In 1690, he began keeping detailed records after two young siblings discovered an odd wooden box in the woods.

The children claimed the box spoke to them. It gave them a directive: Over the next 29 days, do as you are asked and live.

Or disobey and die.

To prove itself, the box revealed it could create anything, speak all known languages, and do the work of any person in any trade. It disappeared and reappeared in unusual places. And when people started to disappear, they realized something else: It could control every last detail of their reality.

These pages are Erstwhile’s recounting of a supernatural intelligence that would stop at nothing to divide and destroy—and of one man’s race to remember and preserve what it means to be human in the face of an otherworldly consciousness