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They asked me why I killed him, why I put three bullets through his head. When I told them they branded me mad and locked me in this cell. Now here I rot, waiting for the rest of the world to join me.

It started with the appearance of the Anomaly, a small celestial body that appeared one morning as if from nowhere. A sphere of some perfectly black material that hung in the sky like a second sun.

Like much of the scientific community, my friend the esteemed Dr. Xul Thihar, took an interest in this strange phenomenon. Astronomy is an odd profession for one of the lizard folk from the far deserts but he pursued it with an almost fanatical devotion. If I knew then what I know now I would have begged him to pass it off as a hoax like so many of his peers did.

He spent days trying to analyze the Anomaly, but it stubbornly defied all his attempts. It seemed invisible to all but the naked eye; Radio telescope, infrared, and even experimental high-energy scopes only ever reported nothing but empty space where the Anomaly hung. This earned it the nickname "Black Dwarf".

He told me this a week later as we sat around a dim table in the corner of a crowded diner. My knowledge of astronomy was little more than that of an amateur hobbyist but he insisted that he needed my help.

"What I really need is a second opinion, my friend. Several days ago my assistants began to refuse to even look at my notes on the Black Dwarf. Now most of them are not showing up at all." He told me this over a glass of gin and tonic. "I think it has to do with the stress from having the media bearing down on us all the time. I wouldn't blame them if it is, even I'm starting to get headaches when study the Dwarf.

"I don't know how much help I could be, you know I'm not much for that kind of work." I told him.

"You won't have to do much, just look through the telescope and describe what you see. Or just go through my notes and let me know your opinion." The tone of his voice made it obvious he wasn't asking for help, he was begging for it.

I agreed and we spent the rest of our time making small talk, though I could tell that his focus was still on the Black Dwarf.

The next day found me picking my way through Xul's cluttered observatory. Notebooks, graphs, and star charts littered almost every table and bench. Xul himself was already glued to the readouts from the main telescope. It was obvious he had been the only one here for days.

I cleared my throat to make my presence know, almost reluctantly, he pulled himself away from the screens.

"You're just in time, I can feel one of those headaches coming again. They seem to come quicker than before." He muttered, leaning back and rubbing his scaly temples.

He quickly showed me the basic working of the telescope and left me to take notes. I was dimly aware of him bustling about, trying to sort through his own notes.

The strange dark sphere soon consumed my focus. I found myself staring at it for hours, occasionally jotting down a note or two with my free hand. Though despite its allure there was something about it that made the fur of my neck stand on end.

I began to feel as if it was not an object but a hole. Not a black hole like the ones we know but something else.

As the sun and the Black Dwarf sank low in the sky I finally managed to pull myself away from the scope. As I did I felt as though something was letting go of me, as if it had lost interest.

Eager to compare notes Xul rushed over, our eyes widened as we saw what I wrote. Lines of some flowing and twisting script coated the pages. Something about them chilled me to the bone and my fur stood on end.

"Fascinating, one of my assistants wrote something similar right before she left." Talking more to himself than me he hurried about the lab, searching for the assistant's notebook.

Grabbing my notebook on the way back, he settled down by the telescope's display. Flipping through the notes and carefully comparing the two he kept a steady commentary going, most of it went over my head. He kept going on about some sort of influence that the Black Dwarf might have on certain types of people. This led to him spouting all sorts of theories for everything from alien life to alternate dimensions. As he spoke his voice shook with what I once though was excitement and he kept glancing at the Black Dwarf, still plastered across the telescope's screen.

In the passing weeks Xul's interest in the Black Dwarf slowly changed from professional to an unhealthy obsession. I continued to help at the observatory, slowly organizing the many note and charts. During this time Xul would only stare blankly into the screens, his eyes distant and unfocused.

The star charts and research notes eventually gave way to books on the occult and ancient lore. Where he got them I still do not know, for many have been banned for as long as anyone could remember. One book in particular caught my eye. A small volume bound in an odd greenish leather, its pages yellowed with age. Its cover was marked only with ancient symbols, once used by ancient astrologists.

To my surprise the book was written in English, though in a form long since abandoned. Flipping through it I found almost as many drawings as pictures, everything from crude sketches to detailed engravings. They depicted strange and twisted creatures crawling between realities through darkened spheres. I felt my stomach churn as I studied one particularly loathsome etching, the creature was little more than an amorphous mass, even its image seemed to shift and writhe as I watched. A morbid curiosity compelled me to read the creatures description, just thinking about it now is enough to make me ill.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Xul's voice whispered in my ear, carefully he took the book from my trembling hands. "Fascinating, isn't it? All this time we thought we were alone but now..." His voice trailed off as he glanced back at the monitors.

Trying to keep the tremble from my voice I excused myself from the observatory. As I hurried towards my car I glanced up at the Black Dwarf, I could not shake the feeling of being watched. Even they knew I had figured out their secrets, something the Doctor seemed blind to.

As I got home I hurried to draw the curtains and start some research of my own. For days I poured over ancient texts, trying to learn what I could. What I found made me sick, even in the darkened house I could still feel the mocking gaze of the Dwarf.

The next morning I hurried to the observatory. Xul was already there along with several of his former assistants, their eyes strangely empty. With a precision that bordered on mechanical they painted gut wrenching symbols across the floors and walls.

"Welcome, old friend, you showed up just in time. We're about to get started and we're one body short." Although I expected the hollow emptiness of his voice, it still made my blood run cold.

In response I drew my .38 and emptied it. Three of the rounds went wild, shattering equipment. The other three hit their mark, three neat holes through his head. The assistants went limp, their empty eyes rolling back into their heads.

I shuddered when I saw something squirming under the doctor's skin, causing it to bulge and ripple in an abhorrent fashion. A horrid, otherworldly stench filled the room as an amorphous plastic mass forced its way through the holes in his head. Hundreds of eyes stared wildly about the room, rapidly appearing and disappearing across its oily surface. Long tendrils stretched from it, dragging it across the floor like some demented spider. Though what broke me was when countless tiny mouths opened up, screaming countless blasphemies in countless languages. The world went dark and the gun slipped from my lifeless fingers.

I came to in a holding cell, a dead eyes guard and officer questioned me. Calmly as I could, I explained what I did and why. I didn't realize I was screaming until they wrestled me to the ground and forced me into a straitjacket. The last thing I remember before they forced me into this cell was a strange bulge that seemed to peer at me from the base of the orderly's neck.

The Black Dwarf is gone now, but I still see it. It's in the eyes of the orderlies, the newscasters on the cafeteria TV, the shrinks, and all that have come to question me. They all spoke to me in that same hollow voice. So here I sit, the mad watching the damned.