Work Text:
[Recorder clicks on.]
ARCHIVIST:
Statement of Isaac Chance regarding the insect infestation of his home. Statement given 14th of June, 1990. Statement recorded by Jonathan Sims, head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT):
Bugs have been around me my whole life.
I hate that they've been there, I hate that they are there. Now they're here and no one believes me.
When I was a child, I didn't mind the bugs. I don't think I liked them, but I didn't hate them either. They were just there. Funny, little squirming things that I could play with. They were the objects of my visions, my cruel science experiments, and my dying muses.
I never really saw them as living things even. I never registered that they were living things that probably felt the pain I put them through. It never crossed my mind and no one stopped me. I don't remember anyone even knowing what I did.
It's not like I'm one of those nuts who grew up abusing animals and then turned into some weird, serial killer freak, no. I hate them. I hate bugs. I get sick when I think of them. Thinking about that stupid kid I used to be could so easily touch them. How I would pour bleach into ant hills without a care and would watch their tiny black bodies dance in pain before falling still on the sidewalk. How I could pluck several daddy long-legs from their corner and closet webs, uncaring of how they squirmed in my hands and then place them into a jar where I would watch them eat each other over the next few days before the gorey victor succumbed to starvation. How I could slice earthworms in half with my father's shaving razor, waiting to see if they'd grow into two new worms… Vertical slices were too hard to manage, they always squirmed too much and died before I could complete the operation. Horizontal was easier, but they, too, always died.
I killed so many, so many insects and spiders and insignificant little bugs. So many fell at my hands before I had even graduated primary school. My crimes never escalated. I enjoyed animals, I still do. I understood that big things like cats or dogs- or even birds were nice and my friends. But bugs? They were nothing to me.
My attitude towards them changed when I hit secondary school. I don't know how, or why, but suddenly I hated them. I hated the buzzing insects that lived in tanks in the science classrooms. I hated the flies that idly flew in what used to be my favourite takeout restaurant. The cupboard moths that somehow found their way into the oatmeal tin made me so nauseous that I stopped eating it all together when I was 14.
I couldn't stomach them, I couldn't look at them. I still can't. I hate them. Them and their crawling, parasitical legs. Their many eyes and buzzing noises. They are all around me every single day, and every day I feel them. I feel them crawling on me, I hear them buzzing in my ears.
Hallucinations. That's what they were, that's what the doctors who prescribed me the medication said at least. They thought because of what I said I was convinced I was infected, something called ‘Ekbom syndrome’, but I am not infected. I do not fear their infection, because I know that's something they cannot do. I'm just scared of them. I know, I know that they know of my crimes. That they know of the millions of their kind I killed when I was a thoughtless child, and now they're coming for me.
They're going to kill me like I killed their brethren and they're going to make it hurt. Why wouldn't they? ‘Eye for an eye’ doesn't affect them when they are not scared of becoming blind. They know that their numbers will do it. And what's a little loss in their noble cost when I've already laid waste to fleets of them?
Humans are outnumbered 200 million to 1 by bugs. There is no possible way that we can avoid contact with them. Even in the most sterile of places, you will find them. Forget skeletons in the closet, roaches under the tile are far worse.
I hate bugs. I do everything I can to keep them away from me. I get monthly treatments around my house, I have ant traps in corners and on counters, I light candles that they're supposed to hate the scent of, and whenever I leave the house I always apply bug spray. They're little things, but they keep the bugs at bay and they make me feel safe. For years these things worked well and kept me relatively safe from them. That was until the day I killed a cricket.
I didn't even mean to, I wouldn't have done it had I known it was there. Honestly, if I had seen the thing I would've given it the widest berth possible. I was just leaving my house to run to the chemist's, and the next thing I know I hear a crunch and feel something crush under my shoe.
Honestly, I was more distraught that the thing had been on my doorstep rather than the fact that I had killed it. I vigorously wiped the bug's broken corpse off my shoe and into the lawn and continued on my way, only feeling slightly gross. It was the first time I had killed a bug in years.
As I tramped back home from the chemist's, that realization started to fall over me. It cracked over my head like a raw egg. Sicky and cold, it ran down my body and consumed me. I don't know why, but then I knew I had opened the floodgates of revenge. They were coming for me.
Ironically, the prescription I was out to get from the chemist was the drug that helped curb my buggy hallucinations. But it didn't help, not when I knew that they were coming. The worst thing about bugs is that since they are all around you, even if you can't see them, you're always surrounded. Always living in a false sense of security while they lurk in the shadows.
I started to feel them every day, even more than I had before. They crawl under my skin when I'm trying to sleep or when I'm driving. I can hear them buzzing in my ears when I cook or eat. And I see them crawling in the corner of my eyes on the wall or the floor. It's the worst when I wake up in the middle of the night and feel them moving on top of the blankets. But whenever I get the courage to turn on the light, they're never there.
These are not my normal hallucinations. These are real. I know it. I know, I know how that sounds coming from a person who is medicated for such hallucinations, but- these are real. These bugs aren't just crawling inside my brain, nesting in the folds grey matter and tickling my thoughts with their six sick legs. They're alive. They're all around me.
I don't know why they're doing this. Why They're teasing me like this, playing with me. I don't think bugs ‘play’ with their food. Are bugs conscious enough to do that? I don't know. I don't know much about bugs. But if they're smart enough to seek revenge on me, then I worry what else they're smart enough to do. They're surely smart enough to go away once the lights come on.
I'm scared to sleep. I don't want to feel them on top of me. It wouldn't be hard for them to find a way under my blankets. And there's nothing keeping them from crawling into my mouth at night and suffocating me with their squirming masses.
The day I learned that people swallow 8 spiders in their sleep every year, I was so distraught that I threw up at school and had to be sent early because of how panicked I was. If a normal person can eat that many spiders in their sleep, then what does it mean for me? I've awoken their vendetta against me. Kamikaze crawlers would be sure to march one-by-one into my gullet if it meant a fearful and slow death for me. When I think too much about it, like I am now, I can feel them. Feel their hairy little legs tickling my throat.
But that's one of the hallucinations. I know that. I know that. I know that. I can tell the difference between them and the real thing. For the most part, I don't even need to hallucinate. My brain kicks back and soaks in the bug-brine of fear while I feel them all over me and hear them so close to my ears.
I don't know how to get rid of them. I talked to the man who does the bug treatments on my house, but I must've looked a right state because the look he gave me- well, it doesn't matter. He said he didn't see any bugs when he did the parameter spray around the house. That answer wasn't good enough for me. Of course they weren't around the house, they were in it. I asked if I could pay more for him to treat the inside of my house that day, too, and he agreed.
But they're still here. I know the treatment didn't do a damn thing. It gives me no peace of mind like it used to. Not when I always feel them. Feel them on me and sense them in the same space as me.
On the rare instances I do fall asleep, I wake up scratching myself. The burning sensation as my nails scrape my fevered skin combined with my already fretful sleep always wakes me up. Even when I'm not sleeping, I can't help the scratching. When you feel them so faintly, yet so intently, all you can do is scratch. And scratch. And scratch. And scratch.
It doesn't help, they don't even itch. It's just- I can feel them all the time. I'm so tired of feeling them. I don't want to feel them. I'd give anything to be free of them, free of the bugs.
If only I wasn't such a coward. If only the grave worms and what lies beyond didn't frighten me just as much as the plague of insects I face now.
I just don't know what to do. I'm losing the will to even be scared, but I can't take this. I can't live like this. I can't become this.
I don't want to live in this infestation.
ARCHIVIST:
Statement ends.
This one is rather cut and dry if you ask me. Chance said it himself, he had insect hallucinations such as these and he was even medicated for them. That's really all that I need to know. (SIGHS, ANNOYED.) Instead of making a statement here, he would have been better off checking into the nearest psychiatric institute.
No, that's the deal with these people. Thinking their mental health or- or addiction problems immediately equate to real life accounts of the paranormal. That's why this place is so damn cluttered. I can't believe it's statements like these that can't be cataloged digitally. Honestly, half the ones I have to record like this are so outlandish that they couldn't ever possibly be real. (HE SCOFFS, MUTTERING.) Even if the statement givers weren't certifiably raving…
Follow-up for this one was particularly easy according to Tim. Just two months later, neighbors called for a wellness check on Chance since he hadn't been seen in almost a week and his mail was piling up. Police found Chance in his bed with his face and mouth scratched beyond bloody and raw by his own fingers.
The police report says, and I quote, ‘victim's mouth area and cheeks were covered with self inflicted scratches and tears. Cheeks were ripped and both of the victim's hands were shoved in his mouth. All other visible skin on victim was covered in similar scratches, but not as severe.’
And following with the coroner's report on Chance, it appears his cause of death was… suffocation. During the autopsy, they found 7 different kinds of insects lodged in Chance's throat, those species not being limited to house centipedes, mosquitos, hawk moths, and… crickets. Chance suffocated on both the insects and his own hands, which only appeared to force the bugs deeper down his throat.
They are unsure whether Chance's death was intentional or not, considering that it didn't appear that the insects were forced down his throat. All of the injuries found on Chance were written off as self-inflicted, however.
While I do think it is odd that Chance died in such a manner, it's hardly paranormal. I don't understand the inner workings of the mentally ill mind, but even I might guess that Chance thought he would relieve some of his discomfort by placing the bugs inside himself. He probably started having second thoughts and tried to remove the insects to no avail, hence all of the wounds on his face.
Just another file for the junk pile I suppose.
End recording.
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