[center][h3]Old One Rising[/h3]

[h1]Chapter I: Welcome to Arkham[/h1]

[b]Arkham, Massachusetts
Early winter 1925[/b]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgdJp5DRQ90]Opening Theme[/url]
________________________________________


As the clouds peacefully passed over the homely skies of Arkham, leaving a trail of white snow across its high rooftops and narrow street, very little seemed out of the ordinary for the those littering the streets of the city. Tucking their winter coats tightly around them and their hats firmly down their heads, they went on their daily business, as usual, going to work, attending church or school, or for those unfortunate souls without work or faith, simply passing their days wandering around. All minding their own business, blissfully ignorant of their imminent fate. 

The entire country was brimmed with a new hope and optimism in this age that swept across the country, while the old thoughts of the past still clung tightly to their now deep roots of society, culminating in a mix of both old and new in Arkham. The diamond of the city, Miskatonic University, had just begun with its spring semester, and students from far and near flocked to its lecturing halls and library to learn everything that was to know about the world; past, present and future. To the excitement of all, especially those in the field of psychology and anthropology, the university was granted and exclusive look into the city sanatarium and its...residents, to put it kindly. Why, nobody knew, except that it would for sure be an exciting look into the human mind, seen as the number of pasients at that institution had hit an all-time high this winter, and those already hospilalized were showing an ever increasing activity of what could only be described as "madness from the deepest depths of the human mind". 

Those not interested in the sciences and thoughts of technology or mind-tinkering, focused rather on day-to-day business of Arkham: newspaper articles spoke of an increasing number of disappearances, kidnappings, murders and suicidese across the country. Cults reportedly springing up from out of nowhere, promising everything, and even preachers preparing the world for its undoing. It would have been alarming, hadn't it been for being old news to those only reading it and setting their eyes on what kind of jacket one could buy at the new store downtown; those seeking the truth to these events either turned quite different from who they were before, or were never seen again. 

Ah yes, everything appeared so normal in Arkham, even when the signs pointed in a quite different direction. People are odd like that, seeing what they want to see and not the truth standing right before their eyes. But who could blame them? For as long as civilization has stood, its profetic demise has been foretold, end yet the world still stands whole, even after the Great War that killed so many and destroyed so much. Ah yes, tomorrow always comes it would seem as it always has, and always will.

That is to say, not for all. Not for the man standing on top of Miskatonic University's highest tower, screaming an indecipherable prophecy of the end of the world and the damnation for everyone around him. Clad in only a coat, he finally leaps from the roof down to his death, surrounded by people on all sides. Times seems to slow down, and one can see his lips forming a smile, just before a loud thud breaks the silence. But this man was no lunatic, no madman or crazed fool.

Dr. Howard Atkins knew the truth. [/center]