The Lamplighter

In this story there are four: the <font color='red'>Castle</font>, the Lamplighter, the Prisoner, and the Narrative. The <font color='red'>Castle</font>: metastasizing, labyrinthine, twisting. Depredations of rot and fungus. A musty and ominous stench. Uncomfortably moist. Once grand, now it plays host to a group of demented inhabitants so hidebound by generations of TRADITION that they cannot deviate from it. They are like puppets moving on sticks along grooves, performing rites and rituals that they inherited from millenia ago. Generations of Lamplighters, Chefs, Torturers, born and bred for…

In your dreams the <font color='red'Castle</font looms. Spindly chimneys spew noxious smoke, stone gargoyles leer from crumbling masonry, and jagged spires shed…