Chapter Text
After the ordeal with the worms , Elias Bouchard summarily found and purchased a handgun, kept snugly and securely in one of the drawers in the archivist’s desk. No need to play the fool and get caught unawares by what is clearly something much larger than just one woman’s desire to become a hivemind.
Between himself and Nikola, they can claim homage to nearly three dozen new scars, though his are far more abrupt and visible, considering what must be a brilliant skincare routine on the behalf of Miss Orsinov. Only a couple weeks after the attack, and she looks good as new; Elias can’t and refuses to say the same of himself. He won’t lie to himself. His body will now stand testament to the horrors inflicted upon the Institute.
Sims has him back on his normal grind, and the brusque nature of his commands never cease to come across less as patronizing and more as distracted, and Elias is happy enough to smile to his face and condescend him behind his back to Peter.
Everything is ‘normal.’ Except it isn’t, and in the dim lighting of his office, paranoia sits like home in Elias’ gut. The dead body of the previous Archivist had been sitting lonesome and rotted in tunnels that shouldn’t exist, the powers that be have shifted dramatically in his mind, and more than anything else, Elias now knows he’s a pawn in someone-- or something’s-- game.
Something larger, more grandiose, more horrifying than anything he could imagine without the help of statements.
There’s a knock on the door, and then Nikola is popping her head into the doorframe, her wide smile still plastered easy as ever even in the aftermath of everything. “There’s a man here to see you for a statement,” She sing-songs, and then catches Elias’ look at the desk and wrinkles her nose. “Ohhh, boss, perk up! You’re going to start looking like Jon with that scowl! And you know he doesn’t take care of himself.” She laughs a little and steps out of the way, opening the door wider with long fingers.
Elias rather appreciates Miss Orsinov, he does. Especially now. Especially now that he knows what she can survive. But the gently mocking tone of her voice isn’t exactly the most welcome, not right now, so he waves her off, and she traverses her way back to the Archives no doubt.
In her place is a man, a tall man who looks smaller for the way he’s squeezing into himself, hunched over, body a ball of tension and hair clearly having seen better days. What could be blond ringlets that would rival Nikola’s perfect bounces, if they were taken care of, is a frizzy, hastily pulled together set of buns that look greasy, as though he’s been pulling his fingers through his hair over and over and over.
Right, then.
“Hello. You’ve a statement to record?” He asks, and keeps his voice as even and smooth as possible, and if the way the man’s eyes flicker in paranoia is any indication, it’s the right move.
“Y-yes. Erm, well. Of a sorts. Um--” He sits down in front of Elias, holding a notebook to his chest, his blue eyes wide and staring for just a scant moment before sliding to the left. Probably nothing, then. He’s seen his fair amount of crazies walk in the door with nothing more than the cosmic horror of the own human mind deteriorating and causing the more unfortunate of mental traps and delusions.
“Right, then.” Still, there’s an instinct to these things, and though by appearances the fellow seems useless, there’s a twinge of something, muscle memory perhaps, that has Elias’ hand reaching out to take hold of the tape recorder and set it square in the center of his desk, finger hovering over the record button.
“Statement of--?”
“M-Michael Shelley.”
“Statement of Michael Shelley, regarding his encounter with…?”
“A… A twisty hallway? Of sorts. I mean-- It’s quite a long story, and it’s rather convoluted, and my brain isn’t-- I have a map, you see, that might help, and--”
Elias cuts him off, and presses record. “Statement of Michael Shelley, regarding an encounter with a hallway. Begin.”
And so it goes. The stutters lessen as the Archival magic weaves itself into Michael Shelley’s being, his story becoming less of a sobbed mess and something approaching linear. Twisting, never-ending hallways, a long, thin woman who led him into her belly, her belly, her belly, and a map.
As the Spiral often wants, the statement might be legible, but it doesn’t necessarily make the most sense, and five minutes in, Michael is leaning over Elias’ desk and producing a map, something scrawled hastily and messily on scratch paper, his long fingers tracing paths and ravines and journeys that could not exist.
Elias cocks his head as he tries to make head or tail of it. “Quite the pilgrimage you’ve set yourself out for, Mr. Shelley,” He says slowly, his eyes raking over the map and committing it to memory. He’s always had a good memory; it used to hurt, he used to numb himself from constant stimulus, but now? Now it’s his bread and butter. His weapon. His only hope to survive this world.
Michael Shelley laughs, high and jittery, like it's forcing itself out from his chest without his consent. “I’m not very religious anymore, I’m afraid. It’s not a pilgrimage; it’s a trap . It wants me. It wants to consume me. And I think-- Well, I think it must be scared of me , considering I’ve made a map to its heart.”
“And how did you procure this heart-map?”
Michael shrugs. “Dunno, really. It just came to me. These things just come to me sometimes. Twisty, twisty, follow it through long enough and O! O! There’s some nugget of-- Of knowledge, you know?”
Elias’ smile turns fond. “I do.”
“Just a pity. I think-- I think this Helen is going to kill me. And I’m not sure there’s anything I can do. More I-- More I try and figure it out, the more it-- It calls to me. I don’t think it wants me but it’s drawn to me.”
“I see.” He searches the bedraggled face of a man too young for all of this, and then nods. “Is that all, then, Mr. Shelley?”
“I-- Well can’t you help?”
“Not really. We just record. For future databases and knowledge to pool from. Rest assured, your statement will be thoroughly analyzed by our best and brightest.”
Michael Shelley squints, and then slowly backs his chair up, grabbing his map roughly. He chews on one of his nails as he stares Elias down, the placated, polite smile on Elias’ face clearly not settling any of Shelley’s nerves.
“...Alright. Alright. Well. Thanks anyways, I suppose.”
Elias doesn’t really see the point in dragging this out; He doesn’t know nearly enough about the Spiral as an entity, but he certainly knows enough to know that a lad like Michael Shelley is doomed. Wasting energy on saving him would be just that; a waste.
So he stops the tape, and allows Michael Shelley to walk through the wrong Door, and he takes in every single detail of the grain of wood and the paint placed upon the Door, and he commits that, too, to memory. Feeding the one patron he has these days, perhaps, but feeding himself too; if he doesn’t know enough about the Spiral, he will learn.
And maybe Michael Shelley will greet him, in another time, in another existence, when he is no longer Michael Shelley but something utterly transformed and horrible. It’ll certainly pad out a nice written statement for future encounters.