Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Statement of Lena Carter, regarding an encounter in her local library. Original statement given March 6, 2019. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims; the Archivist. 

Statement begins. 

So, I have this really awful habit of procrastinating and leaving all my work to the last minute. It’s been that way since I was a kid, and three weeks ago really wasn’t any different. I had this research project for school, had two months to do it in and left it all till the last two weeks. The usual story. To top that all off, the power in my apartment building went out, something to do with repairs happening outside— so I couldn’t use my home computer, and that meant I had to go to the library. Ashguard Garrison Memorial Library, to be exact. Only one in town close enough that I didn’t have to take a bus, which obviously made it my favourite. 

There weren’t many other people there that day. A few other students, the librarians— two on duty, one at the desk— and, of course, there was him. 

Honestly, the first thing I noticed was the cat. Big ginger thing, perched up on his shoulder. No idea why nobody else seemed to care about it, but given what I know about him now it might be a good thing that nobody pointed it out. 

He was a scruffy-looking guy, red hair, clothes looked like they could do with some fixing up. He was wearing gloves, too, heavy winter ones, even though it was getting on to be summer. It was weird, but I didn’t think about it too hard. I was busy, didn’t have time to think about him at all.  He was just sitting at the corner table with stacks of books around him, making notes in a little journal. The only other odd thing I noticed, at least at first— whenever I looked at him, I could smell smoke. It was so strong, I thought the building had caught on fire without my realizing it. It hadn’t, of course. I’m not that bad at keeping track of things. Still, even at the time I thought it was a little strange. 

For the first half-hour or so, everything was mostly normal. I grabbed a few books that looked useful, settled myself down in the best seat I could find and got to work. Only I couldn’t, really, because the book that I really wanted was nowhere to be found. I checked on the computer, and it wasn’t out, but it wasn’t on the shelves. Can’t even remember what it was now, if I’m being honest. Something about the mythology of reincarnation? Hardly seems important. 

The point is, eventually, I managed to spot the book I was looking for. It was in one of the stacks the guy with the cat had piled up around himself in his tiny little book-fortress, and— well, he wasn’t using it, so I thought I’d just go up there and ask. It seemed like a completely logical thing to do at the time, even though there was a part of me that was screaming to just go home with the books I had.   

The closer I got to his table, the louder that part got, until I was about ready to give up and leave,  but I really, really wanted that book. So I went up to him, tapped the desk to let him know I was there, and then— 

Then he looked up at me. 

The second I made eye contact with him, I felt like I was burning. It hurt more than I can even find the words to describe— like there was fire under my skin, eating through me, that smell of smoke even stronger than before. There were ashes in my mouth, flames searing me from the inside out. I fell to the floor, barely managing to avoid knocking over the books, curled up on the ground, and I knew I was going to die right then because it hurt so much— 

He just stared at me. The whole time, he just stared at me like it meant nothing to him, whatever he’d done to me. 

And then the pain stopped, like it had never happened. I could still taste the smoke and ashes, but I could think of things that weren’t oh god, I’m dying, this stupid project is actually going to kill me.  

I did the only thing I could do, really. Stood up, took the book I was after off the table, said “Thanks,” without looking him in the eye again and walked away. I don’t know how I was that calm. Shock, probably. Went home, pulled an all-nighter and finished my project, slept for about sixteen hours I was almost ready to chalk it up to some stress-induced fever dream, but then I started coughing. I wasn’t sick in any way I could tell, I just couldn’t stop coughing, and every time I did my mouth would taste like smoke and ash again.

I put off giving the books back. Couldn’t face the thought of running into him again. And, in the end, I never got the chance. I’d almost convinced myself to just get it over with when I saw the news headline: Ashguard Garrison Memorial Library Reduced to Ashes. Can you believe it? Almost a month of gearing up to go back there and then it just burns down. 

Officially, the story was that a faulty wiring system caused an accidental fire. An accident, simple, clean. Tragic for the people involved, but with far less paperwork than something more intentional.  I knew, though. I know.

 When I close my eyes, I can almost see him, with fire spilling from his fingers and ashes in his wake— embers blooming up around his feet, and his eyes aglow with hungry light. I know he had a reason to do what he did. 

I just hope I never find out what it was. 

Statement ends. 

 Archivist’s note: 

This is not the first time that this particular avatar of the Desolation has appeared in our records, but it is the first that I’ve been able to confirm with such a degree of accuracy. The Ashguard Garrison Memorial Library did indeed burn down, though records state that an unusually large number of books were issued the day before, which saved a significant portion of the collection from destruction. 

One other note: An investigation into the owners of the library in question did reveal another piece of information. The largest contributors to the Ashguard Garrison Memorial Library were several members of the Cerberus Assembly who are known to be servants of various fears— in particular, the influence of Trent Ikithon, a servant and possible avatar of the Web. Something to look into? 

End recording. 

Chapter Text

Statement of Yeza Brenatto, regarding his wife, Veth Brenatto. Statement taken direct from subject, April 24, 2019. 

Statement begins. 

Where do you want me to start from, again? 

[...]

Okay. 

Veth and I knew each other for our whole lives, pretty much. Grew up in the same little town, went to the same school— we  had half our classes together, but we didn’t say more than three words to each other until we were seventeen. We got paired up for a project together, found out we got along really well, started actually talking— and, well, fast forward a few years, we got married and had Luc. It was— we were really happy, y’know? Everything was great. 

And then. Well, there was this river near our house. The three of us liked to sit out there when the weather was nice. We’d bring a blanket and some food spend a few hours out there. It was really pretty, but we were always careful to stay away from the river itself.  Strong current, lots of rocks, that kind of thing. 

When it happened… It had been raining a lot, and Luc was sick of being stuck indoors, so we went down to the river. Thought we’d just get a bit of fresh air, have a nice day out. You can probably tell how well that went, huh? 

I don’t know what happened exactly. One moment Luc was on the riverbank and the next he was in the water. I guess the ground was soft from all the rain, and it just gave way under him. Veth jumped in after him.  

She saved him, dragged him back to the bank. And after that, there was this moment when I thought, “It’s okay, everything’s going to be alright.” Just a few seconds where everything was calm and quiet and it seemed like nothing was going to go wrong, y’know? She was standing in the shallows and Luc was safe, and everything was okay. 

And then her foot slipped, and she just disappeared. 

I know— I know she’s gone. I’m not… I saw the body. She’s dead. She’s gone. But the thing is that she’s not. 

I know all about the ways grief can mess with your head, okay? When I started seeing her in crowds and on the train, obviously I didn’t think it was really her. I’d see her when I was picking Luc up from school, or when I was on my way to work, and it’d be awful, but I was sure it was just my imagination. 

But.. about four months ago, I started getting letters. From Veth. I thought someone was trying to upset me, at first, because of course they weren’t real. I didn’t tell Luc about them, because it would just make things worse. It wasn’t hard to write them off at first, even though something made me keep reading them instead of throwing them away.

I got one every two weeks, or around that time. The first few— like I said, I didn’t believe anything about it. I keep reading just to see what whoever was sending them came up with, I guess. But then one came that mentioned something… it was just a private joke between the two of us, a joke about one of the neighbors. Mr Hallendale’s werewolf cult. Just… just a silly joke. But nobody else knew about it, nobody, there was no way anyone could have—  

Even then, I didn’t believe it. But after that they started to arrive like clockwork, full of more things that nobody knew about. There were packages with them too, sometimes. Money, toys for Luc, little things she’d liked to collect. Buttons, baubles, novelty stationery with feathers on it. Just things she thought were nice to have. They’re all in her handwriting, too, and I know it could be fake, but… I’m not so sure anymore. 

They talk a lot about what she’s been doing, things she’s seen. People she’s met. She mentions someone called Caleb a few times, and…  Well, that’s the strangest thing. She talks about water in every single one. Drowning. Everything else feels like the way she talked, but this. This doesn’t feel right at all. Here, this one, I’ll show you— 

[sound of paper shuffling] 

I see her more often, these days. It’s usually in a couple of specific places; near Luc’s school, usually, or my office. Sometimes in the park near the house, and at the train station in the evening. I haven’t been back to the river, but I get the feeling she goes there pretty often. Like it says in the letter, she asked me to meet her there. That was the first time she asked, and she hasn’t stopped. All of them after that end with the same question. It… ha. It’s honestly just like her. Never stopped asking ‘til you gave her an answer. 

Honestly, if it hadn’t been for Luc, I’d probably go. But I couldn’t face the thought of leaving him alone. Though, next time I get a letter from her… I might write back. Just to see what happens. 

Statement ends. 

Archivist’s note: the statement-giver brought several letters with him, and highlighted one passage as being of particular significance. 

“Do you know what it feels like, drowning? Everyone says it’s peaceful, but it’s not. It hurts worse than anything, and it’s so slow. The peace comes afterwards. Everything is so quiet. All you can hear, see— it’s just the water all around you. Have you been back to the river yet? You should come. I’ll meet you there.  

I miss you. Even if you don’t come, I’ll write again soon.” 

Until Mr Brenatto mentioned the name Caleb, I was almost ready to write this off as the grief-stricken mind of a man unwilling to let go of his loss. However, the connection to statements #0172806, #0180904, and #0192011 lends it a degree of credibility.   

Following that link, I found another statement, #0182910, regarding Veth Brenatto, one I hadn’t processed before; one of the cleaners employed by the morgue where her body was identified reports that she “Got up and walked away,” and that when he tried to stop her, she apparently “Felt like drowning— everything from her eyes to her skin was rivers and floods, just like a current pulling you under.” 

Several months after that is another, #0180412. I have it here somewhere— ah, yes. “Statement of Joshua Burrows, regarding the death of his brother, Adam Burrows.” I won’t read it all out in the end notes, but suffice to say that it’s… disturbing. According to this, Adam was pulled underwater at a public swimming pool by a “Massive hand that formed out of the water and held him down until he stopped moving.”  The living Mr Burrows reports seeing a woman matching Miss Brenatto’s description talking to his brother around fifteen minutes before his death, and that Adam came away “Shaken and confused, and completely unable to remember what she’d said to him.” Again, Adam says that “When she touched his arm, he felt like he was going to drown,” but that Joshua pushed him into swimming anyway, hoping it would “Clear his head.” An unfortunate and highly preventable death, to say the least. 

I feel it’s safe to say that whoever Veth Brenatto was before, the Buried has her now— though what business an avatar of that entity has with one of the Desolation, I can’t say.

For Mr Brenatto’s sake, I sincerely hope he has not written her any letters. 

End recording. 

Chapter Text

Statement of Noah O’Connor, regarding a visitor to his flower shop. Original statement given May 18, 2019. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims; the Archivist. 

Statement begins. 

 It was always raining when she came in, or the rain happened because she was coming. I never exactly figured that part out. 

I own a flower shop, see, or I did before all of this happened. She was one of my best customers. Came in once a week, every week, no matter what else was going on. She always bought the same things; forget-me-nots— always those— and then sunflowers, hyacinths. Sad flowers, flowers for memory and loyalty and regret. Never said a word, either. Just came in, paid, and left again. 

It became almost a game I played, trying to find the right words to describe her. Trying to work out what her deal was. Judging by looks alone, I had absolutely no idea what to make of her. She was about six feet tall, for one, looked like she could throw me through a wall, with this crazy black-and-white dye job that I was secretly just a little jealous of. I think she walked around in coloured contacts or something, too— there was no way they were that colour naturally. I never saw her wear a thing that wasn’t black, except this awful gaudy charm bracelet she always had on that didn’t fit the rest of her at all. 

(Once, she came in with another person— he matched the bracelet in terms of taste, so I guess he must have given it to her? Whoever he was… that was the only time I saw her with anyone else. She was always alone.) 

There was just something about her, something about the way she carried herself; all sad and quiet and strange. It was exactly the kind of mystery that I liked, and I wanted to solve it. I wanted to solve her. Wish I’d just left it as a mystery. God, I wish I’d left her alone. I just…  couldn’t stop myself from opening my stupid mouth. 

It was about the fifth or sixth time she’d come in. I’d been working up the nerve to talk to her for the past few weeks, just to learn a little more about her. I was just curious, really, nothing malicious or weird about it at all. So, when she got up to the counter with her forget-me-nots, I smiled at her, and I asked who the flowers were for. That’s all. 

She… I don’t want to say that she snarled at me, but that’s exactly what it looked like. For a moment, her face was twisted up with so much hate I could barely recognise her. More than that— and I know it sounds like I’m making this up, but her eyes went black, and so did all the veins on her face. It was like this awful inky map across her skin, charting out every path she could take to tear me apart. I should have been afraid. I know I should have been scared of her. Anyone with any sense would have been. 

I wasn’t. I was just hollow. She’d scraped me out from the inside and left nothing but an endless empty catacomb that I’d never get out of. I could feel that fear I was meant to have echoing around there somewhere , but I couldn’t find it. You know those itches you get sometimes, where every time you scratch them they move around, always just out of your reach? Every time I was almost afraid, it’d move away.

And then she left. Just dropped her money on the counter, turned around, and left. 

The whole encounter really shook me up , so I decided to pack up the shop early and just go home. It seemed like the reasonable thing to do, like that was my decision that I made, but, given what happened after… I can’t help but wonder. 

It was while I was walking home that I ran into Micah Galloway. He was a friend of mine. We’d gone through school together, coping mostly because we had someone to complain to. We’d known each other for years. And I promise you we were close, okay? I’d never actually— 

The second I saw Micah, I— 

I don’t know how to describe it, really. I wasn’t in control anymore. I was in the back of my own mind, screaming at myself, but I was also standing in front of him. He said hello, and I opened my mouth to greet him back, but what I said was something completely different. I don’t even know what it was, but it must have been awful, because his face fell and he started crying. He looked so hurt, standing there, and I couldn’t do anything to fix whatever I’d done. 

Of course, I got control of myself back once he ran away. He was already halfway down the street by the time I was present enough to move, and he wouldn’t pick up the phone when I called him later. If that had been the end of it, maybe things would’ve been fine. I’d have lost my closest friend, but I’d still have everything else. 

Well. Obviously, that wasn’t the end. If it was, I wouldn’t be here, would I? 

It was a phone call from my sister next, and then a delivery man coming in to drop off the things I needed for some new arrangements. Every time, the same thing. Trapped in my head, vitriol and venom spilling out of my mouth. Strangers walking past me, little old ladies out with their dogs— 

I can’t stop.  

It’s been weeks, and this is the closest I’ve gotten to talking to another person. I can’t do it. . You understand. I’m… basically, I’m all alone now, and I’m going to be for about as long as I live unless this suddenly fixes itself. I can’t be around anyone for even a few seconds without it starting up. My friends all hate me, my family think I’ve gone off the deep end— Hell, I had to write a note beforehand to give to your receptionist, explaining what was going on. Even then, she looked at me like I was telling her she was as ugly as something my dog threw up.  

...I probably did tell her that at some point, now that I think about it. I’d apologise, but I know that’d only make it worse.

Haven’t seen the flower woman again, either, and I don’t think I will. Whatever she did to me stuck, so there’s no need for her to come back and add to it. But if anyone else asks about her, would you mind warning them?

Tell them there are some mysteries that are better left alone. 

Statement ends. 

Archivist’s notes: 

The receptionist on duty at the time of Mr O’Connor’s visit did, when pressed, say that he’d called her a number of unpleasant things while scribbling profuse apologies on a napkin. 

More importantly: 

It took me a while to remember why the description of Mr O’Connor’s ‘flower woman,’ sounded so familiar, but I got it in the end. There are four other recorded cases of the Orphanmaker in the Archive, though the behavior and powers exhibited in this statement are markedly different to anything previously noted. In fact, I had believed her to be an agent of the Slaughter. The other cases are gruesome, gory, and very much in that Power’s domain.

However… this statement and the powers that she exhibits would indicate the influence of the Spider. It positively reeks of mind control, entrapment, the stripping away of free will, all things that the Web enjoys. 

Apparently, Mr O’Connor has become something of a recluse; he lives in a highly isolated area,  does consulting work exclusively via email, and has his groceries delivered. He appears to be making the best of an unpleasant situation. 

Whoever his ‘flower woman,’ really is, I can’t help but wonder if she’s doing the same. 

End recording. 

Chapter Text

“Hello?” 

“Hi.”  

“Sorry, this area’s off-limits to the public. If you take the stairs to your left you can— oh. You’re looking for someone? “

“You could say that, yeah.” 

“Is it Melanie you’re after? I think she’s out on lunch break at the moment—”

There is a sound like the whirring of insect wings, blurred into static and swarming around the room, followed by: 

“Archivist. Come on. You’re smarter than that.” 

“You—  Ah. I see.”

“Yeah. Get it now?”

“I feel I should tell you that the members of this archive do not take kindly to agents of the Corruption being in the building. If you really need something, make it quick, before someone goes for the fire extinguisher again.” 

“I don’t… no. You won’t need those. I’m not here to hurt anyone.” 

"Well, that would fit with your family’s philosophies, I suppose. What is it that you want?” 

“My brother. About seven foot, really thin, pink hair, stares off into space a lot. Seen him?” 

“He’s not hiding in the filing cabinet, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Ha. No, I know that. But this is a place for Knowing, and if anyone can find him it’d be you, right? Would a statement help? I promise another weird nightmare isn’t going to bother me a whole lot. Bigger things to worry about.”

“That… would help, yes. Statement of…”

“Camellia Clay.”

“Regarding…” 

“My little brother, like I said. Wherever he is.”

“Statement recorded direct from subject, September 9, 2019. Statement begins.” 

“Caduceus was always a little odd, and in our family that really means something. I mean— we live in a cemetery. There are mushrooms growing everywhere, bugs infesting every wall in the house, all kinds of lichens and mosses where anyone else would have curtains.  It’s just how we do things. Close to the things that we grew from, and close to what we’ll become when we die. 

Cad just never felt the way everyone else did. He liked the moss and the beetles well enough, sure, but he never had the same belief as the rest of us. And he was always so good at reading everyone else. I’m sure he figured out how different he was before anyone else did, really. 

I’d say I first noticed it when he was about six or seven. I was about fifteen? He refused to come inside for dinner one night, so our parents sent me out to get him. He told me… what was it again? Oh, yeah. “The house is too loud. It’s all the bugs, and the plants smell bad. The graveyard is just nicer.” So we all had a picnic out by the Margrave family tombstones. There were fireflies everywhere, some gorgeous table fungi on the trees. It was lovely, really.

If that had been the only time, I think he’d have been fine. Maybe if we’d taken it more seriously, figured out why he had such a problem with it? It just didn’t seem like a huge issue when he was little. He was fine with most things, just… again, a little odd. He wouldn’t eat something if it had a bit of mold on it. Refused to go into the basement, no matter how much we tried to persuade him that it was fine, because it ‘smelled like rotten food.’  Once, when he was about nine, Colton gave him a worm as a present and he actually cried. There were parts of it that he liked, though. The ones that were more to do with dying. The idea of returning to the ground, giving what you had back to the earth? He could talk about that for hours as long as we were outside. 

As he got older, though, the disconnection just became more and more obvious. He started making his own food and eating it in the cemetery, saying that he couldn’t handle being in the house anymore. Spent more and more time outside, talked to us less and less. He was completely indifferent to the song of decay that the Clays have always lived by. We still loved him, obviously— well. I can’t speak for our parents, but he was still my brother, even though he had absolutely no appreciation for anything I found beautiful. But there’s only so much you can do when a person’s not interested in something important. 

So, as we all grew up, he got left out a lot more. I wish that hadn’t been the case, but there’s some business you just can’t undertake with anyone who doesn’t believe properly. 

Well, you know about the ritual we tried, right? Yeah. You were there. You stopped it. Not a huge loss, we’ll just try again someday. The important part is that we had to leave Cad behind when we went to do it. Someone needed to keep the cemetery while we were gone, and it wasn’t like he wanted to come. He was twenty-three? Somewhere around then. So I must have been… twenty-nine. Thirty. A few years ago now.  

We were gone a lot longer than we’d planned on. Preparing, gathering the things we needed, finding the right place. It took months. I was disappointed that Cad wasn’t there, but he probably wouldn’t have joined in anyway. You already Know what we were doing, so I’ll skip over that bit, yeah? 

When we finally got home, it was so quiet. Normally, coming up to the house, you can see all these lights on— lanterns strung up in the windows, bioluminescent plants all over the place. There was none of that. It was still and quiet, and absolutely nothing was moving. There were eight of us, that day, not counting Cad— our parents, aunt Corrin, all my other siblings— and… well, the house just felt wrong. We could tell something had happened. If everything had been fine, Cad would have been there at the door, waiting for us. 

The whole family split up, went to look around the garden and the house. Clarabelle and I ended up near his little garden by the back of the cemetery. He’d been growing food before we left, carrots and potatoes, that kind of thing. It was pretty hard to see, but I could feel the worms complaining that everything had been dug up and taken away.  

By then we were all kind of panicking a little— who wouldn’t be? My little brother was missing, and we didn’t even know how long he’d been gone. We’d been too busy with ourselves to even think about him. I decided I’d go back inside and make some tea— I needed to calm down, breathe , or I wouldn’t be able to help anyone.

 When I did, though. Oh, when I did. Everything inside was dead . The floor was covered with the scattered corpses of insects, with withered fungi and dried-out flowers. I felt wing-cases crunching underneath my feet, and the air was so still. It was like the very house itself had died.  

He wasn’t there, obviously. But more than that… I could feel it all around me, crawling into my lungs and winding up my skin. The End. Waiting, lurking around the corners of every room. It had seeped into the walls and choked the life out of the world.  

He left a note, y’know. So I know he isn’t gone, not really. Said he knew we’d be upset about what happened. That he couldn’t stay anymore, that he had to leave to find out more about… something. There was some really nice black mold growing on the paper that cut off whatever it was that he was looking for. 

He can take care of himself. I know that. Still… I worry. Can’t help it.  I— we sort of figured out what happened. He was alone with the dead so long… it must have given that power a chance to slip in through the cracks and take hold of him. He belongs to it now, far as we can tell.  

I’m not angry. I just want him to come home. 

I’m… sorry. I don’t think I’ve heard anything about him. 

"That’s fine. If you do, let him know we’re looking out for him, yeah? "

"I’ll do that. Statement ends. ” 

The stranger is already in the doorway by this point, one hand on the frame, when she turns around to look at Jon again. With a smile that fails to reach the rest of her face and a twitch of the hand that doesn’t quite look right, she winks at the Archivist and vanishes up the stairs. There is the sound of insects again, then, all around him, crawling, creeping, a hundred tiny wings choking the air. In the time it takes Jon to blink, there are beetles crawling up the faded, peeling wallpaper, swarms of ants ants dragging themselves through the cracks in the floorboard. 

And, in another second, all of them are gone. Save one. One fat, shiny-winged green scarab beetle that clings to the wall near the bookshelf, beginning a lazy crawl toward him, moving in the same unhurried, uncaring manner as the woman who called it into being. 

Instinctively, Jon reaches for the fire extinguisher on his desk, aims it at the thing and— empty. The beetle advances further, waving its antenna at him. With a degree panic that in retrospect seems completely unreasonable to the circumstance, Jon swings the fire extinguisher at the beetle, slamming it into the wall. A heavy thud, and the whirring of the beetle’s wings falls silent. 

Jon stares at the hand-sized hole he’s left in the wall, at the crushed remains of the insect inside it. 

“...hope our insurance covers that,” he mumbles to himself, and goes to lock the door again. 

Archivist’s note: 

It appears that the Archive’s insurance policy, though willing to cover worm infestations, fires, and strange old men living under the building, does not deal with… impromptu demolitions. Not that Lukas will care, really— he hasn’t been down here in a long time, and I did manage to find a poster to cover the damage with. I… think it may have been one that Martin left behind after he stopped sleeping in the Archive. A live poetry reading in a bar somewhere, before all of this really started. 

To address more important matters: I… may not have been entirely honest during my conversation with Miss Clay. While I have no doubts that she herself has no intentions of harming her brother, there— well. Quite apart from the fact that every so often I could have sworn I saw something moving under the skin of her hand… there was something about the way she looked when she spoke about her brother that unsettled me. The Clay family is very large, after all. One member promising not to lay a hand on someone does not guarantee their safety by any means. 

Still, it’s nice to finally have a real name for the Gravekeeper. He is an interesting individual with a fairly significant set of abilities, who turns up in a number of different statements. Referring to statements #0130406, of one Mx. Walker— “He was tapping a little beat on the ground with his fingers, and it… it almost became words, as he was doing it. And I suddenly knew that I was small, and insignificant. I saw the mountains all around me, the earth under my feet. They’d been there since before I was alive, and they’d be there long after I was gone again. I’d be dead in the blink of an eye, and the world would forget my name.”

 And #0152409, of a Mr Fellinger: “I could see tombstones, the East Gate Cemetery. Rows upon rows of names, the dead numbering thousands. And as I walked through, I could see one of them in the distance. It had my name on it.” The latter statement then goes on to detail the fact that every single number he saw in that cemetery was accurate down to the precise day of death. The validity of this statement is perhaps confirmed by the fact that Elijah Fellinger died on the fifth of March, 2016, exactly the day he predicted. In a train accident, of all things. 

I won’t look for this Mr Clay. Meddling with the End is not something I particularly care to do at the best of times, and especially not when it would likely earn me the ire of the Corruption as well. 

However, if he should happen to come calling… I will tell him that his family is looking for him. I believe it would be a kindness. 

End recording. 

Chapter Text

Statement of Sabian Laurent, regarding a fellow crew member on the Tide’s Breath. Original statement given June 7, 2018. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. 

Statement begins.  

When I first met Fjord, he was the kind of kid who practically walked around with a sign on his back saying ‘pick on me! I’m an easy target!’ You know the type— tiny, crooked teeth, massive port wine stain covering half his face. Allergic to everything under the sun, cried if you looked at him wrong, never willing to stick up for himself. I kind of felt sorry for him, but, well. The way it worked back then, you had to hurt people before they hurt you, or you’d make yourself a target. 

He had it worse than anyone else, though. I don’t want to go too far into it, but… when the only thing you can control is how you can hurt the people around you, it’s easy to do some really terrible things. As we all grew up it only got worse. Less name calling, more… it got pretty violent, especially for the last year or so that we were all stuck living together. I won’t deny my part in that—  I did some things I’m not proud of, but it’s not like I’m going to get a chance to apologise for them. 

So when I was about seventeen I decided I’d had enough of the Asylum. Signed onto the Tide’s Breath as a deckhand, barely even checked long enough to make sure I was boarding the right ship. I guess my thought process was ‘nowhere could possibly be worse than here, right?’ I didn’t understand exactly how weird it was until I spent a month on a different ship while Captain Vandran was busy with… something. Voyages on the Tide’s Breath felt longer than they should. The ocean went on forever, and sometimes you couldn’t remember what it felt like to not be on the ship. Like you’d dreamed the land, and the water was all there’d ever be again. 

Still, the pay was better than any other job I could get, so I stayed on. That went on for about a year before we docked in Valencia again. We were on our way up the coast, and— well, something had happened to one of the other deckhands. Nobody would tell me what , exactly, just that Carver wasn’t with the crew anymore and we had to hire someone else. It wasn’t my job, so I mostly spent that week getting drunk and not thinking about how massive the ocean was. 

You can probably guess what happened next. Got back to the ship, and Hal, the first mate under Vandran, tells me to go introduce myself to the new hire. I walked into the crew cabin expecting some other starving kid wanting the same thing I did— to get away from Valencia and not have to fight for every meal— and instead, well, there he was. 

Didn’t recognise him at first, honestly. When I left, he was still that same half-starved kid getting picked on all the time, and the guy hanging up his stuff near my berth… he was tall, not exactly strong-looking, but he looked like he could hold his own on the ship. And then he turned around, and the second I saw his face I knew exactly who he was. We stared at each other, didn’t break eye contact— neither of us wanted to be the first to move. Then he shook his head, grabbed his stuff, and moved to a berth on the other side of the cabin. Didn’t say a word to me, which was understandable— honestly, I’d have expected him to walk out and quit his job as soon as he saw me. It’s what the Fjord I’d grown up with would have done, but, well… it wasn’t really him anymore, was it? 

It was after we’d set sail again that things started to get weirder. Fjord and I avoided each other unless we absolutely had to, and the other crew members picked up on that pretty quickly, because we were only scheduled for about three shifts together in the entire time that we worked on the ship. I didn’t have much time to think about that, though. The work was hard, there was a lot of it, and… there were the strangers. 

I knew everyone on the Tide’s Breath by then. I’d worked there for a year, and the crew had barely changed apart from Carver leaving and Fjord signing on. But every so often someone would walk past me and I wouldn’t recognise them at all. I’d hear a Russian accent, or a German one, or one that was almost Captain Vandran’s, but not quite right. And the thing was this. All of them had the same birthmark on their faces that Fjord did. Man, woman, neither; tall, short, covered in scars or bleeding from their nose; that mark was always there. 

Nobody believed me, obviously. I brought it up a couple of times, but always got the same response: “The new guy’s the only stranger on the ship. If you really hate him that much, we’re docking again soon— you can leave then.” Either that, or they thought I was finally losing it. Too long on the sea will do that sometimes. Honestly, I almost believed that. The world around the Tide’s Breath was so empty. I felt it all the time, but it was always the worst after I talked to Vandran; he had this way of talking that made you feel so small, and it just carried over into the rest of your life. 

But I knew what I was seeing. I knew something was wrong, and anyone I asked wouldn’t look me in the eye when they told me I was imagining it. 

So, the next time I saw one of the strangers, I followed him. I was alone on night watch, that evening, and I saw this short blonde guy with a beard that almost hid the birthmark walking across the deck. When he opened the door to head down to the lower decks and cabins, I managed to slip in after him. 

He made his way down three levels, right down to one of the supply rooms. By then, my thoughts were he’s going to sabotage the water or steal something important. If that happened and Vandran found out I’d known and didn’t do anything… well, I liked my job. Most of the time. So I followed him. 

By the time I actually got into the room, I couldn’t see the guy anywhere.  The corners of my vision kept flickering like there was someone moving, but when I turned around there was nobody there. It was dark, and I hadn’t brought a flashlight, but I could see light reflecting in the water that was all over the floor. It was all I could hear too, over and over; drip, drip, and sometimes a footstep splashing and I’d turn around, but again, there was nobody there. 

I thought I’d imagined the last half-hour, that the stranger had never even been on the ship. It was the only explanation— there was nowhere he could have gone. It was all in my mind. That was all there was to it, and I needed to leave the Tide’s Breath and spend some time on land. 

There was another splash, louder this time, closer. I turned around and there he was— the guy I’d been following. Just… wrong. His nose was longer, he was taller— and then, as I watched, he changed. My eyes couldn’t track his face, just slid right off it, like I couldn’t focus no matter how hard I tried. 

Then they snapped back to normal, and it was Fjord standing in front of me. Just for a second, and then the same thing happened. His face flicked through all the strangers I’d seen on deck, in between people I knew— Vandran, Hal, people from the Asylum. He just stood there, smiling at me, as he ran through this library of people, and then he… he settled on a face, I guess. Mine. I was staring at myself, staring back at me, and I didn’t know if anyone I’d spoken to on the ship in the past month had ever been real. Maybe I’d never been real. Maybe he’d invented me, like it was some kind of game he was playing. 

I stood there, and he walked away without another word.

I quit my job, of course. It was only another week on the Tide’s Breath before we stopped in port again, but every moment I spent on that ship was a moment I spent doubting my own mind. Was it really Eliss I was talking to? Was that Colton I could see, or him, wearing Colton’s face? Was he wearing me at this moment, talking to Vandran in my voice? 

I could keep wondering like that, but compared to some of the stuff I'm sure you hear... it can't be too interesting, can it? Just one guy losing himself in his head and his mistakes, letting the past catch up to him. Forgetting how to be for a little while. Wondering. Was I really the one who gave this statement? Or was it just him, telling you what he wants you to hear? I guess... that's something for you to figure out. After all, that's your job, not mine. 

Statement ends. 

Archivist’s notes: 

While the being known alternately as Helen and the Distortion mostly deals with the warping of physical reality, Fjord— the Undertow— whatever the name he uses now is— appears to delight in the aspect of the Spiral that favours control and deception of the mind. Crafting new identities for himself and seeing how long it takes for something to falter, that sort of thing. I’m unsure if the level of focused manipulation he exhibited toward Mr Laurent is his usual modus operandi, or if he simply paid special attention to the man who’d made his childhood so miserable. 

The connection to ‘Vandran,’ a known servant of the Vast, is also interesting, though not something I’ve been able to follow up on: Vandran has refused or evaded all attempts at contact. Though I would very much like to follow up on this statement, I've discovered very little information that was not already provided by Mr Laurent. The only thing I’ve been able to uncover is that around a year ago, the name ‘Fjord’ disappears from any records of shipping crews, and that he has not been seen in any coastal towns for several months.

He is, obviously, a very difficult man to find. 

End recording. 

Chapter Text

[door creaks] 

“...left it in Artifact Storage, should probably… Ah!”

[sound of a coffee cup breaking] 

“Hi!”

“Who are you? What are you doing in my office?” 

“I’m just looking around! Some of these statements are super freaky.” 

“You’re—” 

“Like the one with the teeth apple and the sharp knees, and that one where she had to watch that guy eat a whole computer? Gross, but also totally not the worst ones—” 

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave—” 

“And then I thought, what if there’s something about me here, too? I’m super cool and powerful, and I can do way more stuff than some of the other avatars—” 

“You’re an— oh.” 

“Yep! Did you just Know that now? What other stuff can you Know?” 

“Why do you—” 

“How much candy do I have in my pockets right now? What was the deal with the pig ? Does your boss have a—” 

"...A... disturbing amount, it was the Flesh, and I would very much prefer not to answer that question. Are you about to try and kill me? If so, I’d really like another cup of coffee first.” 

“Ha! I’m not gonna kill you. I’m here to make a statement! That’s what this place is, right? Beau said you have to listen to whatever I say—” 

“Well, it doesn’t work quite like that, but… yes. You are completely welcome to make your statement as long as you—” 

“Cool! Okay, so I was looking at all your stuff while you were gone— which was a really long time, by the way. Do you really need that much coffee? Anyway, I read a whole bunch of them, and I ended up noticing these!” 

[paper rustling] 

“This one’s about the Traveler, which I thought was a little weird to have just on your desk here, and then this one is about me! But a whole bunch of stuff in both of them is just wrong. I don’t have horns! So a lot of the Traveler one is probably wrong as well, but you came back before I could finish it.”

“Right.”  

“I bet my version is way cooler.” 

“I’m… sure it is. Statement of…” 

“Jester!” 

“Statement of ‘Jester,’ regarding the entity known as the Traveler. Statement taken direct from subject, September 12, 2019. Statement begins.” 

"So! You wanna know about the Traveler? I can tell you a lot. I was his friend for, like, years. Before that, though—  I got homeschooled and I didn’t really have a lot of friends. It was kind of just Mama and me a lot of the time, but she was always busy! Everyone wants to be around her, obviously, because she’s the best. But... that meant I was alone a whole lot. 

And then I grew up, and I went to university, which was really far away from where Mama and I lived. I probably would have stayed closer, but I did some stuff and Mama was worried about me being in trouble, so I just couldn’t. I didn’t have a lot of friends there either, because I didn’t really know how to talk to people properly and I kept drawing dicks on things. But it was fine! I knew it’d be a couple of months and then I’d go home again and everything would be fine. 

Except… 

Well, except it wasn’t really fine. 

I got my bags packed, and I booked a ticket home like I’d been planning, got dressed up all fancy, and then right as I was about to get on the plane I got a call from Mama’s assistant saying that she had to cancel our visit because she was really busy with work stuff. Then I dropped my drink on my shoes and all my bags ended up on the plane to Alicante without me and when I got outside it was raining — and the point is, I was having a really, really shitty day." 

“I’d prefer it if you kept the swearing to a minimum while on tape—” 

“Ooh, what’s this?” 

[paper shuffling] 

“Sabian Laurent…  the Tide’s Breath —” 

“Would you please put that down.” 

“Wait, Fjord? How many statements is he in?” 

“A fair few, why? Do you know—” 

“Do you want his number? I can totally give it to you.” 

“What?” 

“Yeah! Here— [paper shuffling,] you can prank call him and bother him about Spiral stuff! It’d be so funny, and I still need to get him back for that one time with the pancakes—” 

“Oh. ...Thank you?” 

"You’re welcome! Anyway, so like I was saying, that day sucked. And it was even worse because I was dressed for home weather, not here-weather. It was freezing, and all my warm clothes were on the plane, and Mama didn’t want me to come home. Everything was going wrong and I was just sitting at the bus stop waiting for a bus that wasn’t even coming.  

And then he was there! I didn’t know it was the Traveler, obviously. He was just some guy with red hair wearing green and looking all cool and mysterious and staring off into the rain. He looked at me, and he smiled and said “Hi, do you want a really nice jacket and a scarf that goes with your hair and also a friend?” And I said “Yeah, of course, what kind of a question is that,” and then he gave me the stuff and got on his bus. 

It was so nice, it felt like someone actually— the jacket was really warm, and the scarf did match my hair, and it just made me feel a lot better, you know? And it was even better when I found out he’d left his phone number in the pocket of the jacket! Okay, yeah, maybe it was a little weird, but. Y’know. I didn’t really have anyone else to talk to, so we started talking to each other! He lived really far away, so we didn’t meet up really often, and he didn’t want to use his real name, but that was fine. I knew he wasn’t a fake imaginary person, because I’d met him, and he was a really good friend. 

He just… I didn’t feel lonely when I was talking to him. Every time someone stole my things or cheated off my work in class, whenever I still couldn’t visit home because Mama was busy, all the days everyone got invited to things and they forgot to ask me. He was there for me to talk to. And while we were talking, it was so cool to have a friend! 

But when I was by myself, it— it felt worse. It hurt more that nobody wanted to hang around me, that I couldn’t even get a roommate because the one time I tried the girl found out she’d be living with me and refused to sign on, that I couldn’t even have a plant in my room without it dying. I thought maybe that was just what having a friend did to you! I thought now that I know what it’s like to have someone there when you need them, I can’t settle for being lonely anymore. But now… I think it wasn’t meant to hurt that much.  

I really don’t know how to describe it? It was like I’d been walking around in really shitty plastic sandals my whole life, right, and then someone gave me an actual pair of shoes for the first time. Except then they took them away again, and they took the shitty shoes too, and I had to walk around barefoot on rocks until they gave me back my shoes— and sometimes I had the shoes for, like, a week, and sometimes it was just for an hour, and one time it was just for ten minutes and then I had to walk on rocks for a month —” 

“So he— the Traveler— he’d just disappear?” 

“Yeah, kind of. We’d be talking for ages and then he’d stop responding and it’d be ages before he’d say anything again— and those were the worst times, you know? Because then I was really alone, and the rocks were super sharp and I didn’t know when he’d— But he’d always come back. And most of the time it was when someone actually asked me to come hang out with them? I’d get asked to this really cool party, and then he’d text for the first time in three weeks and I’d end up staying home to talk. So maybe I did have the chance at making friends, sometimes. But I had the Traveler, so it didn’t matter that much, did it? 

And one day my Mama called me, said that I could come home for a whole month and promised not to cancel this time, that she’d cleared up her whole schedule especially. But about five minutes later the Traveler called me and said we could actually hang out together for real as long as it was that month, specifically. So I told Mama I couldn’t go. He only ended up staying for like a week, and I was gonna get mad at him, but then I realised he’d probably stop being my friend if I— 

Okay, so this is the worst part. It’s, like, super sad.

  Basically, one day he stopped responding, just like normal. Except this time he didn’t ever text back. And by then nobody asked me to anything, because they knew I wouldn’t come, and he just disappeared. He never, ever texted or called, and when I tried to call him it just went to voicemail— 

And then the rocks weren’t rocks anymore. They were glass. And it was the worst feeling in the whole world, and Mama never answered the phone when I tried to call her. She was too busy. 

And… I guess I just got used to being Lonely again.” 

“That…”

“Totally sucks. I know, right? But I can do so much cool stuff now. Here, watch!” 

[sparkly noises] 

“Ta-da!”

“Is that…” 

“A giant lollipop! Isn’t it cool? The Lonely lets me do that and I can actually hit people with it. And it tastes like real candy.”

“That... would certainly explain the perpetual smell of sugar.” 

“Yep! Anyway, I gotta go. I can feel Beau complaining at me from through the door with her weird Expositor powers. Idrewdicksonallyourstatementsbye.” 

[sound of door slamming] 

“I… ah. Well. I… Statement ends.” 

Archivist’s notes: 

Jester Lavorre is certainly something. A force of nature, perhaps a hurricane— if they name one after her in the near future I won’t be surprised in the slightest. There is obscene graffiti all over my desk, and I still haven’t managed to clear the smell of peppermint candy. 

Still, that encounter has brought a great deal of interesting information to my attention. First: the Lonely entity known as the Traveler. The additional confirmation of its abilities sheds some light on the other statements that mention it, and I cannot help but have some sympathy for Miss Lavorre after knowing her experience with it. As much as I can have sympathy for the avatar of a rival power who desecrated my office and hid marshmallows in my desk drawer. 

Second, and perhaps more importantly: there appear to be more connections between this group of avatars than I previously assumed. I was aware of the connection between the Inferno and the Drowned, but to hear that the Sapphire is familiar enough with the Undertow to have his phone number on hand… And the other name she mentioned, the Expositor. It sounds incredibly familiar, though the attempt I made to Know more about it yielded nothing but a headache and a good deal of frustration. There are several conclusions I could draw from this, but given my track record, I’m inclined to assume the worst. 

If this group of avatars is, as I fear, preparing to fight one another… I doubt any of us will make it out unscathed. If I can, I will try to bring this to the attention of the rest of the Archive.

For all the good it will do. 

End recording." 

Chapter Text

“Statement of Robbie Gill, regarding an encounter with— what did you say it was again?” 

“Shadow monster and a real shiny guy.” 

“Regarding an encounter with a ‘shadow monster,’ and a ‘real shiny guy.’ Statement recorded live from subject, September 13, 2019.

Statement begins.” 

“Right. So I was walking home from work the other night— and we’d had a sort of office party, because one of the guys in sales had quit. Not that we were celebrating him leaving! He was a nice guy and nobody was happy about him moving on, so we were saying goodbye. It was pretty late, I was a little drunk and taking longer than usual to get home. 

And…. You know that feeling you get when you’re walking down the street, and the darkness in between the streetlamps feels, like, heavy? I was getting that. The spaces in between were darker than the last street, where there weren’t any lights at all. And as I passed through the lights, each in-between part just got darker and darker. 

And when I got to the end of the street, there should have been another light there, but there wasn’t, and I could barely see. That’s when the other lights started going out— starting at the end of the street, one, two, three, one by one. Slowly. Everything was going slower than it should have been, and I didn’t know what was going on. I just stood there and watched it get closer until the only light left was the closest one to me. 

The shadows started to move, then. Big long shadow fingers trying to get me, sort of snaking out and going for my feet. I felt like moving’d just make it worse, so I stayed where I was and hoped that they’d stop before they got to me. 

That’s when he showed up. Just stepped right into the light of the last lamp— and he was, well, shiny. I didn’t even know where to look, there were so many colours. I swear I could hear him jingling from all the jewelry, and he was carrying swords, these two massive swords, and his eyes were bright red and glowing.

And he just killed the thing! I helped, obviously, beat it back while he finished it off—” 

[door creaks, jewelry clinks, an excessive amount of fabric swishes] 

“Excuse me.” 

“ What is it now— wait.” 

“Hey! You’re back?”  

“Mr Gill, please tell me this isn’t your ‘shiny man.’” 

“Shiny, yes. Man, no. His, definitely not.” 

“That’s fair.” 

“What are you doing in my office?” 

[jewelry clinking again] 

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, at— well. Not at your service, Archivist. I’d really rather not.” 

“Hm.” 

“What? What’s going on?” 

“I think it’d be best if you left now, Mr Gill. This is no longer a place that you want to be.” 

[sound of panicked chair scraping and the door creaking again] 

“So, Nonagon. Changed your name, have you?” 

“Oh, gods, let’s not even get into that. Don’t you want to know what actually happened to Robbie Gill last night?” 

“Well… yes. Mostly I’d just like to know why the avatars of various different powers keep breaking into my office. Do you have anything to share, or are you just here to cause trouble?” 

“Trouble? You wound me, Archivist. I just saw young Robbie on his way to your Institute, and given the amount of danger he found himself in last week— I didn’t trust him not to accidentally trip and end up in the Vast for seven years, or whatever it is Fairchild’s new game is. Thought I’d keep an eye on him and make sure he got home safely.” 

“Right.” 

‘What, you don’t believe me?” 

“I’d be more inclined to trust you if you weren’t the Nonagon—” 

“Oh, come on. Like I told you people the last time you hunted me down for an interview, I don’t bloody know anything about Lucien or the Nonagon or anything like that. I’m not a damn cult leader. Which I keep telling you, but do you listen? No, you work for the Eye, so of course you know everything about me.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard the story. Woke up in the ground, heard the Hunt calling, died again and dug yourself up as an Avatar. It’s a very neat and convenient way to get out of taking responsibility for your actions.” 

“If you’re really that doubtful, why don’t you check for yourself? Just Know it. If I’m lying you’ll find out in a few seconds, and if I’m not, you people can stop calling me and asking about the cult that I don’t lead. Seems fair, hm?” 

“...fine.” 

[A pause, followed by a very loud, pained scream.] 

“Ah! What was— what did you do?” 

“Absolutely nothing, darling. You did that all by yourself— well, you and whoever this Lucien was.” 

“Why can I hear sirens?” 

“Oh, just wait. You haven’t even gotten to the elevator music yet.” 

“The what.” 

“Elevator music, jingling bells, horrific ritualistic chanting. It’s got everything, really. Here, have a paracetamol. You’re hardly the first agent of the Eye to try that, you know.” 

“Care to explain that? Or would it ruin the mystery?” 

“Oh, no, no mystery here. Beau hit me in the face and tried to use her weird Eye shit on me, looking for ‘dirt', although I don’t think grave-dirt was quite what she was after. Ended up holed in bed for a week complaining about how she could only hear carnival music while Cad tried to make her drink tea. One of my proudest moments.” 

“...I’ll take your word for it. 

 ...While you’re here, would you mind shedding a little more light on that statement? Somehow I doubt Mr Gill was as helpful as he claimed. Oddly resistant to the usual affectations of statement-giving, but other than that he seemed wholly ordinary.” 

“He was absolutely useless, I’ll have you know. Staggering drunk, singing at the top of his lungs— nearly walked straight into the Dark creature before I could kill it. I am very fast, but even I struggled to outrun his stupidity.  I’m shocked he managed to remember me at all. The damn thing nearly got away because he distracted me. I’d been hunting it for a week. And trust me, you really do not want to know what happens to the people who get in my way when I’m Hunting. Not on purpose, of course. It’s just that when you’re moving at ridiculous speed, waving a pair of swords around— well, everything becomes a target. 

Still, I got to have some fun out of it, and Gill didn’t even get a scratch on him, though it was a near thing. Saw him home, got rid of the mess, you know the drill. Then, this morning, what do I see? Only Gill, again, heading straight for the Institute without a care in the world.

Honestly. Are you sure there isn’t a fifteenth power? It’d probably be born out of my fear when I realise just how incredibly slow humans are sometimes. ...There. You’ve got your statement. Will you kindly stop calling me the Nonagon now?” 

“Fine. Is there something you’d prefer instead, or—” 

“I’ve always felt I’d suit the Brilliance, don’t you think?” 

[A pause that lasts far too long to be comfortable]  

“Statement ends.” 

Archivist’s notes: 

“When Mr Gill described his mysterious savior as ‘a shiny, colourful whirlwind,’ I assumed that he was exaggerating, or that his state of inebriation during the encounter had warped his memories. I was… severely wrong. I can still hear carnival music, occasionally interspersed with something resembling the sound of an airhorn. In addition to this, I believe the N— the Brilliance’s jacket will be seared into my eyes for the next month. 

 Only adding to the severity of this headache: the phone number given to me by the Sapphire did not, in fact, put me in contact with the Undertow— the calls I made were directed to voicemail, and I believe he may have given my phone number to her as some form of… payback? For attempting to contact him. I have had no success in evading the Sapphire’s endless calls, which seem to save themselves directly to my phone despite my efforts to delete them. Though I won’t play any of them now in the interest of time, suffice to say that they are relentless, confusing, and extremely loud. 

However, on a much more important note, this statement has only served to further my fears of conflict between this group of Avatars. It sounds as though the Brilliance and this ‘Expositor’ have fought once already, and that the subsequent fight left the Expositor open to an attack from the Gravekeeper, which I find… worrying. The attempt I made to inform the rest of the Institute about this was met with… if not outright dismissal, then a general air of ‘we have bigger problems to worry about right now.’ I will, however, continue to investigate this group, and hopefully determine the extent of their connections. 

... and look into changing the locks on my office door.

End recording.” 

Chapter Text

"Statement of Thoreau ‘TJ’ Lionett, regarding his sister, Beauregard Lionett. Original statement given January 29, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. 

Statement begins. 

I didn’t actually know I had an older sister until I was seven, and that’s not even the strangest part of the story. My parents never actually told me— she was this big shame on the family that they were desperate to keep hidden. Before they even had me, they cleaned out any mention of her in the house. They were careful, I’m sure, but you know how kids are. They leave stuff behind. 

At first it was just a scribble in a book, a marble or something stashed up a tree. Then I thought to look under my bed, and there was this loose floorboard I managed to pull up. It took a fair bit of work, given that I was small and having to do it upside-down, but once I did… well, there she was.

Not literally, of course. God. She wasn’t stuffed under the floorboards like some kid in a horror movie. My parents wouldn’t go that far in getting rid of her. But every trace of her that I’d managed to find scattered around the house was nothing in comparison to what was under there. Drawings, notebooks, bird feathers, cool-looking rocks, the kind of treasures a kid would hide from parents who didn’t want them to— and there was her name, too, carved into the underside of the board. Beau. 

I wrote all the things I’d found down in a notebook and went to confront my parents about it, but that didn’t really do any good in the end. They were… evasive would be the nice way of putting it, although really it was more like my father saying ‘Yes, son, you do have an older sister who I’ve never said a word about, but I won’t hear any more mention of her name in this house,’ and then taking the notebook away. Didn’t find the rest of the stuff, though, so I guess her hiding place really did work. 

I really did try to do what he said, but, well, you try just forgetting that you have a secret older sister who nobody will talk about. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, and I wanted to know more. I found most of the stuff in the house— things she’d hidden, old photos in albums everyone had forgotten about, that kind of thing. She always looked so angry in those pictures, like even when she was my age she’d hated being made to sit still and pose. 

Then, later, I ended up turning to the Internet. I was a modern kid, and I was going to make use of every resource I had available, even though, being ten, that was mostly just Googling different variations of her name. I did find something, though, eventually. Three things, to be exact, in very quick succession, that painted a picture I couldn’t quite understand. 

The first thing was an employment record from the Cobalt Archive. Started about two years before I was born, ended halfway through the third year. There was no reason given for her being fired, or quitting, it just… ended. Like she’d disappeared.

The second thing was a newspaper clipping. A woman identified as Beauregard Lionett, twenty-two, died in an accident of unspecified nature. Which was, obviously, a pretty disappointing end to this whole scavenger hunt. For a few months, that was the end. No point in doing the treasure hunt if someone’s already dug up the treasure and left a crate full of coconuts and sand where it used to be, right? ...I was going through a pirate phase. Never mind. 

Anyway, the third thing showed up about six months later. I’d just turned eleven, and I’d decided to start reading the newspaper to impress my dad, even though I was really only interested in the cartoons and puzzles. I was flipping through, pretending like I was actually absorbing everything, and then I saw this photograph. It was of a big crowd in front of this burnt-out library, and right in the back, almost blurred out… there she was. Alive. I recognised her from all the other photos I’d scavenged, but more than that, I knew it was her. 

I knew I couldn’t say anything to my parents. They’d just tell me I was imagining things, and then I’d never know what was really going on. I had to know.  

So I did what any sensible child would do when confronted with a mystery like this. I packed a bag, left a note for my parents, and hopped on a train to Zadash. You know, like they always did in the movies. Granted, there were a fair few more consequences when I did it than any of the heroes in the films, but that’s not really the point, is it?

It was only once I actually got there— and it was a much longer train ride than what I’d thought, too— that I realised I had no idea what I was actually doing. For want of a better plan, I found my way to the burned-down library where I’d seen her picture. And then I just… sat there. On a step next to a fountain. I sat and thought about what a terrible idea this had been, that I was completely alone in a city I barely knew anything about, that I needed to get on another train and come home as soon as possible and just give up on this whole thing— and what had I really even come here for? A blurry photo in the newspaper that could have been anyone, and I was so stupid, I didn’t know anything at all— 

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and when I looked up, she was there.   

I remember that whole conversation perfectly. It’s strange— I’ve never had the greatest memory, but all the details of that day are clear as the water of the fountain we were sitting on. The first thing she said was “Hey, kid. You’re a long way from Kamordah. You know that, right?” I told her that yes, I did know, and that I’d been looking for her for so long, that our parents wouldn’t tell me anything but that I’d put it all together from what she’d left behind. “Listen,” she said. “It’s great to hear you sticking it to Dad and learning all his secrets, but you need to stop. Trust me on this. Bad shit happens when you look too far. Really weird things that you can’t find any answers for— the kind of thing you read about and hope it never happens to you.” 

“But what if I want to learn more?” I asked her. I was a pretty stubborn kid, like you might have guessed. She got this look around her then, half-concerned and half-angry, and a little of something else I couldn’t really figure out. She sighed, and— well, she looked into my eyes for the first time, and she started to talk. 

“When you were six,” she said, “You found a rat in the vineyard, called it Winston, and you took it into the house. You wanted to keep it as a pet, but then it got away, and— ha, it got into Dad’s office and ate some of his papers, and you never told him it was you.” 

“What—” I said, confused. I’d never told anyone that, but she knew every detail. She kept going: 

“You sneak books out of Mom’s library that she doesn’t want you reading. There’s a spot behind your desk where you hide stuff, and one time you left a sandwich in there so long it didn’t even look like a sandwich anymore. You hate Cynthia Lythbrook and you lie about it because everyone else thinks she’s amazing—” 

“Stop!” I finally managed to yell. She was… she was pulling all of my secrets out of me, all the things that I thought were so important, that I’d promised myself nobody would ever know about. I could feel them being dragged out of me, dredged to the surface where anyone could see them, and more were coming up with every second that she was making eye contact with me.

“Sorry,” she said. “There are still worse things out there, TJ, and— I’ve just met you, but I don’t want you getting involved in the same stuff I’m stuck in. It changes you, more than I can tell you, and it’s better for everyone— you, me, our parents, everybody— if you stay safe where they can’t get you.” 

I knew, then, that she wasn’t going to stick around. I’d been hoping, secretly, that I could convince her to come home. That maybe whatever it was that made our parents clear away the fact of her being wasn’t as bad as it seemed, that I could actually get to know my sister after years of trying to find her. 

Like she knew exactly what I was thinking, she shook her head and looked back down at the fountain. 

“That’s never going to happen,” she said. “Even if I could forgive them for everything, it’s too goddamn dangerous for me to be around you. Drawing this kind of attention on a kid— I’m an asshole, but even I wouldn’t do that.” 

That sounds kind of like an adventure, I thought. Like— like something you’d read about, something exciting. 

I opened my mouth, wanting to ask another question, and she just looked at me, like she had before. 

“TJ, I’m— I’m really sorry about this, okay? You need to understand.” 

And I saw. 

I saw an eye as big as the world, unblinking, uncaring. I saw it watch us as we crawled from the sea and crawled into Being, and crawled back into dust again. It regarded us as ants against a cold, dark sky. It exhumed our secrets, our deepest, most awful knowledge, and it didn’t care. 

I saw… other things, too. Writhing, elongated people with eyes where everything else should be. Towering stacks of books and papers, arching in impossible patterns across the sky. People, cowering, barely more than insects, offering up their most awful truths in a desperate effort to be saved from that terrible gaze. 

I saw her, too. Dying. Not-dying. Waking up with a hunger to seek out and uncover that drowned out every waking thought until she started to scrape out mysteries from the insides of other people, hoping that one of them would close the eye in her mind. I saw the world as small, and the sky as quiet, and the sum lifespan of our human time as a single blink of the Watcher’s eye. 

The next thing I knew I was at home again. She called my parents while I was Seeing things. Waited with me ‘til they arrived, shouted at them for not paying more attention to me, then disappeared before they took me home. They didn’t tell me any of that. I just knew it. Think it was some leftover power from all the things I’d seen— it still happens sometimes, usually when I’m not expecting it. 

My parents were mostly happy that I wasn’t dead, I think, though I didn’t get away without my fair share of yelling and demanding explanations I couldn’t give. I could barely even speak. I just… kept seeing the Eye, every time I opened my mouth to ask a question. Staring. Watching. Waiting.

By the time I could see real things properly again, Beau was long-gone, but the next time I checked my phone I saw a new contact that’d been added— labelled ‘ for emergencies only, seriously,’ with an eye emote and a punching emote on the end.  

It’s been a couple of years now, and I haven’t called her yet, but… I think it’s only a matter of time until I need to. Until then, I’ll wait. And I’ll try not to look too hard.

Statement ends.

Archivist's notes:

The Beholding certainly didn’t want me to find this statement, judging by the sheer amount of boxes it was buried under. My attempts to make contact with Mr Lionett for further investigation, as is becoming the usual, were all evaded, and that particular lead has proven fruitless. Having read this, however… it certainly sheds some light on a number of different things. The woman I saw with the Sapphire, for one, and the ‘Expositor,’ mentioned by the Brilliance. In addition to this, the mention of what appears to be the Ashguard Garrison Memorial Library— what remains of it— draws yet another link to the Inferno. It seems likely that she was tracking him, perhaps looking for a moment of weakness to exploit— whatever the case, this is certainly worrying . 

Quite apart from the fact that the Eye appears to have a frankly disturbing number of avatars by this point… this Expositor appears to be both more dangerous and better-connected than I had previously thought.  Again, if, as I fear, this group of entities plan on staging a fight at any point soon, well.  

I would place my bets on whoever gets her on their side.

End recording." 

Chapter Text

 It has been an absolutely exhausting week. 

Quite apart from the creeping influence of the Lonely beginning to permeate the Archives, leaving a faint smell of salt water and an unpleasant feeling of disconnection that’s practically impossible to shake— 

Apart from the endless mountain of statements, growing in number and length with every passing day— 

From Lukas getting into everyone’s heads, and the tension and anger building in everyone around him— 

Apart from everything that’s happening to Martin, the things Jon has to trust he has a plan for despite every one of his instincts screaming to the contrary— 

Apart from the fact that Jon is so hungry he can barely think — 

Well, now there’s this constant, looming threat of a battle between eight differently-aligned avatars to contend with. As if they didn’t have enough to deal with. 

So it’s not entirely inexcusable when, upon opening his office door, he drops his second mug of the week, spilling coffee all over the floor and sending the mug rolling down the stairs to the sub-sub- sub -basement storage room, where it shatters with a satisfying crash. His office is, without any warning whatsoever, a riot of colours, sounds, and the overwhelming cacophony of unwanted knowledge  that comes from having more than three avatars in a single room at once. 

Nine pairs of eyes— eight avatar and one cat— stare at him. He stares back, hand still curled into the shape of the mug handle, and tries to think of a single thing to say that isn’t ‘what?’ ‘please not now,’ and ‘I need to buy a new lock for this door.’ 

Thankfully, he’s spared the trouble, as one of the avatars who he actually recognises— blue-haired, wearing doughnut-shaped earrings and smelling faintly of sugar—   hops up from her seat, practically bounces over to him, and taps him on the forehead. 

“Nope! He blinked. So not a statue, just really surprised. Hi! You remember me, right?” 

Then, from the couch— couch? He didn’t have a couch in here before— another voice. 

“Jes, don’t. I think he might actually explode or something.’ And, yes, he recognises her — the Expositor, whose connection to the Eye he can feel from here— currently with her legs up on the couch that he appears to have now. Arms folded, leaning back, looking far too comfortable for someone in his office.  

Finally, he gathers himself enough to, if not form a coherent sentence, actually take stock of his surroundings. 

Four people on the couch: the Sapphire, at least, having decided to sit down again, next to the Expositor and— the Brilliance sitting in the lap of an extremely tall woman with wild hair and a plastic flower crown on her head, the Orphanmaker, in his office— with another excessively tall pink-haired man on the floor, leaning against the aforementioned couch and looking half asleep (the Gravekeeper? He certainly matches his sister’s description.) 

The Gravekeeper is hand-in-hand with a scruffy-looking red-haired man who, oh God, that’s the Inferno, isn’t it? Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Archives, looking around nervously as though he’s assessing all the possible exits. Or, equally as likely, for all the flammable objects in the room, of which there are a lot. Standing with his arms folded in the corner of the room, sporting neatly-queued hair and a telltale wine-stain mark on his lower jaw: the Undertow, under whatever alias he’s using now. 

And, sitting on his desk, a short woman with her dark hair in two braids, strung around in buttons and swinging her legs around as she waits for something— and that must be the Drowned. On his desk. Threading several buttons that look suspiciously like they’ve come off his spare work shirt onto the end of a bracelet.

Eight avatars approximately five minutes away from breaking into a fight and destroying everything around him. In his office. 

As if his week couldn’t get any worse. 

“Poke him again,” the Drowned suggests. “I think he’s broken.”  

“That won’t be necessary,” Jon says, managing to spit the words out over the growing panic building in his chest. He snatches a few filing pockets off the desk and clutches them to his chest, more for the sake of having something there than for any real purpose. 

“Now, before you get all up in arms and start calling for your Hunter friend upstairs, just listen. All we want to do is talk. No harm needs to come to anyone, and this sure is a nice office you’ve got. I’m sure you’d hate to see it in a mess,” the Undertow says, leaving it on that vague and unsubtle note. 

“It’s not that nice,” the Sapphire chimes in. “There’s old mugs and sandwiches everywhere, and there’s not even any pictures or anything! Just books and filing cabinets and—” 

The Expositor puts her hand on the Sapphire’s arm, whispers something Jon can’t quite hear. The Sapphire frowns a little, and Jon’s stomach drops, having just reached the worst possible conclusion he could draw from this situation.

Bad idea. Don’t upset them, he tells himself, but still— he has to know. 

“What do you want?” Jon says. “If you’re in my office just to make threats and ruin my clothing, fine, but I would sincerely appreciate a warning before you—” 

“This is not a threat, Archivist,” says the Inferno— careful, measured, every movement calculated. He doesn’t meet Jon’s eyes. “If all goes well, a request. That is all. If not— nothing so idle as a threat. A promise.”  

Without so much as shifting her position on the couch, the Expositor punches him in the arm.

“Scheisse, Beauregard, you did not need to—” 

“You don’t need to be creepy about it—” 

“I think creepy is an exaggeration—” 

“It was pretty creepy, Caleb,” the Sapphire says. “All you had to do was go ‘stop spying on us, we’re not doing anything to you,’ but you were all, like, ‘this is a promise, ooh, I can make fire and I’ll totally burn your office down—” 

This is it, Jon thinks helplessly. Any second now, they are going to start fighting, and I am probably going to die. If I can still die. He doesn’t need to Know to figure that much out; there are eight hostile avatars in this room, and the odds of him escaping if even a few of them decided he’d be more good to them dead than alive are extremely slim. On the other hand— 

On the other hand, at least two of them appear to be falling asleep, the Brilliance is braiding the Orphanmaker’s hair, and the Drowned is idly flicking buttons at the Undertow, who bats them away in a manner that suggests this is a frequent occurrence for both of them. 

Before he can fully think through his observations, the Inferno continues talking. “We would like to know what you need in order for you to—” 

“Stop fuckin’ investigating us. It’s getting real annoying, and it doesn’t just affect us, y’know? My brother called me for the first time in years yesterday because when you tried to get hold of him to ask more questions he thought the Eye was coming for him. It’s just… it’s a shitty thing to be doing, and you need to stop.” She seems, at first, to be nothing more than righteous, angry and on the verge of shouting; Jon, however, doesn’t miss the way her hand falls into the Sapphire’s with a slight shake that betrays her fear. 

 “Beauregard, perhaps you should—” 

“No. He needs to fucking understand—” 

From her position on the couch, the Orphanmaker coughs, and the whole room falls silent. With all hostile eyes on their previously-silent companion, Jon manages to take a few steps back toward the door. The room feels quieter somehow, muted, as though a fog has descended upon them all. Above, outside, a soft rain begins to fall. 

“What would it take for you to leave us alone?” she asks— simply, plainly, with the kind of power that conjures storms and levels cities. Even without trying to, the Archivist Knows how much strength hides behind her words. It’s almost enough to make you forget that she’s wearing a  plastic flower crown. 

Faced with this, torn between the opportunity to ask anything and the knowledge that prying too deep will likely result in his own death— 

“Just a statement,” he says. “Anything you’re willing to share, from any one of you who wants to share it. That’s all.” 

“We can absolutely do that,”  the Brilliance says, sitting up a little straighter. “Right, everyone?” 

“Yeah,” agrees the Gravekeeper, speaking up for the first time. “I think… it’d be nice to tell someone, after all of this.” 

Jon stops his gradual inching toward the door. He makes his way over to his desk, sits down, and clicks the tape recorder on, a familiar ritual that goes a little way toward easing his panic at the whole situation, and waits expectantly for someone to start talking. 

“Ooh, I know how this goes!” the Sapphire says. “Statement of the Mighty Nein, about how cool we all are and—” 

“And why the Archivist needs to leave us the fuck alone,” the Expositor finishes. She leans back and folds her arms 

“Statement recorded direct from subjects, October 30th, 2019. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. Statement begins.” 

“We have known each other for several years now,” the Inferno says. “We met, at first, individually— Veth and I, Mollymauk and Yasha, Beauregard, Jester and Fjord.” 

“Remember how awful that town was? The beer was the only redeeming feature, and even that barely made up for it,” the Brilliance says. “There, darling, you look lovely,” referring to the fact that he’s finished braiding the Orphanmaker’s hair. “We all ran into each other in Trostenwald’s only bar, this tiny place full of sad people who’d obviously forgotten what fun meant. Yasha and I were with the Circus at the time— don’t look at me like that, Archivist, it was as good a way as any to travel and I barely ever spoke to Orsinov, she was terrible company— and when we walked into the Nestled Nook, this lot—” he gestures to the rest of the group, “—were the saddest of them all.” 

“Caleb and I had just arrived in town the night before,” the Drowned continues, “and we were mostly paying attention to the fact that the loud, weird strangers next to us had just dropped a load of money on their table—” 

“And, even then, we could tell something was off about them, ja? It was only when Mollymauk and Yasha walked in that everything clicked, and we all realised at around the same time that we were surrounded by other avatars.” 

“To this day, I’ve still got no idea why we were all drawn to that place,” the Undertow adds. “Whatever it was— we were lucky. I still can’t really believe it happened the way it did, if I’m being honest.” 

“You mean the freaky puppet lady at the circus? Because that was really gross, but also kind of cool how we all got to fight her—” 

“Even though Yasha and I both lost our jobs,” the Brilliance says, though he says it in such a way that Jon can’t quite tell if he means it or not. 

“You lost your jobs because we stopped Orsinov from making you and everyone else there into a goddamn skin puppet, Molly, you should be thanking us.” 

“ Anyway,” the Brilliance says, talking over her, “After that we all fell in together for a couple of months, until.” He falls silent at that, searching for the right words for what happened next. 

“Until some pretty terrible stuff happened,” the Drowned says. “This asshole Slaughter avatar and his followers took— they took Yasha, Jester and Fjord for a ritual they were planning, and when we were trying to save them, Molly just disappeared.” 

“Don’t remember what happened,” the Brilliance finally said. “Just that it was dark and quiet for a long, long time, and then suddenly I was back with everyone else. Well…” 

“They came to me, asking if he was really gone, and I hadn’t really felt him go,” the Gravekeeper says, and waits for someone else to continue.

 “We realised, eventually, that the Buried had taken Mollymauk for some reason unknown to us. So we… we  went back to where he had disappeared, and we dug him up,” the Inferno says, barely loud enough to be heard by the end of his sentence. 

“I missed you,” the Orphanmaker says to the Brilliance, completely ignoring the fact that Jon is even there. “I know that I’ve said it before, but, Molly, when you were gone—” 

“Shh, dear, I know. You don’t have to say it,” he says, patting her on the arm. 

Things are quiet for a moment, then. Even the Sapphire seems to have lost her previous excitement at giving another statement. Eight avatars of terrible things beyond their own comprehension stare at each other, contemplating exactly how lucky they are to have found each other when they did, while a ninth sits at his desk and wonders how he managed to get himself into this mess. 

“Okay, asshole, enough feelings for today,” the Expositor finally says, poking the Brilliance in the leg. “That’s our story, Archivist. Now will you let us get on with our own shit and stop digging?” 

“...Yes,” Jon says. “That should be fine. Ah— statement ends.” 

“Right,” says the Expositor. “We’re leaving. Come on.” One by one, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the Mighty Nein stand up and file out of the door. It’s only as they’re all nearly gone that Jon remembers— 

“Gravekeeper,” he calls out, just as the man in question is about to leave for good.

“Hm?” 

“Your sister was here a little while ago, looking for you. I thought I should… let you know.” 

For a moment, the Gravekeeper’s normally-placid face hardens into something cold and other, and Jon is suddenly extremely glad that he’s never been on the receiving end of this particular avatar’s anger. Then the moment passes, and— 

“Thank you,” the Gravekeeper says, and he walks out of the door to join his friends. 

Several things happen, then, to varying degrees of importance. First: as the Mighty Nein make their way upstairs toward the streets of London, Yasha Nydoorin feels a nudge in the back of her mind. Here, it says. Here is one we can use, one who hangs in the balance between Us— one who hovers between connections powerful enough to rival yours, and between the kind of loneliness even you would struggle to know. Draw him closer to us. She stops, lets Caduceus pass her on the stairs, and listens. And there, two flights up and five doors down, she knows there is an office. 

A memory, surfacing: Four months lost, this time, spun away in spider-silk and stained with red so deeply that her hands will never be clean again. An old brick of a phone, calling Molly, trusting, knowing that he won’t ask questions. A night of quiet conversation about nothing, practiced hands helping her to clean dried blood from her hair. Another charm on her bracelet, another marker that yes, this time she came back to herself. Comfort, safety. People who care. Rare things, hard-won, things that you hold on to and don’t let go of if you should ever be so lucky as to find them. 

With a nod to Mollymauk, waiting a flight above her, Yasha goes to find someone who could use that reminder. 

As Nott walks up the final few flights of stairs, her hand closes around a letter in her pocket— short, written as though the man who held the pen was doing it against every better judgement he had. Promise me it’s really you, it reads. Promise, and I’ll find you. And though it goes against her instincts, too, she allows herself to hope, to promise. She begins to pen one last letter in her head, runs her fingers over the paper she holds again and again until every wrinkle is smoothed out, until the page is soft and brittle with touch. 

She leaves a trail of water behind her, but doesn’t seem to mind. 

And as the footsteps fade on the stairs, Jon holds his breath for another moment, two, three— then finally lets it out, sinking down into his chair with a degree of relief he rarely even manages to feel anymore. His hands shake, and he rests his head against a stack of files, wishing he hadn’t dropped his coffee earlier. His thoughts are a mess of they didn’t kill me, they’re friends, of course, and more ? The Expositor and the Sapphire, Eye and Lonely— and what might that mean for Martin and I, if we— and then the Inferno and the Gravekeeper?  I need to get the access codes to the security doors changed before they come back again and decide to burn the place down after all. ...Was the cat an avatar? 

“Oh—” he says, barely suppressing a curse as he scrambles for the tape recorder again— 

“ End recording.”