Tale:The Snakes Are Messing About

Veil of Secrecy Report 0741

Subject: Ouroborus Personnel Involvement with Halloween Night Troubles, Supernatural Figure Known As Hollow-Masque.

Date: November 10th, 2005

Author: EyeOfProvidence

Preface: The Snakes Are Messing About

It is imperative that the Foundation recognize that our dear friends at the Ouroborus Institute share neither our goals nor methodology concerning the Weird. Their OpSec entirely hinges on our own labor, and yet their behavior contradicts their desire to be hidden. Why do they bother employing us, yet they take such risks?

Section I: The Missing Trick-or-Treaters

The incident began with an investigation into a group of 4 trick-or-treaters ranging in age from 8–18, 3 of whom vanished on All Hallow's Eve, 2005. A team of our agents, including myself, intercepted the situation due to a high likelihood of Weird.

The relevant events of that night are as follows:

B.W, 18, takes the group, incl. S.L, 14; L.L, 9; and M.W, 8, out of the neighborhood they had planned to explore in search of a house that gave out full slices of cake.
M.W. begs to go home. L.L taunts them about being a coward. S.L. and B.W. threaten to leave the two outside and take the cake for themselves.
B.W. leads the group to their goal: a rundown house that is supposed to give out full slices of chocolate cake, not just candy.
When questioned if it is truly safe, B.W. reportedly stated that a few "cool people" hang out there each year after having baked a cake.
B.W. opens the door to an empty house. M.W. hears a "witch" cackling.
Everyone except M.W. enters the house. M.W. flees and goes home.
The next morning, All Saints' Day, family L reports both their children missing, while family W reports their older child missing.

This information was collected directly from M.W by the local ploice. After routine intelligence collection about the case, our team commandeered it.

Section II: Investigation

After questioning M.W. and each family, we discovered that the abandoned house was not rumored to be haunted by ghosts. It was supposed to be a site of demonic activity, or perhaps the hideout of a witch or hag, depending on the age of the rumormonger. We assumed at the time that the rumors were just the explanation for young adults having secret meetings there. A remnant from the Satanic Panic; though, the area wasn't known for religious conservatism nor cult activity.

Our expectation was that the case would be entirely Normal, but our leader believed otherwise; she said something strange about her niece having visions of some kind of white witch. The team embarked on the afternoon of All Souls' Day to begin the investigation. Our goal was to recover bodies, living or dead, and come up with a cover story.

It wasn't a breezy, overcast, or chilly October day, with leaves rustling in the wind, falling off their trees, forming little twisters of autumnal colors; the air was unbearably still, the heat made me sweat, and it was bright out, far too bright, the sun searing from directly above the house, forcing me to place my hand on my brow to see. The house's door was still cracked open. The windows at either side of the front, and one for the second floor, created a face with three eyes. A smile ready to open too wide. I wanted to ask that face, "What's so funny? Are you proud that you ate those kids whole? Is this all a game to you?" I already knew the answer.

Our leader went up to the entrance, but when she did, the door swung open, knocking off her hat and nearly hitting her in the nose. Obviously, the services of the Foundation were required immediately. The sounds of water dripping and the house settling echoed darkly from within. Among the suburban sprawl, it stood out as a cabin or cottage, built in the time before Levittown and the White Flight. There were supposed to be an orchard of limes in the place where the town was established, and this house had been the home of their farmer, according to my research after the incident.

We entered the mouth of the building. It still looked remarkably well taken care of. It was clear that somebody was still taking care of it. There was a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen on the first floor. I found it quite a ridiculous layout, for the bathroom to be on a floor with no bedrooms. The kitchen had a platter with dried frosting and crumbs of chocolate cake remaining on top. Clearly, the elder child of the W family had been correct.

The second floor, however, contained a bedroom, with only a dusty mattress on cinderblocks; an office, filled with books of fairy tales and horticulture, as well as a typewriter on the desk—likely, a writer had stayed there, far from society, until the suburb had been established; and at last, there was the room where the window on the front of the house would have been. I investigated it as soon as I realized its position, and when I opened the door, I saw that horrific red mask displayed on a podium. It shared its pedestal with a booklet and a wilting red rose. The mask was a deep crimson, with streaks running down the eyes. It was a fusion of the classical tragedy and comedy theatre masks, impossible to tell whether it was smiling or frowning, laughing or crying.

The sight of the mask caused me to close the door as soon as I took it in. I called for my team to come look at what I had found. I held the knob tight as it started to turn against my resistance. I pressed my weight against the door. It wasn't my first time in the field, but it almost felt like I was encountering the paranormal anew that sunny day. Once my coworkers arrived, the force at the door stopped, not an uncommon phenomenon. Anyway, once we were all in the room, every one of us agreed the mask was the source of the Weirdness around the house. The room had some occult symbols drawn on the walls, likely some kind of conjuring. Among one of them I recognized immediately an Ouroborus. It's a common symbol, but brought me immediate concern.

I was tasked with investigating the booklet, while our leader examined the mask. It was just some kind of New Age self-help thing. The main gist was that it said to seize the day, make every day an adventure, and to enjoy like above all else. And I mean "all else" literally. Some of the suggestions were concerning, but toxic positivity isn't unusual these days. New Age really got a resurgence after Y2K, and somehow 9/11 just made the idea of the law of attraction more commonplace. It's all bunk, obviously. Otherwise we would've done something about it.

The booklet got finally got serious when it brought up the "Red Witch" named Hollow-masque. As in masquerade, not as in a mask. Still, she was depicted wearing a mask similar to the one our leader was examining. She is supposed to grant favors to those who chose to live their lives freely and jovially. But she is a fickle patron. It described how her followers would be inflicted with madness if they failed to become truly happy. According to that booklet, votive masks are made so that her followers can forget their troubles and act as her agents. Reportedly, a masker will black out, though considering the book suggested the use of drugs and alcohol in its rites, the reason behind that is likely Normal.

I summarized to the team leader the contents of the booklet. She wasn't planning on putting the mask on, anyway, but the information helped us deduce that a human was involved in the disappearance of the children, and it was unlikely that they were dead, but the perpetrator would likely not remember the events of that night. There were already signs that somebody had been serving cake. All we needed to do was to question people around the neighborhood to find them. We stashed the mask in a silver-lined briefcase, as per procedure, and we took the booklet. Should be in storage already. We did some cleaning up, and we secured the place with some lock-jamming so people can't get in anymore.

After some door-to-door questioning of families with older kids, who would have learned such rumors, we found him. His name is Calvin Douglas. He said he didn't know where he was on Halloween night, but that every year he gives out slices of cake with one of his friends to kids. Makes sure they don't have nuts in them and everything. Seems like a nice thing to do. The thing is, he was wearing an Ouroborus ring, so I asked him if he knew about the weird room on the second floor. He said it was just some Halloween decorations. He at least doesn't go around telling people about the Weird, but I didn't believe that he really knew nothing.

The missing persons case was pretty simply resolved. The kids came out of his backyard soon after we started questioning, all covered in dirt and leaves, like they were sleeping in it. They weren't restrained or injured or anything, but they seemed to have been up all night. They couldn't remember what happened on Halloween, either. We brought them home and they got scoldings from their parents. I don't think the families bothered going after Calvin. Well, as I later would learn, he was pretty respected.

Section III: Conclusion

Obviously I looked up Mr. Douglas and found out he was a leader in the PTA at a local school. He had a lot of followers on social media, all of whom were locals. The thing is, all the other leads I found on him were for New Age, woo-woo stuff. Not that suspicious, but I searched deeper. I found that he had an account on a site that one of these sites linked to, which was more explicitly occult. From that site I found he was on all sorts of esoteric and magickal forums and blogs, ones that didn't like to be indexed by popular search engines. Nothing explicitly alarming, but combined with everything else...

So, the Foundation does a lot of work to make sure that the Institute isn't known to the public. It's good for them, and it's good for us. But, can we really trust them to be responsible with the Weird? We get a lot of good intel from them, so we'll have to deal with it, but we need to be careful with them. This guy, Calvin Douglas, should be looked at. I believe he's part of the Ouroborus Institute, and they should reprimand him for causing a ruckus.

I also looked up Hollow-masque, the Red Witch. She's apparently supposed to be the rival of a White Witch, called Clawfinger. It's either some kind of creepypasta or an forgotten folktale that's had a resurgence online, both cases representing a high probability of Weird, of legitimate paranormal activity. We're dealing with something important, to be frank. If there's a large number of people involved in the worship of either of these figures, and these people are involved in the Ouroborus Institute, then there is cause for serious concern.

— EyeOfProvidence