oh why am I so haunted!

This night, the vision was clearer than the last. It was as though vines of utter darkness began to overtake my beloved. Try as I might, I could not reach her, as some unknown, unseen force kept me at bay. Oh my love! Why can I not reach you!?

JXXy 2X, XXXX

It has been two days since I dared pen this journal. My sleep has been fitful at best. My friends worry for my health, but they cannot understand, no one can! My love, my sweet, my beloved! She is in danger! I cannot rest until I save her. I must save ________!

The nightmares have become worse, longer still. I try to save her as she ignores me. Ignores me as she always has. In every dream, ignoring me! Oh, why my sweet? Did I betray you somehow? Please, reveal my error!

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I regret my earlier penning, for it was not wholly truthful. I had begun to speak ill my beloved. She is nothing but beautiful. In my state, I betrayed that beauty, something I will do what I can to avoid.

August XX, 1XXX

It is not my beloved that is being pulled away! It is I! Those vines are overtaking me! Once I realized this, I tried to fight them! They are trying to take me away from her! Yet, I am beginning to think this is best.

While the sickness was destroying her, I was sick with worry. Yet, she would not comfort me! Nay! She went as far as to smile, daily! Like she was laughing, laughing at me! That sickness had so corrupted her, she did not even feel. Sadness, happiness, these were but words to her!

Oh, how I could continue to watch her decay and slip into madness. The doctors assured me that she was find, but it was clear her mind was slipping. She was no longer my beloved, no, not mine. She was becoming some foul thing. When death finally overtook her, I'm sure she was at peace. Yes, peace...

August XX, XXXX

Foulest of foul, betrayers! These so-called friends, these serpents! These monsters! They have been plotting against me clearly! As I have been assaulted nightly by a foul creature in the guise of my beloved, they have been staging a plan to harm me, perhaps kill me!

Questionable sanity? They dare question if I am sane? Am I the only one to understand? No, many cases of visitations have been recorded, I am not the first. Many departed souls visit their loved ones in dreams. The great poets and writers record such themselves! Yet they claim I may have gone mad. I tell you now, I am clearly not daft!

Yes, I was in pain for my beloved, but it was torturous to see her so! ________! I could not see you suffer so! I had to do something! I could not sit by and watch you die. Especially when your doctor was murdered. Though it was a terrible deed, I cannot help but think he deserved it. He would not help you, he refused it! Begging all the while for more money, tell me he would not treat you otherwise! He was paid handsomely, and deserved none of it!