The Obsidian Void

Ever since the first half of the 20th Century, as mankind collectively looked upward and started its own tentative explorations into the depths of outer space, people's minds have turned towards the possibility of alien life. And not merely the existence of such life, but the possibility -- indeed some would say the probability -- that aliens are here on Earth, or regularly visit our planet to capture and torment humans. But I have bad news for those who cling to this belief.

There are no aliens.

I have this to say about extraterrestrial life in my book, The House on Blackstone Hill:

Aliens? No. Aliens don’t exist. We are painfully alone in the universe. However, there are terrors that exist in the deep reaches of space, terrors that if you were to see would drive you instantly mad. Your throat would turn raw from your screams and you would shred your face bloody trying to claw out your eyes to make the terror end. We will talk more about these, later. 

As bad as fictional accounts of aliens are, the reality of what lurks in the depths of space are actually worse. Far worse.

There is a gigantic dark spot in space 700 million light-years away from Earth known as the Great Void, or sometimes the Boötes Void, or even the Great Nothing. It is an inky black stain of nothingness in the night sky that reaches some 330 million light-years in diameter through which no light can pass. This has puzzled astronomers because there is no reasonable explanation for something that massive that could block the starlight from behind it reaching Earth. 

I can tell them exactly what it is, and the explanation is far from reasonable. It is a massive torture chamber/playground for the demons, where they take unsuspecting humans to torment, twist, and drive utterly mad over centuries of pain. The demons call it the Obsidian Void. There is any number of portals on Earth through which a person might unknowingly pass and find themselves in the Void. 

Horrifying, demonic creatures surround the Void to catch in their long tentacles the many people who suddenly find themselves walking out of a portal into the darkness of space, as happened to Jack McCracken in my short story "Club 27." Once a human is taken there, the pain begins. 

The demons have an infinite amount of physical locations they've made by cobbling together the existing elements, so sometimes the demons will taunt a person by bringing them to what appears as a carbon copy of their natural environment, only one totally devoid of other people. Sometimes the demons will take people to what they always believe is some alternative dimension because it's a copy of their environment but dark, putrid, and diseased. And sometimes, the demons will take a person immediately to the torture chambers where, over the centuries, they break their body or mold it horrifically with others, and by doing so create a new devil to haunt the dank places of the world.