A Feast of Demons

A weary alumnus returns to his ten‑year reunion, hoping for nostalgia and a few familiar faces. The gathering quickly turns into a chaotic cocktail of mismatched togas, drunken banter, and the odd sense that something important has slipped through the cracks of his old college days. Among the familiar names, a lone figure stands out: Theobald “Greco”—a once‑brilliant scientist now reduced to a half‑drunk, half‑obsessed recluse.

When Virgil tracks Greco to a shabby factory turned makeshift laboratory, the scene is both absurd and unsettling. Greco darts about with a peculiar device, muttering about transmutation while chasing invisible “butterflies” that seem to elude even his own sight. The narrator’s curiosity is piqued, and the reader is left wondering whether Greco’s frantic experiments are the result of genius, madness, or something far stranger still.