Chapter Text
“Ghosts aren’t real, Tim,” Jon sighed at his coworker’s interruption of his work.
Seriously. A ghost in the archives? Jon had expected better from him. He could extend his disbelief to some, some elements of the paranormal, but ghosts were too far. It was nothing more than a fun fantasy for those scared to die and never return.
“But this one is! I saw it walk through a wall! Classic ghost shit!” Tim insisted, unwaveringly confident in this apparition that he had supposedly seen.
“Listen, if you’d like to make a statement, feel free to do so. If not, then kindly allow me to resume my work,” Jon didn’t have time to bother with Tim’s nonsense, not when he had work to do. Well, work for a statement that he was entirely sure was false, but work nevertheless.
“No, no, you’ll see, it’s real!” Tim seemed way too confident for an full honest-to-god adult who truly believed he had seen a ghost.
“What did this…ghost look like?” Jon could maybe entertain this, if only because Tim’s position was clearly set.
“I…didn’t get a good look. There were just…eyes, definitely eyes. It looked really surprised to see me, actually,”
“Ah, well, that’s not exactly a helpful image, so if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to get back to work, as should you,”
Tim left.
This would not be the last time, however, that Jon was told about this ‘eye-ghost’.
In fact, the very next day, Sasha would politely knock on his door. He didn’t suspect anything was amiss, not until he told her to enter and she looked positively unnerved.
“Hey, you wouldn’t possibly believe in ghosts, would you?” the woman asked, staring him in the eyes.
“...not you too,” he had thought that out of everyone, Sasha would be the last one to claim to have seen something so silly as a ghost. Martin, maybe, Tim, possibly, but Sasha? She was far too competent to say such silly things. Maybe it was the halloween spirit infecting the space. All the talk about spirits must have been messing with their perceptions.
“Too? Has…has anyone else said anything about it?” Sasha questioned.
“Well…Tim had said some things that were, quite, frankly, absurd, but…could you describe the ghost, possibly?”
Sasha shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. I think it was a man, but he had long hair…but that could have also been anything else…his eyes were clear, though, and he was just standing there, staring at me, when I entered the archives today,”
Well. That was…not ideal. Sure, the other description he had gotten had been vague, but both had mentioned eyes.
Which was certainly a coincidence, because obviously the ghost would have eyes, why wouldn’t it. That- that is, if there was a ghost, which there most certainly was not! He would have seen it by now, or someone would have found real evidence of ghosts' existence by now, if they existed. If this was a ghost, it was certainly not a normal one.
“Well, I can’t say that I believe in ghosts, but…I’ll keep an eye out, I guess,” he tried to have more patience with Sasha, as she was the one employee that he could trust to always give work that actually exceeded his minimal expectations. But still, even with his trust for her, he just couldn’t be on her side with this.
Maybe this was some bad joke by Tim. He hadn’t actually seen the ghost, and Tim was the type to try to scare him, so the obvious conclusion was that it was, simply, not real.
And that would be the last he would think about it, he promised to himself. He wouldn’t entertain another of Tim’s jokes, not even if every single employee at this institute complained to him about it.
Until he saw it himself.
He had been walking to artifact storage. Normally, he would have sent one of his assistants, preferably Martin, to go do it while he worked on getting rid of Gertrude Robinson’s damned mess.
But at the entrance to the archives, he froze, staring at the translucent figure in front of the door.
The first thing he noticed was the eyes, and now he understood why his assistants had mentioned them so specifically. They bore into his soul, and there were far too many of them. They were all staring at him, none blinking, none moving.
The ghost just looked at him, looked through him, saw him.
He broke eye contact as well as he could, which was much harder when everywhere he looked, there were eyes. He could see through the figure, but he could make out the shape of a person, back slouched, stance unsteady.
The ghost and the man stared at each other, waiting for the other to move. But while Jon stared with shock, the eyes that met his just looked tired. There was no malicious glint, nothing to give the implication of danger. The spirit looked at him without care.
“What are you? No, why- why are you here?” Jon asked, voice shaking with uncertainty. He was shocked and unsettled, but he was also curious, so damn curious, about this ghost. Which it undeniably was, that is, a ghost. A ghost that matched Sasha’s depiction of the figure she had seen just yesterday.
“I am the Archivist, why should I not be in my archive?” the spirit didn’t sound all that scary. No booming voice or echo, just a slight whispery element, as though he was being mixed with the wind itself.
“I- I am the archivist, not you,”
“Perhaps not, but I am the Archivist,” it repeated. In the silence that followed it, no, he, muttered something about tethers even in death.
“Can you…can you leave?” Jon wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t ever been a fan of ghosts in shows or movies or books, he had always found them too fake, too forced. But this ghost was no sheet with eyes cut out, and Jon had no idea how to proceed.
“I…no, probably not…I haven’t really tried,”
“You- you haven’t?” Jon was genuinely surprised by that. If he had died and was brought to a dusty archive, the first thing he would see would be if he could leave.
“I only got here a few days ago, and I’ve been…busy, I had priorities” the ghost seemed to be getting a bit annoyed with Jon’s questions.
“Well- uh, do you know why you’re here?”
“Because I am the Archivist, even if there is no more of my Archive,”
And with that, the ghost fully vanished into the air, the eyes finally blinking closed as the man disappeared.
“That was…rude,” Jon said bluntly, brain rushing too fast to think too hard about his words.
Ghosts weren’t real, he was so sure, he had always been sure. But the only alternative explanation was that he was seeing things, and while he could brush off other people’s statements as hallucinations and head injuries, he knew for a fact that he was perfectly fine, if a bit rattled.
The second thought that rose to the surface of his mind was that he couldn’t tell his assistants about this. He had a reputation, he was the skeptic, it was his job to question people’s stories. If he told them, they’d laugh, he was sure.
And so he shakily stepped out of the archive to the hallway, resuming his previous task. He could feel eyes on his back, watching as he departed.
But it wasn’t an uncommon feeling, not in the archives.
The eyes were everywhere, not just on ghosts.
And so he decided to ignore the issue until it went away. And to not tell anyone what he had seen, no matter the situation.
This got a bit harder when he saw the ghost while with his assistants.
Martin had mentioned something to Tim about how he hadn’t actually ever seen Jon eat lunch with the rest of them. Jon didn’t see a problem with them, he was their boss, not their friend. But Tim seemingly did, which is why he ended up sitting with his three assistants when he saw the spirit again.
Martin was the first to spot it. Jon decided to believe that this was just because of where the man was positioned and not because of bad observational skills from him.
“Uh…guys? Does anyone else see, uh, that?”
Martin’s voice had interrupted Tim, but even if Tim would have been offended over it, he didn’t get the chance to before his eyes widened.
Jon and Sasha had quickly looked at what Martin was gesturing at, and Tim followed after he noticed that they were all looking away from him.
The ghost looked different, slightly. Brighter, eyes widened. He seemed just as surprised that they saw him as the four archive employees were.
“...fuck. Did the invisibility stop working?” the translucent man broke the silence, sighing. “That’s…not good,”
The man’s mannerisms, his sighs, it all seemed familiar to Jon.
“Does…does he seem kinda…familiar to any of you?” Martin questioned. Jon didn’t know how to feel about being on the same wavelength as Martin, who he hated for completely fair reasons.
“I…I suppose he may seem a bit familiar,” Jon admitted.
“Wait, Jon, I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts? Why aren’t you like…shocked?” Sasha questioned. Nevermind anything he had said in the past, she was no longer the favorite
“I…This isn’t my first time seeing this particular ghost,” he admitted awkwardly, ignoring the gasp from Tim.
“Am I the only one who hasn’t seen this…this actual ghost?!” Martin exclaimed in disbelief.
“Yes…Yes, I suppose you are,” Jon frowned.
“I’m sorry, back up a bit, you can talk?” Tim addressed the oddly familiar ghost. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“Oh…I, uh I’d kinda just got here when I saw you, and then I saw you, well…nevermind,”
Tim’s eyes glinted. “Saw me what?” he questioned the spirit, who was clearly avoiding sharing something. Frankly, Jon would like to know as well what was going on.
“Nothing, nevermind. You just look…different than the last time I saw you,”
The spirit didn’t seem to quite understand the implications of his words until he had already spoken them. But it was too late, he had revealed that he knew Tim, and had seen him before he died.
“Fuck, I wasn’t supposed to say that,”
The ghost blinked out of vision, literally. His eyes closed once, twice, and he was no longer there.
“Hey! Come back here! I still have some questions for you!” Sasha shouted at the space where the ghost had stood (was it standing?) seconds ago.
Jon wondered if, when the ghost disappeared, could the invisible spirit still see them all, or was he literally taken away. Was he still in the room, silently watching them? Jon felt eyes on him. But that was just the constant feeling in the archives. He could never be sure if it was a pair of eyes on him, or just the creeping paranoia that always threatens to take over his days if he lets it.
“Hey, what the fuck was that?” Martin’s eyes were still wide, and he had been nearly silent during the entire encounter with the ghost. Jon supposed that it was how he would act if he had never seen the ghost before, so maybe just this once he wouldn’t hold it against the man.
Jon started to reply. “I’m not entirely sure-”
“The ghost!” Tim interrupted.
“I’m sorry, the what?” Martin asked.
“There’s been a ghost in this place for like…the past week, maybe, are you sure you haven’t seen it anywhere?” Sasha asked him.
“I think I would remember that!” Martine exclaimed.
“Hey, wait, back up, since fucking when could it talk? Sash, did it talk to you?”
Sasha shook her head. She looked like she had decided that this was a mystery that she was going to solve, no matter how confusing. “No, it- he, I think- just stared at me, it was…weird,”
An uncomfortable silence settled heavy over the four.
“Hey, Jon, at least you can’t deny this, right?” Tim asked, trying to break the quiet with a jokey question aimed at Jon, which was always risky.
Jon took a moment to consider his options. He could continue his act, be all shocked about this ghost’s freshly proven existence, and go along with his previous statements.
Or he could tell them what he had seen. He could tell them about his conversation with the ghost, about the familiarity he feels when he sees the ghost.
He feels like he knows this ghost, something in the mannerisms are familiar, but the eyes are all wrong. Bright, open eyes, as though the ghost was trying to take in too much information at once.
“Jon? Hello? You there?”
He made his choice.
“I…haven’t been entirely truthful with you three,”
He explained what had happened at the door to the archives the other day, the way the ghost had talked with him, the way it said it was tethered to this place, that it had never even tried to leave.
“And none of you told me anything?!” Martin spluttered. “Seriously?”
“Wait, Jon, it talked to you, and you just acted like we were crazy? What the fuck?” Tim interrupted.
“Yeah, what’s with that, Jon?!” Sasha agreed. This was what Jon had been hoping to avoid. The inevitable confrontation of revealing what he knew. He had committed to being a skeptic too hard, and it had all come crashing down.
“I…” he didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. It didn’t come across as he meant it, too awkward for sincerity. “I didn’t…I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything else you’re not sharing,” Sasha side-eyed him. She wasn’t asking, she was prompting. Giving him an opportunity to share what he knew.
A familiar sigh had come from the voice of the ghost. Martin had noticed, he knew.
But his suspicions were easy to deny. It could be any ghost, and he knew that some previous employees in the archive hadn’t…well…done all that well. None had any confirmation of death, but…one could assume.
And there wasn’t even any way to tell if it really was tied here! The ghost had said it himself, he hadn’t tried to leave. There was no concrete evidence.
And so Jon stayed silent about his theory.
“No, there’s nothing else, Sasha,” he said firmly, hiding a waver in his voice, “Now, as distracting as this might be, I would like to remind you that you all have work. If you would like to look into this ghost more, please do it on your own,”
“You...alright. Just, next time there’s a possible ghost in the archives, maybe let a guy know?” Martin suggested before walking off.
Sasha followed Tim away, but not before shooting him a look. A look that he deserved.
She had given him an out, a way to share what he knew, and he hadn’t taken because of his useless explanations.
He knew there was no point to his denial. It was inevitably useless to him.
He could feel eyes on his back as he returned to his office, refusing to look at any of his assistants.
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Sasha was absentmindedly researching a statement when she realized there was someone behind her.
She had been unfocused all afternoon, doing easy work while thinking about the strange happenings in the archives. She had known what she had seen, but Jon hadn’t taken her seriously, only for him to reveal that he actually knew she was right. What the hell, Jon!
As she thought about what had happened earlier, the sensation of eyes on her tripled. She was used to the strange feeling of the archives, but this was different, more intense. Instead of a quick glance, this was an unyielding stare.
She couldn’t say she was surprised when she turned and saw the translucent figure of a man standing vaguely behind her, eyes trained on her in that same haunted look as the first time they had met.
“Hello?” she asked the man, who seemed to snap out of a trance, eyes blinking once, twice, before settling back on her.
“Hello…Hello, Sasha,” the man responded, seeming surprised that she had acknowledged his gaze.
“What happened to your eyes?” she asked before she could think about what she should say. “I mean, they seem…different,”
The ghost winced at her question. A sensitive subject, maybe? “I chose a bad place to work,” he responded. For a ghost, he didn’t seem too scary or malicious, just…sad.
“Oh,” she wasn’t sure what to say. She decided to finally ask the question that had been bothering her.
“Do I…know you? Do you know me?”
The ghost’s eyes closed for a second, two, three, before he responded. “I…suppose you do. And I knew you, once,” he avoided her eyes, a hard task considering the amount of eyes on him.
She took a deep breath before scanning her eyes over him, looking for any familiar elements, anything that struck as too recognizable.
His hair hung down to his shoulders, and he looked like he hadn’t had a good day in months. She couldn’t make out colors on him, not most of them. His shirt was wrinkled and he generally looked like he was in the middle of some straining time.
And the eyes.
They were everywhere. On his palms, on his cheeks, on any skin, they stared, green and piercing, unnatural. The only color to be found.
She looked back at her work. She couldn’t bear to watch those eyes anymore.
“But you…you're not the one I remember, you’re…you’re you,” the voice broke her out of her analysis.
“Hey…do you have a name?...Well, of course you do, but can you tell me it?” it was getting inconvenient to refer to him as just the ghost, or the strange man.
“I do...but I don’t think it’s wise to tell you. You can call me the Archivist,”
“I mean…we already have an archivist, though,”
The Archivist considered what she said. “True, you have an archivist. But…there’s really no way to explain this to you, not yet, but there is a difference. I am not your archivist,”
She thought she heard him mutter something else, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“So…do you want something from me? Or are you just gonna stare at me?”
But when she glanced back behind her, there was nobody there.
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The Archivist watched as Sasha turned away from him.
God, Sasha.
When he had first seen her, he had nearly started shaking from his shock. And the worst part was the moment that it took him to recognize her, the difference between the real Sasha and the Stranger suddenly obvious. He knew there was no way he should have known that the real Sasha had died, but he still felt a sharp anger at himself for not being suspicious of her sudden change.
But he didn’t know whether he should tell this Sasha, whether he should warn her of what had happened. He needed to know more about the way he was even here.
He had made a deal, at the end of the world. An ill-advised deal, and now he was here, back in the past, back when the statements were stories he could (pretend to) deny. Back when Sasha was Sasha, and when Tim was happy, and when Martin was…well, Martin was still sweet, but his Martin was also dangerous, less anxious than he once had been.
When he had died, it felt like a blink, and he was here all of a sudden. He panicked, barely recognizing his surroundings for a moment, until he felt the familiarity of the Eye upon him, and he Knew.
Could he leave? He wasn’t sure - hadn’t tried it, not yet. He had only been here a very short time, and he had spent most of it avoiding the past employees. He couldn’t tell them, he decided. Not until he knew what it would change.
Would it even matter? If he told them, surely the apocalypse would have not happened, and then would his ghost even exist to warn them? Would it do anything at all?
No, he couldn’t change anything, and that was why he carefully stayed out of sight of the workers of the Archives.
But he watched them. If he wanted to stay invisible, it was challenging. He couldn’t focus too hard on anything, couldn’t touch anything. He didn’t exist, not to anyone except himself.
And he Watched them. With the eyes that covered him, he kept tabs on them.
He missed Martin. His Martin, where was he? Where had he ended up after everything, after the ending had come and gone?
He hoped that he wasn’t lonely. Martin shouldn’t have to be Lonely, not again.
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Jon was going to regret the choice he was about to make, he just knew it. But…well, he couldn’t just let a strange ghost live in their archive. It would be thoroughly distracting to a workplace environment!
He clicked send.
Listen, he only knew one person who could possibly know what to do about this! He didn’t like it, but the only choice was to reach out to Georgie Barker, the host of a ghost podcast. She also happened to be his ex.
Sigh.
He knew that it was rather sudden, but he hoped that this…issue could be solved soon. It was very much ruining his workplace environment!
The texting itself had been awkward and formal, but he maintained that it was best to keep it professional with her, despite past friendship. He was no longer her friend, simply an acquaintance who needed assistance in a rather specific field. It didn’t have to be anything personal.
However, he had…somewhat forgotten to account for the fact that his assistants may, in fact, be aware of Georgie Barker’s existence. And might perhaps wonder about how he knew her, since he had made it clear that he would not entertain any ghost nonsense, especially not a whole podcast about them.
He only thought to mention to them that she was coming the day of her visit. Well, he supposes he didn’t technically tell them she was coming, just that someone more qualified for the job was coming. This had only been partially intentional, though he figured it might have actually been for the best, as it didn’t provide them too much time to wonder about specifics of her visit, instead forcing them to focus on pooling their knowledge about the ghostly apparition.
“So, it’s a man with eyes all over, who calls himself the Archivist. Do we…have anything more specific than that?” Martin summarized. “I mean, that’s not much to go off of,”
“I mean, I don’t really know what we need to know to narrow things down. I mean, I don’t even know how you would even narrow things down for a ghost. What would you do, look through everyone who may have died here?” Sasha replied. “I’m not happy that we don’t have more details, but this ghost is particularly uncooperative,”
“But, Sash, you talked to it- him?- the other day, did you learn anything from that?”
“I mean…I did, yes, I suppose…did I not tell you?” Sasha seemed genuinely confused. “I swear, I already said everything I found out,”
Jon scanned through his memory for any details she may have told. “I…don’t recall you sharing anything, no,”
“Oh…Well, he says that I know him, and that he ‘knew me, once’, whatever that meant,”
“Huh,” Tim leaned back in his chair, and Jon nearly warned him against it, like his grandmother had always told him. “That’s a weird way to say it,”
“I mean, not really? Maybe he knew her before he…you know…” Martin pointed out.
Jon just nodded, lost in his thoughts. Martin was probably right, as much as he hated to admit it, but it just didn’t seem to fit. If what Sasha was saying was correct, then the ghost would have used some very unusual phrasing.
Georgie was to arrive in about an hour, give or take. She had messaged him half an hour ago, confirming the details of where she was to go. She had been surprised that he had gotten a job in such a spooky place, considering his particular dislike of the supernatural.
He had confirmed the timing and ignored the rest of her comments. He honestly wasn’t even sure how to explain the spiral of events that had led to him taking this job, wasn’t sure how to explain the way he had never planned for this to happen, how he didn’t know how he ended up here-
But it didn’t matter, not really. It was just small talk, and nobody would have to know if he ignored the messages.
“Jon? Hello?” Tim waved his hand in front of Jon’s face, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Hellooo?”
Jon batted away his hand. “Yes?” he sighed. “What is it?”
“How exactly is this person supposed to help? Like, what are they actually gonna do?
“I can’t say that I know that myself, honestly,” he hadn’t ever really kept up with what Georgie did exactly, had never found the time or the energy to truly keep up with her. “She’s better than nothing, though,”
“Cool, so we don’t know,”
“No, we don’t,” Jon was starting to regret even telling them that there was someone coming to help. Okay, not really, but it was proving to be a bit of a pain. He knew that Elias would have too many questions, and now that he thought about it, had anyone told Elias?
Shit.
He probably knew. He always seemed to know what was going on, despite never actually being told. Like how he always knew when someone brought in anything to celebrate birthdays, and was there to take ‘his share’ of it.
There was that, and there was also the fact that Jon simply didn’t want to tell him. As long as the work got done, he didn’t need to know about other concerns unless they directly affected their health, and this ghost was yet to prove itself as a threat.
Well, that settled it, Elias wouldn’t be told. At least, not today. Not…not now. Not when he was already dealing with Georgie’s visit, and with his assistants, and with…everything that came with his job. Work, all that stuff, etc.
How ironic, using work as an excuse to not tell his boss about an issue at work. Ha, that was kinda funny, almost, in a morally wrong sort of way.
He had forty-five minutes to kill, now. The four employees had worked together to make a list of what they knew already. It didn’t include that the ghost could possibly, potentially, just maybe be familiar to a few of them. Because that was silly, and most certainly a dumb coincidence. And the fact that the ghost called itself an Archivist was probably just because it happened to be in an archive. Like how baby birds assume the first thing they see is their mother, the ghost had appeared here and just taken on the name.
(He knew. He knew that wasn’t true, he knew there was one idea that was making more and more sense the more anybody talked to the man. But he would pretend until he could no more deny the creeping sense that the familiarity was deeper than recognition, deeper than a strange feeling.)
He could see Tim at his desk, certainly not working. To be fair, he didn’t think any of them could work very well right now. Which was why this ghost was such a bother.
Sasha hadn’t even returned to her desk, nor had Martin, who was making tea instead of being productive.
He meant well, Jon knew that, he did! But Jon was nothing if not set in his ways, stubborn as a mule. And so he rejected any attempts at bettering their nonexistent relationship, stayed far away from anything that may defeat his ideas set in stone.
Sasha was scanning over their notes, looking for anything to edit or improve. At least that was somewhat helpful, he supposed.
He was sure that she knew that he wasn’t sharing everything. How could she not?
If he was to be completely transparent, he was pretty sure Martin and Tim knew he was hiding something too. He wasn’t lying, per se, just…holding back a probably-unimportant detail.
Jon returned to his office. He figured that he would get to work, do his job, until the…help arrived. He didn’t. He was too distracted, too lost in his mind.
He felt eyes on him, eyes he couldn’t see. Not the usual prickle of a passive gaze on his neck, a more personal targeted aim. He was getting more used to the way he would sometimes feel a presence in the room that he couldn’t see, and would sometimes hear a quiet noise in the silence of his office.
“Hello,” he greeted, extending an offer of conversation. He figured that if he was about to try to rid the archive of this…Archivist, then he should at least tell the man. Warn him.
There was no response for a long moment, until he heard the floor creak in the corner of the room.
A quiet voice swore.
“That’s, uh- you can make the floor creak?” Jon had been under the impression that the man couldn’t interact with his plane of existence, that it lived on some alternate layer of the world. Clearly, so had the Archivist, as he appeared for just a moment, the surprise clear on his face. This probably would change things. He should probably let Georgie or Sasha know.
He didn’t tell them.
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Georgie hadn’t known what to expect when she had seen the message from Jon.
Honestly, she didn’t know, well, anything about him these days, which was kinda unfortunate, in her opinion. Sure, they may not have been a great couple, but they had been such good friends, at the very least, throughout uni. And then suddenly, nothing. No calls, no texts, nothing.
He must have known what she was up to these days, though, if he knew to message her about this problem he’s having.
She knew it was bad, because it was Jon requesting her help. Last she had checked, he didn't believe in this kind of thing, so whatever it was that convinced him to reach out, it must have been serious.
It was funny, looking at his most recent message compared to the much older ones before it. It was so stiff, not like the man she had known, more stuffy and, frankly, insufferable than he had ever truly been.
But business was business, and so she said she would come as soon as she was available. She gathered her thoughts, and set out to the address Jon had provided, presumably his workplace.
The Magnus Institute. She had heard of it before, of course she had! In the paranormal community, they were somewhat…well, they were known, though not for the best of reasons. Honestly, she was surprised he had ended up there, but she supposed that it made his willingness to believe in a ghost more realistic. She’d never been to the Institute herself, but she’d heard that it had a weird energy to it. In fact, it seems like the perfect place for a haunting. So much fear, in one place?
As she pulled up to the building, she finally got a good look at the place. It looked…pretty much like what she thought it would.
She didn’t usually do these kinds of things. Her podcast was more of a place to explain the stories and the theories around ghosts, not to look for a ghost yourself. But Jon was a friend, and she could do him a favor.
As she entered with her crew, she realized that she didn’t know exactly where in the building she was supposed to find Jon. He hadn’t mentioned his position, only his place of work.
A woman with shoulder-length brown hair sat at a desk. She was staring at her computer, but looked up as she heard the door. She wore a name tag that read ‘Rosie’.
“Hello, what can I help you with?” she spoke in a controlled tone.
“I’m looking for Jonathan Sims? He asked me to do a job for him,” she honestly couldn’t think of any position here that he would work happily. Honestly, every part of this building was probably some sort of haunted.
“You’ll want to go through the first door on your left, that’ll take you to the archives,”
The archives? That was…as good a place as any to work, she supposed.
She took the receptionist’s directions and found what was supposedly the entrance to the archives. She checked her watch. Two minutes early, that was fine.
As she pushed open the door, she saw a short hallway that led into the main area of the archives. She walked forward. Three cubicles came into view, but as she scanned over them, she couldn’t see Jon anywhere. She did see three others though, two at their desks and one looking over a list on a table.
“Is Jon here?” she asked into the silent archive. All three of the visible employees startled at her voice as she walked forward.
Before any of them could answer, a familiar man walked out of another door that must have led to an office of sorts.
“Jon?” she called out.
“Oh! Georgie, hello,”
He looked…tired, honestly. And were those grey hairs? It hadn’t been that long since they’d last seen each other, relatively speaking, but he looked so different now. A man going through the motions of competency.
Georgie heard something fall behind her.
“Jon, don’t you dare tell me that that’s…” a woman spoke behind her. Had Jon not told these people about her visit today?
“Hey, I’m Georgie Barker. Jon messaged me about a ghost?” she turned to see that the one who had spoken was the one looking over a list.
“No. No way, this isn’t happening, nope!” A man in a…loud shirt spoke up, eyes wide.
The woman spoke up again. “Jon? Do you have something that you maybe didn’t tell us?” Owch. That was very passive-aggressive.
“I…yes, this is the help I mentioned. Georgie is an…” he hesitated. “Old friend,”
“We could still be friends, if you hadn’t decided to-”
“Wait, where have I heard her name before?” the third of the three employees, a kind-looking man, asked.
“She’s the host of What the Ghost!” the woman exclaimed at him. “I- hello!” she was walking over now, going in for a handshake. She heard the man who had recognized the name make a little sound of recognition.
“Hello,” Georgie smiled as she shook her hand. “So, can you guys give me a description of what you’ve been seeing? As much detail as possible, please,”
“Yes- yes, we have a list, over here!” the woman (she really needed to get their names) led her over to the list she had been looking at moments before.
“Back the hell up. Jon, Georgie bloody Barker is your ‘old friend’?”
“Yes, yes, I know Georgie, can we move on?”
That was a new attitude, certainly. It reminded her of the times in Uni when he would shut down, get too uncomfortable and become cold and stiff. The two of them had been working on that, because all of Georgie’s other friends couldn’t hate him.
Seemed like he’d gone back to that shell.
Georgie tried to cover for him. “Me and Jon met in Uni, but we haven’t really been in touch. Hey, Jon, why is that?”
“I…I’ve been busy,”
“Yeah, seems so. What’s been going on with you?” she paused for a moment. “Nevermind, we’ll talk later. You said you had a list?”
The five of them gathered around the list that the woman had been working on when she’d arrived.
“Hey, so, you guys know my name, but what are yours?”
The three others introduced themselves, and they got to work on defining this ghost better.
From their descriptions, she could get something of a picture of this ghost. It didn’t seem malicious, thankfully, just creepy. A man with long hair and eyes everywhere, who called himself the Archivist and knew the archive employees, or at least, knew Sasha. He didn’t seem to be corporeal, according to their descriptions.
“Okay. Is there anything else that didn’t make it onto this list that I should know?” She looked around at the others after the list was done.
Jon wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Alright, well, if that’s everything…if this spirit isn’t malicious, then do you know a good way to get in contact with them? I mean, what do you need me to do?”
The archival employees looked at each other, and Georgie realized a rather important detail she didn’t know: what she was supposed to do to help them. If they wanted the ghost gone, it would be better to contact a person more experienced in that field. But if they wanted to know more information about it instead, then she could probably help, if she could talk to it. Communication would be key.
Hey, if it’s about communication, then at least she knows why Jon can’t deal with it himself!
“I…don’t think we actually have a plan for that?” Martin looked at his coworkers, checking if any of them had come up with a specific idea. “But, you’d probably know better than us what to do anyways…”
“If I can talk to it, I can help figure out why it’s here, if that helps? But if you want it gone for good, then I’m probably not your best choice for that; I’m more of a researcher,”
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The Archivist watched as Georgie entered the archive, trying to keep his mind from wandering from his concentration on his current form. If he slipped up, he would become too visible.
He had avoided Elias’s eyes, as far as he knew. Perhaps it was because he was the Archivist, or perhaps it was simply that Elias didn’t know there was anything to Look for. No matter the circumstances, he had remained undetected in the archive. The Archive? The archive? He wasn’t sure, now that there was both an Archivist and an archivist.
He watched silently as they discussed the situation at hand with the woman.
Jon, past version, hadn’t mentioned their earlier encounter, so it seemed. Probably for the better, it would only raise questions if his sudden corporeality was revealed.
He himself didn’t even know what had happened. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could just See, the shroud of the Web was too thick over his presence here.
He hadn’t planned on the agreement that had brought him here. It wasn’t what he wanted, wasn’t anything more than a whisper inside of his mind telling him what he needed to do. The Web’s influence, surely, although he figured it could have an element of the End as well. That was what it would be categorized as if it was a statement, surely, but it was more, he knew. It was a web carefully tied between time and place, and he was but a fly that hadn’t known better than to climb into it.
She had told him he could see his friends again, and he had agreed. It was true, he did see them again, but not the way he wished.
The details were growing more clear, but there were still uncertainties that he couldn’t quite puzzle out. For one, his own form. He had thought he had it known - he was an illusion of a person, a true ghost in the world - but he had stepped on the ground. He had heard the creak of wood underneath his scuffed up shoes, dusty and dirty from the days he had spent with the others in the apocalypse of his own design.
Since then, he had found a little shadowed corner, and had been testing his own reality, to no avail. Nothing had worked, not before he had stopped at the arrival of the help Jon had promised to bring.
He had been just a bit concerned about the chance of Jon somehow contacting Melanie. That woman wouldn’t give him a day of rest if she found him, even if she didn’t know who he was, especially since Jon wasn’t sure of exact dates of events he recalled. He knew this was before Prentiss had trapped Martin, but after the first statement he had received about her, due to the reports he had seen around Jon’s (his?) office. So he wasn’t sure if Jon knew Melanie, even vaguely, but it wouldn’t be…ideal, to say the least. No matter whether she had become truly touched by the Slaughter yet, it was too risky.
But instead, it was someone who he supposed made sense to arrive, but still surprised. He remembers how tense things had become between him and Georgie, so he hadn’t really been thinking about her being called. But Georgie was better than Melanie, by far. Georgie wasn’t a ghost hunter, and was more likely to try to question him than she was to try to get rid of him.
He didn’t even know if he could be…killed? Destroyed? He had died, that he was sure of, but whether his presence here was permanent was still yet another mystery.
But there was an issue with Georgie that he wouldn’t have had to consider with Melanie: he couldn’t scare her off. Well, he could seriously threaten her life, and that would probably make her back off, but he didn’t like that idea. He had already hurt his version of her enough, he didn’t need to start it any sooner than it had to.
So instead, he had to watch as she asked for a way to contact him, and this was when he made his decision: he would not, could not be seen by her. She, of anybody, was the most likely to connect the dots. Martin had seen similarities in him, but he hadn’t placed any details, and while he suspected that this Jon could figure it out himself very soon, he knew that he would have been far too deep into his own faked version of life that he wouldn’t admit the truth. Georgie wouldn’t be stopped by that.
He thought about the facts that they had about him.
First, perhaps most damning, he was the Archivist.
Second, he clearly must still have some visual similarity to this present version of himself, from the recognition he had gotten.
Third, he wasn’t leaving the place anytime soon. He had left the archive, very shortly, but it had felt wrong. Like he had stumbled into a set for a movie, a distinct sense that he wasn’t supposed to be there. He had tried to lean against the wall for support, but had heard footsteps, an employee coming to work in the morning, and had quickly made his way back inside of the familiar rooms of the archive.
He stared at the trapdoor in his office, at the entrance to the tunnels that had set so much into motion.
He hoped Martin, his Martin, had found a way to come through to him.
All he could do was hope, it seemed.
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Martin watched as Georgie paced around the space, looking for…something. She hadn’t been too clear about what exactly she was trying to find, just that there would be signs of where she could talk with the ghost.
Martin was still a bit miffed that nobody had mentioned this ghost to him. Jon, sure, he could excuse as the man’s pure belief that nothing that he couldn’t explain could exist, but Tim and Sasha had both seen it as well.
Martin knew he didn’t really fit with the rest of the archive. They all clearly had history together, and he was just that guy from the library who couldn’t do his job right. Jon had made it quite clear that he found him incompetent, and while Sasha and Tim had never said it, they had seen Jon talk to him before, they had to know.
At least he could be kind, if nothing else. But sometimes, it was hard to stay the same calm, nice Martin - like when there was a potential threat to all of them and everybody had known about it except for him.
Georgie seemed to find what she was looking for, freezing with a smile.
“Jon, what’s through here?” she asked, gesturing at the door to Jon’s office. “It seems to have a stronger grasp on this area,”
“That would be my office,”
“What- what does a ‘stronger grasp’ feel like? Is it, like, a cold spot, or-”
Georgie shushed Martin. Seeing his face, she apologized, but said that she needed to focus on this, since she didn’t do this kind of thing very often. “Really, you’d be better with someone who’s more experienced with finding ghosts, but I know enough to find the signs of one,”
Martin could relate, he supposed, to being asked to do one thing when you have always done another. At least Georgie had chosen to say yes to Jon’s request for help. He had just been told one day that he had been selected to receive a promotion, and the pay had been too good to overlook.
Georgie, though, she had known that this would be something she wasn’t used to, and had still agreed to do it, just to help them out. From what Martin had gathered, Jon and her hadn’t really spoken in a while, so it hadn’t really been a message between friends.
He couldn’t really imagine Jon, his boss, being friends with Georgie Barker. He himself hadn’t ever listened to much of her podcast, but she seemed so cool, and while he didn’t want to disrespect Jon, his boss was just…not? It just was...well, surprising, but certainly not a bad thing! She seemed to somewhat know what she was doing here?
“Well, we’ll take whatever help you can give!” Sasha responded to Georgie, though Martin wasn’t really listening, puzzling out the sequence of events that had ended up with this situation as the five all stepped into Jon’s office.
“Yeah, what she said!” Tim agreed, finally stepping into the office. “We’ll take any help we can get, since, no offense bossman, but you don’t seem like the type to know about these things,”
Jon just scoffed at Tim’s words, but continued to cross his office to the other side of his desk to pace. He probably felt more in control of whatever the hell was happening from the desk chair, but if Martin was honest, he was pretty sure that Jon was just as freaked out by the turn of events that had elapsed over such a short period of time. He had to be, right?
“Well, all the signs pointed to this room, but honestly, I’m not quite sure how to actually make the ghost talk to us? It seems like we might have to wait for it to decide it wants to talk, which might take far too long,” Georgie scrunched up her face in thought. “I’m not quite sure what exactly makes me think it’s here, it just…feels right,”
So, this might be a bit of a problem, actually! They couldn’t just wait forever for the ghost to decide it wanted to talk. This whole setup felt very unfair for them - it could see that they were there, but unless it wanted to talk, it didn’t have to be seen. Honestly, if Martin could do that to get out of conversations, he would absolutely utilize it. Elias checking in on him? Nope, he’s gone. Jon wants to give him ‘feedback’ on a report? Whoops, seems that he’s gone!
But at the moment, it was just an annoyance.
“Wait- guys? Didn’t the, y’know, ghost, say earlier that it’s invisibility had just stopped working? Maybe we could…try doing that…?” Martin thought he remembered the man saying something along the lines of that earlier, the last time he had seen him.
“See, that seems like something that I could’ve been told!” Georgie seemed to almost laugh at the moment. “How did it happen?”
Martin wasn’t quite sure, so he was glad that Jon spoke up to answer her. “He didn’t quite say, I don’t think,”
Yeah, that…that sounds like his luck. He says something important, but it still ends up useless.
“Well, is there anything that you guys can think of? If we can’t talk to the ghost, I can’t really do anything for you,” she paused, and a silence fell over the room. “I mean, I can give you the number for an actual ghost hunter, if that helps? Melanie King, dunno if you know her…”
“Guys, let’s be reasonable,” Sasha cut in, “How do we know that this ghost is even a problem? Like, it’s not normal, god no, but it’s not really causing any problems. I mean, if we can’t talk now, then we can try again later,”
“Sash, I get that, but if we have Georgie Barker here, we shouldn’t just…give up!” Tim gestured at Georgie, as though her very presence invalidated all of Sasha’s points.
“I mean…Sasha has a point, though? If it’s just hanging around, we could just…” Martin’s sentence trailed off as he saw something behind Georgie. Just a flicker of a figure. “Did- did anyone else see that?!”
“See what?” Everyone’s head snapped to the spot that he had gestured at.
There it was again! More of an impression of a person than a person, but it was there, briefly!
“Hello?” Georgie stared at the spot where the man had been. “I know you’re there, so just give it up!”
They stared into the room.
The man, no, the Archivist, was staring back at them, enough eyes to match all five of them.