Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
May 24, 2024
I made a big mistake. I tried to sleep on the bed upstairs. This usually doesn’t end well for me because sleeping flat, either on my stomach or back, is a recipe for a major vertigo attack that will plague me for several days. That’s precisely what happened last night. Just as the room started to spin, the shadows stayed still. A female stepped out of the shadowy portal and stood motionless while the rest of the room spun around her. She began her story as I tried to concentrate, knowing my vertigo attack would undoubtedly distract me from much of her testimony. Here’s her story:
I worked the corners of North Austin and, at times, downtown. I was a good prostitute; people would ask for me by my street name, Crystal. I was also known to be rough and tough, and I wouldn’t take crap from any man. Try to rip me off, and I would punch, scratch, and kick until the son-of-a-bitch would pay up.
One day, a man drove up and told me to get in. After a few minutes of dealing, I agreed, and we went to a secluded spot to seal the deal. He became a regular, maybe once every week, sometimes more often. He was quiet at first, but as we got more comfortable with each other, we would talk about life in general. He started talking about saving me and making me his wife. He wasn’t the first person to say this. I knew this was when things started to get dangerous. I didn’t want him to think I belonged to him, and I definitely didn’t need a savior. But I needed the money, so I played along.
One day, he didn’t want to pay me because he said I was his girl. When I mentioned that if he wanted to get laid, I needed to get paid, he hit me across my face. This wasn’t the first time I got hit. I knew what to do. I bit him on his right cheek and punched him, and I got away. A few days later, he drove by and apologized, saying it was the drugs in his system that made him do it.
He looked at me with those puppy eyes, so I got into his truck. He drove me to our spot off the highway. I did my job, and he paid me. We continued this weekly for about two months. He pulled up next to me one day, and I got in. After doing the deed, we sat there talking like we used to. He brought up the story of Candle Face, the demon you named. He said he’s a disciple of hers, responsible for spreading her word and bringing her anyone who doesn’t believe in her. I asked what happens to those who don’t believe. He said she will deal with them individually. I just laughed, and eventually, we changed the subject. However, as weeks passed, he wouldn’t change the subject; he kept asking me to help him spread the word about her and asked me to tell my friends about her. I would refuse, saying I just don’t believe in ghosts.
One day, he asked me if I believed in Candle Face, and I went off on him. I got so tired of him asking me that I yelled at him and said no. I attempted to open the door, but he gripped my left arm and held me inside. I punched him with my right hand, but it barely landed. However, his punch to my face did land. He climbed on top of me and started to choke me with his thumbs squarely on my neck. I knew this was going to be different from the other beatings from my johns. I tried to scratch him but couldn’t reach his face. I tried to grab his hands and pry them off my neck, but to no use; he was just too strong. Right before passing out, he stopped and laughed. He asked, “What’s wrong? All the other girls like it.” He then continued to punch my face a few times and then went back to choking me. This choking and punching pattern continued until I just couldn’t fight or care anymore. He asked me, “Are you ready to believe?” I couldn’t answer, but the answer was no. He took to my neck one final time, and death overtook me.
The second my life drained from my body, I appeared in a place filled with other souls. Shadows surrounded me, taller and skinnier than humans, gliding a foot or two above the ground. They grabbed me and told me that my job in death would be the same in life – to entertain. I fell to my knees, which stuck to the ground. A shadow pushed me forward. My forearms hit the ground, and they, too, stuck to the ground. One of the shadows said, “Now that’s the position you’ll remain in for eternity.” Other shadows formed two lines, one in front of me and the other behind me.
“Ray, I, um, I mean, we need your help. Please save us from this hell. You’re the only one who can help us. You’re spending too much attention on the wrong things.”
I asked, “What can I do differently?” before realizing I had broken Candle Face’s rule of not asking questions. I felt my heart sink, but she answered.
“Read and reread our testimonies. There are more clues in the testimonies. You must find them. You were chosen for a reason. All you have to do is…” she said in a hurry, but a huge shadow figure appeared out of the portal. It had elongated limbs, and its eyes glowed a sickly red. The figure grabbed her by the neck with clawed hands, lifting her off the ground. She struggled, her form flickering and distorting.
The shadow looked at me and said in a voice that was both a whisper and a roar, “You were warned.” Its breath was hot and foul, burning my skin and lungs. It then yanked her back through the portal with a force that made the air ripple and crack. As she was pulled through, her screams were sharp and piercing, echoing around me and mingling with the cries of other tormented souls. I was left alone, my mind racing with the cryptic message she left behind.
Personal Note to My Readers
The testimonies of the spirits who visit me, filled with hidden messages, swirled in my thoughts. As suspected, the lost souls are providing names now. This is the second lost soul who mentioned a name, but this time, the lost soul mentioned her own street name, “Crystal.” I realized deciphering these hidden messages might be the key to their salvation. I need to review all the previous testimonies more thoroughly, searching for any clues that Candle Face’s victims had left behind. This puzzle could be my path to freeing the tormented lost souls, including my own.
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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