Young Howard Lovecraft begins his adventure by going to the Butler Sanitarium with his mother to visit his father Winfield Lovecraft, a patient there who has been driven mad by something he's done. Howard's father goes into a spasm of paranoia and fear, begging his son to destroy a book that he should have never written. The boy doesn't scream during the incident, but does go home with a small gift - a paper star made by his father. Once home, Howard's curiosity is too much and he begins to read his father's book. He's drawn into a dark, cold world of magic and deceit. The book tells of a place - R'yleh - a "kingdom described as an unholy marriage of fairy tales and nightmares." Unwittingly, the boy reads a few words written in the book in a strange language - and is sucked through a hole in the fabric of the universe. He meets a Deep One, Thu Thu Hmong, who initially tries to eat Howard but comes around after the boy saves the creature's life. Howard, who fails to pronounce the ...