The Journeys of
Sam Hain
It does not matter what year this is, or who’s story I am to describe. What does matter is what he is. He is no longer a man. Bitten by a demon—a demon that he willed into this world from a shadow realm outside this reality—he now transforms into that demon. Damned with a power to sense the worlds “near” our own, Sam Hain can transcend the boundaries of this universe… into that of another. But this is meaningless—for Hain is about to freeze to death if he does not calm down.
Two years ago Sam Hain taught at the University of Chicago, and it was still the year 1945. He was the department chairman of psychology and extensively studied the effects of psychosomatic control over the body. However he found something within himself that should never be found… he felt a power within him that never was to be grasped. So to keep himself in check, he discovered a demon that was drawn to his power… called upon this demon to fight the battles that he could not. Hain’s intentions were noble—use a monster to put fear back into the human shaped monsters of this world—but Hain’s folly was his belief that he could control that demon.
Again, what does this matter where Hain is? He wishes he were dead. Then he would not wake up in a new place—an alien Earth—everyday. He awoke to the stinging cold whipping his deforming body this morning. Only two years and his face shows signs of inhuman characteristics. Already his skin is darkening, his nose flattening, his eyes shifting to something almost feline. He does not mind the increased strength and endurance that this form grants him, though.
He runs forward, across snowdrifts that forever wander this world. The tips of trees barely manage to escape some of the drifts. This frigid tomb of a world must have long ago frozen. Hain cannot run through the snow with any sort of grace. He tells himself that he must stop to focus on passing into some other place… but the savage instincts of the demon in him are winning out—relieving his rational control. Through the endless miles of barren snow banks he runs, under a cloudless black night sprinkled with the deified stars that laugh by their twinkle upon him.
Frantically, he looks upward to those stars for any guidance in this mimicry of a planet. This world lacks any heat to warm him. The cold drains him of his energy. This world lacks a sun it would seem. How long has he been running? Hours..? Days..? I can’t tell anymore—he doesn't care anymore. All he knows is that this world is illuminated for now only by a single moon that hangs in that black velvet sky.
As his strength fails, he stumbles this last time into a snowdrift that covers the trees now. As he lies, his burning hot gasps melt the snow onto his face only to freeze again as an icy layer of skin. As he is drained of energy, he feels his consciousness giving way to sleep. Even though his body has fallen and come to rest, he feels it sinking, rapidly accelerating downward. Still his body is, but in his mind he falls to some other place and time—anywhere but here. When his mind falls completely into the serene peace of sleep…
…The human shaped crater lacks Hain in it. It shall remain for some time as well as his miles of tracks and stumbles. They'll leave temporary scars on the frozen surface, until the slowly collecting snow fills them that is, removing any proof that Sam Hain existed at all.
Life is strange for the man with name like samhain.