| NATURE | A human erased by the projection world |
|---|---|
| DOMAIN | The Black-and-White World |
| SYMBOL | Chains, facelessness, repetition of orders |
| MAIN POWER | Abduction through the blind spot and fixation of the image |
He continues to guard a prison that no longer exists, carrying out the orders of a master whose name has long since lost its meaning. The face was the first to disappear; guilt and duty remain.
Other Names: Soldier, Guardian of the Black-and-White World, First Prisoner, the Faceless One
Name in Life: Lost
Original Nature: Human city guard
Current Nature: Reborn inhabitant of the Black-and-White World
Origin: A projection created by Johan Weber’s apparatus
Main Function: Finds people, drags them into the projection, and prevents them from leaving unchanged
Main Target: Chelsea and anyone who still bears traces of her presence
Danger Level: Extremely High
Distinctive Feature: Not a demon of the Moonlit World, but the result of a human invention that learned to distort both matter and identity
General Description
The Faceless Guard is the first known human to have remained permanently within the Black-and-White World.
In 1585, he entered a projection created by Johan Weber’s device. The Guardian pursued the fugitives, convinced that what he faced was merely a clever trick, an optical illusion, or yet another form of sorcery that could be destroyed by force.
The others managed to pass through the projection and emerge elsewhere.
He remained behind.
At first, the guard continued to follow orders. He searched for Chelsea, Maria, Jack, the Jester, and Weber himself. He scanned the colorless streets, walked through identical doors, and returned to the same intersections.
Then he stopped recognizing the city.
Later, he stopped recognizing people.
Eventually, he stopped recognizing himself.
When he could still be seen from the physical world, his face had already become smooth skin without eyes or a mouth. But he kept moving, searching, and grabbing anyone who approached the edge of the projection.
The Black-and-White World didn’t just leave a person inside.
It took his profession, his rage, his fear, and his final order—and then built a new guardian out of them.
The Black-and-White World
Not the Moonlit World
The Black-and-White World is often mistaken for another layer of the Moonlit World or one of the Jester’s personal fantasies.
This is incorrect.
It originated from Johan Weber’s device.
Originally, the device created a moving projection capable of interacting with matter. People could enter the image, pass through it, and find themselves in a different place.
Johan viewed this as a scientific discovery.
But his device didn’t just display a black-and-white image. It forced reality to conform to the image.
As long as the mechanism operated for only a short time and under the creator’s supervision, the projection remained a passageway.
When the guard found himself inside alone, with no predetermined exit and no one capable of stopping the device, the projection began to complete itself.
Thus, an independent world came into being.
It was not conjured by an ancient ritual.
It did not belong to a dead god.
It was not created by a demon.
It was a glitch in a human-made machine that continued to operate after its creator lost control.
The World of Images
In ordinary reality, the object exists first, and then its image.
In the Black-and-White World, the order is reversed.
The image appears first.
Then the world forces everything within it to conform to the image.
If a person stays in the projection for a long time, it begins to simplify them:
color turns into shades of gray;
the voice becomes noise;
movement becomes a repeating animation;
memories become short scenes;
character becomes a single dominant trait;
personality becomes a role;
the body becomes an image suited to that role.
A Black-and-White World does not understand a person as a complex living being.
It perceives them as a character.
That is why, over time, every prisoner becomes something simple and terrifying: a Nurse, a Clown, a Cook, an Acrobat, a Stump, a Laughing Man, or a faceless figure by the phone.
Names disappear.
Functions remain.
The Expansion of the World
The initial projection covered only a few locations connected to the machine.
But the guard learned to drag other people inside.
The sentries vanished.
Travelers vanished behind the trees.
A merchant might turn behind a shed and never return.
One wrong step—and a person would find themselves in a space where the street had no end, and a familiar door would open onto a completely different place.
Each new prisoner brought with him:
memories;
fears;
images;
stories;
objects;
fantasies;
nightmares once seen.
The world processed them and expanded.
From a medieval street grew forests, hospitals, circuses, kitchens, old houses, television rooms, and endless misty fields.
Later, images appeared in it that a 16th-century person could not have known:
old televisions;
telephones;
film;
puppet animation;
medical equipment;
photographs;
urban legends;
images from the early days of the internet;
creatures reminiscent of corrupted images and forgotten internet horror stories.
The Black-and-White World does not exist within a single historical era.
It gathers terrifying images from the minds of everyone it consumes.
Infected Images
Over time, the world no longer required direct contact with Weber’s apparatus.
It learned to use other images as inputs:
books;
paintings;
televisions;
film;
photographs;
mirrors;
screens;
printed illustrations.
In the Ghost in the Fog expansion, an old book of fairy tales becomes the entrance.
At first, it contains ordinary color illustrations. After Lily disappears, the book returns to its former owner, even though he had definitely given it to her as a gift. The next time it is opened, the images are black-and-white, grotesque, and resemble old internet nightmares.
After falling asleep next to the book, the person wakes up already inside the world depicted within it.
There is no cycle of day and night there. Roads lead the traveler back to the starting point, creatures watch from behind the trees, and the light in the house goes out as they approach. To avoid getting lost, one must leave glowing marks on the trees. Even notes must be written in one’s own blood, because ordinary traces may vanish along with the author.
The book is not the creator of the world.
It is merely a portal to it.
After escaping, you can close it and try to forget what happened.
But the book will find its next reader on its own.
The Guardian in Life
Nothing is known about the guard’s real name.
He was one of the men who pursued Chelsea and her companions in 1585. He likely served in the city guard and viewed the events as just another case of witchcraft, smuggling, or resistance to the authorities.
Unlike Henri, he was not a famous executioner and did not have his own philosophy.
He was an executor.
He was ordered to go in—so he went in.
He was ordered to apprehend the fugitives—he continued to search for them even after the familiar city had vanished.
Perhaps it was precisely the absence of a personal goal that made him the ideal first victim.
When the Black-and-White World began to erase the guard’s identity, he had almost nothing left but his official duty:
find;
detain;
prevent them from escaping.
The Last Order
Chelsea was the one the guard remembered the longest.
He forgot his comrades’ faces.
He couldn’t remember the commander’s name.
He no longer understood why he was holding a weapon or whom he served.
But the image of the strange woman who had stepped into an impossible vision and vanished within it remained.
Chelsea became his last point of reference.
Not a lover.
Not a personal enemy.
Not the object of ordinary revenge.
She was the last proof that another reality had existed before the Black-and-White World.
That’s why the guard kept searching for her.
When it proved impossible to find Chelsea herself, he began dragging people connected to her inside. Each of these people held a piece of the story, a memory, or a clue that could bring him closer to his lost goal.
The guard was trying to build a path back.
But every new captive only expanded the world from which he wanted to escape.
Loss of Identity
The First Changes
At first, the guard could no longer make out other people’s faces.
In the projection, they all looked the same: pale ovals with shadows forming eyes and mouths.
Then he could no longer recognize his own reflection.
When he tried to touch his face, the features shifted. His eyes were higher up. His mouth appeared on the side. His nose vanished. Sometimes, instead of a face, he saw a motionless spot, as if the image were damaged.
The guard began to pin the skin in place with iron pins and short nails.
He was trying to keep his features in place.
The pain helped him feel the boundaries of his own body. As the metal pierced his skin, he at least understood where his face ended and the surrounding emptiness began.
But the projection accepted these objects as part of the image.
The pins stopped falling out.
The wounds stopped healing.
The metal became part of his new appearance.
Complete Disappearance
The mouth was the last to disappear.
The guard could no longer identify himself, call for help, or repeat an order aloud.
Then the eyes disappeared.
He did not go blind in the usual sense. On the contrary, he began to see the whole world at once—through shadows, doors, reflections, and images.
When the transformation was complete, his face became completely smooth.
This is how he was seen by the last people who managed to observe the initial projection from the outside.
Later, the Black-and-White World attempted to restore its guardian’s human features.
But he no longer remembered what he looked like.
Therefore, his new face turned out to be nothing more than a pale mask, pinned in place and drawn from the memories of others.
It may have eyes and a mouth.
But these are not real features.
It is an image of a face on a being that has long since become faceless.
Current Appearance
The Guardian has retained a large human build, but its proportions have become heavier and more powerful.
He wears dark robes that resemble both:
the uniform of a city guard;
an executioner’s leather apron;
a habit;
ritual belts;
the attire of a prisoner who managed to become a guard.
Numerous metal pins are embedded in the head and face. Some penetrate deeply, while others merely pierce the skin, as if holding a mask in place where there is nothing.
Chains are wrapped around the body.
At first, he used them so he wouldn’t lose his way, tying himself to objects that seemed real.
But in a world where distances are constantly shifting, the chain could not lead him to the exit.
Instead, it became an extension of the creature.
Now the guardian is able to pull it through walls, doors, images, and fog.
Upon seeing a chain in the ordinary world, a person may not yet realize that its other end is already in the Black-and-White.
Chains
The Guardian’s chains are more than just weapons.
They signify a connection between the two realms.
He is able to hook a person:
from behind a tree;
from a dark passageway;
through a screen;
from a reflection;
from the edge of a photograph;
from an open book;
from a place that was out of sight for a second.
The Guardian is particularly powerful in moments when a person loses visual contact with the surrounding world.
A single action is enough:
turn around;
blink;
walk around a corner;
close a door;
step into the fog;
bend down to pick up a dropped object.
A person makes a movement in ordinary reality but completes it inside a black-and-white frame.
Chains don’t always leave physical traces.
Sometimes the victim simply vanishes.
To a witness, it seems as though the person stepped behind a shed or hid behind a tree.
But on the other side, there’s no one there anymore.
The First Hunter
The Guardian is not the creator of the Black-and-White World.
He is its first complete form.
The world learned from him how to transform a person into a character.
The Guardian became the first entity capable of independently finding new captives. Therefore, he gradually assumed the role of both hunter and gatekeeper.
He ensures that:
new people do not leave the projection too quickly;
unfilled roles are cast;
disrupted scenes are replayed;
the image is not left without a character;
those who have seen the world become part of it.
According to his logic, a person who has entered the image already belongs to the image.
Escape is a mistake.
And a mistake must be corrected.
Inhabitants of the Black-and-White World
Every One of Them Was Once Someone
Most of the creatures of the Black-and-White World were not born monsters.
They were people, drawn in from different eras.
Each went through their own ordeal.
For some, the world broke them physically.
Some were forced to relive the same scene over and over.
Some were stripped of their faces.
Some were dissected into separate functions.
Some were fused with an object they particularly cherished or feared.
That is why among the inhabitants there are:
women with televisions instead of heads;
nurses who have forgotten their patients and their own names;
chefs for whom every guest is an ingredient;
acrobats with distorted movement patterns;
living body parts;
faceless women;
clowns dissolving into the fog;
creatures composed of a multitude of foreign images;
people frozen in the poses of their final agony.
Their appearance is no mere fantasy.
It is the result of what the world deemed most important in their final experience.
Torture as Birth
The Black-and-White World does not transform a person in an instant.
It repeats the situation until everything superfluous has been stripped away.
A nurse may be forced to enter the same ward over and over again until she forgets why she came.
A clown may be forced to perform before an empty hall until laughter replaces his thoughts.
A chef will cook with whatever the world leaves nearby until he himself becomes part of the kitchen.
A woman by the phone will wait for a call that will never come until her own face disappears.
The torture continues not for the sake of punishment.
The world seeks the simplest and most powerful image.
When a person completely merges with their role, the transformation ends.
The Depravity of the Inhabitants
Almost all mature inhabitants of the Black-and-White World are extremely depraved and experience constant physical hunger.
But this is no ordinary lust.
The Black-and-White World gradually erases sensations. In it, there is no familiar warmth, taste, color, or natural passage of time. Existence becomes a monotonous gray hum.
Intense physical experiences remain one of the few ways to feel alive.
That is why its inhabitants crave:
pain;
fear;
intimacy;
humiliation;
submission;
intense physical contact;
any experience capable of momentarily breaking the silence.
They crave other people’s bodies like hungry beasts.
But not necessarily because they feel human desire.
They need a reaction.
A scream.
Movement.
Resistance.
Pleasure.
Anything that proves they’re not just looking at another motionless image.
That is precisely why an encounter with them is both erotic and truly terrifying.
For the creatures of the Moonlit World, play is often either a bargain or a form of entertainment.
For the inhabitants of the Black-and-White World, the human body is a way to feel their own existence, if only for a short while.
Not Intimacy, but the Appropriation of Sensation
An inhabitant of the Black-and-White World does not necessarily want a specific person.
They seek an experience that they themselves are no longer capable of creating.
After coming into contact with a living person, the being becomes more distinct for a short time:
its face takes on features;
the voice stops hissing;
its movements become fluid;
its clothing takes on color;
a light appears in its eyes.
But the effect wears off quickly.
So the hunger returns.
With each new captive, more and more sensations are required, and the creatures’ behavior becomes increasingly dangerous.
Their Own Logic
The black-and-white creatures do not act at random.
Each has a rule.
The rule is usually linked to its last human memory, a form of torture, or the manner of its transformation.
In *Ghost in the Fog*, different creatures are governed by completely different laws:
a staggering clown vanishes into the swamp fog;
a faceless woman answers the phone;
a living stump avoids tree roots;
The laughing man cannot approach a brightly lit house;
paths stop closing in if you leave glowing markers;
the light in the hut goes out when creatures get too close.
These rules may seem absurd.
But within this world, they are absolute.
You cannot defeat a creature simply because a person is stronger or armed.
You must understand why that creature has become the way it is.
The rule is the last remnant of its human history.
It is both a weakness and the only form of individuality that the world has been unable to destroy.
The Guardian’s Logic
The Guardian’s Rule is tied to pursuit and apprehension.
He must always have a target.
If there is no specific target, he chooses a person who:
has seen the entrance;
knows about the Black-and-White World;
is connected to Chelsea;
is carrying an object from the projection;
is trying to free another captive;
has crossed the boundary between the image and reality.
He doesn’t attack right away.
First, he observes.
It appears in the distance among the trees.
It stands at the end of the hallway.
It’s reflected in the turned-off screen.
He leaves a chain where there wasn’t one before.
The more often a person notices him, the stronger the bond becomes.
At the last moment, the Guardian suddenly appears right beside you.
Not because he walked over.
It’s just that the distance between him and his target ceases to exist.
Why Does He Drag People Away?
On a deep level, the Guardian is still carrying out the old order.
He considers everyone who enters a suspect or a fugitive.
But over the centuries, the meaning of the order has been distorted.
Now his logic goes like this:
If a person is near the projection, then they must be connected to the escape.
If they try to leave, they’re guilty.
If they resist, they must be detained.
If they don’t remember the crime, a memory must be created.
The guard drags people inside so that the world can assign them a role and thereby make them understandable.
A living person is unpredictable.
A character obeys the scene.
For the Guardian, transformation is the highest form of order.
Abilities
Abduction Through the Blind Spot
The Guardian is capable of crossing the boundary of reality where a person momentarily loses sight of their surroundings.
Trees, corners, sheds, curtains, fog, and dark doorways are particularly dangerous.
Chain Control
Chains pass through images and can appear in the physical world before the creature itself.
It uses them to restrain the victim, block the path to the exit, or pull a person into the projection.
Spatial Pursuit
In the Black-and-White World, distance offers no protection from the Guardian.
He can remain far ahead, no matter how often a person changes direction, and then suddenly appear behind them.
Image Fixation
The Guardian’s pins are capable of “fixing” a person’s state.
The victim may freeze in a certain pose, stop changing their facial expression, or find themselves trapped in a short, repetitive movement.
Facial Blurring
After spending a long time near the Guardian, a person begins to have trouble recognizing those around them.
Later, they cease to remember their own appearance.
Individual features may disappear from their reflection.
Summoning the Black-and-White Layer
The Guardian is capable of temporarily desaturating a portion of ordinary space.
Sounds become muffled, shadows grow deeper, and a familiar place begins to repeat itself.
If the process is completed, the area transforms into a new entrance.
High Physical Strength
Within its own world, the Guardian is significantly stronger than a human and is almost impervious to ordinary pain.
Physical damage only temporarily distorts his appearance.
Reading Traces
He can sense those who have already visited the Black-and-White World, even if they managed to return.
A visitor retains a faint imprint of the projection forever.
Limitations
The Guardian is nearly invincible within the Black-and-White World, but his capabilities are not limitless.
He Needs an Entry Point
He is unable to fully manifest in ordinary reality without an image, a shadow, fog, a screen, or some other distortion of perception.
He Depends on a Loss of Orientation
Fixed landmarks, continuous light, and a predetermined route prevent the world from closing in on the traveler.
That is precisely why the glowing mushroom helps the traveler stop returning to the same spot.
Color Weakens the Projection
A bright, stable color is external information that the Black-and-White World cannot always process correctly.
A single colored object won’t destroy the Guardian, but it can serve as an anchor.
A Name Preserves One’s Identity
A person who remembers their own name, history, and purpose is much less likely to become a role.
It is especially helpful when another living person continues to address them by name.
Loneliness accelerates the erasure.
The Rules Apply to Him as Well
A Guardian cannot abandon his chosen target until the pursuit is over or until a stronger trail catches his attention.
This can be exploited, but a mistake will lead the hunter straight to another person.
Chelsea
Chelsea remains a central figure in the Guardian’s damaged memory.
He doesn’t remember their first encounter in full.
He doesn’t know why she was running away.
He doesn’t understand how much time has passed.
But he senses her presence.
To him, Chelsea is, all at once:
the last fugitive;
the last remaining face;
proof of the outside world;
a possible way out;
the reason for his own imprisonment.
If the Guardian captures Chelsea, he won’t necessarily try to destroy her right away.
First, he’ll want to reset the scene to the beginning.
Place her in that same black-and-white passageway.
Force her to run again.
Chase her again.
Try to get out again.
He can repeat this scene endlessly, hoping that one day, along with it, the original door will open.
But the door he’s looking for has long since disappeared.
Connection to Johan Weber
The Guardian emerged from Johan’s invention, but does not serve the Weber family.
On the contrary, the Webers’ devices and resonators are particularly strongly drawn to the Black-and-White World.
Every device that attempts to transform another reality into a measurable image repeats the original mistake.
The Webers believe they are observing a different world.
The Black-and-White World observes them through their devices.
Johan created the first passage by accident.
His descendants can create new portals without even realizing that the First Captive is already waiting for them on the other side.
Connection to the Jester’s Hellish Universe
The black-and-white realm lies among the worlds Chelsea crosses within the Jester’s infernal universe. In the second chronicle, it appears as a distinct circle beside the theater, the forest of souls, the land of the dead, and other domains.
But the Jester did not create the Black-and-White World.
He discovered it and incorporated the passage into his own system.
For the Jester, it was the perfect ready-made stage: a world already filled with fear, physical hunger, and characters unable to step out of their roles.
However, the Jester cannot fully control it.
His fantasies are subject to theatrical logic.
The Black-and-White World is subject to the logic of a damaged image.
If the Jester is the director, then the Black-and-White World is a damaged film reel that keeps playing even after all the actors have died.
The Laughing Man and Other Powerful Inhabitants
The Guard was the first hunter, but he did not remain the only powerful figure.
Some captives underwent such a profound transformation that they became independent centers of their own sections of the world.
The Laughing Man, the Blue Devil, the TV Creatures, and other mature inhabitants are capable of creating their own rules, traps, and territories.
They do not necessarily obey the Guardian.
The Black-and-White World has no single king.
It resembles a vast, damaged work of art in which every completed torture becomes a separate scene with its own master.
The Guardian does not rule over them.
He brings in new performers.
Connections and Meaning
The faceless guard embodies a person reduced to a function.
Henri voluntarily made violence his profession.
Gretta submitted to the Dollhouse and became its mistress.
The Jester turned his own trauma into theater.
The Guardian did not choose his new nature.
He simply spent too long following orders in a world he no longer understood.
The Black-and-White World took away from him:
his name;
face;
era;
his memory;
his human body;
the reason for persecution.
But he retained the duty to persecute.
This makes him both a monster and the first victim of the anomaly created by Weber.
Sympathy, however, does not make an encounter with him any less dangerous.
Inside the Guardian, there is almost no human left capable of accepting help.
All that remains is the function designed to detain the fugitive.
