It is not possible for me to know what kind of life you abandoned in search of this realm. I cannot know where you were born, where you grew up, the conditions of your upbringing, your life at home, or what series of incredibly tragic and unfortunate events ultimately lead you here, on a suicide mission for the selfish pursuit of knowledge or some last-effort attempt at self-recognition. Perhaps the sensation I will ask you to recall in a moment is nothing more than a foreign string of words to you, and maybe that is for the best. It is not often I encourage reminiscing on that which is irreversibly lost to the universe, but I feel I have a duty in doing so just this once; I must teach you the lesson before The Sanctuary does.

You are on the highway, music playing on the radio while the driver hums quietly to songs of decades past, the fading lyrics never truly known but never really forgotten. It has been a long day, and as the sun begins to set, the emotional fatigue and boredom begin to take root in your mind. And all you can do is stare out at the world.

The sea of traffic is engaged in a dynamic dance as cars pass in both directions, and you watch some fall behind as you speed ahead. Time is strange on the highway in the orange glow of the late afternoon; it doesn't like to follow the rules. Sometimes the vehicles and the people they contain brush past in a blur of colour and sound, and then there are instances when they are keeping pace beside you, if only for a moment. It is in that second that you can see through their window.

Now time has stopped. In the warm light, it is as if reality pumps through your veins, and you find yourself collapsing into the human experience. The person beyond the tinted glass of the neighbouring car is no one you have ever seen before: a perfect stranger, just as you are to them. Their life is rich and developed to a level of intricacy and emotional depth that is mirrored in your own, in that of the driver, in that of everyone you have ever loved, and everyone you have ever longed to know. They have a best friend, a family, hopes, dreams, fears, regrets. They are a human being. And in that split second in time before their car is lost in the karmic tangle of our mortal existence, you can see into their universe.

It is the same feeling that nourishes your soul on the dark summer street, the only glow coming from the flickering streetlights and the open windows of the houses around you. Welcoming, yellow light, with silhouettes of life inside. Maybe you even hear someone's voice, and the melodic and heavy tone of their words remind you of the complexity of humanity, leaving you to marvel at the world in all of its unquestionable beauty.

I truly hope you know the feeling, or are at least familiar with it. That isn't to say that it will benefit you at all here; it would only be unfortunate if you'd never experienced the sensation before meeting its opposite.

Oh well.

Windows are rare in The Sanctuary. You may not have noticed at the time, the walls having been covered in thick layers of ivy and dust, but the Hostess' home did not have any. Having personally travelled through entire towns of solid facades, my writing this should be treated mostly as a cautionary message for when you do inevitably find yourself looking through the glass. It will not physically harm you, and you will not die of the direct consequences, but it is important to be prepared. When wandering through The Sanctuary, it is always better to anticipate the worst, than to unexpectedly die at the hands of fate. In finding this book, you have given yourself the choice between observant patience and blind courage, between study and death; the silhouettes behind the windows were never given that option.

Buried deep within the nature of our spirits is the concept of hope. Even in the most cynical of people, there is a tendency for optimism when the mind can allow it. I have seen it myself. The dazed peace of the ideal life is much more preferable than the truth, and we as a species are prone to believe in the artistry of its lies. In those fleeting seconds of existential admiration we find on the highway, those that wait for us on the streets of suburbia in the dimming sun, we fantasize about the romantic side of relationships, of individuality and personal success. I do not have to tell you that the universe does not care. Life is gritty, messy and dark, a twisted, gnarled and thorn-ridden tree that hides from the day and spirals in the night. The windows of The Sanctuary do nothing more than remove the veil of human error from the equation, exposing a brutally mesmerizing portrait of the people on the other side, as the branches twist around their throats, growing tighter with every breath.

Nothing beautiful waits on the other side of the glass. Should you look through, you will not recognize any of the people that live in eternal torture just beyond the thin pane. Yet you will not be able to shake the feeling that they know you. Maybe not personally, but in some grander form of interconnectivity, their dying hearts are familiar with your ego, your fear, whatever element of the self drove you here in the first place. And you will watch that recognition turn to resentment as the supposedly secret sides of their lives play out before you.

What happens is different for each person who looks through the window, but it should always be taken as a friendly reminder from The Sanctuary itself: its children are not the only monsters in this world. I will spare you any examples, more for the dignity of the victims than your own sanity. A wall of windows in this dimension would be a mosaic of human pain, each tile a heartbreaking portrait of agony, despair, and, on occasion, death. The Sanctuary plays no part in what happens to the people within the glass prisons; what occurs beyond is the product of the pure evil of our kind, and our own evil alone.

If I may offer one word of possibly futile advice, it would be to avoid the frosted glass at all costs. I cannot explain why others have been drawn to them, when it should be impossible to see through the foggy barrier by definition. But whatever hides behind the intricate and uncharacteristically whimsical designs is somehow... personal. The Sanctuary knows this. For these are the only windows that unlock.

I have never seen someone climb through one, although I have seen many try. The voices on the other side are too warm, too real to be a game of this realm, and that fact seems to only work more strongly to The Sanctuary's advantage, pushing the tired and hopeless towards the mirage of home, albeit a darkened one. Among travellers, the topic is relatively taboo, and yet there is a general consensus that the windows are truly just that; portals that allow us to see into the world we left behind long ago. The people on the other side are perfectly real, and so is their pain.

As I said, I have never seen someone climb through an open frosted window. I have, however, seen them fall. I do not know where they land, but it is not beyond the glass, and they are certainly no longer alive when they touch the ground. At least I hope, for their own sake, that they do not open their eyes to whatever reality The Sanctuary has prepared for the emotionally fatigued.

This brings me to the lesson within this tragedy: given the choice, The Sanctuary will always choose to watch you bleed towards a slow, inevitable death, rather than give you the mercy of a swift one. Do not misinterpret my words. It will kill you without hesitation, should the opportunity arise. Until then, it will not shy away from turning your own memories against you, distorting the boundaries of your own existence and leaving no more damage than yet another burden on your exhausted mind. It is a slow hunt, and The Sanctuary feeds off of discomfort and pain.

Luckily for you, windows are rare in The Sanctuary.