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Sasha is being stalked. She can feel the guy's eyes on her from the back of the bus. The researcher in her demands to know who and why. Well, the why is pretty obvious for any woman, but still. When she gets off, she can feel him walking a small distance behind her. After a bit, she gets fed up and whips around to face the man behind her. He is... not what she' expect from a stalker. He's quite short and unintimidating, someone she wouldn't spare a second glance to usually. He looks baffled by her action, looking up at her in disbelief.
"What do you want?" She demands to know.
"Um, I don't know how to phrase this and not sound insane, but... My name is Jon and I used to be your friend."
Sasha's eyebrow nearly leaves her face.
"Used to?"
"Well, uh, I got attacked by this... thing, and now no one I knew before recognises or remembers me."
"Right, okay, listen dude, I've got work to do, so I've got no time for crazy bullshit." She says and turns around to leave.
"No, wait!" The man sounds panicked. "If you leave, you'll forget this ever happened! At least give me a chance to prove myself."
Sasha wants to say no. She wants to turn around and leave this dude behind. Except... she's remembering Amy Patel's statement, the creature she claimed replaced her neighbour. 'What if?' Her mind whispers. 'What if he's telling the truth?' Sasha takes a deep breath.
"Alright. You have one shot. Tell me something only a friend of mine would know."
"Oh my god, alright, okay. So, when we worked in Research, you told Tim that your real name was actually Sashamin and he believed you for an entire month. And then when he found out, he was so outraged that he only addressed you as Ms James for three days."
There's a silence.
"Holy shit," Sasha whispers. "There's no way you can know that, not unless you worked there, but I know there wasn't anyone in Research called Jon, I would remember-"
"Okay, okay, calm down, Sasha, please. Do you believe me?"
She should leave. She should get away from this guy. She doesn't. He gently leads her to a nearby cafe, where they sit down at a small secluded table. He doesn't speak.
"How long have we known each other?" She asks eventually.
"About three years. I started at the institute five months after you."
"When did that... thing... attack you?"
"Around a month ago," Jon says after a short silence. "I've been trying to reach out to friends but you're the only one who's even noticed me so far."
"What happened?"
"Can I come with you to the archives? I think Tim and Martin should hear as well."
"What happens if I say no? If I just leave?" She asks. She's too invested in the story to actually consider it, but she likes to be informed.
"You'll forget you ever met me, I think. No one I talk to seems to remember me after the interaction ends. I used to be a researcher, I tested it."
"Alright then," Sasha says. "Let's go."
She ends up holding Jon's hand the entire way to the Institute, mostly because he's clutching it like a lifeline and she wants to reassure him a little bit. When they arrive, Tim and Martin are already there. They both look up when Sasha enters and look fairly confused when they see the strange man she drags inside behind her.
"What is going on?" Martin questions.
Sasha takes a breath to start explaining but quickly realises Jon wasn't lying when he said it's hard to do so without appearing to have lost your mind.
"Do either of you recognise him?" She asks instead. The two shake their heads.
"I told you they wouldn't, nobody does." Jon speaks up.
"Sash, this isn't some weird prank is it?" Tim asks and Jon laughs bitterly like it's a joke only he knows.
"Basically, Jon here is claiming that he had a... supernatural encounter that erased all memory of him in the world."
"Sounds like that statement." Martin says, looking around for it.
"Amy Patel and Graham Folger, right?" Jon asks and all three turn to look at him. "Uh, yeah, Sasha forgot to mention I used to work here with you. I was the Archivist."
"Excuse me?" Tim lifts an eyebrow. "Where'd you find this lunatic, Sash?"
"He knows about the Sashamin thing, Tim."
"But this doesn't make any sense! We can't have just had a fourth coworker we forgot about!"
"When did Gertrude go missing?" Jon interrupts them.
"In March, why?" Martin says.
"When did you become the Archivist, Sasha?"
"A few weeks ago. What's this got to do with anything?"
"It's September." He says softly. They know this, of course, but he watches the realization dawn on them anyway. He know deep down that this won't magically reverse what happened to him. He knows their memories won't return out of nowhere. It disappoints him regardless. Still, as he looks at them again and remembers how he treated them, he realises that maybe a fresh start wouldn't be so bad.
A few months later, things have settled. He ends up living in the spare room in the archives semi-permanently when he's not wandering the streets of London. Jon discovers quite quickly that something in him changed after the attack. He barely needs any food to survive and his supernatural anonymity is something he's able to (mostly) control. It results in him using his ability to terrify random citizens. Sasha, Tim and Martin lovingly dub him 'the archives cryptid' and throw a party when he shows up in a statement for the first time. God knows they need reasons to smile as Jane Prentiss' attack on Martin still hangs heavy over them. They keep going though, Jon helping with investigating statements. It's as they are having a brainstorming session about how to handle the true statements, that Elias enters the Archives for the first time in months.
Sasha sees as his gaze focuses on Jon and Jon reacts almost primally. She can't describe what he does because of how unimaginably strange it is. The Jon she knows disappears and in his place is a someone/something(somewhere??) that she could not ever possibly put a name to. It undeniably exists in front of her and yet her entire being rejects the very fact that she's witnessing it exist. And then, just like that it's all over, and Jon is not there and Elias blinks twice before speaking.
"Did you have a statement giver here, Sasha?" He sounds vaguely confused, which is highly unusual.
"No, just us." She says, because it's true.
"Well, I just wanted to see how your progress is coming along."
"It's going just fine, when you exclude the hordes of worms we have to deal with constantly."
"Keep up the good work." He gives them one of his unsettling smiles, before leaving.
"So, um. What the fuck just happened?" Tim asks. "There was another guy here, wasn't there?"
"I... think so?" Sasha furrows her brows and Martin shrugs.
Jon enters from the breakroom then, looking them over for a long moment.
"Please tell me you still know who I am."
"Of course, Jon." Martin says. He didn't know his name, he's sure of it, and yet it had just come out of his mouth. Jon breathes a sigh of relief.
"Thank God. I didn't exactly think that would happen, I'm sorry."
"What happened?"
"Something about his eyes..." Jon's gaze drifts to the pile of statements they'd been discussing. "Huh. We should try to categorise these."
"Oh, so you're just not going to explain that just now?!"
"I don't think I could."
"Wow," Tim grins. "You really are the local cryptid, aren't you?"
"We're not throwing you another party if this new trick shows up in a statement." Sasha playfully wags a finger at him and he laughs.
"I'll keep that in mind."