In a detached house on a quiet street in England, a couple stood beside a crib, gazing lovingly at the baby lying inside it. The tiny child blinked up at them with dark green eyes, completely unaware that his entire life had just changed forever.
"This little guy's way too handsome," Huggins muttered as he leaned over the crib. "When he grows up, he's definitely going to break a lot of girls' hearts. I still can't believe someone just left him at our doorstep and disappeared without a trace. What kind of heartless bastard abandons a baby like this?"
Anne gently stroked the child's cheek, her expression soft and full of affection. The baby stared back at her with confusion, but she only smiled more warmly.
"Let's raise him," she said quietly. "I don't know why, but I have a feeling this child is destined for something extraordinary."
Huggins immediately nodded in agreement. "That's exactly what I was thinking. We'll raise him ourselves."
He began pacing excitedly around the room, rubbing his chin as he thought aloud. "Now the important question is… what do we name him?"
Anne rolled her eyes at her husband's dramatic behavior before speaking decisively.
"Logan Anderson."
Huggins froze for a second before slapping his thigh excitedly. "That's perfect! Logan Anderson. From now on, he's our son."
Anne looked down at the child again, her voice carrying a gentle hope for the future. "We'll raise him properly. He'll grow up into a good man, maybe become a scholar or something important. Then someday he'll get married, have children, and live a peaceful, ordinary life."
Huggins burst into laughter and started hopping around the crib with ridiculous enthusiasm. "Our son! Logan Anderson!"
Meanwhile, the baby lying in the crib stared blankly at the two adults claiming to be his parents.
Who am I?
Where am I?
What exactly is happening?
Logan felt mentally exhausted. Although his body was that of a newborn infant, his consciousness clearly belonged to an adult. Judging from the room's furnishings, the couple's appearance, and the fluent English they spoke, he had either been reborn or somehow transmigrated into a Western country.
As for which one it was, that honestly didn't matter much right now.
What mattered was one terrifying question.
Why had he crossed over in the first place?
Fragments of memory slowly resurfaced in his mind. In his previous life, he distinctly remembered finishing work late at night. One of his female coworkers had invited him out for karaoke, but he'd turned her down and gone home to play games instead.
Then everything had gone wrong.
He vaguely remembered stumbling into some garbage online game filled with pay-to-win nonsense. After getting completely scammed by the game's absurd monetization system, he'd become furious enough to make his own cheat program. With hacks enabled, he'd spent hours steamrolling other players and enjoying himself immensely.
And then—
Darkness.
Complete darkness.
He'd died just like that.
Remembering the final moments of his previous life, Logan stared blankly at the ceiling above his crib.
That trash game literally ruined my life.
Still, after the initial despair faded, he gradually calmed down. Complaining wouldn't change anything. Since he'd somehow been given a second chance to live again, he was already luckier than most people.
At the very least, he wasn't dead anymore.
With that thought in mind, Logan slowly closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
…
After confirming that the baby had fallen asleep, Anne and Huggins quietly left the nursery and returned to their own bedroom. The couple was still overwhelmed by the surreal reality of suddenly becoming parents overnight.
As Huggins passed by the window, however, he suddenly stopped.
"The sky looks strange tonight," he muttered with a frown. "Why is it so red outside?"
Anne glanced toward the window briefly. The crimson glow spreading across the night sky gave the entire neighborhood an unsettling atmosphere, almost as if something invisible was slowly swallowing the darkness above the city.
"It does feel eerie," she admitted softly.
Still, neither of them thought too deeply about it. Compared to the sudden appearance of a baby on their doorstep, a strange sky hardly seemed worth worrying over. Before long, the couple returned to their room together, already discussing the possibility of eventually having another child of their own.
Meanwhile, the nursery grew colder.
The small lamp beside Logan's crib flickered weakly as darkness spread through the room like ink dissolving into water. The shadows deepened unnaturally, swallowing the corners of the nursery until even the walls seemed to vanish into blackness.
The temperature continued dropping rapidly.
Logan suddenly woke with a shiver.
His eyes snapped open, and he immediately realized something was terribly wrong. The room around him had become completely dark, yet despite the absence of light, he could still see everything clearly.
Every part of his body.
Every shadow in the room.
Every inch of the surrounding darkness.
A cold sense of unease crept into his mind.
What the hell is going on?
Just as panic began rising in his chest, a hoarse male voice echoed through the darkness beside him.
"How fascinating."
The voice sounded amused, almost delighted.
"A soul that does not belong to this world has fused perfectly with an infant native to this reality. Even more interesting… this is a world I have never visited before."
Logan's pupils contracted instantly.
The voice continued speaking leisurely, as if chatting casually with an old friend.
"I should thank you, Logan Anderson. Without your existence acting as a guide, I might never have discovered this place."
At that moment, Logan finally saw him.
Floating above the crib was a tall, unnaturally thin man dressed in a black suit and matching hat. His skin was dark, his smile disturbingly wide, and his entire presence radiated something profoundly wrong.
He looked human.
But Logan instinctively knew he absolutely wasn't.
Fear exploded through Logan's mind. Questions flooded his thoughts one after another.
How did this thing get in here?
How did it know he came from another world?
What did it mean by discovering this world?
Had this monster followed him here somehow?
Logan desperately wanted to speak, but his infant body refused to cooperate. He could only stare helplessly at the terrifying entity floating above him.
The man in black tilted his head slightly, observing Logan's frightened expression with visible amusement.
"You seem nervous," he said casually. "As thanks for guiding me here, perhaps I should give you a gift."
His grin widened further.
"How about allowing you to become part of me?"
Even though the creature floated several meters away, its voice suddenly sounded directly beside Logan's ear, whispering into his mind like poisonous smoke.
"I am the father of countless chosen children. I am the crawling chaos that wanders eternity itself."
The figure spread his arms slowly, his smile becoming increasingly distorted.
"My true name… is Nyarlathotep."
The instant Logan heard that name, reality itself seemed to twist violently around him.
The darkness shattered into impossible colors. Countless horrifying images flooded his vision all at once, driving spikes of agony into his brain as though his skull were about to split open.
Madness.
Chaos.
An indescribable nausea surged through his entire being. Logan felt as though his soul itself was being corrupted simply by hearing that name.
He instinctively understood something terrifying.
If he surrendered to that feeling now—if he truly gave in—everything about him would be completely consumed.
Despair filled his heart.
Then suddenly—
A purple light erupted from the darkness.
The entire room froze.
The overwhelming madness vanished instantly, as though erased by some invisible force. Logan's breathing steadied, and the agony tearing through his mind disappeared completely.
Floating above his left hand was a tiny purple book bound in dark leather.
The book was only palm-sized, yet it radiated an indescribably ancient and mysterious aura. Strange symbols flickered faintly across its cover before fading away into silence.
Nyarlathotep stared at the floating grimoire in visible confusion.
"What is that?"
For the first time since appearing, genuine uncertainty entered the entity's voice.
Before he could react further, the purple book suddenly released a terrifying force.
Space distorted violently.
An invisible suction erupted from the grimoire, locking onto Nyarlathotep instantly.
The man in black's expression changed dramatically.
"No—!"
His body twisted unnaturally as the purple book began dragging him toward its pages. The surrounding darkness shattered apart while the entity struggled furiously against the invisible force pulling him in.
"You cannot do this to me, Logan Anderson!"
Nyarlathotep's furious roar shook the entire room.
"This is only one of my avatars! Eventually, I will find this world again… and when I do, everything here will belong to me!"