Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
September 20, 2024
Things have been hectic lately. Yesterday, Mr. Smoe called me a liar. He wants to appear on a podcast with me again to expose what he claims are lies and reveal Candle Face’s “real” identity. It’s hard not to let his words get under my skin. After everything I’ve been through—after all the lost souls who have come to me—he thinks it’s all some elaborate lie?
What exactly does Mr. Smoe think he knows? What’s he planning to say on the podcast? And worse yet—what if people believe him? He’s convinced he has the truth about Candle Face, claiming he’ll reveal her “real” identity. But here’s the thing: I’ve decided it’s better to let him say his piece without my interference. I won’t refute or challenge his claims right now. For now, I’ll hold back what I know.
Hopefully, we can do this podcast soon. The longer these accusations hang in the air, the more they fester. And I can’t afford to let them distract me from my work—not when so much is at stake.
Sitting on my couch and makeshift bed, I pondered what Mr. Smoe said. As the hours dragged on, the lights began to flicker, and the shadows in the corner of my living room thickened—signs that a lost soul had arrived. Out of the shadows stepped a woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a wide smile framed by dark red lipstick. She sat beside me on the couch, bouncing a little as if trying to get comfortable. Her eyes scanned me, still smiling.
“I’m a fellow veteran,” she said. “So, I hope you’ll give me special attention and help me find my killers.”
“How can I help you?” I asked, without thinking at the time she just told me.
Her smile faltered, her voice softening. “I guess I should start with my name. It’s Katty.”
At least, I thought she said “Katty,” but something about the way she mumbled it, or maybe it was just the flickering lights distracting me made me unsure. Later, I could’ve sworn I heard her refer to herself as Matty. Was it Katty or Matty? I couldn’t tell.
She continued, oblivious to my confusion. “I had a good life once. You know, I was happy. I served my country. But it all went downhill when I started hanging with some Soldiers in my unit at Fort Hood.”
“They were using drugs,” she went on, “and I wasn’t planning to get back into that scene after fighting so hard to stay clean. But you know how it goes—old habits die hard.” She paused, her eyes dropping as she seemed to relive the struggle. “They had these civilian friends off base, and that’s where I started getting cheaper stuff. We’d all hang out there, staying up all night, high as a kite, talking about everything. Politics, life, the future. When you’re high, you think you’re solving all the world’s problems. It was all so stupid. But when you’re in that state, you believe you’re invincible. Like nothing can touch you.”
Her eyes shifted up to meet mine again. “That’s when Candle Face came up.”
I leaned in slightly, curious about where this was going. She caught my movement and continued. “They were always talking about her—this spirit who would come for people who doubted her. I didn’t believe it, though. I mean, how could I? I thought it was just some dumb story to scare each other, you know? But I played along. You kinda have to when you’re in with a group like that. You don’t want to be the odd one out.”
She stopped for a moment. “And I needed them,” she said softly. “I needed the drugs.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
“I screwed up,” she said. “One night, we were sitting around, high as usual, talking about Candle Face like always. But this time, I wasn’t really paying attention, and I let it slip—I said, ‘I don’t really believe in this Candle Face stuff. It’s all stupid, isn’t it?’” She paused, as if reliving that moment. “That’s when everything changed. They all went quiet. I’ll never forget the look in their eyes. It wasn’t just shock; it was like they were angry—like I had broken some sacred rule. But they didn’t say anything right then. They just stared.”
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t think much of it at first,” she said, her voice trembling. “I thought maybe they were just messing with me. But after that night, things started to feel off. They weren’t laughing anymore, not around me. And they weren’t as friendly. Like they were keeping their distance.”
Her eyes filled with fear as she continued. “Every time we got together after that, they wouldn’t joke around with me like before. No more late-night conversations, no more small talk. I’d catch them glancing at each other when I’d speak, like I didn’t belong anymore. Like I was an outsider.”
She swallowed hard. “Then, one night, they invited me to hang out again. But this time, it wasn’t at the usual spot. They came to my house near Killeen.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I should’ve known something was wrong.”
She wiped her palms against her jeans. “When they showed up, the vibe was different. They weren’t there to get high or talk about life. They had this look like they were there on a mission.”
She hesitated, her voice breaking. “They told me it was Candle Face’s will—that she demanded punishment for what I’d said. For lying. For pretending to believe when I didn’t.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “They held me down,” she said as she began to cry. “They said they weren’t doing it, that Candle Face was making them, that she was controlling their hands. But I know they believed it. They thought they had to do it. And they killed me, right there, in my own house.”
She shook her head slowly, tears falling down her cheeks. “Because I didn’t believe.”
The room fell into silence. I could feel her pain, the betrayal, and the fear that had consumed her in those final moments. And then, as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer, she said, “I don’t know if Candle Face is real, but they believed. And that’s all that mattered.”
I nodded slowly. “I’ll help you,” I didn’t know how, but I would find a way. I owed her that much. Deep down, I knew this would be far from simple. I haven’t helped many lost souls in the nearly year I have been forced into this role. But I must try.
She stood up and walked to the portal, turning to give me another glance. “Bye Ray, please help me and as many of us as possible.” She stood at attention and gave me a sharp salute.
My chest tightened as I stood up and returned the salute. She stepped back into the portal and disappeared.
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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