Chapter Text
The door in front of you is stained with red. Threads of grey, incessantly twitching, stretch over the flaking paint.
scratch, scratch
There is something moving on the other side of the door. Anticipation stills your movement of the grey threads.
The door opens silently. On the other side stands a fly in a dark blue suit. It is clutching a box in its forelimbs.
scratch, scratch
You watch it carefully with all eight of your eyes. It shakily, daintily steps towards you, extending the box. The fly’s steps have left a barely noticeable trail in the thick dust.
Taking the box, you set it down. You carefully open the lid and examine the cake within.
The fly’s face is contorted with fear, mandibles twitching in whispered prayer. You shift your weight towards it, resting spindly legs on the wall next to its head.
scratch, scratch
Mr Spider doesn’t like it.
Jon awakes on the edge of a scream. His heart is racing, but the nightmare is already retreating into his subconscious. A glance at the clock on the windowsill shows it’s 2:48 AM. He’s been asleep for about three hours, then. The sky is still dark.
He isn’t particularly surprised. The nightmares have happened at roughly the same time every night for the past month. This one felt separate from the others, though. Normally he doesn’t even meet the fly.
Standing up, Jon realises he fell asleep at the desk again. The book he was supposed to be reading lies unopened next to a swarm of mugs. It might be Crime And Punishment, but honestly he can’t remember. He takes one of the mugs and walks down the stairs as quietly as possible. The landlord, Julie, is sleeping in the room next to the kitchen, and she definitely wouldn’t appreciate being woken up at this time of night. He would rather not annoy her any more this week.
Jon halfheartedly rinses out the cup, considers getting some more coffee and then remembers there’s none left. Water it is, then.
He manages to get upstairs without making a sound, opening the door in increments. Setting the cup on the desk again, he sits down on the side of the bed and rests his head in his hands. The headaches are getting worse, too. The ibuprofen helped a little, but then he hasn’t actually bought any since the last time he left the house. Which was two months ago.
The cobwebs have started to cover up the window.
He tries not to look at them.
Julie doesn’t like it. She was a friend of Jon’s grandmother. Once she tried to get rid of the spiders, Jon remembers. She doesn’t talk to him much any more.
He lies down without drinking the water and stares blindly into the darkness, hoping for sleep to come soon. He also hopes to not wake up.
Morning dawns cold and bright. Jon is woken by sunlight seeping through the gaps around the curtains. There is a bird of some kind singing outside the window.
The sense of something being different Jon felt last night has blossomed. He can’t quite put a finger on what it could be. Nothing in his surroundings, definitely - the mess of his room has remained unchanging, and he doubts it’s anything to do with his health, either. He stays lying down for a while, then gets up and opens the curtains. The sky is greyish, mottled with purple clouds. He can’t hear the bird anymore.
Picking up his jacket from the chair, he rifles through the stack of papers on his desk. The season ticket he had bought for college is right at the bottom of the pile, with three weeks left.
There’s nobody on the road, which Jon is grateful for. He walks quickly, staring at the pavement, relying on memory to guide him to the train station. It’s relatively easy to complete the entire journey on mental autopilot, so the train ride is a blur of faces and greyish scenery.
Jon finds himself on an unfamiliar street, with very little idea of how he got there. He feels a prickle of anxiety, but it is dull enough to be ignored. With an awkward wave, he stops a passerby.
“Excuse me, could you tell me where I am?”
They frown. “Uh, you’re in Chelsea. Hey, are you- ”
Jon disappears round the corner. He feels a little sick. Talking is more difficult than he remembered.
The building he stands in the shadow of is tall and imposing. It has writing engraved into the marble above the door. Jon squints, trying to read it.
“THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE,” it says. The words have an odd weight to them, though he has never heard them before. He knocks on the door almost involuntarily.
“Hi, can I help you?” A young man holding a sheaf of papers stands in the doorway. Jon blinks in surprise, stepping back a little. “Um- I’m, I…”
“Are you here to make a statement?”
Jon nods. “Yeah. That’s it.” The man is wearing a badge with his name on it - Martin Blackwood. “Okay, then,” Martin says, “if you want to come in, Sasha will be able to help you. She’s the head archivist.” He leads Jon through a series of rooms stuffed with filing cabinets to a cramped office overlooking the street. A woman wearing a green jumper sits by the window with a cup of tea. When she hears the door open, she turns to face them and smiles. “Hi. You’re here for a statement?”
“Apparently so,” says Jon quietly.
“Good. If you’ll sit down here, we can start.” She pats the chair in front of her and pulls a tape recorder out of the desk drawer. “What’s your name?”
“Jonathan Sims.”
“Right, then. Statement of Jonathan Sims, recorded direct from subject on the 23rd October 2016,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “When you’re ready.”
Jon stares at her for a second, then shakes his head wearily.
“I… I don’t know why I’m here,” he says. “I don’t know what this place is. I haven’t gone outside in months. Maybe this is just another weird dream?” He drags his hands through his hair. “I’ll tell you what happened, anyway. I may as well.”
Jon takes a deep breath.
“I was admitted to Penelope House in January this year, following a suicide attempt, I think. I don’t remember it.
It was an involuntary admission. My roommate came in and found me lying on the floor and called the police. I tried to tell the psychiatrist I was fine, that it was all a mistake, that they should just let me go home. Continue as before.
I arrived late at night. It was quiet. The only people awake were the staff, and they led me to a room on the second floor. I remember thinking that it seemed a little off. The hospital, that is. I assumed it was the shock.
We had a routine. They woke up all the patients at six. We had to meet a doctor once a week, to ‘assess our progress’, but the doctor never said much. He just looked at me. Occasionally made notes, asked a question every now and then.
I never talked to any of the other patients. They didn’t talk to me, either. I only saw them in the morning and the evening, and spent the rest of the day in the room. I can’t recall any details of what I did. It was utterly monotonous. I almost preferred it to my life before.
New patients were rare. Twice, three times a year, maybe, not often. The newest was a middle-aged man. I saw them around a couple times. They had joined in late February.
One day, at breakfast, he came and sat next to me. I just ignored him, but he started trying to talk to me. I hadn’t talked to anyone - well, except occasionally the staff - since I’d arrived. I had no idea how to respond, so I said nothing and just listened as he asked me, again and again, why we were here. He started to get angry as he realised I wasn’t going to say anything, then turned to the patient next to him. She stayed silent too. He began to shout, then leapt up on the table. He was frantically waving his arms. Begging someone to speak. The staff came after a few minutes, restrained him, and dragged him away. The silence fell again, so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
I didn’t let it disturb me until that night, when I was alone in my room. I couldn’t fall asleep. The sound of that man’s voice cracking as he was pulled away by the staff echoed relentlessly inside my head. It was the first time I had felt anything except that dull, smothering apathy since I had been admitted.
I knew that something had been set in motion. Something inevitable. I was going to play my part in it whether I wanted to or not.
The House felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. The quiet was heavy, stifling any noise I made as I walked down the stairs.
Whenever one of the patients acted up, they told me when I arrived, they were sent to the ‘quiet room’. It was on the ground floor. I had never been in there, nor known anyone who had. The tiny gold letters on the door were rusted around the edges, filmed with dust.
His body was hanging from the ceiling, wrapped in cobwebs. It was desiccated. Barely recognisable as something human. I stumbled back and tried to shut the door. It took a few tries. My hands were shaking.
I didn’t know what to do. I just… went back to my room. Lay down on the bed and stared blindly at the ceiling, the image of the dead man floating behind my eyes. I didn’t move until the bell signalled it was time for us to get up.
The next day, everything was the same as always. Nobody mentioned what happened. I found it surprisingly easy to pretend that I hadn’t seen anything.
I had a meeting with the doctor scheduled for that day. He sat down opposite from me and took out his clipboard, as per usual. Then I noticed the sleeve of his coat twitching. The fabric moved like the surface of water. He put the clipboard down and stood back up, stepping towards me. There was something wrong about the way he moved. Completely silent. The last thing I remember is meeting his eyes and seeing… nothing. Just darkness.
I woke up to feel a cold breeze on my face. I was still sitting in the same chair, wearing the same clothes, but the room was different. The paint on the walls was peeling. Layers of grime coated every surface. The doctor was gone.
What could I do? I stood up, pushed away the chair, and walked out.
The corridors were inhabited only by leaves. I was afraid to break the silence. When I left the building, it was night. I felt like I was in a dream. I walked all the way to the nearest town and asked to borrow someone’s phone, then called a taxi. I went straight back to my apartment and didn’t come out for a week.
After a while, I decided to Google Penelope House to see what came up.” He makes a sound which might have been a laugh or a sob.
“It… it’s been abandoned since 1995.”
“Statement ends.” Sasha turns off the tape recorder with a click. Jon suddenly becomes aware of how much he’s been talking.
“I should go now, I think,” he says, picking up his jacket a little self-consciously. Sasha watches him impassively. “The door’s that way. Thanks for coming.” Jon leaves quietly, and Sasha immediately gets back to work.
She’s filing again. Taking a statement was a welcome break from the monotony of organisation. The Magnus Institute isn’t exactly built for easy navigation, and working out what goes where is even- hold on, is that screaming ? Sasha drops her documents and runs to the door to see Jon frantically stamping on a tide of worms which writhe. in a carpet of silver on the floor. He tries to kill them, but they keep coming, wriggling up from the cracks in the floorboards. Fear freezes Sasha in place for a second, then she grabs a fire extinguisher and sprays a circle in the worms around her, watching as they shrivel. She fends off a fresh wave coming from the ceiling and picks her way towards where Jon has collapsed on the floor, bloodstained hands covering his face. The worms are beginning to disperse, vanishing back to wherever they came from. Sasha chases the last few away and then rushes over to Jon. He’s barely conscious, bleeding from dozens of circular wounds, but still tries to stand. She takes his shoulder and leads him to a chair, agitatedly whispering under her breath. “Okay. Okay. Are you alright? Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Jon mumbles something incoherent and tries to wipe off the blood dripping down his face. Sasha steps back, still clutching the fire extinguisher. “Hold on, I’ll just- Martin? Tim? Anyone?” Tim appears just as she says this. He’s holding a fire extinguisher too, but drops it when he sees Jon lying on the floor. He goes pale. “Oh, jeez. What happened?”
“Worms,” Sasha says flatly. Tim winces.
“They’re getting worse, then. Who’s that?”
“A statement giver - Jonathan, I think his name was?” She shakes her head. “D’you think we should take him to A & E? The wounds look pretty bad.”
“I don’t know. I mean, we’re going to have to wait a couple hours, and I don’t know how we’d explain this to the doctor,” Tim says. He shakes his head. “We’re going to have to deal with this ourselves.”
Sasha runs out of the room and towards her office, where a first-aid kit sits in the filing cabinet. Martin is waiting in the corridor as she comes back, and follows her with a half-formed question. Tim is standing next to Jon, talking to him quietly. He looks up when Sasha returns. “He’s still pretty incoherent. I can’t-” “Wait, sorry for interrupting, what’s going on?” Martin looks from Tim to Sasha to Jon.
“The worms attacked him suddenly, just as he was leaving,” Sasha says, indicating Jon. She pulls some bandages out of the kit. “I don’t think there are any more worms in there, and the bleeding’s basically stopped, but he’s gonna have some nasty scars. Are there any antiseptic wipes in the kit?” Martin hands her a wad and she dabs at the puncture wounds, before putting a bandage on Jon’s arm. “How’re you feeling? she asks. He blinks slowly. “I’m okay. Just kind of in shock.” He stands up abruptly, takes a wobbly step towards the door,then steps slowly back to lean against the wall.
“Hold on, don’t go yet,” Sasha says, reaching out for his shoulder again. “You can’t just leave .” She breaks into apologies again. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t- we should’ve been more careful.”
Jon sits down again. He prays he doesn’t throw up. “What were those things?”
“Well.” Sasha sucks in air through her teeth. “It’s a long story. Basically, we’re being attacked by this lady called Jane Prentiss, who’s… She’s…” She trails off.
“She has a bunch of evil worms?” Tim interjects.
Jon laughs humorlessly, incredulously. “Okay. All right. Evil worms.”
Sasha pinches the bridge of her nose. “Look, it’s hard to explain. I have a few statements about it if you want to read them,” she says, gesturing towards the untidy shelves. “I know it sounds mad. I thought so too, at first.”
Jon nods. “I’ll take your word for it. I mean, I can’t really not believe you. I just got attacked by them.”
Sasha starts wrapping his arm with the bandage. “Do you have someone you can stay with while the wounds heal?”
“Well. I have a landlady, but she isn’t likely to want me back in the house. The only things keeping her from evicting me were pity and the fact that I wouldn’t open my door.” Sasha offers him a painkiller, which he declines with a shake of his head.
“Ah. Okay, then. Are you happy to stay here until you can find somewhere else to go? We have a couple free rooms.”
Jon considers this for a second. Then he nods. “Sure.”