Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
May 20, 2024
I finally put down my phone to prepare for another night of sleep on the couch. I walked to the light switch and turned it off. A much darker shadow appeared in the room’s corner when darkness hit. I knew what was next, so I sat on the couch and waited. A short male wearing tattered clothing but a newer hoodie stepped out of the portal and approached me. I could smell his body odor when he became visible. We made eye contact, both smiled, and he sat down beside me. He said good evening, then corrected himself with “Good mornin’,” with a slight laugh. He seemed so friendly I wanted to chat, but I knew better. After a short pause, he began his story:
I’ve heard folks say that a person’s home is their sanctuary. Well, under the Ben White overpass, among the discarded and the lost, South Austin doesn’t offer much sanctity. It’s been a rough patch of existence, me and the other five—our own kind of brotherhood. We’re the unseen, the unheard, the unspoken. Our bond was born of survival, a mutual necessity to stick together. But stronger than our brotherhood was the fear that bound us—a fear of something much worse than hunger, cold, or violence: Candle Face.
The stories of Candle Face were woven into every conversation around the fire pit. She was the breath behind every misfortune, the force driving those who doubted her existence toward madness, the kind that lives in the bottom of bottles and at the tips of needles.
“Ever wonder why Kevin never came back?” Jim muttered one night, his eyes haunted. “He doubted. Candle Face got him.”
The group would nod along. They spoke of Candle Face’s torment—a relentless mental barrage that shattered the mind. “We have to spread the word,” they’d say. “We have to save the souls of the homeless.”
I’d nod too, but my heart was never in it. To me, Candle Face was just a story, a manifestation of our collective misery. I refused to believe in her supernatural powers. I needed to believe there was a rational explanation for everything—for our fears, for our horrors.
Then, she came.
One night, a silhouette appeared by the fire, her eyes glowing like embers. The flames seemed to shrink in her presence, trembling as if they too feared her.
“One of you has betrayed me,” Candle Face’s voice was barely audible. Her gaze landed on me. I was the disbeliever, the one who pretended to go along while secretly doubting her.
She moved closer, and I felt the weight of her gaze strip away my pretense. My disbelief was laid bare. Yet, she didn’t kill me. Instead, she turned to the others.
“This one shall be your warning,” she said before vanishing into the burning fire pit.
My brothers, the ones I’d shared every hardship with, now looked at me differently. There was no camaraderie in their eyes anymore. Only fear and reverence. They believed I’d been marked, spared for a purpose.
Days passed, and the divide between us grew. They treated me like I was cursed, alive yet tainted. Nights were worse. Shadows watched me from every corner, and the cold mocked our feeble fire. The others’ belief in Candle Face deepened, and I became an outsider among them.
Finally, the reckoning came.
We gathered around the fire pit under the overpass. The flames danced wildly, their light casting jagged shadows on the concrete walls. This time, their eyes weren’t filled with sorrow or fear for me. They were resolute. Hardened.
Candle Face appeared again, her flaming eyes fixed on us. She didn’t speak, but her silence was louder than any words. The others rose, one by one. Their movements were slow but deliberate, their expressions unyielding. I knew what was coming.
They came at me with fists raised, not in anger but in something far worse: belief. Every strike landed with purpose, every blow a sermon in honor of Candle Face. Their grunts and gasps mixed with the crackling fire in a grotesque symphony.
Pain exploded across my body, and I fell to the ground. They didn’t stop. Each hit felt like a punishment not just for my disbelief but for everything they had endured. Their anger, their misery, their need to believe—it all came crashing down on me.
As my breath slowed and my vision dimmed, I saw her. Candle Face stood over us, watching silently. Her eyes burned brighter, and for a moment, I thought I heard her voice.
“Believe,” she said, the word resonating like a commandment.
And then everything went blank.
Personal Note to My Readers
For the first time in seven months of documenting the testimonies of the lost souls, names emerged—an unexpected yet monumental breakthrough. This revelation marks a significant milestone in my work. Until now, these encounters were shrouded in anonymity, their stories devoid of personal identifiers. Introducing the names Kevin and Jim brings a new kind of life into these accounts. Jim was one of the victim’s killers. It suggests a shift, a willingness—or perhaps a desperate need—of these spirits to be known and remembered.
As I write this journal entry, I want you to grasp the weight of this moment. Kevin and Jim’s names signify the beginning of a new chapter, where the lost souls may start to share more than just their ghostly presence. Names bring with them histories, connections, and identities. With these first names, I anticipate a cascade of other names and details to follow. This may become the norm in an era where the spirits’ stories are no longer completely obscure. We stand on the brink of uncovering more intricate stories, with names serving as keys to unlocking the full spectrum of their experiences. The air around me feels excited as if the very fabric of the paranormal world is aligning to reveal its secrets in ways it never has before.
Is Candle Face real?
This is a complex and deeply personal question. On the one hand, there's the possibility that Candle Face is a manifestation of my childhood trauma, a figure created by my mind to cope with fear and emotional turmoil. On the other hand, the consistent details, physical evidence, and shared experiences with others suggest that Candle Face may be a genuine supernatural entity. Whether Candle Face is real or a creation of my psyche, her impact on my life has been undeniably profound. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to you.
How are you able to communicate with the dead? Are you a psychic or medium?
I don’t consider myself a psychic or medium, although many in the paranormal community believe I have some kind of gift, perhaps one that I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Unlike those who claim to communicate with any spirit, my ability seems limited to connecting with Candle Face’s victims and Candle Face herself. While I’m not sure how this works, the connection is strong and focused on these particular Lost Souls, allowing me to share their stories and seek justice for them.
Do you use AI to create your content?
From October 2023 to around March 2024, I personally wrote the short descriptions you see on Google and social media platforms when my web pages or journal entries are shared or found in search results. These descriptions are those brief, 160-character summaries that pop up beside the URL. It was challenging to condense complex ideas into such a small space.
By March 2024, I began letting Wix, my website host, handle this task for me. Their AI generates these summaries much faster and often with more precision than I could manage within that tight character limit. It was a practical decision to let the system take over this small aspect of my work, allowing me to focus more on my writing and investigations.
The web pages and journal entries themselves are entirely my own. My writing encompasses a wide range of topics, including the testimonies of the Lost Souls, my investigations into Candle Face/Isabel, my books like Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook, as well as other works and research. Everything I write is rooted in my decades of experience in writing (over ten books in 15 years) and my 30+ years of expertise in intelligence analysis, missing persons cases, and human trafficking investigations. The core content you read always comes from me.
By early March 2025, I decided to create a Shopify account to sell copies of Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona, The Haunted Handbook, and to look for caretakers for The Scrolls of Souls. It was a tremendous amount of work to manually transfer all 130 journal entries from Wix to Shopify and recreate the Google SEO titles and descriptions for each entry. Shopify’s blogging platform also required a summary for each journal entry. Summarizing my work was taking around 30 minutes per entry, which became overwhelming and unsustainable.
To streamline the process, I allowed AI to create the summaries for me by uploading each journal entry and letting the AI generate the SEO descriptions, summaries, and ALT text for images. Here's a clear breakdown of what is AI-generated:
- Some journal entry titles.
- Nearly all SEO journal descriptions (up to 160 characters).
- Nearly all summaries (which are only available in the backend and not visible to the public).
Everything else you read comes from me, whether it’s documenting testimonies from the Lost Souls, researching Candle Face/Isabel, or writing my books. The AI simply handles the tedious, mechanical parts of the process, leaving the writing, storytelling, and investigations entirely in my hands.
I review all AI-generated summaries and descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the essence of my writing. My decision to use AI for these backend tasks is about maintaining efficiency and allowing me to focus on what truly matters: writing, storytelling, investigations, and giving voice to the Lost Souls, protecting the Fugitives, investigating Candle Face/Isabel, and exploring new projects. Your experience as a reader is shaped by my work, not by AI.
Why did you end the podcast?
I decided to cancel the Candle Face Chronicles Podcast for two key reasons. First, while the Get Haunted Network is a fantastic community for paranormal entertainment, it wasn't the right fit for the serious and important nature of my work with Candle Face Chronicles. The network's lighthearted tone didn’t align with my mission.
Second, the friends and family of one of Candle Face's victims reached out and asked me to stop discussing their loved one on the podcast because it was causing them too much pain. Their request made me realize that my work, while well-intentioned, was unintentionally hurting those who are still living and grieving.
These reasons led me to end the podcast, but I remain committed to continuing my mission to uncover Candle Face’s origins and methods with a renewed focus on compassion and respect for the living.
Why did you stop using www.candleface.com and start using www.branchingplotbooks.com?
I have had the branchingplotbooks.com domain since 2012, but I transferred the domain to Shopify to use it as my storefront. I needed to do this because Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona can't be published or sold via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing because of its spiral binding requirement. The same goes for The Haunted Handbook.
I decided to sell them, along with most of my other books, on Shopify because it allows me to provide a more streamlined and reliable experience for my readers. It also enables me to have full control over my work and how it reaches my audience. Additionally, all my books are still available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), except for Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook due to their unique binding requirements.
I also chose to use Shopify’s blogging platform, keeping all books, my journal, and the shopping experience located in one place.
I plan on keeping www.candleface.com up for the interim, but it will likely go down as well, or at least be redirected to www.branchingplotbooks.com. In the end, I want my work to be more streamlined and easier for the paranormal community and my readers to find my work, read and help the lost souls, protect the fugitives, and care for the Scrolls of Souls.
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