Ghouls of the Miskatonic/Chapter 1
Plot
Arkham, Massachusetts, 1926. Amanda Sharpe, an engineering student at Miskatonic University, is being plagued by recurring, vivid nightmares. These visions depict an ancient city submerged at the bottom of an ocean, where a colossal, malevolent creature stirs. Waking from another nightmare, and feeling horrible nausea, she runs off to vomit in the communal washroom. There, she encounters her roommate Rita Young, who is an athletics scholarship student from New Orleans. Rita attempts to offer Amanda some comfort before heading out for her morning run.
Meanwhile, Professor Oliver Grayson of Miskatonic University visits his former colleague, Professor Henry Cartwright, who is institutionalized at Arkham Asylum due to a series of arson attacks. Grayson attempts to engage Cartwright by reading to him and discussing his struggles in getting his research published. But the visit takes a terrifying turn when an orderly, coming in to give Henry his medication while smoking a cigarette, inadvertently triggers Cartwright's severe pyrophobia. In a moment of intense fear and apparent delirium, Cartwright utters the phrase, "iä Cthugha, na, Fnagt," causing the cigarette to spontaneously combust and burn the orderly's lips.
While on her run, Rita reminisces about her family and the unspeakable things they did to save her brother from a sugar plantation. This made Rita determined to leave New Orleans for a better life. When Rita reaches the athletics grounds, she trips and sprains her ankle. Upon a closer look, she makes the horrifying discovery of having stumbled upon a mutilated, bloodied corpse.