Hello again, I finally have time to sit down and write another entry. Last post I mentioned that I eventually did find out what those symbols were for, and frankly I feel like no one is gonna believe me when I type this out on the internet. This'll mostly be from memory too, so forgive me if I'm vague with some parts of this post.

Basically, my parents sat me down at about age sixteen, and at the time I was honestly scared I was getting in trouble for something. My father had handed me a pamphlet, it had the same symbol on the top of it that my mother would draw all over the house. On the front was what looked like stock imagery of some smiling people and a heading that read "Arcana Health and Safety Associates: Crucial Information Guide." If I can find the original pamphlet I'll upload it, but I also haven't seen it in like five to seven years so the chance is relatively slim.

Apparently, Arcana was created with the front of a private health and safety company to use as a cover-up. The 'company' itself was actually a small, covert operation consisting of only a few individuals. It was made to investigate paranormal activity across most of the Midwest and East Coast. Their mission statement was something along the lines of "Keeping both your mind and your soul at peace" or something like that from what I remember.

My parents proceeded to explain to me that there were certain beings that existed outside the realm of human understanding. They lie just beneath the "thin film of reality" (as dad put it) that we see with our naked eye. Arcana's purpose was to expel these creatures, that my father referred to just as 'the infestation'. He likened the creatures to that of something like a cancer, describing their nature as grotesque, infectious and forever rapidly encroaching on our reality as a whole. My dad said these creatures tended to resemble different types of insects, in the loosest way possible, often with extremely exaggerated physical characteristics or even some that just weren't in line with normal Earth biology.

He explained to me his and my mother's roles at Arcana, and that they were formally known in their position as 'Wardens'. They were responsible for identifying the attacks of these massive, otherworldly parasites, and for using their skills in spellweaving to inhibit and entrap them. The symbol on the pamphlet was one of the sigils they used to do so, they told me it was called Expulsion. Funnily enough, today I use that symbol on this very site. I can explain what my parents told me about it's function in another post.

Yeah so... how do you think I reacted when my parents fucking told me straight-faced that magic was real lol. But anyways.

I ended up learning the hard way that everything they told me turned out to be true, and at that point I really wished my dad had told me one thing more about these things.

And that's that they evolve... really, really quickly.

-Izzy