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#
The Magnus Archives Season Four
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Trailer
The recording begins in Jon's hospital room. The only sound is the ticking of a clock before the door opens and Martin comes in. He starts to tell Jon about how things have been at the Archives in the last few months - bad - before stopping himself. He begins to plead with Jon, telling him that everyone needs him, especially Martin, and begs him to use any power at his disposal to wake up. Martin is about to break down crying when his phone buzzing startles him, and he gets up to answer it.
Martin: Yeah. Yeah, I know. ... I’m – I’m actually with him now. You were right. ... I - *sigh* Will they be safe? ... Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. ... Yeah. Sure thing. *hangs up* I’m sorry. Goodbye, John.
Martin leaves, closing the door behind him, and once again the only sound is the ticking of the clock before the recorder shuts itself off.

121: Far Away
Case #UNKNOWN. Statement of Oliver Banks, regarding his dreams and trying to run away. Statement given directly to Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive.

## Story

Two years before Oliver leaves a statement with the Institute under the name "Antonio Blake" (#11: Dreamer), he starts to see the veins of death from his dreams in real life. Although he tries to convince himself they're just a hallucination from seeing them so often in his sleep, Oliver is proven wrong when he touches them and feels them to be fleshy and colder than ice.
Oliver sees the veins more and more, even inside the Institute when he leaves his statement. Oliver feels the urgent need to escape the veins and researches remote areas with minimal life, as even animals have the veins of deaths touching them. He learns about Point Nemo, a location in the South Pacific Ocean that is the farthest place on Earth from any land, and is even devoid of marine life thanks to currents moving nutrients away. Because of this, it is often used as a crash-landing point and subsequent graveyard for decommissioned satellites. Oliver yearns to go to this place despite not having any way to do so. In his dreams, Oliver tries to leave the city and go to the ocean, but when he reaches a point where he can't see any more veins he feels something gently tugging at his leg, pulling him back.
Oliver soon finds a newspaper article about an upcoming research expedition to Point Nemo, and he decides that despite his lack of qualifications he will be on that ship. Oliver does deep research into the people planned to be on the ship and eventually tracks down Dr. Thomas Pritchard, who has the veins of death wrapped around his head. Oliver stalks him until he dies, crashing his motorcycle in the middle of the night. Oliver buries Pritchard's body and steals his identity to get onto the ship, where his deception goes unnoticed as none of the other people there had met Dr. Pritchard and there aren't any other chemists to see that Oliver doesn't know what he's doing.
As the ship gets farther and farther from land, Oliver finds he can sleep easier, though he soon learns to not look away from the ship's dream counterpart because when he does he can see an "impossibly huge and dark" shape moving in the water. When awake, Oliver starts to think more clearly and realizes that if he's caught then all he can do is appeal to his shipmates' pity. One day, Oliver wakes up to find that the peace and calm he has become accustomed to is gone, replaced with fear, and he knows that they have reached Point Nemo.
He goes outside to see the biggest veins of death he has ever witnessed extending from the water and wrapping around the ship and crew, and even Oliver himself. Oliver starts to panic but suddenly becomes calm and can see the veins' point of origin to the southeast. Oliver murders the captain and commandeers the ship, ordering them to sail to the veins' point of origin which only he can see. As the ship stops at that point, the panicked crew look at Oliver, but before he can say anything to them the ship is hit by a falling satellite, killing everyone onboard.

## Post-Statement

Oliver tells the comatose Jonathan that he doesn't know why he was directed to come here, citing spiders in one's head and that it's "easier to just do what she asks". He explains that Jonathan is "not quite human enough to die, but still too human to survive" and that he has a choice. Before he can say more, Georgie enters and throws him out as she doesn't like the look of him. She then sees that Oliver left a recorder and as she runs to try to catch him, Jonathan starts to breathe.

- Call-Back: Oliver Banks is "Antonio Blake", the statement giver of episode #11.
  - Georgie recognizes "Antonio" as an Avatar of The End due to her experiences described in #94
- Dead All Along: Oliver reveals at the end of his statement that he deliberately steered the Point Nemo expedition ship into the path of a falling satellite, killing everyone on board, including him.
- Shown Their Work: Point Nemo exists and it really is used as a spacecraft cemetery due to it being far away from any landmass or air/sea traffic.

122: Zombie
Case #0150102. Statement of Lorell St John, regarding zombies. Original statement given 1st February 2015.

## Pre-Statement

Georgie brings Basira to the hospital to tell her about the man who left the recorder, who she is adamant is an avatar of the End. Jonathan suddenly wakes up, scaring Georgie and Basira, and they express surprise at how well he appears to be after being comatose for six months. Basira explains that Tim and Daisy both died in the explosion at the wax museum (#119: Stranger and Stranger). Jonathan asks for the statement in Basira's bag, which she had brought just in case.

## Story

Lorell has always found it hard to relate to and connect with other people, not feeling anything from their displays of emotion. One day her roommate Danielle is explaining philosophy to her as a form of revision and gets to the topic of philosophical zombies: people who seem normal from the outside, but on the inside are devoid of feeling. Danielle claims that the idea of philosophical zombies is false, but Lorell silently disagrees as she watches their other roommate Liam playing a video game with what Lorell thinks to be blank, cold and empty eyes.
Lorell goes on to perform some tests on Liam, and though he expresses emotion Lorell can see that his eyes never change. Lorell pays more attention to people she sees in public and identifies many as more zombies. Although the zombies don't seem to be threatening anyone, Lorell wonders how they got to be the way they are, and if it was something else that did it to them.
She sees more and more zombies every day, sometimes entering places with only zombies and no real people. One day a zombie starts to follow Lorell, one more unnatural-looking than the rest. First she sees him watching her in the streets, then in the hallway outside her office. Lorell asks her coworker Norma about him and although she says he seems fine, Lorell sees in her eyes that she's a zombie too and wonders if she always was or if the zombie following her made Norma a zombie. When Lorell meets the zombie on a bus, she tries talking to him but he only replies "Just fine, thank you for asking" in a flat voice.
The zombie then appears outside Lorell's house, and out of worry that she is turning into a zombie she goes out and attacks him, and it feels like "punching a canvas". One of Lorell's fists breaks into the zombie's head and though there is no blood or gore, one of the zombie's eyes hangs out but continues to look at her and his broken mouth tries to say "Just fine, thank you for asking." Lorell doesn't see another human after that, and believes that the whole world has fallen to the plague of unfeeling and soullessness.

## Post-Statement

After recording the statement, Jonathan feels much better and though no further investigation has been done by him and his team, he has to conclude that Lorell was not the last human on Earth, but muses on how you would know if "you're the same person that went to sleep". Basira returns and asks Jonathan what he is, and though he doesn't know exactly he says that he feels "more real". Jonathan asks what happened with the plan, and she explains that Tim's remains were found while Daisy's were not, but since she hasn't resurfaced since then she is most definitely dead. As for Martin's plan, she tells Jonathan that while Elias is safely behind bars, he managed to instate Peter Lukas as interim Head of the Institute. Basira figures that Martin is working directly with him since they don't see him as often in the Archives.

- Ambiguously Human: After being ordered to choose whether he's a human or the Archivist last episode, Jon is shockingly well-recovered for someone who just woke up from a six-month coma and is entirely well once he's finished reading the statement.
- Bait-and-Switch: Given the name and who showed up last time, you'd expect the End to be involved. It's actually about Lorell's progressive delusion that certain people around her are philosophical zombies, and one or more Entities attacks her using it.
- Foreshadowing: On the first listenthrough, this episode is a bit hard to pinpoint in terms of what power is behind it. In the light of later discoveries, it becomes a little more clear: At the end of her statement, Lorell doesn't just believe that she's the last human, but that the world is now populated by another species entirely. This statement is about the Extinction.
- Lack of Empathy: The crux of Lorell's delusion about zombies—as she admits in the beginning of the statement, she has difficulty understanding or relating to other people's emotions, and so becomes possessed of the notion that they don't truly have them at all.
- Meaningful Rename: Jon introduces himself simply as "Jonathan Sims, the Archivist".
- Our Zombies Are Different: They're alive, and they act like people, but they're empty inside (so says Lorell). Eventually she is stalked by a literal empty shell, which deflates when she punches it but has the side effect of convincing her everyone is a zombie, not just select people.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Georgie splits, apparently cottoning on to the implications of Jon waking up right after Oliver's visit, and unwilling to deal with this after what she already went through with the End.

123: Web Development
Case #0150108. Statement of Angie Santos, regarding a website developed by one Gregory Cox. Original statement given 1st August 2015.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan sorts out his office, which has fallen into disarray during his coma, when he hears crashing sounds. Going out into the Archives, he sees Melanie on an angry rampage and is unable to calm her down. She is irate that Elias still lives and believes that Jonathan must have died with Tim and Daisy, and whatever is in front of her now is an impostor like the Not-Them.
Jonathan meets with Basira who explains that the Eye is one of the only powers that has yet to try to perform its ritual, and their elimination of the Stranger's latest Unknowing has caused the other powers to come after them. The Institute's staff are the most safe inside its walls now, and even then they're not completely safe as indicated by a siege two months prior by the Flesh's forces, which had been mostly taken down by Melanie. As for Peter Lukas, Martin is the only one to have met him, though he makes contact through memos. When Jonathan questions if he's even real if no one has seen him, Basira tells him that some researchers disappeared after deciding to ignore his latest instructions. At this point they spot the tape recorder listening to them, which has seemingly appeared on its own since Basira disposed of the rest.

## Story

Angie starts by explaining how her friend Greg Cox is so laid-back that he never tries to get himself out of unhealthy relationships. He gets a new client for his freelance web developer job who is full of red flags and very unclear about what they actually want. Greg goes to meet the client in person, and afterwards he tells Angie that the client was a thin woman with the side of her head stitched up, who was just as vague in person as she was in the email and had Greg drink a latte which he normally dislikes. Greg never tells Angie the client's name but always acts like he has.
Greg makes the client's website from scratch in two days, which is very barebones aside from the name "Chelicerae" at the top. The URL is "a long string of numbers and letters with no pattern or reason to them". Every few weeks, Greg's client contacts him to change the domain name to another gibberish URL as well as things to be added to the code, though Greg says they don't resemble any coding language he knows. After some time he starts to get "unsettling email[s]" asking him to "make it stop".
Greg tells Angie not to worry, but she looks up Chelicerae online and finds it to be an internet urban legend, with paranormal articles about it and links that no longer work. The articles say that if you make a new thread with the title being "the name of someone you want dead", then you get a reply asking for a story about "a horrible event that had happened to you, or someone that you loved", and if the story "satisfied the story-spinner" then that person would die. Greg assures Angie that it's not true and that the site has never had any visitors or posts, but he still gets lots of emails begging him to "bring them back".
Greg becomes more stressed and stops cleaning his home, with more cobwebs appearing. One night when Greg and Angie are walking home from a pub, they hear a voice asking for help. Seeing the figure the voice came from, Greg approaches them and offers some change and they grab his wrist with a bony, hairy appendage. Greg leaps back and pulls the figure out into the light and Angie sees it to be something formerly human but now crawling with spiders which now pour from its eyes and mouth. Angie sees its lips forming the words "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, tell her I'm sorry". They get away from the thing and Angie wants to go to the police but Greg forbids it.
Angie: I don't know what to think. Greg's my best friend, but I might have to stop seeing him. He's still working on that site, updating the domain name, still pasting gibberish into the code. I think he might be part of something really awful, and I don't know how to make him see that. If I had a little bit more courage I might just hang around a few message boards I know, waiting for a link to the Chelicerae, waiting to post a name that might end it. I've got a story for it, all right. But I won't. I'm just too much of a coward I suppose. So I guess I'm telling it to you instead. For all the good that'll do.

## Post-Statement

After finishing the statement, Jonathan explains that getting the assistants to help with research is touchy business but he did some of his own and found that Greg disappeared in July 2016. The statement was left in between Gertrude's death and Jonathan's instatement as Archivist so it doesn't seem like any initial follow-up was done. One document included with it, though, is a list of people whose names appeared in the gibberish strings Greg was sent to paste into the code, some of which gave statements to the Institute including Carlos Vittery (#16: Arachnophobia).

- Call-Back: Jon mentions that at least some of the names that appeared in Chelicerae are names of former statement givers, including arachnophobe Carlos Vittery (Episode 16: "Arachnophobia")
- Double-Meaning Title: The title refers both to the fact that Greg was developing a website and that he was doing it on behalf of the Web.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that the Web is using the Chelicerae website to take in horrible stories and specifically singles out the "satisfying" ones, indicates that it needs real stories of the supernatural for something.
- Extreme Doormat: How Angie describes Greg's personality.
- Eye Scream: Instead of eyes, the thing Angie and Greg encounter has eye sockets (and a mouth) that are full of spiders.
- From Bad to Worse: Basira finally lays out just how badly things have gone in the Institute during Jon's coma: Melanie has become a lot more violent and angry, possibly indicating that the Slaughter is getting to her; Martin is spending all his time on some unknown project for Peter Lukas; and worst of all, the other Powers have turned their attention towards the Beholding due it never having attempted a ritual and the disruption of the Unknowing, with the Flesh having mounted a full scale attack on the Insitute.
- Haunted Technology: The forum that Greg sets up and maintains is, if not supernatural itself, then a conduit for supernatural powers.
- Meaningful Name: The website is called Chelicerae, which is the scientific name for spider jaws.
- No One Sees the Boss: Somewhat unsurprisingly, Peter Lukas does all his business by himself (and possibly Martin) and thus only communicates with the rest of the Institute via memos and email from offsite. The only indication other employees get that he even exists is that people who ignore his directives tend to disappear.
- Spiders Are Scary: Angie describes the thing that accosts her and Greg as some kind of human-spider hybrid swarming with spiders.

124: Left Hanging
Case #0121112 Statement of Julian Jennings, regarding a cable car journey up the Untersberg mountain range in Austria. Original statement given 11th December 2012.

## Story

After the death of Julian's father, he gets much closer with his mother and they establish a tradition of a yearly holiday, and they always go to mountain destinations for the breathtaking views. Due to his mother's age, they pick mountains that have rides to the top, some of which are cable cars. Julian is acrophobic and as such hates riding in cable cars but for his mother's sake he hides his fears.
One year they go to Untersberg in Salzburg, Austria. Julian remembers how the last time they were there he had to sit on the cable car floor when it shook to stop himself looking out the windows at the ground far below. To his relief, the cable car system looks like it's been upgraded since their last visit. Julian sees that there's only one other person in line for the cable car, an old man with a cane which he doesn't seem to actually be using. The three of them are brought into a car, and once the driver finishes his final checks and locks the door the car starts to move up.
As the car moves, Julian tries to keep himself calm as he counts the minutes. His stomach turns when they slide over the support towers and off the other side. Six minutes in, shortly before they reach the final support tower, the cable car stops and Julian panics but tries to reassure himself. Julian sees the driver look annoyed and start to speak German into the control panel phone. Clouds envelop the car, obscuring the view of the ground below and the towers, giving the impression of hanging in an endless gray void.
The old man chuckles and drops his cane, then walks to the door and opens it. The driver tries to stop him but is too late - the man winks at Julian before dropping out of the car and disappearing into the mist. The driver goes back to the phone and talks more urgently, when suddenly the car starts to move without his input. The car moves on and on without reaching the next support tower, then suddenly stops again. Julian and his mother both sit in silent terror as the driver tries and fails to contact someone.
The driver then moves to close the door and Julian suddenly knows that he's about to be killed. Julian hears something crawling on the cables behind them and his mother screams as she looks at something behind him. The thing lands on top of the car and a "long, gray and completely inhuman" arm reaches down and pulls the driver out, and he disappears screaming into the void.
Three knocks and a laugh come from the cable car roof, then Julian sees a green light on the control panel and slowly moves toward it, refusing to look toward the open door. Finally reaching the panel, Julian presses the button beside the light and the car moves forward again and soon the final support tower emerges from the distance, causing Julian to shed tears of relief. He and his mother refuse to ride the cable car back down the mountain. They end up talking to the police and the official story is that the driver had taken his own life, with no mention of the old man. Julian's acrophobia worsens and his mother refuses to acknowledge what happened.
Julian: I don't know if there'll be any more holidays, certainly none that involve mountains.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan is unsettled by how much Simon Fairchild enjoys the terror and death he sows, with no indication of an overarching plan between the statements he's cropped up in.
Jonathan catches Martin outside the office and tries to engage him in conversation but he's evasive and quickly gets away.

- Blatant Lies: At the end, Julian says he's no longer as close to his mother as he used to be, because she flatly denies anything strange happened even when they both know she remembers everything.
- For the Evulz: Jon notes that out of all the Avatars he knows of, Simon Fairchild is the only one who seems to do what he does simply "for the hell of it".

125: Civilian Casualties
Case #9931907. Statement of Sergeant Terrance Simpson, regarding an outbreak of violence in the crofting community of Lanncraig, Ross-shire. Original statement given 19th July 1993.

## Story

Terrance and his partner Carla are en route to investigate a break-in when they pass through the small village of Lanncraig. Carla sees something and has Terrance stop the car, and they get out to see pub owner Callum McKenzie standing in a field and impaled with a pitchfork. He turns to them as they approach, holding the handle of the pitchfork and grinning.
He charges at them, ignoring their shouts to stop, and so Terrance grabs onto the pitchfork to stop him. Callum tries to swipe at Terrance with shards of glass stuck in his hands, pushing himself further onto the pitchfork tines as he does so. Terrance hears something tear in Callum's body and he collapses, now gushing blood from his wounds. Terrance tries to help Callum but he still tries to attack until he finally dies. Terrance runs back to the car to radio to the police station but he only hears static and faint bagpipes.
Terrance goes back to Carla and she points to a nearby cottage with blood around the door. They quietly approach, hearing only sheep. Inside they find an elderly woman in a rocking chair, stabbed through the throat, and before her are two dead men, having torn each other apart before having their throats cut. They find a woman in the kitchen with broken glass in her neck and her head burned in the oven. Carla runs outside to vomit while Terrance sees self-inflicted wounds on the dead woman's arm. Carla returns and they follow the carnage to another cottage where they find the remains of all the other villagers. Terrance calls out for any survivors but hears only the sheep and the faint bagpipes. They find the body of a woman who ran a library van, holding a blank and bloodstained book that she had torn in half. Police backup arrives as the radio problems had only been on Terrance's side. The deaths are covered up as a drunken brawl and Terrance moves to a place where he won't be hearing bagpipes.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan hypothesizes about how the Slaughter really works, whether it forces people to commit violence or just entices them to do so of their own free will. The blank book is a Leitner, though Jonathan doesn't feel the need to identify it seeing as it was destroyed. Jonathan vents how the assistants are avoiding him and he's had to do research on his own, and how Basira was right about the other entities' forces watching the Institute, having seen members of the People's Church of the Divine Host and an increase in cobwebs. Jonathan mentions that the bullet is still in Melanie's leg and is causing her violent behavior, and after realizing that he never learned that and instead gained the knowledge supernaturally, he goes to find Basira.
After Melanie has fallen asleep with medication, Jonathan and Basira administer a local anesthetic to her leg and cut in to extract the bullet. Once it's done, they're relieved until Melanie suddenly awakens and goes berserk, stabbing Jonathan with something and screaming before they escape.

- Ambiguous Situation: Jonathan remarks that it's unclear if the librarian destroyed the Leitner book to stop the Slaughter's effect on the people of Lanncraig, or if its destruction was what released its power in the first place.
- The Corruption: The Slaughter has been slowly taking over Melanie ever since the events narrated in episode 117.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: The entire village of Lanncraig killed themselves in a horrifically violent brawl fueled by the Slaughter.
- Hate Plague: Exposure to the book drives people gleefully berserk.
- Insult of Endearment: Callum McKenzie called Terrance "the bastard English", but he always said it with a smile, so he doesn't seem to have taken offense from it.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Zigzagged. It seems that the bookseller may have realized the effect the book was having on people around her and decided to tear it in half to stop it from working. This released all of the book's power, driving the entire village of Lanncraig insanely violent at once, but it did stop the book from emitting the Hate Plague. Alternatively, however, the old paperback may have fallen apart on its own in her hands.
- The Omniscient: Jon's powers kick up another gear; despite having no medical training, he knows not only exactly what kind of difficult and risky surgery is needed to remove the cursed bullet from Melanie's leg, but also how to do it.
- Rasputinian Death: Having been fully possessed by the Slaughter, Callum McKenzie is impaled by a pitchfork and has his arms embedded with glass without even slowing down. After the pitchfork is pushed in deeper, it apparently hits a major internal artery, finally killing him.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: After seeing what happened in Lanncraig, the policeman leaves Scotland quickly, even though it costs him his marriage.
- We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Justified. Jon's powers allow him to see that the bullet Melanie was shot with by the ghost in India is infecting her with the Slaughter's power. He and Basira are forced to resort to Meatgrinder Surgery to get it out.

126: Sculptor's Tool
Case #0091110. Statement of Deborah Madaki, regarding an adult art class she took in the Spring of 2004 and her friendship with ‘Gabriel’, a fellow student. Original statement given 11th October 2009.

## Story

Deborah's local community center starts to offer adult education classes, ranging from the basic things like dancing and yoga to more specialized classes like cheesemaking and even fire-eating. Deborah goes to a sculpting class where she finds that there are only three other people taking it, one of which is a nasty-looking man with a face that looks "like it was trying to escape his skull" who introduces himself as Gabriel.
Deborah notices that while she and the other two people are listening to the teacher, Gabriel is fiddling with the clay and not paying attention. The things he makes with the clay are strange as well. During a class where they are meant to be making a fish, Gabriel makes something that loops back on itself. Deborah wonders why the instructor lets Gabriel get away with this when he is more insistent with the rest of them on sticking to the day's plans.
Eventually, Gabriel sees Deborah watching him and carries his creation over to her, asking if she could help him with it. Deborah watches the figure in his hands start to squirm and it makes a sound "like a scream heard through water". Deborah screams and falls off her stool, and while the rest of the class comes over to help her, she sees Gabriel go back to his table and say to himself "What an excellent idea, an excellent direction indeed." Deborah stops going to the class, letting the instructor know by email that she experienced "inappropriate behavior from one of the other students", but when she goes to a salsa class the next week she finds herself entering the sculpting workshop, which had supposedly always been at that time and place.
The instructor welcomes Deborah back, though she sees that Mary, one of the other students, is not there. The instructor explains that they're doing faces today, and although Deborah asks if that's too advanced for them he assures everyone that they have talent and that "all faces were twisted on the inside, and all you had to do was reach into the deepest part of yourself and put that twisted on the outside of the clay, and as soon as you can scream you'll have your own face staring back at you." Deborah is unnerved by this, while Gabriel looks excited.
Deborah gives it her best effort and makes something somewhat resembling a face. Looking around she sees that Bill has made Mary's face while Gabriel has made a surreal, distorted door-like thing which he tells her is the face of a friend of his who has no name. Deborah sees Bill start to eat his sculpture. Deborah goes to the final sculpting class which has somehow taken the place of a watercolor class she had intended to go to. The room has become larger, the instructor is singing something Deborah can't make out, and Bill is now made of clay with Gabriel working away on him. Gabriel sees Deborah and grabs her hand, thanking her for being "the best assistant he could have asked for". Deborah watches Gabriel's face push further from his skull and distort, and she sees clay inside it. She feels his fingerprints swirling around on her hand, which leave permanent marks.
Deborah runs away and tells herself it didn't happen as she sees Bill and the instructor again, though they don't make eye contact anymore. A week before Deborah gives her statement to the Institute, she gets a letter from Gabriel inviting her to assist him at his new job at a place called Sannikov Land, which doesn't exist. Deborah decides not to go.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan recalls Gabriel as the Worker in Clay, one of the Spiral's servants mentioned by Michael (#101: Another Twist). He recovered a notebook from Gertrude's storage unit which he had found previously (#113: Breathing Room) but forgotten about in the rush to stop the Unknowing. Even with his abilities as the Archivist, he cannot understand it as it's a jumble of numbers and words that would have meant something only to Gertrude. Jonathan mentions that Melanie refuses to see him again but hopes that extracting the bullet will be beneficial to her. Jonathan then discusses the tape recorders that have been appearing around the Archives since his return, and he decides to let them record what they will as it's been useful in the past. Jonathan researched Deborah and finds that shortly after her statement, Mary's body was found in her basement and Deborah has been in prison ever since.
Jonathan: I can't find any evidence related to the condition of the body, but I can imagine what a sculptor's apprentice might be capable of. Even an unwilling one.
A tape recorder starts to record Martin doing admin work, which he notices and asks it if it really wants to listen to something so mundane and hypothesizes that it missed Jonathan. Peter Lukas materializes and confronts Martin about talking to Jonathan, explaining that while he's not angry it is imperative that Martin isolate himself for "the sort of power" he needs for the important thing they're working on. Peter explains that he's collected some statements from Adelard Dekker from the Archives, which "should provide you with all the context you need." Martin doesn't like having to keep all these secrets from Jonathan, but Peter assures him that eventually he won't want to tell him anything, and he'll be safe in the end.

- Accidental Murder: It seems Deborah unwittingly did something to a classmate and ended up with the woman's dead body in her basement, resulting in her being convicted of the woman's murder.
- Affably Evil: In spite of what he does to Deborah and the other members of the sculpting class, Gabriel is always outwardly nice and friendly to them and seems sincere when he thanks Deborah for her "help".
- Ambiguous Situation: At the end of the episode, Jon says he's not entirely sure whether Deborah was truly able to refuse Gabriel's invitation to join the Spiral's cultists in Sannikovland, or just didn't go because she was in jail.
- Call-Back: "Gabriel" turns out to be the Worker in Clay, who was mentioned by Michael as part of the Spiral's ritual in episode #101. He also invites Deborah to Sannikovland, presumably for that same ritual.
- Deal with the Devil: Martin is being so distant because he's made some kind of bargain with Peter Lucas to save everyone from some undefined threat, and trying to get power from the Lonely is part of it.
- Extreme Doormat: While Deborah initially isn't this, the first time she comes to what she thinks is a different class and ends up being sculpture class instead, she doesn't walk out because she's afraid of hurting the teacher's feelings.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Martin talks to the tape recorder that suddenly appeared in his office and claims that his admin is not "thrilling listening" and asks it if it missed Jon and if it's back because Jon is. He might as well be talking straight at the listener.
  - For extra meta points, Alex J. Newall is the Creative Director of Rusty Quill: thus, he IS the guy doing their admin in real life!
- Mind Screw: It starts with the schedule of Deborah's community center changing so that every adult education class she attends is the sculpture class she has with Gabriel, and always has been, no matter what time she tries to go. Then it gets worse.

127: Remains to be Seen
Case #8312111. Statement of Doctor Jonathan Fanshawe, regarding the months leading to the death and autopsy of Albrecht Von Closen. Original statement given as part of a letter to Jonah Magnus, November 21st 1831.

## Story

Dr. Fanshawe is asked by Jonah Magnus to visit Albrecht von Closen who has apparently fallen ill. As he arrives, Dr. Fanshawe sees a crowd of people burning an elm tree and asks his driver why they're doing it in the rain, and he answers that Albrecht "wanted the tree dead". Dr. Fanshawe is met by Albrecht's housekeeper Greta who explains that hes "indisposed" at the moment.
Dr. Fanshawe doesn't see Albrecht for the rest of the day, but always feels as though he's being watched which also causes him to sleep poorly. He awakes in the night and after lighting a match sees Albrecht's face over him, chanting "Leg sie ala zurück. Leg sie ala zurück." (Put them back. Put them back.) The match goes out and when he lights another Albrecht is gone.
In the morning, Dr. Fanshawe furiously searches the house for Albrecht and finds him standing before the library fireplace. Dr. Fanshawe confronts him but his anger fades when he sees how weak Albrecht looks. Albrecht has Dr. Fanshawe sit and begins to peruse the books, telling Dr. Fanshawe that he had them rebound due to dampness while ignoring Dr. Fanshawe's inquiries about his health. Albrecht tells Dr. Fanshawe story after terrible story, and when Dr. Fanshawe asks where he read the stories Albrecht answers "I do not read the books. They read me."
As the months go on, Dr. Fanshawe learns that Albrecht is obsessed with the books and that they came from a crypt in the Black Forest, leading him to suspect that the books had some kind of contaminant that affected Albrecht's mind. Dr. Fanshawe tells Albrecht that he thinks it would be best to get rid of the books, and he seems relieved, to Dr. Fanshawe's surprise. Dr. Fanshawe agrees to help transport the books back into the crypt.
They haul the books through the Black Forest, and as Dr. Fanshawe places them on the crypt shelves he notices that they're blank. When the last book is in place, Dr. Fanshawe hears Albrecht scream from above and he runs upstairs to find him dead with no apparent cause. Later on, Dr. Fanshawe checks with Albrecht's bookbinder (who also happens to be Jonah's) and learns that the books put in the crypt were fakes.
Dr. Fanshawe: Before he was buried, I was able to secure permission to do an autopsy. I had some thought as to discovering the cause of his sudden, violent passing. Do I need to tell you what I found, Jonah? Do I need to detail what covered his organs, his bones, the inside of his skin? What clustered together in their dozens, and all turned as one to focus on me as I opened his chest, their pupils constricting in the light, with irises of every hue and color? Because whatever it was that did this to him, I know in my heart that it is your fault. I have had the body burned. Please do not write to me again.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan had previously hoped that the Institute's founder was innocent and that it had fallen to the Eye's power at a later time, but he now knows that to be untrue, and mentions that the Institute was founded exactly two hundred years prior in 1818, leading him to believe that something regarding the Eye is about to happen.
Basira comes in to apologize on behalf of Melanie for stabbing Jonathan but advises him to continue staying away form her, though extracting the bullet seems to be having a positive effect on her. When Jonathan indicates that the stab wound has healed considerably, Basira adds that to the list of Jonathan's growing powers, including waiting in the Archives for hours until a statement called to him, which is how he chose to record this statement, and being able to know others' thoughts though he can't control when he does so. Basira tells Jonathan that a few months after the Unknowing, she demanded answers from Martin regarding Peter Lukas, though all he said was to trust him despite Peter never showing himself to anyone but Martin.
Basira visits Elias in prison at his request, and he shows her a recorder that had appeared in his cell and explains that they lost a defender by extracting the bullet from Melanie, and offers her an idea to continue keeping their enemies at bay.

- Being Watched: While Dr. Fanshawe is alone in Albrecht Von Closen's estate, he experiences an intense sensation of being watched.
- Call-Back: Albrecht Von Closen was the statement giver in episode #23, whereas this time, he's the subject of the statement.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: When Dr. Fanshawe performs an autopsy on Albrecht, he discovers that his organs, bones, and the inside of his skin are literally covered in dozens of eyes.

128: Heavy Goods
Case #0180303. Statement of the surviving half of the being calling itself ‘Breekon and Hope’, regarding its existence. Statement... extracted from subject 3rd March 2018.

## Pre-Statement

Breekon arrives at the Archives to deliver the coffin, and with Jonathan's compelling power he explains that after Hope's death, he's no longer tied to it and that without Hope he has lost his purpose. He came to the Archives for revenge but "missed my chance" so decided to give them the coffin instead. Basira tries to kick Breekon out but Jonathan suddenly unleashes a power on him, which puts Breekon through immense discomfort and he screams. After the scream stops, Jonathan asks Basira for a pen to record Breekon's statement.

## Story

Breekon and Hope start out during a plague in the Middle Ages where they go from village to village, collecting the corpses of the dead, and they are the ones who bring death. Sometime later they stow away on a military ship to Australia, and when the quartermaster discovers that they aren't on the manifest they kill him and take over the ship, ferrying prisoners from Millbank prison.
Later they work on a train, though they don't like it since there are too many people looking forward to bright prospects. They find "a thrumming silk-wrapped thing of the spider" in some luggage and lure a woman to it where she is consumed by it. Later they get a car after killing the previous owners and do deliveries for an auction house, and most of the items have supernatural powers including a knife recovered from the trenches which instantly kills the person they deliver it to.
After that they end up joining the Circus of the Other, where they are "among our own kind at last" and help with transportation as well as occasionally joining the act as strongmen. They witness Gregor Orsinov create the Dancer, putting the remains of Joseph Grimaldi into it before it kills him and takes his surname. When Nikola Orsinov loses the ancient gorilla pelt, Breekon and Hope leave the Circus and start to drive a lorry, aimlessly picking up hitchhikers who die in the back. They find Alfred Breekon's delivery service and take it over, but still long for purpose and end up meeting John who thinks he can control the coffin, though he ends up getting consumed by it instead.
Since he hired them to transport the coffin, they still take it and become its new owners, becoming bound to it. They still have the coffin when Nikola recruits them back to the Circus for the Unknowing. When Daisy kills Hope, Breekon feeds her to the coffin to punish her, forcing her to live forever inside without any prey to hunt.
Breekon: We failed, but I have at least that comfort. I am without him now. I. Am. I can feel myself fading. Weak. No reason to move, nothing to deliver. But I am no longer tied to the casket, so you can have it. You can stare at it, knowing how your feral friend suffers, knowing how powerless you are to help. And when you can't bear it any longer, knowing that you can climb in and join her. I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now they are with me always, and I desire nothing but to share them with you"

## Post-Statement

Jonathan tells Basira that Daisy is still alive in the coffin but they still must not open it. Jonathan saw in Breekon's mind that he doesn't think any more of the Circus survived the explosion. Jonathan explains that the coffin leads to the Buried, and she promptly tells him that she's leaving for a few days to follow some leads, and not to use his powers to learn more about it. She explains that she escaped the Unknowing by managing to reason her way out, and when she got back everyone was gone. Martin sent her to meet Peter Lukas but she "stood alone in an empty office for more than an hour". She restates to not open the coffin before she leaves.

- And I Must Scream: Daisy is confirmed to be alive inside the coffin, unable to move, die, or be released.
- Didn't See That Coming: When John hired Breekon and Hope to deliver the coffin, he apparently never expected the recipient to actually not open it. As such, Breekon and Hope were forced to lug the coffin around until the Unknowing attack since it was a package without a destination.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Breekon seems to feel genuine affection and grief for its other half, beyond just being traumatized by essentially being chopped in two.
- Force Feeding: Apparently while Gregor Orsinov was turning Joseph Grimaldi into Nikola, he fed the spare body parts to the circus's organist, Nikolai Denikin, previously mentioned in Ep. 24 "Strange Music." No wonder he escaped to England.
- Hive Mind: Breekon and Hope turn out to be two halves of the same being.
- Horrifying the Horror: Jon scares the crap out of what's left of Breekon and Hope by turning the knob up on his powers and apparently psychically tearing the statement from its mind.
  Breekon: [utterly terrified] Stop looking at me!
- Mind Probe: Jon's Archivist powers have grown to the point he can now literally rip statements out of subjects' minds and even use his Compelling Voice to immobilize them when he does so. It's as horrifying as it sounds.
- Painting the Medium: The more oomph Jon puts behind his Compelling Voice, the more distorted the audio becomes.
- Stealth Pun: Breekon is wandering completely lost with the death of his other half. He is both literally and figuratively Hope-less.
- Wham Line: "Stop."

129: Submerged
Case #0130409. Statement of Kulbir Shakya, regarding a flood that occurred around his flat in Hackney. Original statement given September 4th, 2013.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan catches Martin, having used his powers to know when and where to intercept him. Jonathan warns Martin about working with Lukas but won't get in his way, and explains that he misses him. Jonathan tries to fill Martin in on everything that's been happening but Martin wants to know as little as possible and asks for Jonathan to stop finding him.

## Story

Kulbir is forced to leave his childhood home when his landlord suddenly decides to sell it and he can't afford to buy it. After trying and failing to find another place to rent, Kulbir resigns himself to moving in with his sister which means that he has to get rid of many of his possessions, including some of his grandfather's old things.
When the house is almost completely empty, Kulbir gets an ad in the mail for a financial firm, Eberhart and Strauss, reading "Drowning in debt? We can help!". Kulbir reads through it and finds that it seems to be tuned specifically to him. Although somewhat suspicious that they're loan sharks, Kulbir wonders if they really could help him. Kulbir goes to the address in the ad and the receptionist sends him to the building's fourth floor. Kulbir presses the buzzer beside the door labeled as Eberhart and Strauss, noticing a leak dripping water onto it.
After getting no answer, Kulbir lets himself in and finds the place to be deserted and wet. Rain starts to fall as Kulbir walks back to the house to wait for his sister to fetch him. After some time, Kulbir feels a drop of water land on him and sees a wet patch in the ceiling and notices an unexpected earthy smell. He checks his phone to see if his sister has tried to contact him but he has lost service, leaving him stranded in the empty house with nothing to do but keep waiting. Kulbir goes upstairs and watches the street outside, where the water gradually fills the drains and floods out. He doesn't see any people or vehicles pass by, not even the usual bus. Kulbir tries to sleep but the rain unsettles him, "like it wanted to get in".
He is woken up by thunder, and though his watch says it's 3AM, it's still light outside and the streetlights are still off. The water is higher than before, and Kulbir eventually accepts that "there was no longer a day or a night, just the storm and the rain and the thunder." The house starts to flood and Kulbir finds the water to be as warm as his flesh. The rain stops as Kulbir looks out to see the cars submerged beneath the floodwaters. The headlights turn on one by one and Kulbir can see shapes moving through the water. The air has become almost too humid to breathe and every surface is wet. Another roll of thunder sounds and Kulbir sees the waters rise faster without rain.
Kulbir looks around desperately and finds an old sheath from one of his grandfather's knives and remembers how he faced his cancer diagnosis and impending death with calmness and acceptance. He goes to the window where corpses are floating past and climbs out. Kulbir focuses on the memory of his grandfather as he slowly drowns in the flood, passing out as the water starts to get colder.
Kulbir: I don't remember them fishing me out of Regent's Canal, or much of my treatment to be honest. At a certain point it all blurs together. I'm alive and that's what matters. And I've been living with my sister and her husband for a month or two. She doesn't believe me of course, and is keen to put the whole thing behind us, though I catch her staring at me sometimes. I suspect she thinks I might have done it on purpose, but she doesn't know. She doesn't know what it's like to really hear the rain.

## Post-Statement

After the statement, Jonathan muses on survivorship bias and how most of the statements are from people who made it out alive, and wonders just how many more people didn't, like the corpses Kulbir saw floating past. Jonathan then explains how knowledge has just been coming to him, and he now knows how Gertrude stopped the Sunken Sky, the ritual of the Buried, by sacrificing Jan Kilbride, "a void-touched body", and though she killed him before casting him into the pit Jonathan states that it wasn't the kindness she thought it to be. Jonathan wonders if he could get Daisy out of the coffin by having "an anchor" to find his way back to, like Kulbir's memory of his grandfather.

- Dramatic Thunder: The first thunderclap of the storm is so powerful, Kulbir momentarily thinks that it's an earthquake. It later wakes him from sleep.
- Memento MacGuffin: The sheath of Kulbir's Grandfather's Kukri becomes instrumental in saving his life.
- Perpetual Storm: What seems like a normal rainstorm as first goes on and on endlessly, causing a flood that traps Kulbir in his home.
- Power Incontinence: Jon is doing his best to keep the door in his head shut, but he has a very hard time not knowing the answer the second he thinks of a question. He finds Martin simply by thinking about him, and has to forcibly push away more knowledge about the statement after accidentally wondering aloud. Not only that, but he voices the fear that sometimes he does this without realizing and has no reliable way to tell which information in his head came from outside.
- Rising Water, Rising Tension: As the rain falls, the roads begin to flood, but soon the water rises to where it submerges the cars in the street and floods the bottom floor of Kulbir's house. After a brief lull in the rain, the waters begin to rise again rapidly, seemingly flooding the entire city, and threatening to drown Kulbir.
- Weird Weather: The rainstorm seems normal at first, but as Kulbir looks outside his window, he notes a complete absence of cars, buses, or other human activity. Later, he comes to realize that there is no longer a day or night, just the rain, and he sees floodwaters rising rapidly in the streets.

130: Meat
Case #0081912. Statement of Lucia Wright., regarding just a... A hole. A hole filled with... With meat.. Original statement given December 19th, 2008.

## Story

Despite being an atheist, Lucia is fascinated with Christianity and loves to visit churches while on vacation, finding that they have a peaceful atmosphere. She takes a trip to Istanbul where she has recently learned has a history of gnosticism, a sect of Christianity "that places the purity and goodness of the spiritual world in opposition to the baseness and corruption of the material world", and some such sects believe in "the demiurge", a god of flesh in opposition to the traditional God of spirit.
Lucia visits a gnostic temple a few miles out of town, but finds it to look abandoned and ruined. The taxi that brought her already left and there are no other people or method of communication at the temple. Lucia tries to think of some way to get back to the hotel without having to walk there, and sees an unmarked truck approaching with a gray tarp over the back. Although she doesn't know why, Lucia becomes afraid of the truck and hides.
She watches the truck drive behind the temple and she sneaks after it. Three men get out of the truck and pull away the tarp to reveal a pile of various bodies, some human and some animal. Some of the bodies are still moving and climb down from the truck. They and the men start to carry the dead meat to the back of the temple into a door. When the men and creatures are all inside, leaving only the truck's driver, Lucia contemplates running away but decides it would be safer to continue hiding until whatever is happening is over and the men and creatures have left.
Eventually Lucia exposes herself by trying to move her cramped leg and hurting herself. The driver, an Asian man, asks her to come over. Lucia decides that it's in her best interests to obey him and she approaches. The driver hands her some of the meat and she starts to take it to the door where "a tall gangly woman with arms that bent backwards" is coming out. Lucia avoids her gaze as she goes inside and descends a hewn staircase, which goes much deeper than she expects. At the bottom she finds a cavern with a pit in the center, where all the other men and creatures are tossing their loads of meat in. Lucia looks into the pit and sees a pile of meat so unfathomably large that she cannot see the bottom, and as it moves she realizes that it is in a mouth. She throws her meat down and returns to the surface where she is given more meat to take down.
When the last of the meat is taken out of the truck, Lucia is disheartened to see an endless line of identical trucks pulling up. They carry meat down to the hole through to the next day, and the mouth grows closer and closer to the edge of the pit. Lucia forces herself to continue as she had seen the woman with the backwards arms be thrown into the pit herself after collapsing from exhaustion. Lucia knows that something terrible will happen when the pit is full, but before that happens there is an explosion, collapsing the cavern on the mouth which screams in rage. Lucia becomes trapped in rubble halfway up the stairs and is found some time later by a rescue team.
Lucia: I don't know how long I lay trapped there before Turkish rescue workers found me. Certainly long enough that the scent of rot began to waft up from far below. I was delirious and barely conscious. I… I tried to warn them, to tell them to finish the job, but all that did was convince them that there might be other survivors. They, um, haven't told me what they found down there. They paid for my flight home but haven't told me anything. I don't know anything. I… I just want to sleep.

## Post-Statement

Gertrude explains that Lucia had become part of the Last Feast, the ritual of the Flesh, and that she herself was the one to blow it up. She was worried that Lucia might have recognized her but is glad she doesn't remember her. The driver was Tom Haan, who also survived, and though she thinks he won't cause trouble anymore with the Last Feast stopped she still decides to keep him on her radar. Gertrude remarks that she's glad that some rituals can be stopped by something as mundane as an explosion, even if "it almost felt like cheating", and notes that she'll have to be more "proactive" about stopping other rituals since she won't always have as much time to prepare for them as she did for the Last Feast.
Jonathan explains that he found this tape of Gertrude's in his desk, wrapped in cobwebs. He wonders what the Web is trying to tell him with this statement, and recalls Gertrude mentioning "the siren call of flesh" and thinks he could use that as his anchor to get Daisy out of the coffin.

- Bait-and-Switch: Between Gertrude's ominous reassurance that once Lucia gives her statement her nightmares won't be bothering her much longer and the former taking her time reaching inside her desk to supposedly pull out a flyer for a counselling service, it's heavily implied that Gertrude is about to murder Lucia in cold blood...only for it to be revealed that due to Lucia not knowing about Getrude's involvement in the affair, she didn't kill her. Maybe.
- False Reassurance: Gertrude assures Lucia that the nightmares she's been suffering about the Last Feast won't be troubling her much longer. Gertrude's correct... in that Lucia will be suffering new nightmares instead, courtesy of the Archivist's Dream Walker powers.
- He Knows Too Much: The point of taking the statement was for Gertrude to find out whether she needed to pull this with Lucia—after all, Gertrude knew exactly what happened, because she was there, laying explosives to disrupt the rite. Luckily, Lucia doesn't really remember running into Gertrude, so she gets to live. With the memories of participating in the ritual and the recurring nightmares that come from giving a statement.

131: Flesh
Case #0182003. Statement of Jared Hopworth, the Boneturner, regarding his association with Flesh and recent activities.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan tries to cut off his finger to obtain his anchor of flesh, but it instantly heals. Melanie finds him and explains that the bullet had stayed in her leg because she wanted it and not because of any power's influence, because it made her feel that her anger was okay and right to feel. After Jonathan explains his situation, he wishes out loud that he could have the Boneturner just pluck something out of him for the anchor. Melanie then takes him into the tunnels to meet with Helen, who has the Boneturner trapped in her hallways since the Flesh's failed siege on the Institute where Melanie was unable to kill him. They plan for Jonathan to enter and bargain with him to extract a rib in return for setting him free. Once inside, Jonathan tries to compel the Boneturner to tell him why the Flesh attacked but he demands payment in the form of another rib for him to keep, and Jonathan agrees.

## Story

Even before becoming the Boneturner, Jared is intimidating to those around him. An early growth spurt gives him a physical advantage over other kids and the only friends he has are those too afraid to leave. When Jared starts to read The Boneturner's Tale, he learns from it "about bones and flesh and muscle and blood, the bits of myself I actually knew and liked". He gains power from it and tries it out on his parents, but it doesn't go well so he runs away. He wanders looking for any jobs, usually in "get[ting] rid of people".
Eventually other creatures approach him to try to recruit him for the Flesh's direct servitude, but he declines since he does well enough with reality as it is. In 2016 he starts getting letters from an anonymous source, usually with just a name, place and time. He decides to start following them and finds that they lead him to "very good bones". He continues obeying the letters until one instructs him to go to the Magnus Archives and kill the Archivist. Jared gathers some allies and crawls through the pipes into the Archives. They kill some people but are annihilated by "the skinny one" with a knife, saving Jared for last. He tries to reach into her but she slices off every hand he puts forth and he retreats through a door, entering the Distortion's hallways.

## Post-Statement

Once the statement has ended, the Boneturner extracts the ribs and Jonathan tells him to find a door before passing out.
Helen gets Jonathan out of the hallways, casually mentioning that she let the Boneturner out "some distance above a river". When Jonathan wakes up, Helen assures him that she is an ally to him.

- Anonymous Benefactor: Jared explains that he and his ilk attacked the Institute after being told of the place in a letter sent to him by some unknown person who sent him a whole bunch of similar letters telling him where to find people with good, healthy bones he could claim.
- Endless Corridor: When Jared attacked the Institute and even a Slaughter-driven Melanie couldn't put him down, Helen showed up and helpfully ushered him into one of these. He's not happy about it.
- Exact Words: Helen and Jon promise Jared that in return for removing the latter's rib, the former will create a door out of the Endless Corridor he's trapped in. At the end Helen does create a door out of the corridor... "some distance above a river".
- Fingore: Jon tries cutting off one of his fingers. Repeatedly.
- Healing Factor: Jon discovers he has one of these. Unfortunately, it's around the time he actively needs to sever a body part to rescue Daisy.
- Joke and Receive: After explaining that his attempts to create an "anchor" from his flesh are being foiled by his Healing Factor, Jon jokes to Melanie that he wishes the Boneturner was around to pop out one of his ribs. Cue Melanie taking Jon to Helen and revealing the latter has kept the Boneturner prisoner meaning they can literally do just that.
- Not Brainwashed: When Jon asks Melanie if getting the Slaughter-infected bullet out has reduced her anger, Melanie shoots back that her anger has always been there her whole life. The Slaughter simply gave it focus and told her that it was a part of her. In fact, the bullet only stayed in her body because she let it. Jon can only let out a single "Shit." in response.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Helen responds to Jon's cold treatment of her by pointing this out, even claiming that Jon is as much the "Jonathan Sims" that joined the Institute as she is "Helen Richardson" (i.e. only superficially).

132: Entombed
Case #0182403. Account of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, concerning their descent into the Coffin and attempt to rescue Alice "Daisy" Tonner.

Jonathan records an apology to Melanie and Basira for going into the coffin alone and behind their backs, but he doesn't want to risk any other lives than his own in this task. He enters the coffin and descends the stairs, eventually reaching a bottom. As he searches, the tunnels grow smaller and his flashlight is destroyed by a wall that crushes it when he accidentally taps it. It becomes harder to breathe and he starts to hear a man screaming for rescue, but Jonathan couldn't find him. Jonathan remarks that he can no longer feel "the part of myself I left outside".
Jonathan eventually gets stuck in a tight tunnel until he hears rumbling and humming, at which point the tunnel breaks and Jonathan falls before finally finding Daisy. After they reunite, Jonathan tries to detect his rib outside the coffin but cannot. Daisy wants to talk and release what she's feeling, and Jonathan uses his power to help her do so. She expresses that the Hunt's power, which has been with her most of her life, cannot touch her here in the realm of the Buried. When she snapped out of the Unknowing's influence and found herself there, she thought she had died and gone to Hell, and suffered in the knowledge that she deserved it. She then reveals to Jonathan that she planned to kill him after they stopped the Unknowing, having figured out that he was no longer human, though she doesn't care about that anymore.
At that moment, they feel the Buried's power tormenting them and suddenly Jonathan can feel the pull of his disembodied rib again. He leads Daisy towards it, and they eventually find the coffin's lid and push through it, finding themselves back in the Archives with dozens of tape recorders all playing their tapes at once, with Basira stunned to see Daisy alive.

- Gallows Humor: When Daisy says she wants to talk:
  Jon: Well, I'm not going anywhere.
- Rescued from the Underworld: Jonathan succeeds in rescuing Daisy from the realm of The Buried.
- Sympathetic Magic: Jonathan leaves one of his ribs behind, surmising that it will act as an anchor to the real world, allowing him to find his way out of the realm of The Buried. It turns out he was only partially correct: the anchor was actually all the statements he's recorded.

133: Dead Horse
Case #9302706. Statement of Percy Fawcett, regarding his final expedition into the Amazon. Original statement given June 27th 1930.

## Story

Percy precedes his statement by saying that he wants to live the rest of his life in anonymity and requests that the Institute not disclose his existence to anyone, as the world believes he disappeared in the Amazon.
Percy embarks on his second expedition to find the lost city of Z in 1925. He brings along his son Jack, and at his request, Jack's friend Raleigh Rimmell, who Percy doesn't trust as he sees a darker version of his own zeal in Raleigh's eyes. When the expedition team reaches Dead Horse Camp, the place where Percy's previous expedition had been cut short, Raleigh insists on sending their local guides and most of the animals back saying that they "have to be quick if we were to find what we sought". Though Percy doesn't like it, he allows it since it would make it easier to avoid detection by the hostile Xavante tribes.
The first night, Percy hears a thumping sound from Raleigh's tent, which he takes to be him killing the voracious mosquitoes. In the morning, Raleigh tells Percy that "he had inside him a strong and enduring hatred of bloodsuckers". Later that day they find a stone covered in hieroglyphics, indicating that they're on the right path to finding Z. Raleigh gets down on the ground and puts his face close to the stone and breathes in as if sniffing it, and Percy thinks he sees Raleigh lick the stone as well before he suddenly runs off into the jungle. Percy and Jack follow until he stops. Raleigh tells them that he "won't let it get away again", confusing Percy as cities can't 'get away', though Jack seems to understand. Although Percy keeps a journal, the dates stop making sense as time goes on.
At some point there are no longer animals in the jungle, and Percy finds that Raleigh has been killing birds in his tent. Jack takes charge of navigation, leaving Percy nothing to do but follow them to a now-unknown destination. They start to see strange, sharp animals lurking and following them. Eventually, they meet another expedition outfitted for arctic conditions, which Percy soon realizes is John Franklin and the crews of the Terror and Erebus, who had disappeared in the Canadian arctic and were thought to have cannibalized a century prior. Percy sees that they have the same dark zeal in their eyes as Raleigh.
The two expeditions join up and travel together until the sharp animals attack in the night. Having taken to keeping his gun close at all times, Percy is able to fight off the one attacking him. When the attack is over, Percy is even more horrified by "the blood-drunk cheering of the survivors, a sound of triumph, elation and cruelty". The trees distort as the expedition presses on, and Percy sees more humanlike creatures moving in them. Soon they find a third expedition, that of Eduard von Toll who disappeared while searching for the island of Zemlya Sannikova, now impaling some of the humanlike creatures, which have long tongues. Raleigh tells von Toll again "I cannot stand bloodsuckers". Percy sees two real humans among the impaled creatures.
Though supplies run out, the expeditions press forward in pursuit of an undefined 'it'. Percy is devastated to hear his son talk so eagerly about 'it'. One by one, men collapse from exhaustion and are abandoned, and Percy soon joins their number. He wakes up back at Dead Horse camp, having been found and nursed back to health by a friendly tribe.
Percy: I am sure deep within myself that what Raleigh Rimmell hunted out in that jungle he will never find, he can never find. What those people pursued, what I pursued, doesn't exist and I dearly hope that no others will ever suffer for our obsession. The sooner the world forgets them, forgets me, the better. I just wish I hadn't lost my son to learn that lesson.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan asks Daisy, who he had listening to the statement's recording, what she thinks about it as a Hunter. He explains that he's been trying to learn about the Hunt's ritual and find out if Gertrude had stopped it, and thinks that the events of the statement could be it though it clearly didn't work despite no indication of interference. Daisy explains how when she was a police officer she never liked actually capturing the criminals she chased because it meant that it was over, although artificially lengthening the chase by letting them go didn't feel right either.
Jonathan recalls something called "The Everchase" from Gertrude's notes and thinks that, with their developing theory, it could be that the Hunt's ritual isn't meant to have a conclusion. Basira interrupts and asks for a private conversation with Jonathan, during which she asks if Daisy is the genuine article and not a sinister replacement like the Not-Them was, since though she seems the same she also seems "lost". They discuss their similarities in leadership, and how it doesn't help anyone to keep secrets, though Basira refuses to talk about what leads she was following when she left for a few weeks.

- Poor Communication Kills: Invoked. Jon speculates that Basira's independant investigations turned up nothing and states that when any of them (including himself!) do anything secretly without the others, it's for selfish and arrogant reasons, and the best case scenario is that the time and energy is wasted. Usually it results in danger and injury and it's a matter of time before the results are even worse.
- Stealth Pun: The title refers to Fawcett's Dead Horse Camp, so called because it's the point where his horse finally died. However, the Everchase is essentially a journey without a point to it, other than to keep on going forever. After a certain point, you're just beating a dead horse.
- Stock Unsolved Mysteries: Three lesser-known ones feature here. Percy Fawcett is revealed to have survived his failed expedition to the Lost City of Z but actively faked his own death, and along the way meets some of the crew of the HMS Terror's expedition to find the Northwest passage and Eduard Toll's expedition to Sannikov Land. In all cases, their obsession with reaching a location that does not exist allows them to be drawn into the Everchase.
- Victory Is Boring: Turns out this is one of the key aspects of the Hunt: all that matters is the chase, not the capture. Daisy relates that during her time with the police, the part that she hated the most about her job was actually cuffing suspects due to the sense of finality it brought. Jon also discovers that this even plays into the Hunt's Ritual, the Everchase: the ritual never ends and instead provides the Hunt's disciples with an eternal hunt.

134: Time of Revelation
Case #0060122. Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson dated 22nd January 2006.

## Story

Adelard tells Gertrude that he believes a fifteenth Power is emerging after meeting with Professor Bernadette Delcour, an expert in eschatology.
Bernadette rushed to Paris after hearing about the discovery of a hidden apartment belonging to Garland Hillier, a man from the mid-19th century who left the group that went on to become the Seventh-day Adventist Church after its founder incorrectly predicted the return of Christ. He went on to write several disliked pieces on philosophy, religion and atheism, the last of which was an essay called L'Avenir or The Future which theorized humanity's destruction by a race of beings called the Inheritors. Hillier disappeared shortly after the publication. Bernadette gained access to the apartment as well as a photocopy of a journal found there in which he rambled about his 'new revelation' and gradually became more panicked until just repeating "The door is the door".
Inside, Bernadette felt like she entered "a tiny pocket of another time" devoid of change, and the sounds of the street outside disappeared. Finding nothing of interest, Bernadette started to leave when she noticed that the door, which had been damaged by the renovators that discovered it, was now undamaged and the hallway was discolored and dirty. She tried to reassure herself until she got outside and found the street littered with desiccated corpses with expressions of "understanding not just of their death, but the end of everything they knew". Bernadette then saw the Inheritors, and though Adelard can't get a clear description of them from her she says "There is nothing done in the history of humanity that deserves the things that come after us." Remembering Hilliard's ranting "The door is the door", Bernadette ran back up to his apartment and barricaded herself inside until she watched the door change back.
Adelard doesn't think that there will be another chance to talk to Bernadette again as he can tell she will suffer the same fate as Hilliard. He explains to Gertrude that although Bernadette's experience has seeming hallmarks of the Spiral, the Lonely and the End, he can feel that it's something different, a fear not just of death but of total elimination and replacement: The Extinction. Adelard states that he will need Gertrude's help sooner or later to stop the Extinction from becoming a fully-developed Power, but until then he will continue to learn more about it.

## Post-Statement

Peter explains to Martin why he had him read this statement. As far as Peter knows, only two entities are without a ritual to manifest themselves: the Web because it likes the world as it is, and the End because its manifestation would result in the elimination of life and fear with it. The emerging Extinction, on the other hand, would thrive on that kind of world, and could possibly introduce new species that would then fear their own destruction. Peter is developing a plan to stop the Extinction from coming to be, involving "someone touched by Beholding". Peter confirms that this isn't a trick to get Martin to help perform the Lonely's ritual since Gertrude had already put a stop to that, delaying the next attempt by centuries. Peter reminds Martin that they made a deal for Peter to protect the Institute from the other power's forces, though he can't stop the people there from doing dangerous things of their own accord such as Jonathan entering the coffin. Peter then asks Martin why he put the recorders around the coffin, and Martin explains that while he thought it might help Jonathan get out, he can't explain why he thought that.

- After the End: Paris post-Extinction hasn't been inhabited by humans for at least one-hundred years. The "Inheritors" that are there are terrifying.
- Doomed Protagonist: Dekker's account of the Extinction is taken second-hand. The professor who actually encountered the power had the look of a 'half-eaten meal', according to him.
- Madness Mantra: Garland Hillard's journal devolves into him writing over and over “La porte est la porte.”
- Nothing Is Scarier: Because Gertrude didn't take the statement about the Extinction herself, there is no description of its servitors, except that they are so awful that not even every human atrocity stacked together is enough to make us deserve them.
- The Reveal: Martin placed the tape recorders by the coffin, allowing Jon to escape.
  - Also, Peter reveals that Gertrude stopped the Lonely's ritual when she was alive, meaning that it not be attempted again for centuries, making his plans for Martin all that more mysterious.
- Wham Episode: There is a new Power emerging and Peter Lukas aims to stop its emergence with Martin's help.
- Wham Line: "I am now certain my theory was correct. There is something new emerging. A fifteenth Power."

135: Dark Matter
Case #0141407. Statement of Manuela Dominguez regarding her unconventional religious beliefs and their intersection with her project aboard the space station Daedalus. Original statement given July 14th, 2014.

## Story

Manuela precedes her statement by telling Gertrude to pass it on to Elias, advising both of them to abandon the service of the Eye before the Dark's ritual is completed, and leaves her story as a gesture of "goodwill".
Manuela's parents are zealous Christians and harshly judge and hate anything they deem to be "unnatural". They despise Manuela's forging into science and education as they believe that only God is meant to know such things, and so Manuela cuts ties with them. Once they are on their deathbeds, however, Manuela returns to tell them of her religion, one that posits that the universe's natural state is one of darkness, as "without light there is darkness, but without darkness there is nothing." She sees life itself as proof of this, both in the suffering it brings and its relative brevity in comparison to the endlessness of the universe.
Manuela's studies are primarily in dark matter and dark energy, which seem impossible to exactly chart and measure and are most visible in the effects they have on other things.
Eventually Manuela meets Maxwell Rayner and finds his teachings to be a blissful truth. When she hears him speak of a ritual to kill the sun, she readily offers her knowledge of dark matter and is assigned to create a "black star" to harness dark energy and give it form. She makes plans with Rayner and he manages to get Simon Fairchild and the Lukas family to collaborate on the Daedalus space station. Manuela can tell that the two astronauts sent by the other factions don't have similar motives to her, instead being "sent up there to suffer". In addition to them, Manuela has a nyctophobic man trapped inside a box to be a battery of fear for her experiments.
Though Manuela herself admits that such a thing is impossible, she succeeds in creating the Black Star and prepares it and the other astronauts for the return journey, which is easy enough as they have both been mentally broken by their respective ordeals, enough for them to not notice her prisoner screaming loud enough to break through the box's soundproofing.
Manuela: We have watched you, Gertrude. I suppose you're used to that. But we know what you're capable of. So consider this a challenge. I would love nothing more than to see you destroyed by the radiance of the dark sun we have created. So by all means do your worst. Or prostrate yourself, both of you, before the Forever Blind and perhaps you might be spared. Maxwell and I await your decision with keen interest.

## Post-Statement

Since it's clear that the Dark's ritual hasn't been completed, Jonathan wonders if the People's Church failed or if they decided to bide their time for a few years. He tries to Behold for information but sees only darkness, so decides to just keep researching. Jonathan then explains that he had the coffin moved to Artefact Storage, but wonders if he could have done anything to save the other souls trapped inside it. Jonathan has become something of a pariah at the Institute. He wishes he had a plan of action beyond just living from day to day.
Basira meets with Elias in jail again, and he explains that he just sent her on a wild goose chase so that she wouldn't interfere with Jonathan's plan to enter the coffin and save Daisy, building his own strength and power in the process. Though Basira argues that Jonathan didn't know how he got out, Elias interjects that Jonathan is now the only being in history to do so and that stands for something. Elias explains that he has seen increased activity in Ny-Ålesund and believes that the People's Church of the Divine Host is preparing for the Dark's ritual, despite Maxwell Rayner's death, revealing that he was the police's anonymous tip. (#73: Police Lights)

- Continuity Nod: Elias references the events of Episode 73 ("Police Lights"), when Basira and other Section 31 officers saved Callum Brodie from the People's Church, and reveals that he was the one who tipped the police off about their location.
- Egocentrically Religious: According to Manuela, her parents were spiteful people who used their faith to hurt others and condemn whatever they considered "unnatural", which was pretty much everything they didn't understand or related to their own pride or jealousies.
- Evil Gloating: Manuela gives the statement partly to taunt Gertrude and the Eye about their upcoming ritual, but also to offer them a chance to abandon the Beholding before the world is consumed by darkness; Jon finds this concerning since the People's Church clearly haven't succeeded and it's not the kind of threat you give four years in advance.
- Fantastic Science: Manuela was tasked with creating a kind of "black sun" which operated like a regular sun but would spread darkness instead of light. She knew that wasn't scientifically possible, but that wasn't important here. So she sought out the deepest possible darkness she could imagine: space.
- Light Is Not Good: Being a servitor of The Dark, Manuela believes that the default state of the universe is darkness, and that light is nothing but a corrupting influence.
- Metaphorically True: Basira confronts Elias about the wild goose chase he sent her on around the world, which she went on because he said there was a way to bring Daisy back. As he points out, there was: her absence from the Institute allowed Jon to enact his rescue plan.
- The Reveal:
  - The reason the Daedalus was launched was so that the Dark could create some kind of mass of dark matter in order to perform its ritual, The Extinguished Sun.
  - Supplies are being sent to Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard, and Elias suspects that they are attempting to conduct the aforementioned ritual as quickly as possible.
- Rule of Three: The third statement from someone who served as crew on the Daedalus, as well as the only one given by someone who knowingly serves one of the Powers (the other two being victims of them).
- Space Isolation Horror: Manuela brings an unnamed man onto the Daedalus, and subjects him to the torment of endless darkness. By the time they leave, he's screaming so loud that no amount of soundproofing can silence him.

136: The Puppeteer
Case #0120112. Statement of Alison Killala, regarding her time as friend and carer to special effects artist Neil Lagorio. Original statement given 1st December 2012.

## Pre-Statement

Melanie leaves Daisy with Jonathan while he records the statement, and he inadvertently compels her to reveal that she's been going to therapy. Daisy tells Jonathan that she can't bear being alone anymore and insists that "you're not babysitting me".

## Story

Alison has always been enamored by special effects in movies but especially animatronics, something that can move under her control. This love leads her to work with special effects artist Neil Lagorio, who says he is "a puppeteer at heart". They become friends on the set of a B-movie titled Jewel of the Amazon, and Alison notices that although Neil isn't cruel "there was no warmth to him", like an animatronic. Neil divides everyone he meets into two groups based on whether they are worth his time, though it's often hard to tell in which group you stand. Alison recalls Neil inviting people she thought he hated to view original cuts of his films, though she notices "they never quite looked the same afterwards". After Alison has a child, she finds that life in the film industry is quite incompatible with being a full-time parent but she keeps in touch with Neil. He starts to suffer from a disease that stop him from finishing his final film, Dancer.
Alison decides to step in as Neil's caretaker when his disease becomes to difficult to deal with alone. Although Neil was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Alison knows that it's something else as Neil doesn't degrade mentally and doesn't seem to be in pain, but simply looks as though he can no longer move willingly. Neil designs a sort of exoskeleton for himself to wear and a set of ropes and pulleys that would allow Alison to move him around his home like a puppet. Alison doesn't like it but Neil insists that this is what he wants and so Alison builds the system for him, and when she moves him around in it for the first time he looks to be truly happy. For years Alison and Neil live with this system, and they get so used to it that Alison hardly notices when the exoskeleton becomes fused to Neil's body.
In mid-2012, a woman comes to visit. Thinking her to be a fan, Alison starts to tell her to wait while she talks to Neil but stops when she she sees "a mass of white thread criss-crossing all over the side of her temple". The woman tells Alison to sit and she instinctively obeys and finds herself unable to even turn her head as Neil comes on his pulley system and calls the woman "Annabelle". Annabelle sends Alison to the screening room to watch Neil's original cuts "until we're all done here". As Alison walks she sees the system causing Neil to dance as he weeps tears of joy. When Alison finally comes out after watching the films, which she later learns she had been doing for five months, she finds that Neil is dead and tangled in his strings. Annabelle orders Alison to take Neil's original cuts and deliver them to the Magnus Institute.

## Post-Statement

Afterwards, Jonathan and Daisy discuss Neil's original cuts, which are being kept in Artefact Storage, and the recurrence of Annabelle Cane. Daisy asks Jonathan if entering the coffin to save her was really his choice, which he confirms but admits that he made a choice while in the coma "to become something else", and now feels less apprehensive about going into such danger alone if it means saving someone. Daisy also reveals that she is now an official employee of the Institute in order to gain the protection that comes with it, having broken into Elias' office to get a blank contract to sign. She then tells him to stop being upset about the bad things the assistants have had to go through because they all made their own choices.
We start to hear Melanie's first meeting with her therapist before she demands that the therapist stop recording.

- Call-Back: Neil Lagorio, mentioned in Episode 110, appears alongside Annabelle Cane from Episode 69 and Episode 123.
- Compelling Voice: Jon accidentally uses his on Melanie, who blurts out that she's started going to therapy.
- Continuity Nod: Alison mentions that Neil used to work with a claymation artist named Gabe, likely the Worker in Clay who went by 'Gabriel' in Episode 126.
- Famed in Story: Neil Lagorio was, at one point, one of the best stop-motion and practical-effects artists in Hollywood and worked with John Carpenter for a time. Alison specifically mentions talking with him while they both worked on a Kevin Costner film.
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Daisy tells Jon to get over himself and stop constantly moping about how he's turned into some kind of monster. She even gets Jon to let out a genuine laugh at a joke.
- Good Old Ways: While a master of special effects when it came to practical effects, animatronics and even stop-motion, Lagorio is said to have unsuccessfully dabbled with CGI in one movie, The Wire Runner.
- Marionette Master: Alison finds herself in this role when she's asked by Neil to construct an apparatus that allows her to puppet him around the house.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Alison is forced to watch Neil's original cuts while Annabelle does something with him that results in his death. Alison later learns from her daughter that she had been missing for five months.

137: Nemesis
Case #9550307. Statement of Wallis Turner. Incident occurred at the North Point prisoner-of-war camp, then later the sunken ship Nemesis in late 1942. Statement taken 3rd July 1955 at the Pu Songling Research Centre, Beijing. Committed to tape 9th October 2014 by Gertrude Robinson.

## Story

Wallis is drafted to fight in World War II, but fears the thought of having to kill as he holds life of all kinds in high regard. Six months into his service, Wallis is captured and taken to the North Point prison camp in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong, where he and his fellow soldiers suffer brutal treatment and torture, though not so terrible as the Chinese soldiers are put through.
After spending four months in the prison camp, a kind of song starts to play in the night from outside the camp, starting as a drumbeat before escalating to a trumpet-like sound. All the imprisoned soldiers rise as the music grows and crowd around the windows to see an old ship in the water nearby. Wallis feels cold looking at it as he sees it to be made completely of iron, even the sails, and he reads the ship's name: Nemesis. The prison camp's staff walk away from the prison towards the ship, and when they reach the water they begin to attack each other in a brutal slaughter. When the last of them stop moving, Wallis is horrified to hear his fellow prisoners cheer with "bloodlust and cruelty".
With their captors all dead, the prisoners begin to make their own way towards the Nemesis. Rowboats come from the Nemesis to ferry the soldiers, and Wallis sees the crew's mismatched and tattered uniforms from a variety of times and places. Once onboard the Nemesis, Wallis can see that it is heavily damaged and shouldn't possibly be above the water.
The Nemesis sails into the sea and the land disappears from view. The music starts to play again and the soldiers become agitated. Leonard, a kind and gentle friend of Wallis', suddenly grabs another soldier and with an inhuman cry starts to tear him apart, continuing to do so even after he is dead. The rest of the soldiers tap their feet to the music as they watch, then one of them rushes forward and attacks Leonard, killing him. One by one the soldiers kill and are killed in turn. The crew of the Nemesis grow more eager with each kill, and start to look expectantly at the sky before growing nervous as fewer and fewer soldiers remain. Wallis notices that the Nemesis is slowly sinking, and realizes that unlike the other soldiers, the music is not infecting him with the need to kill.
When the water washes over the deck, Wallis boards one of the rowboats and shoves off, the forlorn crew making no attempt to stop him. The Nemesis disappears into the depths and Wallis floats about for a few days until he is rescued by a ship belonging to one of the Allied powers. Wallis tells them everything that happened and is promptly discharged.
Wallis: I often think about that night. But it's not the blood I remember. Not the black iron ship, or the look on Leonard Holden's face as he pulled poor Milton apart. It's the sadness on the faces of those who kidnapped us. Those who made us dance to their violence. I don't think I'll ever know what they expected to happen. But I think I'm very glad it didn't.

## Post-Statement

Gertrude explains that the events of this statement were an attempt at the Risen War, the ritual of the Slaughter. She assumes that the Nemesis was meant to be bombed for the ritual to be complete but one of the other entities must have intervened somehow. She expresses relief that she doesn't have to worry about stopping the Slaughter and can instead focus on the Stranger, explaining that she thinks explosives could only work if activated during the Unknowing and from inside it. She reminisces on how Gerard Keay could help as he has a connection to the Eye, and wonders if she should have told him about his father, Eric.
Jonathan explains that this tape came from a box in Elias' office, which he accessed thanks to Daisy breaking in previously. While glad he doesn't have to worry about the Slaughter's ritual, he still wishes he knew what to do next regarding the Watcher's Crown, the ritual of the Eye.

- Call-Back: The Nemesis previously appeared in Episode 105, which was about an incident during the Taiping Rebellion and is alluded to by Gertrude; that statement giver had served on the ship, which had been sunk in battle, likely as part of another attempted Slaughter ritual.
- Draft Dodging: Wallis considers becoming a conscientious objector when he's drafted into the war.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that the Risen War ritual failed. Gertrude speculates that servants of a different Power interfered somehow, but later events suggest that no interference took place at all; no other Power may have even been aware of it. The Risen War failed because it, like all the other rituals, was flawed; this may have even been the statement that caused Gertrude, after further evidence and reflection, to realize it herself.
- No-Sell: While the Slaughter's music makes everyone else start killing each other, it simply doesn't work on Wallis, because he's a pacifist who has never truly desired to hurt another person (he only joins the army because he can't bear to hurt his father by refusing).
- P.O.W. Camp: The statement partially takes place in one, with Wallis having been captured by the Japanese.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Slaughter's ritual, The Risen War, fails without any apparent outside intervention after the Nemesis sinks. Gertrude speculates that it was meant to be bombed to complete the ritual, and notes that if they had waited a couple of more years, they could have just sailed into Nagasaki harbor and gotten it done right.

138: The Architecture of Fear
Case #8671302. Statement of Robert Smirke, taken from a letter to Jonah Magnus dated 13th February 1867.

## Pre-Statement

Martin visits Elias who confirms that everything Peter has told him is true, and explaining that he didn't do anything about the Extinction before because he hadn't believed it was real until recently. Martin tells Elias that Peter wants him to join the Lonely, and rather than trying to influence him Elias simply states that he trusts Martin to make the right choice.

## Story

Knowing that he will die soon, Robert writes to Jonah to leave a final warning.
Robert believed that the dark powers of fear could be balanced against one another and thereby controlled. He tried to do this with various tunnels around London, putting churches over some of them in hopes that the prescence of God could contain the things within. But when working on Millbank Prison with Jonah, they found something that Robert knows must be left alone no matter what.
As a young man, Robert would have dreams "of strange, far-off places. A field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig's blood." He took these to be visions of the Powers in their true forms, and thought that if the Powers were places then they could be channeled through architecture and controlled through rituals, and he helped design some of those rituals. Robert's belief in each of the Powers having its opposite is shaken when he learns about the Flesh, a new emergent Power, and realizes that if it didn't always exist then it couldn't have always had an opposite.
Robert now has a dream of being in a dark and silent world where he looks at the empty sky which blinks back at him. Robert tells Jonah of this to warn him against performing the ritual of the Eye. Robert then explains to Jonah how he knows he will die soon.
Shortly before he started having the dream of the Watcher's Crown, Robert started to realize that he was always being watched by someone. He tried to ignore it until the driver of a coach he was taking turned his head all the way back to stare at him, never looking back at the road for the remaining hours of the trip. As more and more watchers crop up around Robert, he knows that it's a result of Jonah's experiments with the Eye, whether that was his intention or not. The night before Robert writes his letter to Jonah, he awakes in the night to a noise from his drawing room, and after lighting a candlestick he enters the drawing room to find his daughter Laura standing in a corner with her back to him. Robert calls to her and she slowly turns in a way that reminds him of the watching coach driver. The candle goes out and when he lights a match Laura is directly in front of him with wide, staring eyes and making no sound. Robert wills himself to run back to his bedroom but he cannot, and when he drops the match and is plunged back into darkness he stands frozen in terror until morning, where he sees that Laura has vanished. When Robert talks to Laura about the night's events she remembers nothing. Robert begs Jonah once again to abandon the Eye.

## Post-Statement

Martin explains that Robert dropped dead while writing the letter. He wonders what had happened with Millbank Prison, which has since been demolished except for the tunnels running under them.

- Artistic License – History: Smirke is stated to have died while writing the letter, which was dated mid-February; in reality, he didn't die until April.
- Exorcist Head: Smirke describes his carriage driver rotating his head 180 degrees to stare at him. He notes that none of his fellow passengers seemed to notice.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Smirke's letter ends abruptly as he apparently died while writing it.
- Matchlight Danger Revelation: Smirke is awakened at night and finds his daughter standing in the drawing room in a corner, facing away from him. Then his candle goes out. When he lights a match, she's face to face with him, her eyes bulging.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: While he didn't create the rituals (as is evidenced by Episode 116, which takes place in the 1700s) Smirke had some role in formulating their modern incarnations, in the hopes of containing and balancing the Powers.

139: Chosen
Case #0063011 Statement of Eugene Vanderstock, regarding the creation of Agnes Montague, her life, care and death. Original statement given November 30th 2006.

## Story

Eugene explains that he was sent by "Arthur" to inform the Magnus Institute of Agnes Montague's death as punishment for "talking out of turn", as doing so forces him to give a whole statement.
Eugene witnessed his friend's home be destroyed in the Blitz and was inspired by the pain, going on to "hurt so very many people" during the remainder of the Blackout. He is eventually found by the Lightless Flame and they all feel a calling to create a world of burning and suffering, but cannot agree on how to do so.
Arthur proposes that they "create a messiah, the flame incarnate, one who could usher in this new world". Eileen Montague volunteers her unborn child and a ritual is developed for the child to be birthed by fire. When Eileen is prepared to give birth, she is placed on a pyre which is set ablaze when the contractions start. The fire consumes Eileen, burning her body to ash and leaving a sleeping baby unharmed in her place, who they baptize with boiling water and name Agnes.
Raising Agnes proves difficult as her powers are great and she often has outbursts and kills anyone in her presence who "were not directly blessed". When Agnes becomes a teenager, the Lightless Flame members discuss what do with her and decide to send her to live at the house at Hill Top Road, a sanctuary of the Web. Eugene doesn't know exactly what happened while she stayed there, but mentions that the place was "scarred" and Agnes remained tied to it, something to do with keeping Raymond Fielding's hand. Gertrude Robinson then interferes in some unknown way that stops the Lightless Flame from continuing their plans.
Now an adult, Agnes is provided for by the Lightless Flame. Eugene gets a supervisor job at a factory with large, constantly burning furnaces, and he makes himself a workshop underneath them where he kidnaps immigrant workers, "those with the fewest connections to complicate matters and the most hopeful dreams of what their life might be" and melts their bodies to make candles for Agnes, which she burns and absorbs the suffering that went into them.
The Lightless Flame's plan falls apart for good, however, when Agnes meets Jack Barnabas, though Eugene thinks the relationship caused Agnes to feel doubt rather than love. Agnes tells her followers that she wasn't sure they could successfully enact the Scoured Earth, and so to avoid such a failure and the centuries' delay until it could be tried again she asked them to give her "a cold and quiet death" so that "perhaps her spark would return to the Lightless Flame and she could try again". Before the cult hangs her, Agnes requests that Jude not take her revenge on Jack, and Eugene dreads to think what non-lethal things Jude would do instead.
Eugene: As for you, whatever you did and whatever protection it might have afforded you is severed with Agnes' death. Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose. I hope when it is time, we may burn you forever, Gertrude.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan wonders what Gertrude did to stop the Scoured Earth. He mentions that he's found that Eugene is still working at the factory, but has decided not to make contact. He assumes that the Diego and Arthur mentioned in the story are Diego Molina (#12: First Aid, #43: Section 31) and Arthur Nolan (#32: Hive, #55: Pest Control). Jonathan goes over the status of the others at the Archive and ends up in thought about if there's any destiny in them being chosen for their various roles. He longs to know about what Martin is doing and tries to Behold it, but it seems to pain him greatly.

- Ambiguous Situation: Once again, Agnes's relationship with Jack Barnabas is brought into question. Eugene is adamant that Agnes didn't feel anything for him, but the relationship itself may have given Agnes some doubt as to whether or not she wanted to be an Avatar of the Desolation.
- Cutting the Knot: Eugene points out that the Web's subtle manipulations and machinations are less effective than just burning everything to the ground.
- Dark Messiah: Agnes Montague was conceived specifically to be an avatar of The Desolation.
- Double-Meaning Title: Chosen can refer to Agnes Montague being the Desolation's chosen messiah or to Eugene Vanderstock himself, being chosen by Arthur Nolan to given this statement after challenging his authority.
- The Fettered: Agnes makes Jude Perry promise that she won't kill Jack Barnabas. Last we heard, he's still alive, but it's implied that Jude is going to make his life a living hell for what he did to Agnes.
- Nightmarish Factory: Eugene manages to acquire a managerial position at a furnace plant after several of his superiors meet with unfortunate accidents. This lets him set up a workshop where he turns migrant workers into candles to act as sacrifices to Agnes.
- Poke in the Third Eye: Jon seems to get a particularly severe one when he tries to view what's going on with Peter and Martin.

140: The Movement of the Heavens
Case #7150101 Statement of John Flamsteed, taken from a partial unsent letter to Abraham Sharp, 1715.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan explains to Basira about his failed attempt at Beholding. She gives him a statement, one from Astronomer Royale John Flamsteed, explaining that she found it while doing research into the Dark, as John Flamsteed had nicknamed his hated assistant and successor Edmund Halley "Reimer". Basira implies that Halley is the man who became Maxwell Rayner.

## Story

John despises his rival Edmond Halley, who he has nicknamed "Reimer" after astronomer Nicolaus Reimer, rival to astronomer Tycho Brahe. Despite being a God-fearing man, John longs for revenge against Reimer and starts taking opportunities to stalk him when he departs from the Royal Society, though nothing eventful comes of it for almost a year before Reimer goes into a forest where he meets people with dark eyes who speak to him, and though John can't hear what they're saying "they had much impact upon Reimer, who would often stagger backwards as though struck".
The people lead Reimer, and by extension John, to the darkest pool John has ever seen, underneath a forest canopy that blocks out the light of the moon and stars. John watches Reimer and the people perform what he describes as a pagan ritual, and he sees the water move as they chant. Terrified, John runs and later resolves to defeat Reimer and stop whatever scheme he is up to, and since he can't think of anyone he could go to for help he decides to do it alone.
On May 2nd, 1714, John follows Reimer again and sees his opportunity to strike when Reimer proceeds to the dark pool alone. John reveals himself and calls to Reimer, listing his crimes. Reimer charges at John with an inhuman scream but John draws a sword and hits Reimer's leg. Reimer falls but still tries to attack, knocking John's sword away, and so John seizes Reimer and pushes his head into the dark pool, which is colder than anything he has felt before. John holds Reimer under the water until he drowns. Although John knows himself to be innocent of murder since it was self-defense, he still doesn't want to be found with the body and runs to hide in the trees and wait until he knows the coast is clear. The dark-eyed people soon arrive and find Reimer's body and they react more out of surprise then horror, "and the question they cast between them was that of what was to be done, for it seemed Reimer was vital to a task as yet unfinished." They carry the body away and John makes his escape, believing that to be the end of it.
Months later, John is visited at his observatory by Isaac Newton, president of the Royal Society, and to John's shock and horror he is accompanied by Reimer. When Newton leaves, Reimer hangs back and takes John by the shoulders, but instead of attempting violence he expresses gratitude "for his life, for his freedom". John looks into Reimer's eyes and sees an unnatural darkness within. John writes to his colleague Abraham Sharp to warn him about Reimer.
John: Halley is no longer Halley. He may appear as such, and ape those previous observations of his own and those more skilled, but it is not him. Look into his eyes, and you will know. You will know.

## Post-Statement

After the statement, Jonathan concedes that Edmond Halley is Maxwell Rayner, and may have possibly been the soldier Joseph Rayner who was blown up by a mortar during World War I (#7: The Piper). Basira explains that she believes that the People's Church of the Divine Host is preparing for the ritual of the Dark, using Ny-Ålesund as a "staging ground" to get things ready before performing the ritual at the North Pole during the winter solstice, as it becomes night for eleven weeks straight there. Basira thinks that it would have been done during the previous winter solstice if Rayner hadn't been killed by sectioned officers (#73: Police Lights). Basira informs Jonathan that she's made a plan for the two of them to go to Ny-Ålesund at the coming summer solstice when the People's Church should theoretically be at their weakest, and declines to bring Daisy for fear that she will fall to the Hunt again.

- Historical Villain Upgrade: Astronomer Edmond Halley, best-known for discovering Halley's Comet, served the Dark, and may have become Maxwell Rayner.
- Meaningful Name: Flamsteed refers to his rival Edmond Halley as "Reimer", after Nicolaus Reimers, who he describes as "persecuting" Tycho Brahe. It eventually evolves into "Rayner".
- Origins Episode: For Maxwell Rayner.
- The Un-Reveal: Jon doesn't remember anything from when he tried to forcibly Know something at the end of last episode.

141: Doomed Voyage
Case #0181106 Statement of Floyd Matharu regarding his time aboard the Dorian from 2011 to 2014.

## Pre-Statement

While on the boat to Norway, Jonathan and Basira notice a tape recorder running and while trying to figure out what it's for Jonathan Knows that a nearby shiphand once worked under Mikaele Salesa and compels him to give a statement.

## Story

When sailing with Mikaele Salesa, Floyd often felt it odd how he never really exercised his authority, leaving all orders to the ship's Captain instead. One of his few rules is that only he can enter the cargo bay while they are at sea. When one sailor tries to break the rule, Salesa doesn't hesitate to toss him overboard.
Soon after this, Floyd notices that Salesa seems to be wearing out after decades of work. One day he helps load a crate onto the ship which supposedly contains a rug, which somehow ends up attacking another crewman later that night, its shifting patterns spreading onto and into his body before Salesa throws them both over the side, collapsing in exhaustion afterwards. Unusually, Salesa doesn't make a new plan with Captain Gaultier, instead getting very drunk, so they finish their voyage to Cape Town and wait.
Eventually, Salesa returns with an excitement Floyd has never before seen, and he explains to the crew that he's retiring but wants to do one last job, making it clear that it will be more dangerous than any before. The plan is to go to an island in the Maldives which Floyd assumes to be privately owned, where Salesa and his four closest men will row in and do the job while the rest of the crew waits to make an escape the moment they return. Floyd remains on the ship for three hours while Salesa's team are on the island, nervously anticipating for anything to happen.
When Salesa finally returns, two of his men are gone and those who remain are traumatized and won't say what went down. Floyd only gets a glimpse of the prize, seemingly "an old camera with a broken lens". Floyd looks back to the island and sees that a storm has appeared out of nowhere, with its lighting starting a forest fire on the island, and in its light Floyd sees a great shape rising up from the ocean and all around the island. As it breaks the surface with a deep rumble, Floyd closes his eyes and falls as a resulting wave pushes the ship away. When Floyd looks again, the island is gone.
On the voyage back to England, Salesa is jovial but still won't talk about what happened on the island. He throws a party when they make port and everyone gets blackout drunk. Floyd wakes up in the morning to find that an explosion occured in the port and both Salesa and Captain Gaultier are missing. Gaultier suddenly reappears, grievously injured, and orders them to set sail immediately. After they are on the open sea, they try to get answers from the Captain and surmise that he and Salesa had gone to deliver the prize but "they had been betrayed" and Salesa had been killed. Captain Gaultier soon dies from his injuries, never saying who their betrayers were.
Floyd: I jumped ship the next chance I got. And I have tried ever since then to leave those memories behind me.

## Post-Statement

When Floyd's statement is complete, Jonathan uses his powers to comfort him before dismissing him. Basira chastises Jonathan for forcibly taking a statement but he defends himself by saying that Gertrude would have done the same.

- A Day in the Limelight: This episode reveals quite a bit about Mikaele Salesa.
- Artifact of Doom: Salesa recovers a camera that apparently has ties to the powers.
- Continuity Nod: Floyd mentions Salesa's rule that no one but himself may enter the cargo hold while at sea, the origin of which was detailed in Episode 115.
- Compelling Voice: Jon practically forces Floyd to spill the beans about his time with Salesa just by asking him.
- Doomed Expedition: Salesa and four crewmen journey onto an island off the coast of Africa. Two of them don't come back. Shortly after, the island is covered in a massive storm, and swallowed by something in the water.
- Sinister Geometry: Floyd recounts an incident in which a man was attacked by a carpet under the influence of the Spiral. The pattern on the carpet forced itself down the man's throat, before both of them were thrown overboard by Salesa himself.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Salesa is apparently killed in an explosion while delivering the camera to an unknown party in Southampton. The captain of the Dorian survives for long enough to drag himself back to the ship and die the at sea.

142: Scrutiny
Case #0181206 Statement of unknown bystander regarding an encounter with The Archivist. Audio recording by Martin Blackwood.

## Pre-Statement

A woman arrives at the Institute to file a complaint for harrassment by an employee, who Martin quickly deduces is none other than Jonathan. Martin asks her to explain what happened.

## Story

While doing maintenance work in a sewer in 2013, the woman becomes trapped when the tunnel collapses without warning. Although she later learns that she was trapped for three hours, the woman loses all sense of time due to the pain and darkness she is plunged into. After some time she feels a hand grab her ankle, and the joy she feels at finally being found quickly turns to terror as she feels the hand's cold, misshappen form and realizes that it is reaching from beneath her. She panics and tries to kick the hand off but its grip tightens and it starts to pull before the rubble on top of the woman is moved away and she is found by one of her coworkers. Over the next few months, the woman has nightmares and goes through therapy until she convinces herself that she imagined the hand.
Years later in 2018, the woman is waiting to meet a date at a coffee shop when she notices a man staring intensely at her from another table. She tries to ignore him but he doesn't look away for a moment. She is about to say something when her date arrives, so she adjusts her seat so she can't see the man watching her and meets her date. After an hour they both decide that they're not feeling it and amicably part ways, and as the woman turns to leave she finds herself face-to-face with the watching man.
The man tells her that he is from the Magnus Institute and needs to hear her story, and even though she wants to run she finds herself sitting down with him and telling him everything in such detail that it feels like she's back under the rubble with the cold hand holding onto her. The man watches her with great interest as she talks, and when she finishes he looks as though "he'd just eaten like a perfectly cooked steak". He cordially thanks her before leaving her in tears.
The woman starts to have nightmares of being trapped in the tunnel again, now with the man silently watching her, "all eyes". Her claustrophobia worsens to the point she can no longer do her job, and whenever she feels the panic that comes with it she feels like she can see the man again.

## Post-Statement

The woman pleads with Martin to stop this man from doing this to people, and ends up leaving in a panic without giving him her name. Martin completely agrees with the woman that Jonathan can't just go around stalking people and extracting statements from them, but he doesn't know what to do about it. Daisy comes in to see what happened and to just have someone to talk to since Jonathan and Basira are abroad and Melanie is out that day. Daisy mentions that Jonathan and Basira have gone to Ny-Ålesund to stop the ritual of the Dark, exasperating Martin as he just wants Jonathan to stay safe and not "charge straight off into danger". Daisy explains that she has seen this kind of behavior from other traumatized Sectioned officers, because they just don't want to feel helpless.

- All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists: Averted. Since Jon is not around and this is not an actual statement, the bystander's account sounds a lot less expressive than most other episodes. Doesn't make it less horrifying, though.
- Being Watched: After telling her story to Jon, the bystander still feels him watching her, not just when she has nightmares about the initial incident, but she even keeps seeing him out of the corner of her eye when she's awake.
- Perspective Flip: We get to listen to someone's account of finding themselves in the receiving end of Jon's powers, with all the trauma associated from giving the statement and the subsequent nightmares in full display. And to make it worse, Jon's powers may have grown that he can be watching even while the subjects are awake.
- There Are No Therapists: Tragically averted; the bystander specifically talks about going to therapy after being buried in the accident and getting better thanks to it, but after Jon forced a statement about it out of her, that was all undone and her claustrophobia came back worse than before.
- Transhuman Treachery: Despite (or maybe because of) his traumatic experiences with other Avatars, Jon himself is now perfectly willing to seek out people who've had strange experiences and force stories out of them. He also seems to deliberately have discarded the protective shield of the written statements, either for expediency's sake or because he now likes it better this way.
- You Do NOT Want to Know: The bystander mentions that her initial incident when she was trapped underground happened when she was working on clearing away a fatberg and tells Martin not to look it up.

143: Heart of Darkness
Case #0181606 Statement of Manuela Dominguez regarding the fall of the Church of the Divine Host.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan and Basira explore the People's Church facility which according to locals has apparently been empty for over a year, but Jonathan can still feel something there. They are jumped by Manuela Dominguez but Basira shoots her to incapacitate her before Jonathan compels information out of her.

## Story

The People's Church of the Divine Host prepares to perform their ritual during the week leading up to the eclipse over Ny-Ålesund in March of 2015. They start by killing the creature that stalked and killed Robert Montauk (#9: A Father's Love, #52: Exceptional Risk) and drown sacrifices in its brackish water, and they are able to create an absolute darkness around themselves.
Manuela recalls how Robert was the one to originally take care of the beast before Maxwell Rayner had his wife killed when she tried to leave the People's Church. Robert killed other People's Church members in a ritual to keep the beast away but it got him in the end.
The ritual in 2015 is able to touch "a world of the fear of darkness" devoid of warmth and direction but full of many terrors. Before it can be completed, however, Maxwell Rayner starts to feel the fall of other units around the world, which they take to be the work of Gertrude Robinson. Manuela and Rayner do their best to sustain the Black Sun's power as the eclipse begins, but they ultimately fail and those of the People's Church still left alive are silent for weeks before Rayner leads them in a search for a new host body for the dark entity within him.
They settle on a child who happens to be the son of Philip Brown (#52: Exceptional Risk) but they are too weak to keep themselves concealed from the Eye and so Elias sends the Sectioned officers who kill Maxwell Rayner. (#73: Police Lights) Manuela, who waited in Ny-Ålesund for this, eventually realizes that the plan failed and Rayner is dead, and she stays there from then on in despair, waiting for the Eye's forces to finish the job.

## Post-Statement

Manuela tells them that the Black Sun is just in the next room over, and that most cannot look at it. Jonathan looks at the star and finds it beautiful before he destroys it. Manuela tries to escape but she enters the Hallways instead, as Helen appears and explains that without the darkness of the Black Sun she was able to find the place. She again insists that she wants to help and offers to let Jonathan and Basira return to the Institute through the Hallways.

- Anti-Climax: Jon and Basira finally arrive at Ny-Ålesund only to find out that not only is the Extinguished Sun not being performed there but apart from Manuela Dominguez, everyone in the Church of the Divine Host is apparently dead, including Maxwell Rayner.
- Dead All Along: Despite Basira believing that Rayner might have survived the events of Episode 73, here it's confirmed he is Deader than Dead.
- Door to Before: Once Jon destroys the Black Sun, Helen appears to conveniently dispose of Manuela as well as offer them a door leading them back to the Institute. She explains she couldn't have done so earlier because of the Sun's influence hiding the place from her.
- Foreshadowing: The Church of the Divine Host's ritual somehow fizzled out and failed, despite no apparent intervention by Gertrude or anyone else. And unlike the ritual of the Hunt, the Everchase, which by the nature of the Power is impossible to complete, there was no reason why it shouldn't have worked, raising the possibility that rituals are inherently flawed. By the end of the season, we learn that, indeed, all of the rituals attempted earlier were doomed to fail from the start.

144: Decrypted
Case #0090310 Statement of Gary Boylan, given October 3rd 2009. Audio recording by Martin Blackwood.

## Story

Gary moves back to his countryside home to take care of his ailing father after his mother dies and his business fails. Although his father is quite unpleasant and there's only one neighbor for company, something keeps Gary from moving away again. He instead tries to simulate escape by taking long walks, but he always returns out of concern for his father. Out in the sun-baked plains, Gary sees abandoned and decaying traces of human life.
While on one of these walks, Gary's music cuts to a track that he's never heard before, titled "Numbers" with no artist or album named. The track plays a faint melody resembling the Skye boat song before cutting to a distorted voice reciting a string of numbers. Gary remembers learning about number stations, but wonders how this could be one if it's coming from his iPod's music player rather than the radio. As Gary makes his way back home, he starts to get the feeling of impending doom before his regular music kicks back in.
Over the next week, Gary researches number stations and listens to recordings which sound similar to the "Numbers" track, though the voices aren't distorted. Although he doesn't realize it at first, Gary starts trying to get "Numbers" to play again and soon hears it, more faintly than before. He moves around to see if the track gets stronger or weaker and ends up following it to a decaying pylon. Although he can't understand how it could be broadcasting the track into his iPod, he cares less about it and copies down the numbers, listening to the track a few times just to make sure he gets the sequence right. Gary comes back a few more times in the next days to verify that the numbers don't change before delving into codebreaking.
Although he concludes that he can't decipher the numbers without the key, he still pours all his effort into trying and while on the brink of passing out from exhaustion he realizes the meaning of the numbers, beyond any code. He sees the impending destruction of humanity, and how each and every person will be wiped out. In a panicked terror, Gary runs to the pylon and prays to it, pleading for it to spare him from his horrible fate, but he can now hear the numbers in the air, without his iPod.
Gary: When I returned, the house was in ruins. The windows shattered and broken, glass strewn across the floor. There was nothing left of my dad, save a charred shadow on the wall, scorched through the plaster and into the now-exposed brick. All that was left of Mrs. Whitshore was powdered bone. There are terrible things coming, things that, if we knew of them, would leave us weak and trembling with shuddering terror at the knowledge that they are coming for all of us. We all made them and their course is already plotted. You can see them in the numbers, if you only learn how to read them.

## Post-Statement

Martin is convinced of the Extinction's existence now and wishes that Peter would get around to giving him something to actually do about it. Daisy interrupts to let him know that Jonathan and Basira have returned but Martin angrily throws her out, yelling that they're not friends and have no need to care about each other. Peter materializes to congratulate Martin on now enforcing his own isolation and explains that for now all they can do about the Extinction is to keep researching and find more statements about it. Peter then tells Martin that he's arranging for a friend of his to meet with Martin to give him some answers.

- Break His Heart to Save Him: Martin has been doing this to everyone, but especially Daisy; he's downright cruel when he tells her to go away and leave him alone, but he's doing it because Peter Lukas has a habit of vanishing people he thinks Martin's getting too close with.
- Numbers Stations: Gary finds a defunct station that nevertheless broadcasts to his iPod, and eventually becomes convinced that the numbers are a secret code predicting the end of the world. Given what happens to Gary's father and the fact that Peter asked Martin to record this statement specifically as evidence for the Extinction's rise, that is probably uncomfortably close to the truth.
  - Genius Bonus: The numbers listed in the episode are a Polybius square cipher, deciphering which reveals the phrase THE WORLD IS ALWAYS ENDING.

145: Infectious Doubts
Case #0090202 Statement of Arthur Nolan regarding the life and death of Agnes Montague. Audio recording by Gertrude Robinson.

## Story

Following the death of Agnes Montague, Arthur Nolan meets with Gertrude Robinson to try to exact revenge but finds himself woefully unprepared, as she reveals to him that she killed Eugene Vanderstock after he was sent to threaten her. After Arthur realizes that he is fully within Gertrude's power, she offers to let him ask her a question before she questions him in turn, and he asks how she ultimately stopped Agnes from fulfilling her destiny.
Gertrude explains that the Scoured Earth was the first ritual she had to face and put an end to, and so tried to figure out a kind of counter-ritual using cuttings of Agnes' hair found in a box at the ruins of the Hill Top Road house. Gertrude created a ritual circle in the Scottish highlands but instead of a banishment, it allowed the Web to "bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house." Due to how painful the connection was, Gertrude added elements of the Desolation to her ritual circle to keep herself relatively safe from its power, though the circle was accidentally broken earlier in 2009 by some bystander. (#37: Burnt Offering)
Gertrude then asks Arthur what Agnes was like, never having actually met her. Arthur doesn't really know, as for being a virtual god incarnate, Agnes was quiet and rarely voiced her own thoughts. All Arthur knew was that he saw the sun in her, "so much power and fire and rage inside of her, enough to burn the world and leave it nothing but desert". When Agnes became bound to Gertrude, Diego convinced the rest of the Lightless Flame to not go after Gertrude in case harming her harmed Agnes as well, and so they decided to simply wait for Gertrude to die naturally, but in that time Agnes became doubtful which in turn brought an end to her destiny.
Arthur laments that for all the passion and aching to change the world that the Powers' avatars receive from them, there is very little in the ways of actual direction. Following Agnes' death, Arthur fell from his position of leadership and was replaced by Diego. He bought a flat after discovering a "mass of the Crawling Rot" within, intending to burn it at the right time and causing suffering to the tenants in the meantime. Content with Arthur's statement, Gertrude allows him to leave but tells him to make sure the others know what happened to Eugene and that she's protecting Jack Barnabas from them.
Arthur: You're really pushing it, you know that?
Gertrude: Hm. Feel free to push back. But until then, get out of my Archives.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan relates to Arthur's sentiment about not getting any real direction from the Power one serves, and he supposed that Gertrude understood that and instead focused her efforts on the more corporeal and more killable aspects. Jonathan wonders if there are even any answers at all to be found, as none of his ventures have yielded any so far. He explains that he tried to take another of Gertrude's tapes that called to him, but this one hasn't given him much at all. He did look into Eugene Vanderstock again and found that he was mistaken when he assumed that he was still working in the factory. Instead, Eugene had disappeared and left behind "a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head." Although he didn't want to, he instinctively received the knowledge of just how painful Eugene's fate was and is. Georgie interrupts to ask where Melanie is, being her ride to therapy. After she and Jonathan catch up, she suggests he try therapy too but she won't go with him.

- And I Must Scream: Eugene's fate. Gertrude managed to somehow fill his wax body with sawdust and cut off his head. Whatever she did with the head is something that not even Jon can find out with his powers. What he does know however is that Eugene is still alive and desperately wants, but is unable, to scream.
- Crisis of Faith: As implied by the title, Agnes's death caused some issues. While Arthur knows the Lightless Flame is there, because he has a sort of empathic bond with it, it doesn't actually give explicit instructions, and the failure of his messiah has left him adrift.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Arthur Nolan—a former high priest of the Lightless Flame, aka, Jude Perry's old boss—and by extension the rest of the cult is utterly horrified and disgusted by what Gertrude did to Eugene.
- Good Is Not Nice: Gertrude not only horribly murdered Eugene, but positively relishes taunting Arthur with the thought that she could provide a repeat performance or come up with something even worse for him.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When you're a cult of sociopathically hedonistic wax people, you tend to have a lack of experience with children. So when they birthed their messiah, the Cult of the Lightless Flame found themselves hilariously out of depth when it came to actually raising her.
- Sympathetic Magic: Gertrude found a box of Agnes's hair. Manipulated by the Spider, she bound their essences together, which gave her a hold on Agnes. The cultists also found themselves scrambling to protect her, because they were afraid the link would kill Agnes if something happened to Gertrude.

146: Threshold
Case #0030109 Statement of Marcus MacKenzie, regarding a series of unexplored entryways. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

## Story

Marcus apologizes for his father giving his statement (#27: A Sturdy Lock), explaining that he must be trying to manipulate Marcus into moving back in with him. However, Marcus assumes that Paul's statement concerns doors that appear and disappear, which he himself has seen at points in his life.
Marcus sees his first door at five or six years old, when he wakes up to see his jump rope sliding out of his bedroom. Marcus sleepily follows the jump rope out into the hall where he sees it going through a door that wasn't there before. Marcus already knows that he doesn't want to enter the door, so he grabs the rope and tries to pull it back out. The rope goes taut and he realizes that something on the other side of the door wants to pull him through, and so he lets the jump rope go and returns to bed. Marcus tells his parents in the morning but the door is gone and they take him to be making up a cover story for losing the jump rope.
At eleven, Marcus walks past an abandoned warehouse on the way home from school and notices that where there had once been a featureless concrete wall there is now a mark of five fingers, and he knows that there is a door behind the wall daring him to reach in. Marcus feels himself preparing to do so before a friend calls to him and snaps him out of it. He tells his parents about this and they take it much more seriously, getting Marcus evalutated by specialists for the next several years, but they can find nothing wrong psychologically apart from continuing to see doors.
At thirteen, Marcus sees the door under a bridge, bolted and chained shut with the words "Warning: Danger of Death" written upon it in chalk. Something starts to bang on the door from the other side "and I didn't know if it was trying to force its way out, or politely knocking, hoping to be let in".
At fifteen, Marcus goes to pick up a girl for a date and when he rings the doorbell, he notices that it sounds like it's echoing through hallways and realizes that the door before him doesn't lead into the house. Marcus runs as he hears footsteps approaching.
At sixteen, Marcus is walking home from a party while drunk and almost falls into an open door laying flat on the ground. He sees the Hallways on the other side, perpendicular to the rest of the world around him, and sees a figure walking up towards him.
At eighteen, Marcus and some friends are at a rest stop on the way to a concert when Marcus hears a scream. He runs to where the sound came from and sees drag marks leading to another door.
Marcus doesn't see another door for almost fifteen years. The last door he sees is standing all alone, without a wall or even a doorframe, on an empty plot of land where there had supposedly once been a house that burned down in the seventies. When Marcus sees the door, he can feel its hunger and wrath, demanding the he enter the door, but he just barely gets away from it.
Marcus: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get so deep into my issues. I'm not mad, I know that. It's just this door is something else. And my father knows that, it's why he used it as a cornerstone of his little story, but it's just pretend. He just wants me to move back in with him, and I can't. I just can't. Sometimes you just have to leave. Even if what's on the other side scares you.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan explains that he had searched for Marcus' statement way back when he was researching his father Paul's statement, and he never found it until now, when he decided to research Hill Top Road and was drawn to a filing cabinet which the statement had fallen behind. Jonathan wishes he could go back to easily dismissing statements for hallucinations, but at the same time he regrets doing so since those statements were true. Jonathan decides to confront Helen about Marcus' statement, and she casually explains that she had been haunting Marcus even before she was Michael, and that she didn't really get Paul in the end since he died of fright. When Jonathan asks why he hasn't been able to contact Marcus again, Helen admits that she finally got him a few months back, telling him he's no better for doing "what we need to do when it comes to feeding". Jonathan then inquires about when she tried to lure Marcus at Hill Top Road, which she explains was an experiment, as "there is something wrong with Hill Top Road", "some strange scar on reality at the center of whatever it is that the Spider is spinning". Jonathan starts to theorize that Helen may have been influenced by the Web, but she doubts this and laughs him away as he continues to consider the possibility.
Basira, Daisy and Melanie stage an intervention, explaining to Jonathan that Martin passed on the recording of the woman he stalked and extracted a statement from (#142: Scrutiny). He admits that he's now done this to five people, including that woman and Floyd Matharu (#141: Doomed Voyage). The first time he did it, he was out shopping when he randomly detected that a nearby cleaner had a paranormal encounter and instinctively asked him about it. Then, after extracting the bullet from Melanie and getting stabbed, he went out thinking he was trying to clear his head but instead found another "prey". His third victim was hunted down after getting Daisy out of the coffin. Melanie asks why he didn't even record them, and he admits that he doesn't record anything anymore, since "I just sort of assume they'll turn on if it's important". Jonathan explains that when he hunts it almost doesn't feel like he's in control of it and suggests that the Web may be influencing him. Through discussion, Basira decides that they need to deal with Annabelle Cane and Hill Top Road is a good place to start. When the others suggest they prepare first, Basira heads off on her own before the rest decide to follow her.

- Call-Back: The statement of Marcus' father, Paul, was previously read in case #0032408 (episode 27).
- Cassandra Truth: Marcus believes that his father gave a statement to the Institute in order to deflect negative attention off of Marcus and onto him, and that Paul has never had a legitimate supernatural encounter. The premise of the show means this belief is false.
- Shout-Out: Jon offhandedly mentions that one of his victims was a man who was lost for a week in an endless warehouse, which sounds an awful lot like the "Endless IKEA" from the SCP Foundation.
  - In the same conversation, a remark about keeping Jon from "eating any more brains" seems like an oblique reference to Sylar from Heroes.
- Staging an Intervention: Basira, Daisy and Melanie, after hearing the statement Martin took in Episode 142, confront Jon with it and get him to admit that he has done this four more times, including Floyd Matharu (Episode 141).

147: Weaver
Case #0182007 Statement of Annabelle Cane, regarding her history and her observations of the Magnus Institute, London. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan, Basira, Daisy and Melanie carefully explore the Hill Top Road house, finding nothing but cobwebs as it seems no one ever moved in after the reconstruction. Daisy notes that there is no indication of basement existing. As they go upstairs they start to hear a voice, and following it to a room they find that it's a tape recorder playing Jonathan's very first statement recording (#1: Angler Fish). Turning it off, Jonathan finds a statement tucked underneath, written on official Institute stationary, from none other than Annabelle Cane.

## Story

Speaking directly to the Archivist, Annabelle starts by delving into the philosophy of free will, what it really means and whether it really exists or if all our choices could be predetermined or controlled by an external force. She wonders if the Archivist's compulsion to record statements, to read them aloud, is really his own decision or if he is unwittingly being guided along by the Eye or the Web, before she gets to the point and assures him that his decisions to hunt down statements, to extract them from unsuspecting people, were fully his own and as simple as choosing to eat when hungry. Annabelle then decides to indulge the regular statement format by going into her own history.
Annabelle grows up as one of the youngest of eight children. Her father is constantly away at work and her mother simply cannot handle so many children at once and leaves some of the older ones to care for their siblings. Annabelle learns the art of manipulation and deceit in order to get by, orchestrating strife between her siblings while making herself appear weaker and a victim. At some point Annabelle decides to run away for two days to punish her family and increase her importance among them when she returns. She goes to hide out in an old chip shop at the beach, which she has never seen to be in business.
Annabelle wakes up in the night to "the sound of rhythmic clattering, the noise of wood striking wood in a complex, intricate pattern." She follows the sound to one of the back rooms and finds a woman at a loom, rapidly weaving. Annabelle steps on a used syringe and the woman stops weaving and turns to look at her. Annabelle sees the threads of the loom going into her body through her drug injection wounds, and spiders scuttle in and out as well. Annabelle runs home in terror and gains a bile fascination with spiders, which eventually culminates in her volunteering for the experiment at Surrey University. (#69: Thought for the Day)
Annabelle knows that the Web got what it wanted of her, and wonders if it had guided each of her steps along the way.
Annabelle: Perhaps she is no more active than Terminus, simply sitting and reveling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia, as those who hold her in special terror cocoon themselves in red string and theory. Or perhaps I am simply telling you what you need to hear in order to ensure you behave exactly as the Mother wishes you to. Perhaps I have never even seen a beach. Don't go to Hill Top Road again.

## Post-Statement

After reading the statement, Jonathan wonders if it's a good thing for Annabelle to be watching over them, but knows she was right about him hunting statements, not because he was controlled but because he simply wanted to.

- Abusive Parents: Mrs. Cane was emotionally abusive and manipulative. Annabelle had to learn to be equally manipulative to live in that household.
- Bait-and-Switch: At one point, Annabelle discusses whether free will even exists at some length, and it seems like she might be about to say that Jon hasn't had a choice about feeding...but nope, she says that if you accept free will is a real thing, Jon's had it this whole time, and has not been actively compelled.
- Batman Gambit: Annabelle raises the possibility that the Spider engineered her meeting with one of its manifestations as a child, and her resulting arachnophobia, specifically to make her a suitable avatar. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.
- Body Horror: When she ran away as a child, Annabelle saw a woman being controlled the spider who was weaving through her own skin, with spiders running through the holes.
- Call-Back: When they find Annabelle's statement, it's sitting under a recorder that is playing Jonathan's first recording with the Archives from Episode 1.
- Foreshadowing: Reading this statement is very distressing for Jon, and while it ultimately doesn't hurt him it shows that he's vulnerable while feeding. Of particular import is what Annabelle says at the beginning:
  Annabelle: But by then you're away; the rollercoaster is dropping, and you've no real choice but to hold on and hope I don't crash you.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Not only does Annabelle know why Jon wanted to see her, she also knows that he told Basira and Melanie he was just going to look at the statement and record it later, but is recording it anyway.
- Troll: Annabelle apparently broke into the Institute (inasmuch as the Spider's avatar has to break in anywhere) just so she could steal stationary and some tapes to set up a little tableau for Jon and co. when they came to Hilltop Road. She also spends most of the beginning of her statement making fun of Jon.

148: Extended Surveillance
Case #0110304 Statement of Sunil Maraj, regarding their work as a security guard and the disappearance of their co-worker Samson Stiller. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

## Pre-Statement

Basira goes to visit Elias in jail and berates him for being so useless as to send them to Norway on bad intel and never say anything about Jonathan feeding on people or Annabelle Cane. She returns to the Institute to let Jonathan know that Elias once again had nothing useful for them, before telling him to read a statement to give himself the energy to use his powers to try to find Annabelle. Jonathan asks about Martin giving them the tape but Basira answers that he simply left it on her desk with a note reading "Talk to him".

## Story

Sunil and their acquaintance Samson work in security, and by a stroke of bad luck are swapped around several different places of work over a couple years before ending up at a mall. The security system there is ancient, including tech from as far back as the seventies. Sunil doesn't like it but Samson really takes to it and gets the place in somewhat better shape. One device that he can't figure out, however, is a multicamera recorder that watches one of the shoe stores. Eventually Samson asks Dave, one of the oldest security guards, if there are any old operating manuals still around, and Dave directs him to a dusty old filing cabinet.
Samson finds the tiny manual, which is well-worn and damaged and even has someone's name written in the front. Samson spends a long time reading from the manual, and when Sunil gets a glimpse of the pages they are stunned to see a photo of themself printed in it, despite the book being nearly as old as they are. Samson then turns to look at Sunil and "his eyes were all messed up, like weird and glassy".
From then on, Samson starts to behave strangely. It starts to seem as though he never leaves work, as he is always there when Sunil arrives and sends them home early when it's their turn to close, saying that he'll take care of it for them. One night, Sunil tries to decline and stay longer but Samson falls quiet and Sunil sees the monitors behind him turn off one by one. Sunil gets the feeling that they will be in danger if they don't leave before the last monitor turns off, an idea reinforced when they see a terrified face resembling their own in the biggest one. Sunil relents and leaves, shaking in terror.
Sunil also notices that when they're shopping at the mall, they get the feeling of being watched. Since they know where all the cameras are, they start to look out for them and as expected, the cameras are always trained on them, even the ones that aren't supposed to rotate at all. One day Sunil hits a camera with a thrown can of deodorant, and for the next two days Samson wears sunglasses. Sunil is able to get a look at Samson without the sunglasses and sees "a crack right down the center of his eye". Sunil tries to talk to their coworkers about Samson but none of them will talk about him.
Sunil decides to fake being sick in order to get some time away from Samson and to relax their nerves, until they get a panicked call from Dave, unintelligibly yelling about Samson, asking if Samson had told Sunil something, "What do we do with his eyes?" and "He won't stop, we can't get rid of his face". When Sunil goes back to work, most of the other security guards have quit and the only trace they can find of Samson is his tattered work shirt wrapped around the operating manual.
Sunil: I tried to stick around, to do my job, but I was asking too many questions for the folks upstairs I think. I wanted to know why Samson hadn't signed out of the building before he disappeared. Why, no matter who tried to reset the system, it always logged back in as him. Why, whenever I was watching the monitors alone, I'd see him on that old CRT screen. Staring right back at me. Quietly calling for me to join him.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan is unsatisfied by reading this statement, possibly because it was one about the Eye, and admits that he doesn't care for doing any follow up, only hungering for another statement.

- Deadly Book: Possibly the security system manual; it apparently contains images of people (Sunil) who didn't even exist in that form when the book was supposedly printed, and Samson becomes fixated with the system, and gradually merges with it, after reading it. Sunil even mentions that someone's name was written on the front, as Leitner's books were often marked, though neither Sunil nor Jon comment on what that name was or might have been.
- Electronic Eyes: A supernatural variant. Over time, Samson becomes more and more connected to the security system. Eventually, his eyes take on a glassy sheen. Later, Sunil breaks the lense of one of the store cameras, and the crack in the lens also appears in one of Samson's eyes.
- Sinister Surveillance: A statement concerning the Eye. Sunil describes how, as the situation escalated, he realized the cameras were always watching him, even if the cameras were supposed to be fixed pointing a different direction or not there at all.

149: Concrete Jungle
Case #0131305 Statement of Judith O'Neill, regarding their time at the Anglo-Brazilian Amazon Trust. Audio recording by Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas.

## Story

Judith gets a job at the Anglo-Brazilian Amazon Trust, and her work usually consists of retrieving specimins from the jungle and accompanying "weedy wannabe explorers who insisted on coming along". Judith and her coworkers always make sure to stay out of the territory of nearby Yanomami tribes.
One day, Judith and her coworker Fernanda are with climate scientist Dr. Nikos Anastos who insists that they have to go out into the jungle despite Fernanda predicting foul weather. Sure enough, they are caught in a torrential rain an hour into their expedition and a panicked Dr. Anastos runs off in the wrong direction. Judith and Fernanda run after him and Judith is able to grab his arm, but in trying to pull away he causes all three of them to fall down a hill. They become disoriented as their navigation tools stop working and they can't see the sun through the clouds, so they just start walking in a straight line.
Eventually Judith sees some structures in the distance, and though they look somewhat like Yanomami creations Judith knows they can't possibly be near their territory and there's something off about them. As they get closer, Judith realizes that all the sounds of the jungle have disappeared. They reach the structures and find that the roofs are thatched not from leaves but from various pieces of debris and trash. Judith and Fernanda know that this can't be a Yanomami creation. Dr. Anastos goes inside one of the structures before Judith and Fernanda can stop him, and so they follow him in intending to apologize to whoever's in there. Instead of people, however, they find humanoid figures made of more garbage, with pieces representing internal organs as well. Judith is unsettled and instincts tell her to run, and she gets the feeling that these figures are not inanimate but are simply choosing not to move.
Dr. Anastos clearly does not share her apprehension as he investigates the figures before picking up an intricately detailed concrete sculpture of a pit viper. Fernanda pulls Judith away just before the viper springs to life and bites Dr. Anastos' wrist. He screams momentarily before liquid concrete pours from every orifice and his body swells as it fills with concrete. Fernanda sees the garbage figures are now moving and she pulls Judith out of the structure before they run for hours, stopping when the jungle sounds return. They end up being rescued by friendly Yanomami who guide them back to a familiar region of the jungle.
Judith: Of course we didn't have a good explanation for what happened to Dr. Anastos, so we lost our jobs pretty much immediately, but you know what? That's fine. I'm done with the jungle. There's something in there and I don't know which scares me more: the thought that it's more than just the things we left behind, or that that's all it is, and we can't escape the ruins of our own future.

## Post-Statement

Accompanying this statement is a partial unsent letter from Gertrude Robinson to Adelard Dekker thanking him for sending Judith to her. Martin notes that although this is presumably meant to be about the Extinction, artificial humanoid beings are normally indicative of the Stranger. Martin then spots Georgie and tries to inform her that the area isn't open to the public until she clarifies that she's picking up Melanie. They have a talk about Jonathan and why Georgie has distanced herself from him. Martin disappears the same way Peter Lukas does as Melanie arrives.

- Ambiguous Situation: The statement giver was originally sent to Gertrude by Dekker as further proof of the existence of the Extinction, here apparently manifesting as a result of fear of the world being destroyed by pollution. Martin agrees that it could support that, but suggests that it could also be the Stranger, which also has been known to manifest as weird humanoid creatures.
- Bait-and-Switch: Judith's talk early in the statement about cannibalism among the local native population (which, as she points out, is limited to consuming the bone ashes of deceased loved ones as a kind of rite of mourning) might lead some to believe that the statement is going to have something to do with that. Instead, she and her traveling companions encounter a small village made entirely of trash populated by humanoid creatures also made entirely of trash and when the natives reappear in the story, they are nothing but helpful.
- Foreshadowing: We learn that Melanie and Georgie have been hanging out together and that Georgie has been supporting Melanie as she has been trying to get better. In Episode 157, they become a romantic couple.
- Humanoid Abomination: Judith's group encounters a small settlement built entirely of plastic, chunks of concrete and other kinds of trash, filled with humanoid figures built of the same kind of materials.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Dr. Nikos Anastas, an environmental scientist who clearly has no clue what he's doing or how clueless he is, but won't take anyone's word but his own.
- Never Heard That One Before: Judith mentions, with some annoyance, how a lot of students she helped guide through the jungle all made the same tired Cannibal Holocaust jokes about the local Yanomami tribe.
- Too Dumb to Live: Dr. Anastas, dear God. He is a condescending Jerkass who arguably is solely responsible for leading the group into trouble. When he comes across the garbage village, his immediate reaction is to pick up a similarly built snake, resulting in him being bitten and filled with liquid concrete from within.
- Wham Sound: Martin pulls a Stealth Hi/Bye on Georgie at the end of the episode, the distinctive high-pitched static associated with the Lonely can be heard softly for a moment, indicating that he's deliberately drawing on its power for the first time.

150: Cul-De-Sac
Case #0140911 Statement of Herman Gorgoli regarding his a period trapped alone in a suburban area of Cheadle. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

## Story

Herman and his partner Alberto move into a house in a suburb, but Herman finds the place to be soul-sucking and dead, and when he cheats on Alberto and their relationship falls apart "I kind of hated myself for just how relieved I was that I'd finally be able to leave that place." Herman gets a city apartment and though he occasionally thinks about trying to repair things with Alberto, he can't stand the idea of returning to living in the suburb. Eventually, Alberto contacts Herman demanding that he return a carved wooden moose from his grandfather that had been in the suitcase Herman had hastily thrown his things into on his way out. For some reason he can't explain, Herman decides to deliver it to Alberto himself instead of shipping it.
It's after dark when Herman reaches the suburb and he gets lost when the GPS leads him astray. He gets out a paper map and tries to find where he is, but to his surprise the nearest street sign only says "Road" without a name. Herman looks around some more but only finds more nameless street signs. Unnerved, Herman decides to just come back the next day but cannot find his way out of the suburb. One-way signs force him onto different routes and he realizes that he hasn't seen any other cars or people around. Eventually, Herman realizes that he can just disobey the one-ways but even that doesn't get him out of the endless suburb.
Herman tries to ring doorbells and knock on doors but he never gets an answer. He sees that every house has an address of 0. When Herman's car finally runs out of gas, the clock says that it's 3AM and his phone is dead. Determined to escape this place, Herman gets out of the car and starts jumping fences and cutting through yards, but even after passing a hundred houses the suburb still goes on.
Exhausted, Herman decides to try entering a house and finds the front door unlocked. The interior looks just as generic as the exterior, with IKEA furniture and framed stock photos. Herman sits in a chair to rest, briefly entertaining the thought of going to the bedroom before deciding that "if I went to sleep here then I would never leave". Herman notices a remote and turns on the TV to see a cooking show, and after a while he realizes that the woman on screen isn't actually speaking English but only making English-like sounds as she handles a turkey without actually doing any cooking, though at one point she tears off a strip of meat and tosses it away. Herman changes the channel to see an infomercial where a man speaks the imitation English as he tries to sell a brick, though no purchasing details appear onscreen.
Herman looks up as he thinks through things and sees a spot of red on the ceiling. Instantly knowing that there is a dead body in the room above him, Herman goes up to find out "how and who. I think I'd given up on why." He finds the body of a woman he doesn't recognize who appears to have slammed her head into a mirror and been slashed to death by the glass shards, and after looking through her bag finds an ID naming her as Yotunde Uthman. Reenergized with adrenaline, Herman runs from the house and down the street until he suddenly finds himself lying on the ground in tears, terrified of meeting the same fate as Yotunde and possibly countless others.
Herman then hears a sound and realizes that it's his ringtone, and looks up to see that he is back next to his car. Even though the phone should be dead like it was before, it is now receiving a call from Alberto. Herman answers and hears Alberto angrily yell at him for not showing up, but Herman only weeps more and tells Alberto that he loves him. Herman looks around and sees that lights are on in the houses around him and a woman is coming over to help.
Herman: We're working on it, the two of us. We're not exactly back together yet, but I think it's going well. He's reluctant to sell the house but I've made it quite clear that I'm never going back to the suburbs, even if I can't really tell him why. I checked to see if I could find anything about Yotunde Uthman, and I did find a few old social media profiles, but I wasn't able to get through to any family or friends. As far as I can tell, she disappeared a year ago and nobody noticed.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan muses on the power of the Lonely, and how it often doesn't need to do anything but wait for its victims to come to it. Peter Lukas' control of the Institute puts everyone there within its' grasp, and it's all they can do to suffer together instead of suffering alone.
Melanie comes in and explains to Jonathan that while she knows she can't technically quit, she's going to stop doing work at the Institute even if it has an adverse effect on her, since in the end the Institute and the Eye are evil and she doesn't want to support it. Jonathan becomes suspicious of Melanie's therapist but Melanie shuts him down immediately, insisting that her therapist is not a monster or an agent of one of the Powers.

- Cut-and-Paste Suburb: The Lonely manifests as one here.
- Driven to Suicide: Apparently. Herman discovers the body of Yotunde Uthman, who apparently smashed her head through a mirror in the house Herman enters and had a shard impaling her throat. The fishy thing is, the blood's fresh, and he later learns that she'd been missing for around a year.
- Hero of Another Story: Yotunde is implied to have somehow survived in the other dimension for a year.
- Inn Security: For a moment, the exhausted Herman considers finding the bedroom in the strange house and sleeping. He's instincts tell him it's a trap, though, and he feels certain he wouldn't be able to leave if he did.
- The Power of Love: Like with Naomi in case #0161301 (episode 13), Herman is saved from being possessed by the Lonely when a phone call from his estranged ex somehow comes through and Herman tells him that he loves him.
- Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: After Herman's life is saved by his love for Alberto, the two of them are working on their relationship.
- Uncanny Village: The village Herman drives around is a hollow, pallid image of a suburb, filled with lifeless houses, nameless streets and even TV shows that apparently try to imitate real ones, but just go through the motions as if they don't know how to do it.

151: Big Picture
Case #0181408 Statement of Simon Fairchild regarding Peter Lukas and The Extinction. Audio recording by Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas.

Simon Fairchild arrives at the Institute to answer some questions for Martin on behalf of Peter, having lost a bet to him.
Simon explains that there are no exact rules to the entitites, no precise moment when they begin to exist. Both Simon and Peter believe that the Extinction's emergence is close at hand but disagree on what effect it will have on reality.
Simon recalls the last time he attempted a ritual for the Vast, something he called the Awful Deep in 1853, where he sent some sacrifices down into the ocean inside a diving bell, but it didn't work like he thought it would and it was ultimately ruined by a Hunter who broke the control machine.
Simon explains that he's not afraid of the Extinction's coming because he's okay with dying, and if he doesn't die "I'll adjust". While he waits for space exploration to progress before he makes another ritual attempt, all the other factions seem to be rushing their own rituals out, something Simon attributes to the ever-increasing population making greater amounts of fear possible. Simon theorizes that the entities may not even be guiding their followers, who may instead be trying to interpret something impossible. Martin asks how that works with monsters like the Distortion that are supposed to be an extension of the entities, and Simon compares them to a hand that can think for itself but is still controlled by the greater body without knowing why.
Martin then decides to ask for Simon's backstory. Simon had started out as an apprenctice to the painter Tintoretto and would paint the sky for him in his works. While doing one of these, he became enamored with the painting and ended up falling, not to the floor but into the painted sky itself.
Simon tries to leave after this but Martin demands he tell him about Peter's motives, and Simon confirms that Peter's not secretly trying to perform his ritual for the Lonely and actually is trying to stop the Extinction and needs "someone already touched by the Eye" for a part of his plan, though Simon doesn't know the details, and to control that person they need to serve the Lonely as well.
As Simon leaves Basira comes in, grabbing Martin so he can't disappear and explains that Jonathan and the rest of the Archival staff found and listened to Martin's recordings and she doesn't trust that he's doing the right thing by cooperating with Peter and now Simon. Martin insists that Peter's been honest and that he is going to do what he needs to to stop the Extinction from emerging.

- Double-Meaning Title: Simon is here to talk about the "big picture", ie, fighting the birth of the Extinction, but he also ends up explaining his origin story, which involves a large painting.
- Evil Feels Good: Simon really likes being an avatar, both for the power to do whatever he wants to people and because he seems to actually love the Vast (notably, unlike Michael/Helen and Annabelle, who were made Avatars via trauma, he saw a possibly-magic painting that fascinated him and went more or less willingly).
- Faux Affably Evil: Simon is even more courteous than Peter Lukas but given everything we know he has done it's clearly an act. He even ends his chat with Martin by cheerfully admitting that if he ever sees him again, he'll just "throw [him] off something for a joke".
- Joke and Receive: Martin sarcastically asks Simon if he started serving the Vast after "[looking] up at the sky one day and [falling] head over heels in love". As it turns out, that was pretty much what happened, though Simon wasn't looking at the sky but rather painting it over and over.
- Noodle Incident: Simon has to answer Martin's questions because he lost a bet with Peter, but we never do learn what kind of bet.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Simon mentions considering trying to play on the vast size of humanity create more fear for the vast, but has decided against it in part because he considers humanity too small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but also out of concern that it might inspire a fear of overpopulation and feed the Extinction instead.
- Really 700 Years Old: Simon was an apprentice of Tintoretto when he became an avatar of the Vast, meaning he's been alive since the 16th century.

152: A Gravedigger's Envy
Case #8370108 Statement of Hezekiah Wakely regarding his career as a gravedigger, compiled from a series of letters to Nathaniel Beale between 1837 and 1839. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

## Story

This statement consists of five letters from gravedigger Hezekiah Wakely to his friend Nathaniel Beale.

### August, 1837

Hezekiah enjoys his gravedigging work and maintenance tasks at the church, but as much as he wears himself out he has trouble sleeping on the nights he doesn't dig graves.

### February 1838

Hezekiah has started to enjoy the serenity and peace he gets from the churchyard that he often takes naps at the bottom of freshly-dug graves. During once such nap, he has a dream where a rainstorm begins and washes dirt over him in the grave, and to his surprise it feels wonderful to him and he envies the dead who get to be buried forever. He wakes up outside the grave but finds the rain was real.

### June 1838

An incident occured at the churchyard in which a presumed dead girl woke up in her casket while being carried to her grave. In order to prevent any other accidental live burials, the Reverend sets up a safety bell system so that anyone trapped underground can ring the bell to call rescuers. Hezekiah hates this idea, since if he was buried alive he would relish in the rest and the embrace of the earth.

### December 1838

Hezekiah no longer wants anything to do with a resurrection brought by the returned Christ, instead feeling more deserving of eternal sleep in the earth. While trying to sleep in the churchyard again, he heard the ringing bell of a man buried alive, and so he cut the bell's cord to stop it disturbing the slumber of the others buried there and to give the man his well-deserved rest.

### January 1839

Hezekiah is displeased with Nathaniel for reporting his crime of disabling the bell to the magistrates, but Hezekiah "was very careful how I stopped the bell" so nothing could be proven, but the Reverend still fired him, barring Hezekiah from his beloved churchyard.
Hezekiah: It was my own fault, of course. I should never have told you these things assuming you would understand. But how could you? You've never felt the close embrace of peaceful soil. You've never truly slept in the bosom of the earth. These things are not such as can be shared in words, and it was my foolishness to think that they could. But worry not, Nathaniel. The love I bear you will not let me leave you ignorant. As I did with the Reverend, I will come and I will show you, once and forever, the true and glorious peace of the Buried. Your most humble servant, Hezekiah Wakely.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan Knows that Hezekiah succeeded in burying Nathaniel alive and that no one else ever discovered that fact. Jonathan contemplates that people taken under the influence of an entity are more in control then he previously considered, instead simply finding justification for their terrible deeds.
Jonathan goes down into the tunnels to the remains of the doorway shape that had started to be formed by Jane Prentiss' worms. Jonathan muses aloud to Helen that Prentiss may have been trying to open a portal to the Corruption, and thinks that it may be less of a planner than just growing wherever it can. He wonders why the worms didn't spread farther, since they clearly never made it to Leitner's hideout or Gertrude's corpse. Jonathan admits to Helen that his Seeing ability doesn't work as well in the tunnels, and wonders if the tunnels interfere with other powers in a similar way. Helen hints that due to being a part of the Spiral, she has a better knowledge of them, but when Jonathan asks what lies in the center of the maze she only answers "a delightful surprise". After musing more about how much Jane Prentiss chose to be what she was, Jonathan asks Helen how long it will take for him to stop feeling guilty about preying on people, and she answers that it's entirely up to him because, regardless of how bad he feels, he's not actually going to stop doing what he needs to.

- Armor-Piercing Question: When Jon laments how bad he feels about forcibly feeding on people's trauma, and asks when he'll transform so much he stops caring, Helen asks him frankly whether or not his guilt has really stopped him from doing that in the past, and, since it apparently hasn't, why would the Beholding bother taking it away, even if it could do that? She explains that her own apparent enjoyment of being a monster is not something that comes from the Spiral; what there is of Helen freely chose to stop feeling guilt when she realized it wasn't going to actually change her behavior.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Hezekiah's views on life and death become so twisted that he comes to view letting the prematurely buried die in their graves as a kindness, and seeing the ringing of their graves' safety bells as an annoyance for the dead.
- Dead Guy on Display: We learn that the ashes of Jane Prentiss are kept in a jar in Jon's desk.
- Not Quite Dead: Hezekiah relates a story of a woman who passed out severely drunk and was wrongfully declared dead, only to wake up at her own funeral.
- Peaceful in Death: At least, from Hezekiah's point of view; he himself finds the world too noisy and has trouble sleeping, so much so that he only sleeps peacefully in grave pits and envies the dead because he thinks they must have it so peaceful in their graves.
- Serial Killer: Hezekiah, as an avatar of The Buried, becomes this by the end of the story, killing several people by deliberately letting those buried prematurely by accident die by cutting off the safety bells of the graves he digs. After being fired from his job as a gravedigger, he apparently starts killing people more directly by just burying them alive himself.

153: Love Bombing
Case #0120204 Statement of Barbara Mullen-Jones regarding her nine months spent with The Divine Chain cult. Original Statement given 2nd April 2012.

## Story

Barbara has a mid-life crisis when she turns forty-one, disappointed in making no career progress for the last ten years of her life. She falls into a depression as no one around her understands what she's going through until she goes to a meditation course recommended by a friend. The place has "exactly the right level of pseudo-mystical nonsense" to appeal to Barbara, and the instructor, Joyce, is effective at getting Barbara to relax and get into the meditation headspace. At the beginning of every session, Joyce has everyone give each other earnest compliments, which become more personal as the group gets to know each other. Barbara is especially taken by this practice as she experienced a lot of negativity behind the scenes in her comedy career, though she later learns that it's a common cult brainwashing method known as love bombing.
After going to the course for three months, Joyce announces to the group that she wants them all to attend an all-expenses-paid spiritual retreat in the States. Although Barbara later admits that she should have known better, she is excited by the idea and soon arrives at the Divine Chain compound in Arkansas where she meets its leader, Claude Vilakazi. Claude teaches that throughout history, there were ten "links" in the form of great spiritual teachers such as Buddha or Jesus who were "the manifested will of humanity to understand and better itself". Claude claims to have seen a vision of the coming of the Eleventh Link. Barbara sells her belongings and works in the Divine Chain fields, as they produce rice wine to sell to the outside world.
Eventually, Joyce and some others find a sick dog in the fields, and "we couldn't help but love it". They take it to Claude who also falls in love with it and names it 'Agape' before taking it into his private room. Barbara doesn't see Agape again, "but that was the moment when things started to get really weird". A few days later, Claude announces that he had another vision of the Eleventh and to prepare for its coming they need to "achieve a state of pure love", and so he sets a new rule that every time they encounter another person, they must say that they love them and really mean it. After a week of this, Barbara tells a woman she loves her as they pass by each other, but the woman suddenly grabs her and intensely replies "I don't believe you". Barbara is shaken and says it again, noticing that the woman's eyes have turned "yellow and sickly" before the woman leaves without another word.
The rice wine starts to quickly go bad, already being rancid after the brewing. Claude dismisses it since "the Eleventh was so close". The rotten wine is never disposed of and so its odor spreads throughout the compound. Barbara notices that the other higher-ups in the Divine Chain touch each other much more than before, and when they touch her she resists the urge to shy away as they look sick.
Finally, Claude tells everyone that the Eleventh has come at last, but no one seems excited. Claude wonders aloud "who was going to be the first to meet them", and as he walks among the crowd he chooses Joyce. Everyone forms a human chain with Joyce at the front, and though Barbara is too far back to see what happens when Joyce enters Claude's private room, she feels a sensation pass down the line, "warm and slick, and seemed to flow through my body like oil and out into the ground". Barbara is sickened but everyone else looks joyful.
Every day from then on, Claude chooses one person to enter his private chamber and meet the Eleventh and they perform the same human chain ritual. As more and more people enter the room and never return, people start to become nervous that they won't get a chance to meet the Eleventh. Since Barbara can't relate, she starts to wonder if she really belongs with the Divine Chain. She decides to answer her question by sneaking in to see the Eleventh.
As she creeps toward Claude's private room in the cover of night, she starts to smell an odor distinct from the rottng wine, something sweet "like overripe fruit or sugar that's cooked too long". Barbara reaches the door and as she moves to open it, she hears a sound from the other side of "dozens of limbs moving and stepping and shuffling in unison, then laughter, then weeping, then movement again". She then sees a greasy liquid pooling out from under the door, from which the sweet odor emanates.
Feeling sick, Barbara backs away and bumps into Claude, who looks silently at her before saying "You do not belong here. You are not worthy of its love. Leave." Hurt and frightened, Barbara runs from the compound until someone finds her and takes her to the police for help. Barbara's story gets passed to some government agencies that are watching the Divine Chain, giving them enough probable cause to raid the compound. Barbara doesn't hear about what happens there until after meeting with a cult deprogrammer.
Barbara: There is one thing, however, that I think they lied about. The reports detailed a mass grave in the rooms of Claude Vilakazi with bodies mutilated and mixed together, some who'd been dead for weeks, but I don't believe that. Whatever was in that room, I am absolutely sure that when the authorities arrived it was still alive. I just don't know what 'alive' means when it comes to something like that. It doesn't matter though. The compound was destroyed in an "accidental generator explosion" and everything was gone. There's a part of me that's glad, a sick little part that's happy, that whatever love was there, whatever I couldn't be a part of, is gone from the world. And no one else gets it either.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan is sure that the Corruption took over the Divine Chain, though there are elements of the Flesh as well.
He suddenly detects something and starts a phone call, telling the person on the other end to get there fast, before being interrupted by Trevor Herbert and Julia Montauk, who have discovered that he stole Gerard Keay's page and demand it back. Jonathan tells them that he burned the page at Gerard's request and they decide to execute him on the spot before Daisy arrives. The Hunters exchange threats before Trevor tells Julia they should back off for now. Jonathan convinces Daisy to not give in to the Hunt and she relents, explaining that she already decided when she was in the coffin to never Hunt again.

- Awesomeness by Analysis: Daisy is too weak to take on Trevor and Julia in a physical fight. However, she correctly deduces that she can take one of them, and if she chooses Trevor, then Julia, who has adopted him as her new father will become emotional and sloppy enough to beat. She so effectively explains this that she doesn't even actually have to do it.
- Call-Back: Trevor and Julia finally found out that Jon took Gerard Keay's page from the book.
- Cult: The Divine Chain, although they don't do anything actually that bad until they find the infected dog.
- Evil Smells Bad: The room holding the mass of bonded people apparently smells terrible; not exactly foul, but sickly, disgustingly sweet.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Members of the Divine Chain have to radiate love and positivity at all times. This includes saying "I love you" to everyone every time they see each other, and meaning it. A woman Barbara doesn't actually like gets weird and aggressive with her after Barbara is too off-hand about it, which is one of the signs that things are starting to go wrong(er).
- Kill It with Fire: After the investigation finds that all the Divine Chain members who stayed at the compound have melded into some kind of horrible living mass, there's an "accident" that results in the whole thing burning down.
- Meaningful Name: The name Claude gives the dog, "Agápe", is a Greek word meaning "love".
- Poisonous Person: Or rather, "Poisonous Animal"; the sick, emaciated dog, Agápe, is implied to be some sort of manifestation of the Corruption who makes the cult members obsessed with love.
- Title Drop: The episode is named after what Barbara explains the cult did to her. "Love bombing" is the process of showering someone you're trying to manipulate with positive attention and affection until they're overwhelmed and can't see the red flags.

154: Bloody Mary
Case #0082107 Statement of Eric Delano, recorded 21st July 2008. Regarding his life, Mary Keay and the Archives.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan explains that when he went to get another of Gertrude's tapes, he decided to pay closer attention to the ones he instinctively wanted to ignore, settling on one that he found physically difficult to pick up.
Jonathan:I am the avatar of awful knowledge and revealed secrets. So what does it not want me to know?

Gertrude reads out the page from the Catalog of the Trapped Dead left by Mary Keay (#62: First Edition) and summons Eric Delano, Mary's husband and former archival assistant under Gertrude. Eric reveals to Gertrude's shock that he figured out how to quit his job at the Institute and expects that Mary gave his page to Gertrude as "one final 'screw you' to the Eye". Gertrude demands to know how he did it, and he gives her two conditions: first, that she find and take in his son, Gerry, and that she allow him to record his final statement.

## Story

Eric starts working at the Magnus Institute to further his library science career while indulging his fascination with the paranormal. While working there he meets Mary Keay and is enthralled by her cruel beauty. They enter a relationship, with Mary pushing the more submissive Eric around, but he ends up liking her more than his boss Gertrude because she's at least honest with what she is and what she wants from him. After they get married, Mary explains to Eric the truth about all the entities and their rituals, and he realizes that he needs to get away from the Institute and take a more protective role over his and Mary's son.
Eric: Two years, I tried to figure out how to quit, how to leave this place. And when I finally did, when I felt the Watcher's grip slip away, it left me in such a state I was no longer useful to Mary, and she did what Mary does. It was fitting, I suppose. Even after everything, she made me taste blood one last time.

## Post-Statement

Having finished his statement, Eric reveals how to quit the Institute: by blinding yourself. Since there's nothing more to discuss, Eric and Gertrude agree for her to burn Eric's page.
Stunned, Jonathan rushes to Martin to tell him that he's found a way to quit and offers for the two of them to do it and leave together, but Martin insists that he needs to finish his work with Peter, and he tells Jonathan that he thinks he doesn't really want to do it and only came to Martin to find an excuse.

- Armor-Piercing Question: When Jon runs to Martin to explain what he's just learned, Martin asks why Jon came to him about this first, and then says that it's because Jon expected Martin to talk him out of blinding himself, and asks if Jon really thought he'd go through with it when it's obvious he won't.
  Martin: [gently but disdainfully] Who are you kidding?
- At Least I Admit It: More like "at least she admits it". Eric explains that he still likes Mary more than Gertrude because at least Mary doesn't pretend she has noble aims, she's just openly evil and power-hungry.
- Blatant Lies: When Eric saw Mary with a dead body in her office, she told him an extremely unconvincing lie about it being her alcoholic uncle. Played with, as the point of the lie wasn't for him to believe her. It was to see whether he'd obey her when she indirectly ordered him not to ask questions about this kind of thing, and he did.
- Call-Back: A small one; Eric mentions that Gertrude suspected that Elias' predecessor, James Wright, could see people through any eye, even those in paintings. In Episode 113, Jon, Martin and Melanie went through one of Gertrude's storage facilities and found a collection of paintings and dolls with their eyes removed, apparently as a precaution by Gertrude.
- Eye Scream: The only way to cut yourself off from the Beholding is to permanently destroy your ability to see.
- Foreshadowing: When Gertrude tells Eric that Elias is the new head of the Institute, his reaction is one of surprise and disbelief; Gertrude adds that Elias has changed since Eric last heard of him. We later learn that this "change" Elias went through was having his body possessed by Jonah Magnus, who has also possessed the previous heads of the Institute over the years.
- Joke and Receive: Another one for Martin, when Jon tells him he's found a drastic way to leave the Institute:
  Martin: What, are you gonna gouge your eyes out or something? [Beat] Fuck off...
- Perception Filter: We learn that the Beholding apparently has been making Jon ignore some of the statements Elias hid away. When he makes an active effort to listen to one of them, he first instinctively pulls away from it and then drops it twice when carrying it to the cassette player.
  "I am the avatar of awful knowledge and revealed secrets, so what does it not want me to know?"
- Precision F-Strike: Jon lets out a very heartfelt "fuck" after he finishes listening to Eric's statement. Martin later lets off his first f-bomb of the series when Jon tells him how to quit the Institute.
- Rule of Three: It turns out Eric was bound in a book after his death, just like his wife and son.
- Sequel Episode: To Episode 62 ("First Edition"); taking place a few weeks after Gertrude got Mary's statement, she reads the skin book page that Mary gave her.
- Streisand Effect: In-universe example. Jon's decided to reverse his policy of picking up tapes from the box Martin left him which he feels drawn to. When he not only feels no pull towards Eric's tape, but an active aversion to picking it up, he figures out it must be really important—after all, if the Eye, which feeds on him learning new information, doesn't want him to know something, it must be important, right? (Yes. Yes it is.)
- Wham Line: Mary didn't murder Eric for wanting to quit. Mary murdered him because he did quit.

155: Cost of Living
Case #0020312 Statement of Tova McHugh regarding their string of near-death experiences. Original statement given December 3rd 2002. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

## Pre-Statement

Basira updates Jonathan on how Daisy is doing and reveals that she's trying to convince her to hunt down Trevor and Julia so she doesn't waste away from her hunger. Basira tells Jonathan that she and Daisy probably won't blind themselves to leave the Institute.

## Story

Tova starts out by trying to justify their actions, explaining that since they do so much good in the world as a philanthropist they need to avoid dying young.

Despite being completely healthy beforehand, Tova has a seizure and falls down a staircase just a month before their wedding. Tova blacks out and finds themself "aware of the absence of everything" and becomes panicked as they wonder if this is death and therefore their new existence for eternity. Tova then sees their body on an operating table surrounded by surgeons and realizes that they are having a near-death experience and feel relieved until they see the heart monitor flatlining. Panicking again, Tova reaches out towards the doctors and suddenly feels the heartbeat of the one trying to restart their heart. Tova becomes enraged when they feel how calm the doctor's heart is, and suddenly the doctor staggers back and collapses as the heart monitor starts to beep again. Tova wakes up in a hospital bed and the nurse explains that while their life was saved, the doctor who did so had a fatal heart attack in the OR.
Tova recovers quickly and is able to have their wedding, and everything is perfect until they fall in the shower and hit their head. Tova experiences the terrifying dark void again before coming to see their own body collapsed in the shower, and they now have an idea of what they need to do. Floating out into the world, Tova finds an elderly woman alone in a park. Tova wakes up in the shower, later hearing that the elderly woman was found dead of a stroke.
Tova has another near-death experience just two weeks later, having an allergic reaction despite not having any allergies. Tova decides that the elderly woman must not have had much life in her and instead claims the life of a younger homeless man, justifying it since "his life was clearly over as he tried to destroy himself through drinking". This only sustains Tova for three more months before they have a car accident, and so they decide to claim the longest life they possibly can and takes a newborn baby from an impoverished family, but it only gives Tova another ten months of life.

Tova: Eventually I realized it had nothing to do with age or health. It was about connection. About joy. The more friends, family, loved ones the person has, the further out the terror of sudden death spreads from me, the longer it keeps me alive. I'm 40 now, and I have taken the life of beloved mothers, respected professionals, pillars of the community. But I have done so much good with my life. I've reached further, helped more people than they ever could have. Since this became my existence I've thrown myself into philanthropy harder than ever, and the world is so much better for me being in it. I'm not saying how I live is right, or good, but it is the position I have been put in, and a decision I have to make. I never wanted to weigh up the value of a life, to set it on the scales against my own, but that's a choice that I am forced into. And it is one I will continue to make.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan contemplates the value of a life and if doing so much good really makes your life more valuable than another, and if it makes it okay for him "to take what I need to survive" instead of resisting the urge. Melanie arrives to thank Jonathan for letting her know about how to quit and explains that she's decided to do it.

- And I Must Scream: After her first near-death experience, an epileptic fit, Tova wakes up and finds herself someplace dark and cold where she is unable to move or breathe, but still completely aware of it.
- Astral Projection: Tova's murders are done by, when she is knocked out by one of her near-death experiences, her mind somehow leaves her body, she finds a victim and kills them by touching them in her spirit form.
- Dirty Coward: Tova's justifications for her continued murders have this ring to them, utilizing The Needs of the Many seemingly to stave off judgement from her statement-taker, or possibly herself, with the underlying implication being that she's just too scared of dying to stop killing.
- Disposable Vagrant: Tova's second victim is a young, fairly fit but alcoholic homeless man, whom she picks because she figures that he is in good physical shape and is drinking himself to death anyway. In a more general sense, all of her early intentional victims were a variant on this, with the others being an elderly woman and an infant living in poverty.
- Emotion Eater: Of a sort. After her first few killings, Tova comes to the conclusion that the amount of time each killing keeps her alive is proportionate to the number of people who grieve for the killed person; the more people, the longer the time.
- Hypocrite: After giving Jon endless grief over his trauma feasting, threatening to kill him if he even considers doing it again, Basira is remarkably blasé about forcing Daisy to give into the Hunt in the same way. This despite Daisy outright saying she'd rather die than go back to it, and Jon at least leaving his victims alive. Jon calls her out on it.
- Life Energy: Tova seemingly becomes an unwilling avatar of The End after her first near-death experience, killing people, her new powers making them die of natural causes such as heart attacks or strokes, to sustain her own life.
- The Needs of the Many: Tova uses this to justify her continued killing people; she owns companies that employ hundreds and is a very active philanthropist who has organized and funded several helpful initiatives. So she considers the occasional death of one person a difficult, but comparatively minor price to pay so she can keep it up.
  - After finishing the statement, Jon reflects on his own work as the Archivist this way; he has saved the world once, but still struggles with his need to take statements from people and barely keeping himself satiated using old statements rather than forcing fresh ones out of people.
- Sadistic Choice: The key theme of Terminus avatars returns, and in this case being sadistic is the only choice: Tova realizes that mercy is useless in prolonging herself because in order to gain any meaningful amount of years back to her own life, she has to kill people whose deaths will hurt as many people as possible.
- Take This Job and Shove It: At the end of the episode, Melanie decides to quit the Institute. To do so, she has to gouge her eyes out using an awl from the Institute's library.
- Would Hurt a Child: Tova's third deliberate victim is a newborn baby, in part out of (in her mind) a sense of mercy, because she figures that it's too young to have formed a lot of connections to people, so its death won't hurt too many people.

156: Reflection
Case #0090401 Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson, dated 4th of January, 2009

## Story

Adelard congratulates Gertrude on stopping the ritual of the Flesh (#130: Meat), and explains that he took a statement from a boy who had been scouting out an abandoned amusement park in Colorado for a party.
When the boy had reached the hall of mirrors, he found only three mirrors still intact and spotless. The mirrors distorted his reflection into various shapes, and the third mirror, which made his reflection "thin and gaunt" somehow pulled him in and he found himself in an up-and-running version of the amusement park, where he noticed that all the people there were "painfully thin" with baggy clothes, patchy hair and sunken eyes. The boy watched a woman playing a throwing game where she knocked down a coconut and the barker awarded her with a small bone that she snapped open and ravenously ate the marrow out of.
Disturbed, the boy started to look for a way out when he heard a scream of genuine terror and saw a person go flying off the roller coaster and splat on the ground. After a moment of silence, all the shriveled people descended upon the dying body and the boy looked away, back to the carnival game where he saw that the objects to knock down "certainly had hair, but they most defintely were not coconuts". He leapt back in horror and knocked over a trash can, spilling dozens of snapped-open and cleaned-out bones onto the ground, drawing the attention of some of the starving. He ran back into the hall of mirrors and managed to escape back to the world he had come from, diving into the one showing no reflection, although he was bitten by one of the starving in the process.
Although the story seems to point towards the Flesh, "something about this idea of some sort of famine world, its location within a man-made ruin, the whole societal aspect of it" makes Adelard think that it could be the Extinction again.
Adelard: Oh, one more thing. If you do try to follow up with my source- and I know you have your own ways of finding him should you wish- please be careful. He told me near the end that he had recently been worried he's being followed. He keeps catching glimpses of a thin figure in the distance, or disappearing around the corner, and I can't quite get past the detail that there was no reflection at all in the mirror he used to return. If my suspicions are correct, there's little either of us can do for him. But do take care, if you make contact.

## Post-Statement

Peter arrives to tell Martin that it's finally time to make their move. He explains that there is a device at the center of the tunnels that will help them to learn more about the coming of the Extinction, and Martin needs to be the one to use it. Martin asks if he'll be making it out of this, Peter clarifies that while he won't die, he won't be coming out either, but Martin seems indifferent to this.

- Amusement Park of Doom: After the young man from Dekker's story was sucked into the warped mirror, he found himself in a nightmarish version of the real amusement park, one full of emaciated, cannibalistic visitors.
- Continuity Nod: Dekker congratulates Gertrude on stopping the Flesh's ritual (described in Episode 130).
- Emotionless Boy: Martin is now so consumed by The Lonely that he doesn't have any emotional response to anything anymore, not even getting started on Peter's ritual and the prospect of never seeing Jon or any of the others again; Peter, of course, is quite delighted about this.
- Failed a Spot Check: The man from the story apparently thought nothing of it when he found a set of mirrors in the hall of mirrors that were completely clean even though everything else was dirty.
- Hall of Mirrors: The subject of Dekker's story entered one in the abandoned amusement park; one of the mirrors apparently sucks him into the postapocalyptic world.
- I Am a Humanitarian: Cannibalism, and a general disregard for the dead, is common in the nightmare version of the park; when a park visitor falls off of the rollercoaster and dies, the visitors and the carnival workers all charge at the body and dig in. In fact, Dekker's initial guess when hearing the story was that it was the Flesh, but the more societal structure and postapocalyptic setting made him suspect that it was a manifestation of the Extinction, and Martin seems to agree.
- Pet the Dog: Adelard has, in every prior appearance, given every impression of being as ruthless as Gertrude in his destruction of servants and monsters of the Dread Powers. So it comes as a bit of a surprise when he deliberately withholds the identity of the young man he interviewed, to prevent Gertrude from tracking him down and subjecting him to the Beholding's power.
- Troll: Peter Lukas, of all people, when he startles Martin with another Stealth Hi/Bye:
  Martin: Peter, we have talked about this.
  Peter: In my defense, it is still quite funny.

157: Rotten Core
Case #0131408 Statement of Adelard Dekker, regarding a potential pandemic originating in the town of Klanxbüll, Germany. Original statement given 14th August 2013.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan plays the end of Peter and Martin's conversation from the previous episode and explains that it along with another statement were left on his desk, but he doesn't know who left them.

## Story

Adelard is called to the town of Klanxbüll, Germany by a contact at the ECDC, as there is a pandemic that seems to be man-made, causing the flesh to slough off the bones. Suspecting that such a pandemic could be where the Extinction becomes distinct from the Corruption, Adelard agrees to go.
Discreetly stealing a hazmat suit, Adelard enters Klanxbüll and finds the streets to be covered in gore. Adelard soon finds a victim, a skeleton leaning against a lamppost with its flesh fallen to the ground and its exposed heart beating rapidly. Adelard knows that the town is beyond rescue but he resolves to at least find the cause. As he searches houses for an artefact or a Leitner book, he notices that while there aren't many more victims around, the ones he does find all have their hearts beating rapidly. He realizes that the trails of blood and flesh aren't leading to the houses but away from them, and he follows them to the park where he sees a throne made from dozens of screaming, melting bodies upon which sits a man Adelard recognizes as John Amherst, indicating that this pandemic truly is of the Corruption rather than the Extinction.
Despite the false lead, Adelard resolves to stop Amherst and after gathering some supplies confronts him. Amherst tries to attack Adelard but he is able to inject him with a poison to stun him. Adelard binds Amherst to a stretcher, wraps him in chains and then several layers of plastic, and finally drags him to a nearby construction site to be buried in concrete. Though initially victorious, Adelard soon notices a tear in the leg of his hazmat suit with a cut beneath. Knowing that he is now infected and his body will fall apart soon, Adelard hurries to gather all the victims he can find to the throne of bodies, then finds a computer to email Gertrude before burning all of it and himself.
Adelard: Perhaps you were right about the Extinction. I've been hunting it for decades now, and while I have seen evidence of its influence in other powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear the flows through the others like a vein of ore, or perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed. For all that, though, I cannot regret at the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty, and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done. and it has been an honor to do it alongside you. Goodbye, Gertrude. May you find your rest where no shadows are cast and no eyes may see you slumber.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan wonders if this statement was left by Martin and it's his way of saying he's having second thoughts about helping Peter with the Extinction. Since Jonathan's having trouble contacting Daisy and Basira, he decides to go to Georgie's flat as she is now caring for the blinded Melanie. Though Melanie is willing to be friendly she refuses to help Jonathan any further than that, so he goes to Helen instead. Helen also refuses to guide Jonathan to the center of the tunnels or tell him what's there since "it will be much more fun without my involvement". Jonathan tries to compel her but she threatens to kill him if he pushes her.

- Bait-and-Switch: Dekker entered the pandemic zone thinking he was witnessing a manifestation of the Extinction, playing on a fear of man-made diseases wiping out all life. As it turns out, it was just a particularly nasty manifestation of the Corruption, as evidenced by the presence of its avatar John Amherst.
- Beat Still, My Heart: One of the most prominent symptoms of the virus is that it melts away the skin and most of the external musculature, leaving the still beating heart visible through the exposed ribcage.
- Call-Back:
  - When Helen tells Jon "terrible things" are going to happen and starts laughing, towards the end she sounds exactly like Michael. Also, once again, the Spiral is super unhelpful for the humor value.
  - Adelard's method of eliminating Amherst - leaving him Buried Alive in concrete - is the same thing Gertrude did to stop the Monster Pig in Episode 103.
- Dead Man Writing: The statement was written by Dekker as a letter to Gertrude as he was dying from the disease.
- Humanoid Abomination: Not seen, but Dekker's description of what he expected to find as a monster of the Extinction qualifies; because he thought the virus was the Extinction playing on a fear of man-made pandemics, he imagined a sickly figure in a lab coat or a "golem" made of petri dishes or other lab materials (similar to the trash people in the Amazon from Episode 149).
- It Amused Me: Helen refuses to tell Jon anything about what's going on in the center of the tunnels, because, according to her, things will be a lot funnier if he doesn't know.
- It Has Been an Honor: Dekker's concluding remark in his goodbye to Gertrude.
- Logical Weakness: Dekker manages to temporarily stun John Amherst with an injection of pesticide, exploiting the Corruption's connection to insects.
- Mutual Kill: Adelard Dekker succeeds where many others failed and finally kills John Amherst for good, but unfortunately in the struggle Dekker's hazmat suit was torn and he was exposed to Amherst's horrible disease, though he decides to burn both himself and the other victims before it runs its course.
- Relationship Upgrade: Jon seeks out Melanie at Georgie's home and learns that they are living together; as in, together together.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Dekker neutralizes John Amherst by stunning him with a pesticide injection and then burying him alive under four feet of liquid concrete, sealing his body away.
- Throne Made of X: At the heart of the viral outburst sits John Amherst on top of a pile of people consumed by the virus.
- Wham Episode: At the time of his death, Dekker had concluded that the Extinction probably hasn't really been emerging after all, since despite decades of investigating, he hasn't been able to find any concrete proof that it's coming to exist as a distinct enough fear. He says that it may still exist, but as subset of the others and not truly its own thing, which calls into question exactly what Peter has manipulated Martin into.

158: Panopticon
Case #0182509-A. Original recording of events leading up to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.

Peter leads Martin through the tunnels, showing him a map they can use to navigate as well as The Seven Lamps of Architecture (#80: The Librarian) to manipulate the tunnels if needed, which he demonstrated by releasing the Not-Them to "make sure everyone is too busy to follow us".
Basira and Daisy tell Jonathan that Elias has escaped from prison, and he deduces that it must have something to do with Peter and Martin heading into the tunnels to find the "device".
Peter and Martin arrive at their destination: the Panopticon of Millbank prison, built by Robert Smirke and modified by Jonah Magnus to channel the Eye's power, allowing someone in the tower to see not just all the cells, but everything everywhere. Peter explains that he needs Martin and his connection to the Eye to use the Panopticon and learn everything they need to about the Extinction. Before he can use it, however, Martin has to kill the tower's current occupant: Jonah Magnus himself. Peter gives Martin a knife and they enter the tower's viewing room and approach the motionless body.

Martin: Where are his eyes?
Elias <emerging from the shadows>: Exactly where they've always been, Martin. Watching over my Institute.
Jonathan finds a tape with the key to the tunnels, labelled 'play me'. On the tape is a recording of a conversation between Elias and Gertrude as he catches her preparing to burn the Institute, and she explains that she thought he would be distracted with the ritual of the Dark going on at the same time and implies that he doesn't age, to which he confirms that he isn't human. Gertrude, having figured out that Elias is Jonah Magnus in a new body, intended to use the fire to keep him at bay while she went to the Panopticon to destroy his original body there before blinding herself. Elias shoots Gertrude before she can start the fire. Jonathan, Basira and Daisy wonder why Elias would have put Peter in charge if he was planning to use the Panopticon and by doing so destroy Jonah's body, but they suddenly become distracted by chaotic sounds nearby.
Elias claims that he's not there to interfere and just wants to be present when he dies, but Martin hesitates, asking if killing him will really kill everyone else at the Institute. Elias isn't sure but knows it certainly won't be good for them, and assures him that the only thing that matters is whether or not Martin wants to kill him. Martin answers that he does and Peter urges him to do it, but he refuses.
Basira peeks out and sees that Trevor and Julia have come back to play. They start to devise a plan when the Not-Them bursts out of the tunnels, taking on the Hunters as they arrive. Basira and Daisy send Jonathan into the tunnels while they stay back to deal with the Hunters and the Not-Them. Daisy asks Basira to find and kill her when this is all over, and then tells her to run before transforming into a monster of the Hunt.
Martin suspects that although the Extinction is certainly real and coming, Peter has been using it as an excuse to get one-up on Jonah. After Jonathan came back from the dead, Martin pretended to commit to Peter's plans to keep his attention away from Jonathan, and that setting Martin up as a kind of chosen one was what really broke the deal. Enraged as both Martin and Elias mock him, Peter vanishes Martin into the Lonely before disappearing himself.
Jonathan arrives at the Panopticon, having been guided by Jonah who explains what Peter did to Martin, and if he wants him back he'll have to follow.
Jonah: I simply want you to know that if you do so, you are almost certainly not coming back. To go into the Lonely willingly is as good as death.
Jonathan: How do I do it?
Jonah: Wasn't too long ago. And I'm sure traces of their passage still remain. Just open your mind. Drink it all in. Know their route, and simply follow it. Very good. Are you scared, Jon?
Jonathan: Yes.
Jonah: Perfect.

- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with it unclear if Daisy won and with Jon jumping into the Lonely to rescue Martin.
- Continuity Nod: When he and Martin head down the tunnels, Peter references Martin and Tim's trip down there in Episode 79 ("Hide and Seek"), which led to them getting trapped in the Distortion's hallways for a while.
- Evil Laugh: Multiple examples, including Elias and a freed Not-Sasha.
- Heroic Sacrifice: With the Institute under attack from multiple angles, Daisy chooses to give into the Hunt fully and permanently, and orders Basira to hunt her down and kill her if she survives the fight.
- Oh, Crap!: Julia and Trevor when they realize they're up against a fully transformed Daisy and that their guns don't do anything.
- Out-Gambitted: Sorry, Peter, but it was a bad idea to underestimate Martin.
- Play-Along Prisoner: Elias could have walked out any time—he just chose now to do it.
- The Reveal: Stacked one on top of the other. Turns out that all along, not only has Peter Lukas been playing Martin by making up a fake existential threat, with the ultimate goal of getting Martin to kill Jonah Magnus, but Martin knew this whole time and has been playing him right back in order to find out what his real agenda is. And, on top of all that, "Elias" is actually a bodyhopping Jonah, and what's in the tunnels is his original body.
- Wham Line: "No." Said by Martin to Peter Lukas.

159: The Last
Case #0182509-B. Statement of Peter Lukas regarding his life, family and interactions with The Lonely. Statement extracted 25th September 2018.

## Pre-Statement

As Jonathan searches for Martin through the Lonely, he hears Peter's voice call, saying that Martin doesn't want to be found, but Jonathan doesn't buy it and says that he thinks that Peter's scared because "the Lonely and the Eye aren't too far apart". Jonathan spots Martin be he doesn't want to come with him since being in the Lonely "feels right" and he fades away as he remarks that he "really loved you". Peter taunts Jonathan, reminding him that now all his friends have either died or abandoned him, and offers to let him stay in the Lonely so he won't have to worry about preying on innocent people again. Jonathan starts to give in, but only until Peter comes to where he can see him at which point Jonathan compels him to give his statement.

## Story

Peter and his four siblings were raised in the philosophy of the Lonely, in a house where their bedrooms were far apart, their parents were distant and they weren't allowed any friends. Peter was the only one of his siblings to stay with this philosophy, with the others either cutting ties with the family or trying to socialize and being sent to live with distant relatives. When he's older, Peter starts to run away to cities and enjoy his lack of connection to them and the people living in them. He is disgusted when people pass him on the street, and when one tries to talk to him Peter makes him disappear. Peter returns home where his mother and other relatives teach him the truth about the Lonely, which he eagerly accepts before beginning his career at sea about the Tundra. He has every one of his employees sign on under a pseudonym to make sure he knows as little about them as possible. He comes onto land at Elias' request to take over the Institute. Peter recalls how he met Gertrude Robinson and got the idea that she was deciding if it would be worth the effort to destroy him, and he thinks that she didn't do it only because he was predictable enough to not be considered a real threat. Peter also remembers the first time he heard about the Extinction from Adelard Dekker, and he realized that as much as his lifestyle excludes other people, at the same time it depends on them since if there are no other people, there's nothing for him to be separate from.
Peter figures that he can stop the Extinction by performing the Lonely's ritual before it can emerge. While preparing, he is contacted by Simon Fairchild to collaborate with him and the People's Church on the Daedalus project, and though it doesn't do much for him it does serve as a distraction from his important plans. He builds an apartment complex in London with single-bedroom apartments that are both bigger and smaller than they seem, with soundproofing and many false doors in the hallways to give the illusion of many residents that never answer their door. Peter rents out the apartments for low prices to draw in victims, and only rents out the top floor to keep tenants distant from the outside world. He makes sure only to rent to the loneliest people. Once the tenants "reached a critical mass of lonliness and despair", Peter would lock them in and cut them off from the outside world, and as they died along the Lonely would rise. But instead, he was stopped by Gertrude Robinson informing the press about it and soon his plan is thwarted by all the agencies interfering. He takes a lot of time to recover from the loss and ends up reconnecting with Elias and makes a bet with him to try to gain access to the Panopticon.
Peter: You know, this is one of the first bets I ever made with him I've actually lost. But I guess that's how hustlers work, isn't it? They lose and lose until you're willing to put it all on the line, and then the trap shuts. So I suppose that's probably why I reacted so rashly, trying to rip his victory away. Keep you here. But it looks like I might have underestimated my opponent once again.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan asks what Elias got from winning the bet, and Peter answers that Jonathan himself was the prize. Peter tries to refuse Jonathan compelling him to elaborate until Jonathan tears it out of him, destroying him in the process.
Martin: His only wish was to die alone.
Jonathan: Tough. Now, listen to me, Martin. Listen.
Martin: Hello, Jon.
Jonathan: Listen, I know you think you want to be here. I know you think it's safer, and well- well maybe it is. But we need you. I need you.
Martin: No, you don't. Not really. Everyone's alone, but we all survive.
Jonathan: I don't just want to survive!
Martin: I'm sorry.
Jonathan: Martin. Martin, look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see.
Martin: I see… I see you, Jon. I see you.
Martin is snapped out of the Lonely's effect and joins Jonathan as they go home.

- Abusive Parents: Peter's parents weren't physically abusive — they'd have to actually be present for that. They raised him and his siblings in as close to complete isolation as was possible while still remaining a functioning human being, never allowing them to form emotional connections to a person or even a location. Peter muses that probably the only reason they were able to get away with it, without social services descending on them, is because they were so rich.
- Blunt "Yes": When Jon tries to taunt Peter by asking him if he's afraid to talk face to face, Peter unabashedly says yes—he's the avatar of the Lonely, not wanting to talk to people is kind of his thing.
- Malevolent Architecture: Peter's tower block building was designed to make its residents feel as lonely as possible, with apartments that don't have enough room for more than one person but look bigger, redundantt bathrooms, kitchens almost useless for anything more advanced than microwaving, lots of false doors between apartments, soundproofed walls and the lowest few floors being left vacant, forcing residents to watch people walking by outside.
- Meaningful Name: The meaning of the episode's title becomes clear in context of the next episode: This is the episode where Jon receives the mark of the Lonely, which is the last mark he needs to perform the Mass Ritual.
- Mundane Solution: Peter tried to enact the Lonely's Ritual by building the most isolating and soul-destroying tower block imaginable, then trapping and killing the residents at the height of their solitude and terror. Gertrude's solution? Not blowing it up this time. Instead, she got a big newspaper to write a think-piece on 'the loneliest tower block in the UK', meaning Peter was suddenly swamped with social outreach programs and no one wanted to move there any longer.
- The Power of Love: How Jon ultimately snaps Martin out of the Lonely, telling Martin he needs him and begging Martin to look at him.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Apparently, Peter's only reason for wanting to stop the Extinction from destroying the world; he can only enjoy the feeling of solitude if there are other human beings from whom he can feel isolated, and a world without any people in it at all, or at least living creatures that he could recognize as people, wouldn't fulfill that need.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Peter spends most of the beginning of the episode taunting Jon about how knowing another person is an illusion, all Jon's friends are dead or don't want anything to do with him, and Martin is now so far under the Lonely's sway that he doesn't want to be rescued. Jon finally snaps, says Peter wouldn't be spending all this effort on discouraging him if there wasn't actually a chance of this working, and turns his Beholding powers on Peter.
  Jon: I see you.
- Take That!:
  - Peter muses that a British upper-class education is one of the best ways of destroying a child's empathy.
  - Peter also remarks that one of the reasons for why his tower block attracted so much attention when the article was published was that all of his intended victims were white middle class people.
- The Un-Reveal: Jon tries to force Peter to tell him what exactly Elias is going to get out of winning this bet, but Peter resists so hard that the strain of it kills him before the compulsion can work.
  - It's heavily implied that Elias gets Jon to take a statement from a person touched by the Lonely, the last power for him to do so.

160: The Eye Opens
Case #0181810. Vigilo, Audio, Supervenionote I watch, I listen, I surpass.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan and Martin move into a safehouse owned by Daisy, noting the tape recorder they brought to warn them if something's about to happen since Jonathan is trying to suppress his abilities. Martin decides to go into town to pick up groceries and call Basira for an update, as Daisy, Trevor, Julia and the Not-Them are all out there somewhere.
A few weeks later, Martin fills Jonathan in on another update from Basira: all the police interviews are complete but she doesn't know who their suspects are, and they haven't found the Panopticon. Basira sent a box of statements and tapes as well to keep Jonathan sustained. Martin heads off for a walk to give Jonathan some privacy as he reads a statement.

## Story

The statement is first said to be "statement of Hazel Rutter regarding a fire in her childhood home", but it quickly reveals itself as a trick to get Jonathan to start reading, after which he cannot stop: "statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, the Archivist".
Jonah explains that he has spent the last two centuries working to bring the Dread Powers into the world in order to gain power. Robert Smirke "gathered our little band- Lukas, Scott and the rest" and tells them about the powers' rituals. Although he teaches balance, everyone falls to one of the powers. Jonah doesn't want the others to complete their rituals and make him a victim with the rest of the world, and comes to the conclusion that to stop them he has to finish the Eye's ritual first. Jonah gets Smirke to build the Panopticon "as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium" but secretly modifies it to channel the Eye's power. After years of the prisoners marinating in fear, Jonah enters the Panopticon tower and attempts the Watcher's Crown. It fails and all the prisoners are killed as the Panopticon sinks into the swamp Millbank is built on. Jonah realizes that even though the Eye wasn't able to manifest, he can now see anything anywhere and he is able to keep it as he transfers his consciousness into other bodies to prolong his life. He relocates his Institute to London for proximity to the Panopticon and does more research to try to perfect the Watcher's Crown.
When Gertrude Robinson becomes the newest Archivist, a position that has always existed under the Eye, he is surprised that "she simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers". Jonah asks Gertrude why she has decided this, and her answer is that the Desolation had killed her cat. Jonah doesn't know if that's the truth and never gets the courage to take the knowledge from her. As Jonah watches Gertrude take down ritual after ritual, he wonders why no ritual has ever succeeded before and wonders if it's actually impossible for one to succeed. Jonah realizes that Gertrude is thinking the same thing when she doesn't make an effort to stop the Extinguished Sun in 2015 and yet it fails. Jonah realizes that the the rituals fail because the Powers cannot be fully distinct from one another. "When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?" Jonah comes to the conclusion that to succeed in bringing the Eye into the world, he needs to bring them all in and do it before another Power such as the Extinction emerges, and the catalyst of such a ritual must be the Archivist themself. "Because the thing about the Archivist is that, well, it's a bit of a misnomer. It might, perhaps, be better named the Archive. Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you. You are a living chronicle of terror."
Having just killed Gertrude, Jonah decides that her replacement must be marked by each Power over time. When the time came to decide, he was thrilled to find that Jonathan was already marked by the Web (#81: A Guest for Mr. Spider). "I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and do you know what, I think it was." He decides to wait to see how Jonathan would react to something coming for him, ensuring that he wouldn't be ready for an attack as "if you couldn't survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen". When Jane Prentiss attacked, Jonah waited and watched while being ready to release the carbon monoxide at any time, and waited until Jonathan was in the process of being infested "to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones", and received the mark of the Corruption. (#39: Infestation, #40: Human Remains) Jonah was pleased to see the Not-Them getting into the Institute as Jonathan would eventually confront it and receive the Stranger's mark, (#79: Hide and Seek) though he would have gotten it anyway from the Unknowing. (#119: Stranger and Stranger) When the Distortion first contacted Sasha, (#26: A Distortion) Jonah saw an opportunity to get the Spiral's mark on Jonathan, and so found Helen Richardson and steered her to him, which ended in Michael stabbing Jonathan (#47: The New Door). Future trips through the Hallways (#78: Distant Cousin, #101: Another Twist, #131: Flesh, #143: Heart of Darkness) only strengthened the Spiral's mark. Jonah didn't account for Jurgen Leitner meeting with Jonathan and had to silence him before he told Jonathan too much (#80: The Librarian), forcing Jonathan out into hiding. "I justified it to myself, saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can't honestly pretend it wasn't a rather rash move." Jonah requested the police to have Daisy in charge of the murder investigation to eventually have her, a Hunter, confront him and give him the mark of the Hunt. (#91: The Coming Storm) Using the statements he sent to Jonathan, he was able to get him to meet with "avatars I thought were likely to harm you but probably would stop short of actually killing you", getting Jonathan the mark of the Desolation from Jude Perry (#89: Twice as Bright) and the mark of the Vast from Michael Crew (#91: The Coming Storm). Jonah made sure to employ Melanie at the Institute (#84: Possessive) when he recognized that she was marked by the Slaughter (#76: The Smell of Blood, #117: Testament), so that she would eventually pass that mark on to Jonathan. (#125: Civilian Casualties) Though Jonah was unthreatened by the Unknowing now that he knew it couldn't succeed, he still sent Jonathan to take it down as a test of his growing power (#119: Stranger and Stranger) and it ended up causing him to confront death and receive the mark of the End at just the right time that he wouldn't actually die but wouldn't suspect anything either. (#121: Far Away) "By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you Knowing something you shouldn't. I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal." To get Jonathan the mark of the Flesh next, Jonah sent the letters to the Boneturner that led him to victims before coercing him into attacking the Institute though to Jonah's dismay he went before Jonathan was out of the hospital, however this ended up being resolved when Jonathan voluntarily went to the Boneturner and took the mark himself. (#131: Flesh) Once the coffin was delivered to the Institute (#128: Heavy Goods), Jonah sent Basira on a wild goose chase to make sure she wouldn't be there to stop Jonathan entering the coffin to rescue Daisy, thereby taking the mark of the Buried. (#132: Entombed) After this, he tricked Basira into thinking the People's Church were preparing for the Extinguished Sun in order to get Jonathan to Ny-Ålesund and to the Dark Sun, giving him the mark of the Dark. (#143: Heart of Darkness) Peter Lukas knew what Jonah was trying to do and was only persuaded to cooperate with the bet involving Martin, but of course he too was being manipulated into "giving you all the tools you needed to escape" and so Jonathan received the mark of the Lonely.
Jonah: And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience. You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here! Don't worry, Jon. You'll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.
Now, repeat after me.
You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right. Come to us in your wholeness! Come to us in your perfection! Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies! Come to us! I! OPEN! THE DOOR!

## Post-Statement

Martin finds Jonathan unconscious as chaos erupts outside. All fourteen of the Dread Powers have been brought into the world, ruled over by the Eye.

- All Your Powers Combined: Thanks to Gertrude's theories and his own reasoning, Jonah has discovered why no Ritual has ever succeeded: the fears simply don't work in isolation. For a ritual to succeed it must include aspects from all the Powers, with the chosen patron at the helm. And Jon, having encountered and been marked by all of them is the perfect being to carry it out.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Jonah Magnus succeeds in his goal of performing a ritual to summon all the Powers into the world, thanks to Jon.
- Continuity Cavalcade: This episode recaps the entire series, highlighting the moments when Jon brushed against each one of the Powers in turn.
- Evil Gloating: The statement is basically just Jonah Magnus doing a bad guy monologue through Jon, laying out his plan and and how he has successfully played everyone.
- Hope Spot: While the Institute is still a crime scene, things have calmed down overall and Jon and Martin have found at least a temporary sanctuary at one of Daisy's safehouses in Scotland. Then Jon starts reading his statement, and all hell breaks loose.
- Laughing Mad: Jon is reduced to this at the end.
- Manipulative Bastard: Jonah has been carefully controlling how much Jon knows and which statements he reads, engineering opportunities for him to run into other avatars, and making sure he'd embrace his Beholding powers, for the whole podcast.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
  - Gertrude and Jon accidentally helped Jonah Magnus make a successful ritual by stopping the other ones, because Gertrude interfering (or not) with the other Powers gave Jonah excellent data on how the rituals worked, and Jon by getting marked as he fought each one.
  - Jon going to see Jared Hopworth so he would extract one of his ribs had the accidental side-effect of putting Jonah's plan to mark him with the Flesh back on track. He had planned to direct Jared to raid the Institute, but Jared misunderstood the letter and attacked while Jon was still in the hospital. When Jon met with Jared of his own accord and got him to take two of his ribs, it got him that mark anyway.
- Stealth Pun: The police blame the carnage at the institute on a terror attack.
- Wham Episode: Jonah Magnus successfully executes his ritual, through Jon, and the Powers all manifest in the world at once with the Eye overseeing them all.
- Wham Line: As Jon starts reading the supposed statement of a house fire:
  Hello, Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

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