Follow TV Tropes

You need to to do this. if you don't have an account

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheMagnusArchivesSeasonThree

#
The Magnus Archives Season Three
Following

Main | Season One | Season Two | Season Three | Season Four | Season Five

open/close all folders

Trailer
The tape begins with Elias and Daisy in what used to be Jon's office. Daisy asks how many tape recorders the Archives has and Elias answers evasively. Daisy declares she will interview the Archives staff in that room, despite the fact that Leitner's blood hasn't been cleaned up yet. Elias warns her that the employees tend to ramble, and turns to leave to fetch the first interviewee.
Elias: You’ll be alright on your own for a minute?
Daisy: That a joke?
Elias: Some people find this place unsettling.
Daisy: Mr. Bouchard, I’m not the one who needs to be scared.
Elias: Whatever you say... Detective.
Elias leaves and there is only the sound of turning papers. After a few moments, the faint sound of calliope music floats through the hallways. Daisy goes to the door and asks if anyone's there; the only response is that the music fades. Daisy returns, swears, and shuts off the recorder.

81: A Guest For Mr. Spider

Case #0171702. Statement of Jonathan Sims, regarding a childhood encounter with a book formerly possessed by Jurgen Leitner. Statement recorded by subject, February 18th, 2017.

## Pre-Statement

Having learned about the existence of the entities from Jurgen Leitner and how he had unknowingly acted as an agent of the Eye at the Institute, Jonathan realizes that he had once before encountered another entity he refers to as the Spider or the Web through the first of Leitner's books he had found as an eight-year-old in 1995.

## Story

Jonathan is raised by his grandmother following the untimely deaths of his parents. His grandmother finds that Jonathan is easiest to control by giving him books to distract him, although he is extremely picky and won't read anything that's too similar to something he's read before. Her solution is to go to various charity stores and buy all their cheapest books to give to Jonathan, letting him choose which ones he wants to read and when he's through with a set of books she donates them to another charity store. Jonathan gets annoyed when he finds preschool-level books among the swaths of texts he is presented with due to his grandmother's indiscrimination when purchasing books for him.
He is about to toss one such book when he notices the cover lacks the bright colors typical of preschool-level books, instead being white with black spiderweb designs around the corners and the title A Guest for Mr. Spider. Jonathan looks at the back and finds an illustration of the titular character: an anthropomorphic spider with a swollen abdomen, no visible mouth, eight eyes of different sizes placed asymmetrically on the head, and a red bowler hat which stands out against the rest of the monochrome illustration. Jonathan feels that A Guest for Mr. Spider has a kind of violent energy and immediately hates the book despite knowing nothing about it. Yet, Jonathan's curiosity is piqued and he opens the book, seeing Jurgen Leitner's label inside the cover.
Jonathan finds A Guest for Mr. Spider to be a picture book. The first page shows Mr. Spider in a room with two doors, facing the one on the left, and there is no text. The next three pages are the same apart from Mr. Spider's many limbs changing positions. Then at page five, the words "Knock Knock" appear at the left door, along with "Who is it, Mr. Spider?". The door opens to show a frightened-looking anthropomorphic fly carrying a box. "It's Mr. Bluebottle, and he's brought you a cake." The next page shows the cake in a box followed by a closer image of Mr. Bluebottle's terrified face. "Mr. Spider doesn't like it." The next page is identical to the first, apart from what appears to be an ink spill at the bottom of the right door. After a few more textless pages, there is another "Knock Knock" "Who is it, Mr. Spider?" and Jonathan can see that Mr. Spider's belly is larger than before. Another nervous fly is there at the left door. "It's Mrs. Fruit, and she's brought you some flowers." There is a close up of the unhealthy flowers followed by Mrs. Fruit's scared face. "Mr. Spider doesn't eat flowers." Then Mrs. Fruit is gone, her flowers set on a table but now looking worse and a deep red where they were pink before. The right door now has a larger, brown stain which also appears on Mr. Spider's face, and his abdomen is huge. Jonathan can now see that Mr. Spider's arms aren't just waving around, but are pulling light grey strings that disappear through the cracks of both doors. "Knock Knock" "Who is it, Mr. Spider?" There are two flies at the door, one smaller than the other but wearing matching clothes, and both are in tears. "It's Mr. Horse, and he's brought you his son." The closeup of this fly's face horrifies Jonathan. "Mr. Spider wants more." The next page shows the room covered in red and brown, with Mr. Spider's abdomen a massive size. He now faces towards the fourth wall as he continues pulling his strings. On the second-to-last page is a closeup of the right door, which is a cutaway panel that lets it be opened to see the next page. "Mr. Spider wants another guest for dinner. It is polite to knock."
Jonathan involuntarily begins to reach toward the illustration of the door to knock on it when suddenly the book is slapped away by an older boy who often bullies Jonathan. Jonathan realizes that they are in a park a few blocks away from his house, not sure how he got there. The bully picks up A Guest for Mr. Spider and starts to make fun of Jonathan for it before suddenly going quiet and starting to read it himself. The bully walks away with the book, entranced, and Jonathan follows him as he wants it back. Night falls as they make their way through the city, until arriving at a house. The bully holds the book up to the door, and Jonathan can see that he has reached the illustration of the stained door. The bully knocks twice and the door opens. Inside the darkness of the room beyond, Jonathan sees the thin grey strings wrapped around the bully. Two long, hairy limbs reach out and pull the bully and the book inside. Jonathan is unable to find that house again.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan explains that this story is what started his interest in the supernatural. He wonders if he could have somehow saved his bully. Jonathan realizes that seeing someone else be destroyed by something trying to attack him has caused him to stay distant from others, to try to keep them safe. He regrets this now that he has been forced to leave the Institute just as his worldview was shattered, and everyone there believes him to be the killer of Jurgen Leitner.
At this point it is revealed that Jonathan is now living with Georgie Barker, still running the What the Ghost podcast. Jonathan wants to tell her everything but isn't ready yet.

- Asshole Victim:
  - Remorseful or not, Mr. Horse still sacrificed his own son to save himself from Mr. Spider.
  - Deconstructed with the bully who just happened to pick the wrong moment to target young Jon for harassment. Whereas other stories might try to portray the bully's resulting gruesome death as justice, or at least a better alternative, Jon is distraught by the fact that he can't even remember the name of the boy who unwittingly saved his life, and deeply regrets that someone else died in his place.
- A Dog Named "Dog": The characters in A Guest For Mr. Spider are named after their species. Mr. Spider is a spider, Mr. Bluebottle is a blue bottle fly, Mrs. Fruit is a fruit fly, and Mr. Horse is a horsefly.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In-universe. The last page of the book reads "Mr. Spider wants another guest. It is polite to knock." This compels the unlucky reader to go knock on the nearest door, which summons Mr. Spider.
- Gory Discretion Shot: ''A Guest For Mr. Spider" doesn't show the characters being eaten by Mr. Spider, it merely shows the gory aftermath. Similarly, Jonathan doesn't see his bully get eaten, merely disappear.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Jon never sees all of the real Mr. Spider, only a few of his legs, leaving the fate of his bully all the more mysterious and spooky.
- Origins Episode: We learn in this episode what led Jon to research the supernatural as well as the source of his burning hatred for Jurgen Leitner.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Mr. Horse weepingly brought his son to Mr. Spider's dinner party as food for the spider. Only for the sacrifice to backfire when Mr. Spider consumes Mr. Horse as well after eating his son because "Mr. Spider wants more."
- Spiders Are Scary: Mr. Spider is the eponymous spider who convinced the flies to come to his house with gifts for the dinner party. Only for his prey to realise they are his dinner. Mr. Spider also breaks out of the book when the reader knocks on the nearest door.
- Take That!:
  - Jon jokingly comments that thanks to her podcast Georgina must be "rolling in all that sock money" and "up to her eyeballs in mattresses", the latter of which prompts her to comment that she got a free mattress but couldn't bear sleeping on it for more than three days. This is clearly a dig at frequent podcast sponsors Bombas Socks and Casper mattresses, both of whom also happen to sponsor TMA's inspiration The Black Tapes.
  - A full episode of Georgie's podcast was later made available to Patreon subscribers. Sure enough there is an ad for "Bedcetera" mattresses.
- Too Dumb to Live: Mr. Horse was, at least, smart enough to know that Mr. Spider is a predator and that he tried to satisfy him by offering his son as food instead. The other flies chose to attend the party and offer gifts that the spider is indifferent to.

82: The Eyewitnesses

Case #0171702-B. Statement of Alice "Daisy" Tonner, regarding the crimes and death of Calvin Benchley. Statement never given.

## Pre-Statement

Martin convinces Daisy to turn on the recorder as she interrogates him. Daisy explains that Jonathan is the prime suspect in the murder of the man he and Tim found in the recording office, though Martin doesn't believe that Jonathan did it. Martin and Tim had given Daisy the tape they had recorded at the time of the incident but it proved very little. Jonathan is on the run and Daisy wants to know where he is hiding out, but Martin has no ideas. Daisy concludes the interrogation and has Martin send Tim in. Daisy finds that she cannot turn off the recorder. Tim doesn't have any useful information for Daisy either, and she mentions that she believes that Jonathan is responsible for the disappearance and/or death of Sasha. Daisy has Elias come in next. Elias believes Jonathan will return to the Archive sooner or later and doesn't believe him to be a murderer. Elias asks if the police have identified the victim, and Daisy confirms that they haven't. Elias claims to know where Jonathan is but refuses to tell Daisy and explains that he knows she has very little supervision as a sectioned officer and he blackmails her by recording a story from her past, which Daisy can't fathom how he knows.

## Story

Alice's nickname of Daisy comes from an oddly-shaped scar on her back, and it makes her feel strong to know a happy-sounding name everyone calls her really stands as a representation of her strength and power.
As a child, Daisy and her best friend Calvin Benchley would dare each other to trespass onto an abandoned construction site which their parents forbade them from entering. One day while near the site, Daisy and Calvin hear sounds of violence from inside before it goes quiet. Daisy dares Calvin to go and see what happened, and when he doesn't return after fifteen minutes she decides to go in. She finds two dead people who seem to have killed each other with broken glass. Calvin stands on a staircase beyond the bodies, staring at Daisy in a trance with a figure behind him, rapidly whispering and flicking a long, black tongue into his ear. Calvin charges at Daisy and slams her into a metal fence, injuring Daisy's back and giving her her namesake scar. She blacks out as she sees Calvin looking triumphant. Everyone later accepts Calvin's story which posits that Daisy had fallen and hurt herself.
Calvin is changed after this incident and becomes more violent, and by the time he leaves for college he has seriously injured or killed six other kids, though he was careful to not leave any incriminating evidence. Daisy always tries to warn others about Calvin but he seems to relish his new reputation of fear. When Daisy enters the police force, she finds that although Calvin has been arrested a few times, no charges were able to stick. In 2011, Daisy jumps Calvin outside a bar one night, knocking him out and taking him to the place where she kills vampires. Daisy shoots Calvin five times through the chest, and he never makes any attempt to save himself. Daisy would later kill other humans in the same way.

## Post-Statement

Elias advises Daisy to give up her search for Jonathan, but if she does find him to kill him quickly. Angered, Daisy gives Elias some parting words.
Daisy: One day, someone is going to kill you. I really hope it's me.

Martin is suspicious of the hasty manner in which Daisy left, and wonders why she only seemed to care about finding Jonathan and not any other aspect of the case. Martin doesn't believe that Jonathan would have killed Sasha.

- Bullying a Dragon: Daisy quite aggressively pushes around Martin and Tim, insinuating that everyone is so squeamish about Section 31 matters that she can conduct her investigation any way she likes, which could include beating them if they don't tell her what she wants or implicate them if there's no better evidence. And then she tries this with Elias, who responds by reciting off a dark secret from Daisy's past with a variety of details that he simply could not know and promises that he can make sure that her superiors can get this information delivered in a way that would make it very hard to ignore or brush away if she really wants to play this game with him.
- Call-Back: Elias chuckles when Daisy refers to Leitner's corpse as a "John Doe", and passes it off as remembering "an old joke". He's likely recalling the students from "Anatomy Class".
- Foreshadowing: Daisy and Tim's inability to turn off the tape recorder hints at their more blatantly supernatural shenanigans down the line.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Zig-zagged. At first it seems like a departure from the usual format of characters making statements about supernatural experiences, as it's mostly dialog between characters, and Daisy seems disinterested in Martin's detailed account of the supernatural. However, after Daisy threatens Elias, the episode returns to statements in monolog about supernatural experiences - but this time it's Elias telling Daisy's story for her, to her surprise and without her consent.
- Origins Episode: Daisy's statement, pulled out of her mind by Elias, details her first encounter with the supernatural, how she got the scar that inspired her nickname and what made her so eager to hunt and kill monsters.
- We Used to Be Friends: Calvin Benchley was Daisy's best friend when they were children, even though his friends wouldn't play with her as well because she was a girl. Then they stumbled upon the aftermath of a savage, bloody fight, Calvin came into contact with one of the fighters and turned into a violent monster, injuring and even killing several people over the years and getting away with it. In adulthood, he became the first of Daisy's kills that she considered human.

83: Drawing a Blank

Case #0131910. Statement of Chloe Ashburt, regarding a new window display at Fanton’s department store in Hammersmith. Original statement given 19th October 2013.

## Story

Chloe works at a department store called Fanton's. Since she's studying design she loves to get involved in setting up the seasonal window and floor displays. In September, Chloe helps to set up a new display whose theme is "Nights at the Circus", with mannequins made up to be acrobats and a ringmistress. Chloe's manager, Lana, often lets her stay late to practice drawing the mannequins which causes her to become very familiar with their details and as such she quickly notices when the ringmistress mannequin is replaced with a different mannequin wearing the same outfit and positioned exactly the same. Although she's weirded out, Chloe decides not to ask around about it since it doesn't really mean anything that she can tell. Chloe finds herself taking every opportunity to walk past the Nights at the Circus display, and gets a somewhat malevolent feel from the new mannequin and even gets the idea that it's somehow watching her.
After a few days, Lana calls Chloe into her office and asks if she had done anything to the mannequins besides drawing them the previous night. Lana shows Chloe some pictures of a mannequin from another display that had been disassembled and reassembled, with the arms and legs swapped and the arms holding up the mannequin's head. The mannequin had been dressed with some colorful pyjama shirts and had a smiling face painted on with a red pompom glued onto the head, overall looking like a clown. Lana believes that Chloe didn't do it but thinks that another employee did, as they had known where to go to stay out of the security cameras' view. Lana regretfully tells Chloe that until the culprit is caught she cannot allow her to continue staying late at the store, and Chloe decides not to argue.
In the next few weeks, Chloe enjoys her job less and less since she no longer has a time to draw the mannequins and the closing shifts she used to take are given to other employees on a rotation. Chloe notices that every employee that closes the store is jumpy and nervous the next day. Eventually due to scheduling conflicts, Lana has to take the closing shift one night and Chloe is able to convince her to let her stay with her. Chloe feels tense in the day leading up to this, but writes it off as her anticipation to draw the ringmistress mannequin that creeped her out.
After the store is closed and Lana is finalizing things, Chloe grabs her art supplies and goes to the Nights at the Circus display only to find it mostly gone, with only a headless acrobat mannequin and remains of a paper-maché lion. Chloe is stunned for several minutes until she hears Lana call her. Chloe notices that Lana's voice sounds strangled and hoarse. Scared but knowing that she can't abandon Lana if she's in trouble, Chloe starts to dial the police as she walks to the storeroom where Lana is. The room is dark and the lights don't work, and Chloe sees a figure in the darkness. The figure jerkily walks toward her and Chloe freezes in terror and drops her phone as she sees that it's a mannequin. The mannequin puts a plastic finger to Chloe's lips and somehow shushes her despite having no mouth.
Chloe suddenly finds herself with the police, having managed to hit the call button before dropping her phone. The police find Lana murdered, and though they interrogate Chloe they end up letting her go as the CCTV footage proves she didn't kill Lana. They don't believe Chloe about the mannequin, instead theorizing that the murder had been carefully calculated but the killer was forced to flee when they realized that Chloe was there and had called the cops.
Chloe: But I know. I remember. Sometimes I wake up in the night, and I can taste the blood and plastic of that stiff and lifeless hand.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan has had to do all the investigation by himself without the Institute's resources, so he hasn't been able to get so much done. He mentions that Lana was strangled and partially skinned, and though he can't find any information that adds onto the story, he did see a photo of Fanton's service entrance which also featured part of a delivery van he believes to be Breekon and Hope's. Jonathan theorizes that they as well as the animate mannequin are something to do with the Stranger, citing Breekon and Hope's appearance at the taxidermy shop in case 0132306 (#54: Still Life) as well as other statements describing them as not seeming quite human.
Jonathan reveals that this statement had been hand-delivered by someone to Georgie's flat, though he has no idea who would have done it. He doesn't think that they chose this particular statement at random, however, as it connects up to so much of what he already knows.

- Little People Are Surreal: Averted. Chloe's dwarfism is only brought up in passing, as it's mentioned she sues Fanton's for workplace discrimination after being let go.
- Marionette Motion: Chloe sees a tall, thin figure moving with stiff, jerky steps, its arms snapping out and back as it approaches her.
- Murderous Mannequin: At first, Chloe notices that one particular mannequin seems different somehow. Then, someone makes bizarre changes to one of the store displays after hours. Finally, Chloe and her manager, Lana, work late one night. Chloe hears Lana cry out, and when she goes to investigate, she discovers the aforementioned mannequin has become animate, and has murdered Lana.

84: Possessive

Case #9900112. Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 9900112, statement of Adrian Weiss, given December 1st 1990.

## Story

Adrian's family moves out to a countryside village. As he socializes into new friend groups, he befriends an older boy named Gordon Goodman. Adrian learns from other kids that Gordon delivers groceries to a reclusive hoarder named Margaret Carnegie who lives in a place called Maggie's Dump on the outskirts of the village. As Maggie ran out of space in her bungalow to cram things into, she started to stack things up outside but never cared to secure it down, allowing the wind to blow things around until it became a trash-filled region which villagers eventually started to use as a landfill to save a long trip to the actual landfill when they have larger things like furniture and appliances that the regular garbage collectors can't take. Adrian hears rumors about Maggie, one of which is that she murdered and dismembered her husband and started the Dump to cover up the various places she buried him.
Although Adrian is scared of Maggie, he takes a liking to accompanying Gordon on his trips to her house and tries to see how close to the house he can reach before getting scared and running. After he runs, Adrian watches Gordon enter Maggie's house and stay there for a while, never coming out before Adrian spooks himself by wondering what Maggie could be doing with Gordon and running home. The next day, Gordon always has dirt-stained hands despite claiming he only stacked things for Maggie.
One day, Gordon doesn't come to school and although the teacher says that he's home sick, Adrian is convinced that he never left Maggie's house the day before. Adrian goes to Gordon's house where his father also says that Gordon is sick and sleeping, but Adrian can see in his eyes that he's lying. As night falls, Adrian goes to the dump to rescue his friend. Getting closer to the house than he's ever been, Adrian is caught off-guard by the horrible smell of the place and as he looks for a relatively clean patch of ground to sit and recuperate he spots a new-looking and unopened can. Looking beyond it, he sees all the grocery bags Gordon brought to Maggie, all untouched and left to rot.
Adrian picks up the can, just wanting to feel something clean, but as he touches it it warps and shakes as if something is trying to break out. Adrian falls back and crawls away until his arm sinks down into sodden, decay-filled mud. He pulls his arm from the ground and finds it covered in a thick layer of earthworms. Adrian manages not to scream as he shakes the worms away, and as he looks around wildly in fear he sees Gordon's face in the earth he just pulled his arm out of. Adrian stares in horror before realizing that it's not really Gordon but a paper-and-cardboard mask of his face, recreated perfectly. This reminds Adrian of why he came and he makes his way up to the house.
Peeking into a window, Adrian sees Gordon lying motionless in an armchair, with wriggling shapes moving over him as Maggie, dripping with some unknown liquid, places strips of paper over his face and sings softly. Adrian knocks over a bottle by accident and runs, not waiting to see if Maggie heard it. Gordon is back at school the next day and stops delivering to Maggie. Adrian's family moves again a month later.
Years later, Adrian ends up visiting the small village while on the way home from a business trip. While talking with people there, Adrian hears about the dump, a plot of land nicknamed for the recluse that lives there: Gordie's Dump.

## Post-Statement

Martin, while not having taken Jonathan's position as Head Archivist, has decided to continue recording statements like he would have.
Gordon inherited the dump from Maggie when she died in 1982, being the only person named in her will. Maggie's autopsy report showed that her lungs were filled with newspaper pulp, and her body had what were labelled as "cancerous growths" though the specific description of them makes Martin think they were something like insect legs, and they were still wiggling after she was dead. Gordon was the one to identify Maggie's body, which disappeared the next night.
Melanie arrives looking for Jonathan, mentioning that she was shot while in India. Martin offers to take her statement in Jonathan's stead but Melanie insists that she needs to talk to him. Martin explains how Jonathan is missing and suspected for murder, which Melanie thinks to be unlikely. Melanie tells Martin that she's running out of things she can do and people she can turn to, when Elias suddenly enters. After becoming acquainted with Melanie, Elias offers her the position of Archival Assistant to replace Sasha, which she hesitantly accepts.

- Body Horror: The autopsy report of Maggie's body mentions she was covered in "cancerous growths" (that looked like insect legs) that displayed "significant postmortem movement." And then the body disappeared the next day.
- Down in the Dumps: Because Maggie allowed rubbish to accumulate on her land, it becomes known as "Maggie's Dump," and eventually the people of Cratfield began to use it as an actual dump.
- Legacy Character: The role of dump witch appears to be passed on with death, as Gordon takes over Maggie's role as recluse of the dump after she dies.
- Trash of the Titans: The area around Maggie's home is cluttered with discarded appliances and furniture, food wrappers, magazines, old clothes, and other junk.
- Wicked Witch: Adrian believes that Maggie is one of these. As she's old, ugly, and a recluse, she fits the popular stereotype of one.

85: Upon the Stair

Case #376-U. Statement of an unknown figure, regarding an encounter that may or may not have happened in their home. Date of original statement unclear, though paper quality likely puts it at between twenty and thirty years ago.

## Story

The writer recounts the poem "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns, about "a man who wasn't there" who haunted a house in the titular town in Nova Scotia.

As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh how I wish he'd go away.

The writer was displeased to learn that the poem was tied to a real place, because it detracts from the poem's impossibility. This is important to the writer because he too didn't meet the man who wasn't there one night when going to bed. The writer accepts the man who wasn't there's nonexistent proposition to follow, though he can't remember why or any other specifics for that matter. The writer remembers the man who wasn't there not coming back every night until the writer yells at him to leave. After this, the writer becomes less and less real while the man who wasn't there becomes more and more real. At one point, the writer's parents come to visit but do not recognize their son. When the man is finally fully there, he realizes that he is long dead and rapidly decomposes on the spot, leaving only the writer who is not there. The writer doesn't appear on staircases now, leading people up them. None have called to him like he once did though.

Writer: Most staircases are easy for me to not be on, but this one here took effort. I tried to be just real enough to talk to you. I wanted to share. I… I don't want to take you up the spiral staircase, so you should try to leave. I don't want to, but it's my nature now, and you can't fight what you are. Or even what you aren't. As I was going up the stair, I was a man who wasn't there. I wasn't there again today. Oh, how I wish I'd go away.

## Post-Statement

This is another file mysteriously delivered to Jonathan. It contained an additional message from Eric Delano to Gertrude Robinson, stating that while he wrote this statement he doesn't remember doing it. Jonathan wonders if the intent of his mysterious benefactor leaving him this statement is to warn him about Michael, given parallels between it and the Nowhere Man. Jonathan considers that maybe he's supposed to realize how many monsters are former humans taken and twisted by entities, wishing in vain to overcome their new natures.
Jonathan chats with Georgie who mentions that Melanie is back in town and has a new job with "super weird" coworkers.

- Absurdly Long Stairway: The narrator spends all night traversing a spiral staircase in his home, despite the fact that the staircase in his house isn't long, isn't steep, and isn't a spiral.
- And I Must Scream: A literal example. When the "man who wasn't there" switches places with the narrator, he realizes that he's actually been dead for decades. He tries to scream, but the sound is cut off as his throat decomposes.
- Arc Words:
  As I was going up the stair
  I met a man who wasn't there!
  He wasn't there again today,
  Oh how I wish he'd go away!
- Death of Personality: When the narrator's parent's visit him, they seem confused. His mother asks where her son is, while his father tells him that he's no son of his.
- Ghost Story: This episode is based on the poem Antigonish, which is a ghost story told in verse.
- Identity Amnesia: The narrator has trouble recalling who he is, nor can he remember basic details of his life. May actually be a case of Ghost Amnesia.
- Mind Screw: This episode is far more surreal than other episodes, as it deals with people who are not present but can still be interacted with anyway and events that break causality.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The narrator implies that the "man who wasn't there" is some kind of ghost. However, he also implies that he himself may be a ghost too, although he doesn't die so much as fade out of existence.
- Reluctant Psycho: When the narrator becomes the man upon the stair he starts luring and killing people like the old one had; he doesn't want to do this, and warns whoever he was giving the statement to to leave before he got the urge to do it to them.
- Ret-Gone: This appears to be what happened to the narrator.

86: Tucked In

Case #9830203. Statement of Benjamin Hatendi... Hateendi? Regarding... A blanket. Dead friend. Monster. Regarding his unavoidable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide. He couldn't. Statement is from 1983. March 2nd. And I guess... I'm doing this one. Tim Stoker. Archival assistant... Archival prisoner at the Magnus Institute.

## Pre-Statement

Although Tim starts to record this statement, he ends up venting his frustrations with everything until Melanie enters to introduce herself. Tim is cynical until he realizes that she's the only person who remembers what the real Sasha looked like. He has Melanie record the statement in his place while he takes a breather.

## Story

Benjamin has always been afraid of the dark, but has learned that hiding from it is the most effective way to deal with it, even something as simple as just putting his head under the blankets.
One day, Benjamin is contacted by the mother of one of his old friends, Robin Patton, who she hasn't heard from in a month. Since Benjamin lives close to Robin, she asks him to go check on him. Benjamin puts it off for some time but eventually goes to Robin's house. Benjamin sees a shape watching from a window but assumes it's Robin. Approaching, Benjamin sees that the front door is slightly open and "shadows spilled out of it like paint" and he instantly knows something is wrong. Inside the house is dark and messy with a horrible smell, and the shadows seem to move before Benjamin turns on lights. Benjamin spots movement through a door and the room beyond is much darker and the lights don't work. Benjamin gets a flashlight and finds the room to be Robin's bedroom. The bed has been stripped of blankets and the smell of decay is stronger. Benjamin approaches the wardrobe knowing that something terrible is inside, and when he opens it a dark, wet shape falls out. Benjamin finds it to be Robin's rotting corpse wrapped in the blankets from his bed and soaked in some kind of liquid which spreads and touches Benjamin's shoe. Benjamin calls the police who search the house, but no other person or evidence of foul play is found.
Later, Benjamin wakes up in the middle of the night and sees a bloblike creature with some kind of feelers slowly sliding towards him. Benjamin instinctively hides under the covers and waits, but nothing happens. He peeks out and sees the thing right where it was when he had hidden, and it starts to move again. For the rest of the night Benjamin hides under the covers, the thing only moving when he pokes his head out to look at it. When daylight starts to come in through the window, the thing disappears leaving only its strange dark liquid. The thing returns the next night and Benjamin employs the same strategy, eventually being able to fall back asleep in the sanctuary of his blankets.
After a week and a half of this routine Benjamin realizes that he's no longer scared, but as he tries to fall asleep he feels the thing lurch onto him and it whispers "The blanket never did anything." It mauls Benjamin but doesn't kill him, and the next day he goes to the Magnus Institute to tell his story. Benjamin knows the thing will come again and he can't protect himself anymore, but hopes that telling the Institute will help someone else avoid his fate.

## Post-Statement

Benjamin had mentioned giving the Institute photographs of his injuries but they are no longer in the file. Benjamin died five days after leaving his statement, with the cause of death reading "Unknown. Possible biological agent. All samples incinerated." There is also a tag from a mattress or duvet included in a ziploc bag, with some dark stains. Melanie decides not to open it.
Melanie meets up with Jonathan at a cafe, who explains that he needs an inside man at the Institute and she's the only one that he can trust besides Martin, who is likely being watched. Melanie asks Jonathan to tell her everything, starting with Sasha.

- Dislikes the New Guy: Tim admits that he and Martin don't want Melanie there at the Institute, although it's not because they dislike her personally: Martin doesn't like change, and Tim hates the Institute and doesn't want anyone there.
- Eating the Eye Candy: While going over the supplementary materials from the post-statement investigation, Melanie takes a moment to admire a picture of one of the victims emerging from a waterfall without a shirt.
- Mattress-Tag Gag: Melanie finds a tag in the same bag as the statement, that she suspects came off a mattress.
- Primal Fear: Ever since he was a child, Benjamin has been afraid of the dark.
- Sadist: Whatever is terrorrizing Ben has been toying with him for years. Hiding his head under the blanket has never been any real protection. It's been allowing him to believe this so it could savor his renewed fear when it reveals the truth.
- Safe Under Blankets: The victim of the episode goes to look for an old friend but finds him dead and rotten- with his body under a blanket like he was hiding there. Soon the victim starts seeing a foul-smelling, shadowy creature sneaking around his room at night, that only stops moving when he hides under his blankets. The blankets don't save him, though.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Every night, when Benjamin is in bed, he's terrorized by something inhuman and monstrous.
- Vocal Dissonance: The creature is described as a twitching, amorphous, betentacled monstrosity that leaves behind a trail of foul liquid. One would expect such a thing to have an equally nasty voice, if it spoke at all, but its sole line is delivered in a tone described as crisp and clear.
- Wham Line: The creature's only spoken words to Benjamin, near the end of the statement:
  The blanket never did anything.

87: The Uncanny Valley

Case 0141010. Sebastian Skinner. Incident occurred in Gwydir forest, North Wales, September 2014. Statement given 10th October, 2014. Committed to tape 4th April, 2015.

## Story

Sebastian is known for being very unobservant of things he's not focused on, but it doesn't impede his business as a plumber.
One night he gets a call to a building in a region of Gwydir Forest that he didn't know was there. Although Sebastian doesn't normally do jobs at night, it sounds simple enough and the client agrees to an increased bill, so he goes to take care of it. He arrives at a set of shacks around a larger building that looks like a warehouse. Sebastian is met by the woman who called him, who introduces herself as Megan. She leads Sebastian inside the large building and he notices an odd smell. Megan leads him through the workshop to a pipe room where the drain has dark red water collecting at the top. Sebastian rationalizes the color as the result of some chemicals and gets to work. Megan chats as he does this, mentioning her work in flensing which Sebastian mistakenly thinks is a sculpting term. Sebastian eventually pulls out the blockage, a mass of congealed fat and oil. Megan is silent as she and Sebastian walk back outside and he tries to discuss billing.
The next day, Megan calls again and asks for help with a different drain. Sebastian is dubious since he would expect the building to only have one central drain, but he agrees to go anyway. He has trouble finding the place again despite having been there before. When he finally arrives he sees Megan, wearing a striking blue and red outfit, and a muscular woman who exchanges a look with her before laughing cruelly. Sebastian thinks about ditching them before Megan takes him by the wrist and leads him to the building. Her hand feels "like hard plastic wrapped in raw bacon" and she's too strong to pull away from. Megan forces Sebastian to look inside the workshop and he sees numerous mannequins and dummies made of various materials. The figures cut through human heads in frames, before turning to face him. Sebastian screams and all the heads' eyes look at him and reveal that they are still alive and conscious. Megan tells Sebastian "I want you to meet our boss. You may call them I Do Not Know You."
Instinctually, Sebastian uppercuts Megan with his toolbox and hears something shatter as she releases him. Sebastian runs back to his van and sees the muscular woman standing at the driver side door. Sebastian prepares to shove her out of the way but to his surprise she opens the door for him. Sebastian jumps in and starts the van when the woman puts a hand on his shoulder and winks. Sebastian feels burning and screams before slamming on the gas and getting out of there as the woman laughs.
Sebastian goes to the police and tells them that he found human remains while on a job and was attacked by the property owner. As the police prepare to go investigate, a fire engulfs Gwydir forest. After the fire is out no human remains are found, the closest thing being a burned mannequin.

## Post-Statement

Gertrude initially thought that this statement was just a threat from the Stranger but found that Sebastian was a real person, though she hasn't been able to contact him. She explains that the Stranger's underlings, led by someone named Orsinov, are preparing to enact "the Unknowing" and may be ready in just a few years. She also names the muscular woman as Jude Perry, a member of the Lightless Flame, and speculates that it could indicate an alliance between the Stranger and the Desolation.
Jonathan is surprised that Gertrude seemed to be recording tapes so soon before her death. He has learned that Jude Perry was living in London in the last two years and considers trying to track her down with Melanie's help. Calliope music starts to play in the distance, terrifying Jonathan before Georgie enters and asks about the music. Seeing Jonathan's unwellness, she tells him that while she won't kick him out she doesn't want him investigating these things anymore, but he doesn't think he has a choice to stop.

- Captain Oblivious: Sebastian Skinner is utterly oblivious to anything he doesn't think he needs to pay attention to; he says at one point that it's a coin toss whether he'll even notice someone's had a baby. As a result, he's able to walk through a horrifying flesh carving factory and unclog a drain of human skin without noticing anything is amiss, to the shock of his "guide," Megan.
- Creepy Circus Music: As Jon is recording his addendum to the statement, he hears calliope music playing in the distance, which utterly unnerves him (for a good reason). Also serves as a Call-Back to episode 24.
- Determinator: Despite the fact that he's terrified, and despite all the negative effects it's had on his life, Jon admits that he can't stop searching for the truth about who is sending him statements, and why, and what's really going on.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: When Jude grabs Sebastian's shoulder, he feels sudden, blistering heat on his back.
- Flaying Alive: Sebastian admits that he didn't know what "flensing" meant, and assumed that Megan was talking about some kind of sculpture.
- Losing Your Head: When Sebastian screams, all the suspended heads look at him in unison, and by the look in their eyes tells him "that they still knew pain."
- Murderous Mannequin: Several of them, including Megan, who is poorly disguised as a human.
- Weirdness Censor: An odd case, in that Sebastian isn't specifically oblivious to weirdness so much as he's just oblivious in general, and as a result, he doesn't notice anything unusual on his visit to the workshop in the forest. This actually becomes somewhat hilarious in hindsight, albeit very darkly, when you later hear about everything he didn't notice, particularly Megan's reactions to Sebastian's obliviousness.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: Jon says this to Georgie when she asks him what's really going on.

88: Dig

Case 0030411. Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 0030411, statement of Enrique MacMillan, given November 4th 2003.

## Story

Enrique likes to look for buried things, though he'll give up if the digging is too much. One evening he's using his metal detector on a beach and unexpectedly gets a hit. After a couple minutes of digging he finds a gold wristwatch, but when he tries to pull it up finds that it's still wrapped around a wrist. He digs out a whole hand and wants to call the police but he has no cell phone and the nearest pay phone is a ways away.
He sits and regains his composure while looking at the hand, which is bloody with broken nails. Enrique spots something else poking out of the sand and pulls out a wet book. The cover has decomposed and the ink of the inner label has melted away, but turning the pages he finds every page to have the word "dig" not warped at all by water. As Enrique reads the word "dig" over and over, he realizes that he has found his purpose in digging. Police arrive as Enrique finishes digging up the corpse and though they are unhappy that he ruined the crime scene, they suspect the dead man had become trapped in his own hole and so let Enrique go. Enrique doesn't tell them about the book, however.
Enrique becomes obsessed with digging, preferring the clear endpoint of the Earth's center to the endless expanse of the sky. Enrique tries to learn more about the book and is directed to the Magnus Institute, which he also learns has a secret beneath it, something to dig up.

## Post-Statement

Martin explains that Enrique had tried to start digging in the office and had greatly damaged the floor by the time he was subdued and arrested. Enrique died while awaiting trial of asphyxiation, though Martin can't find out what exactly happened. His book is in a welded iron box in the Institute's Artefact Storage and "on the top of the 'Do Not Access' list".
Melanie asks Martin how they track someone down, specifically Jude Perry, though the process is largely disorganized. Melanie also asks about getting into Artefact Storage, since an old calliope organ has gone missing. Melanie claims to be following up on another statement.

- Body Horror: At one point Enrique digs inside someone.
- Deadly Euphemism: Basira becomes very concerned when Martin tells her that Daisy used the phrase "full operational discretion" in regards to her search for Jon.
- Foreshadowing: Enrique wants to find something hidden beneath the Institute, "a hollow space that all eyes point towards". At the end of Season 4, this is revealed to be the sunken remains of Millbank Prison's Panopticon.
- Madness Mantra: "Dig"

89: Twice as Bright

Case 0172404. Statement of Jude Perry, regarding... some advice. Recorded direct from subject, April 24th 2017.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan meets up with Jude Perry in a park, where she is amused at his boldness to meet with such a dangerous individual as herself. As he questions her, she reacts with discomfort before giving her answers, admitting that she and others from the Lightless Flame caused the Gwydir Forest fire because Orsinov asked them to, and they're always happy to destroy beautiful things. Though Jonathan is getting on her nerves with his questions and his trying to relate himself and the Eye to her and her patron, the Desolation, she tells Jonathan that she's decided not to kill him as a favor to Elias for killing Gertrude. Jonathan starts to ask why Gertrude's death mattered to Jude but she silences him with a minor burn, before deciding to give him some advice.

## Story

Even before she finds the Lightless Flame, Jude is obsessed with burning, both in herself as she indulges in drugs and alcohol, and in others as she uses her job as a high-level banker to play with others' money. She quickly finds that she's burning herself out as she doesn't know what else she can burn, until she encounters Agnes Montague in a coffee shop.
As they talk, Jude notices more people standing around them, who she can see share her love for burning and a devotion to Agnes. One of these people gets a close look at Jude before voicing her disapproval, and the extreme heat of her breath causes Jude to instinctively push her away, causing the flesh of her face to squish and mold under Jude's hand. The woman sculpts her face back into shape before nodding at Agnes, and Jude knows what Agnes wants her to do.
Jude invites a work colleage for some drinks to celebrate the recent improvements in his life including the birth of his child and the purchase of a new house, and once he's drunk she takes him out into an alley and stabs him to death. Jude begins to panic when she realizes she hasn't planned how to dispose of the body, but right on cue the body spontaneously combusts. Jude forges documents to take her colleague's assets away from his surviving family and destroys their house, feeling the love of the Desolation as she does so.
Jude continues commiting crimes, and the Desolation's power along with the Lightless Flame's efforts help to cover her tracks, and she learns that her life's purpose is to cause pain. It all comes to a head when Jude immolates herself in front of her girlfriend.
Jude: I think she screamed. She must have screamed. But I couldn't hear it. As the heat warped my bones and bubbled my flesh, all I heard was the loving exaltation of my god.

## Post-Statement

Jude shows Jonathan that the transformation she went through in the Lightless Flame caused her flesh to become wax, allowing her to maintain her appearance despite the burning and her age. She tells Jonathan that he needs to feed his god, the Eye, but doesn't know what to feed it since it's not her god. She confirms that no other Lightless Flame members will talk to him, but she knows someone named Mike who "hangs around with the Fairchilds sometimes", that being Michael Crew. Jonathan asks what she wants in exchange for helping arrange a meeting, and she asks that he shake her hand, which he refused to do earlier.
Jude: Come on. It won't hurt.
Jonathan: Fine.
Jude: I Lied.
Jonathan screams as the flesh of his hand begins to sizzle.

- Ax-Crazy: Jude, though in her case, it's fire crazy.
- Biomanipulation: The members of the cult are able to warp and alter their own bodies as if they were made of soft wax. Jude implies they can do this to others too.
- Bullying a Dragon: Jon approches Jude, a member of the Cult of the Lightless Flame, known to him as having highly dangerous fire powers and erratic behavior, by himself. With no one knowing about his actions and no sort of self defense abilities, he demands information from and takes snarky attitude towards Jude. She laughs, comparing him to a lamb who has walked into an abbatoir while making self-satisfied comments about how savvy he is.
- Butch Lesbian: Jude, previously described as a muscular woman with short hair and haughty confidence, is here revealed to be attracted to women.
- Compelling Voice: Jon - and the listeners - learn that Jon, as a servant of the Beholding, can compel people to answer his questions, and that he's been doing it without being consciously aware of it. He finds out when Jude threatens to kill him if he tries using it on her.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Jude, pre-Lightless Flame. Although she had a high-paying job and a beautiful girlfriend, she was unfulfilled and burnt out.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: Jude and The Cult of the Lightless Flame.
- Fire Purifies: Jude tells Jon that when she looks at him, she feels the "burning liquid pain" eager to flow out of her and purify him.
- For the Evulz: Jude and the cult's MO. She selected her first victim because lots of people would miss him, then posthumously ruined his reputation and burned down his house for kicks. Oh, and she still stalks his son, just in case she thinks of an inventive way to destroy his life, too. And dumped her ex by immolating herself in front of her.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: "The audience is only safe when the story isn't about them."
- Handshake of Doom: Whilst searching for answers to the Powers and his role as the Archivist Jonathan is forced to interview Jude Perry, Acolyte of the Lightless Flame, servant and worshiper of the Desolation. At the beginning of the meeting Jonathan is smart enough to refuse her offer of shaking her hand and overall tries to keep his distance knowing how dangerous she is, but at the end Jude forces him to do so. However, the moment he does so it leaves him severely burned.
- I Lied: Jude demands that Jon shake her hand in exchange for some information he wants (Jon had refused to shake her hand earlier, saying "I'm not stupid"). She promises that it won't hurt.
- Man on Fire: After Jude kills Nick, she channels the power of her "god" to immolate his body.
- Pyromaniac: Pretty much a given for members of The Cult of the Lightless Flame. Jude is at least a 5 (out of 7) on the sliding scale.
- Self-Immolation: Jude does this to herself, though not to kill herself.
- Scary Amoral Religion: The Cult of the Lightless Flame sits on the blurry line between this and Religion of Evil. On the one hand, Jude commits acts of murder and destruction because she enjoys it. On the other, the cult isn't about promoting evil, but about causing destruction.
- The Sociopath: Jude has all of the characteristics, except that she may have genuine feelings for Agnes, although those feelings come off as more like religious devotion than affection.

90: Body Builder

Case 0130807. Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 0130807, statement of Ross Davenport, given August 7th 2013.

## Pre-Statement

Elias confronts Tim about an extended unexcused absence, and he explains that he had gone to Malaysia with the intent to abandon his job but became more and more sick the longer he was away. Elias decides to not fire Tim who tries to convince him that the Archive's employees are trapped there.

## Story

Ross decides to start using steroids to improve his bodybuilding, and as such needs to find a new gym that doesn't prohibit them. He eventually finds such a place through an ad in the Yellow Pages which reads "Your perfect body is here. Become all you can be." Ross calls the number on the ad and the person on the other end confirms that steroids are not against their rules.
Ross heads to the gym and finds it to be run-down on the outside but cool and clean inside. There, Ross meets the largest man he's ever seen, wearing a custom-fit tracksuit embroidered with a 'J'. He starts to interview Ross regarding his regular workout routines and expectations from his gym, before starting to ask things like why Ross became a bodybuilder and what he hates about himself. J gives Ross a tour, and Ross is surprised when he sees the massive lockers in the changing room, twelve feet tall and two or three feet wide. J explains that each gym member gets their own locker for the duration of their membership. Ross picks one of the lockers and finds it to be five feet deep as well. Ross finishes filling out the membership paperwork with J, who then leaves the building. Ross enters the gym to work out, and is somewhat unnerved by being the only person there all day, even though he hears sounds from the changing room that indicate someone else getting ready.
Ross uses the gym for several more days without seeing any other patrons or even J. He would think that he was tricked into paying for an abandoned gym if it wasn't always so clean. After some time Ross encounters a woman named Marie in the gym, and they are both surprised to see another person there. They quickly become friends and talk about their various regimes as well as J, whose full name is 'Jared' according to Marie. Marie has won trophies in women's bodybuilding competitions, but Ross notices she still seems to be unhappy with her body.
One night, Ross is getting ready for bed when he notices that his phone is gone. Since the gym isn't too far, Ross decides to go there and look for his phone. Though it's after hours, Ross finds the door to still be unlocked. Ross quickly recovers his phone from the changing room before getting scared by a sound from the gym. Ross gets mad and goes into the gym to see who it is and yell at them. The gym is dark and Ross sees a figure swinging around on the parallel bars. He turns on the lights and sees what looks to be a human torso with four arms and a smiling mouth stitched onto it. Ross screams and runs back through the changing room where the lockers are opening and more things crawl out, happily telling Ross that they can help him get his perfect body and the pain is worth it. Among them is J, his body distorted and looking frustrated.
Ross: I never went back. I called Marie and told her what happened, but she didn't believe me. At least, I hope she didn't. Because if she did, then some of the questions she asked make me very worried for her indeed.

## Post-Statement

Martin hasn't been able to find records of the gym. He contacted Ross but he wasn't interested in further interviewing. Melanie found that Marie disappeared around the time Ross gave his statement, and was named as a suspect in a slaughtering of sheep on a farm whose femurs were removed.

- Belly Mouth: The thing on the parallel bars has one of these.
- Call-Back: We get a follow up on what Jared Hopworth, of episodes #49: The Butcher's Window and #17: The Bone-Turner's Tale, has been up to. J., the gym owner, is strongly implied to be Jared given his freakish physique and ability to reform people's bodies.
- Determinator: Ross, when it comes to perfecting his physique. Marie even more so.
- Gone Horribly Right: It's implied that the people who are drawn to Jared's gym have a form of body dysmorphia wherein they're always dissatisfied with their physiques (to the point of self-hatred), no matter how hard they work out. After they've joined, when the time is right, Jared re-shapes their bodies into horrific new configurations, and afterwards, they're happy about it, because in some twisted way they now have the body they could never achieve before.
- Humanoid Abomination: The gym members.
- Repulsive 'Roids: Ross leaves his previous gym because he wanted to start using steroids and felt like most gyms shamed him for it. The steroid-friendly gym he finally findS after extensive searching turns out to be a front for turning people into humanoid abominations, and the episode implies Ross and especially Marie's obsession with the perfect body is unhealthy and self-destructive.

91: The Coming Storm

Case 0172804-A. Statement of Michael Crew regarding his experiences with the supernatural.

## Pre-Statement

Having met Michael Crew at his house, Jonathan tries to ask questions but Michael uses his powers to put Jonathan's body at terminal velocity while being unmoving.

## Story

At age eight, Mike is struck by lightning while playing in the rain. (#4: Page Turner) His only memory of the moment it happened is the unfathomable pain throughout his whole body.
At ten, Mike does all the research he can on anything related to what happened to him and eventually becomes aware of a being of lightning, and it of him. Although it stalks him, it never tries to hurt him.
At seventeen, Mike finds The Journal of a Plague Year, which causes his house to become diseased and collapse, killing his parents. Now aware of the great powers out there, Mike desires to find one that he can use to protect himself but knows that the power of disease and rot isn't it, so he dumps The Journal of a Plague Year into a sewer. Mike later finds The Boneturner's Tale. Although he likes using it to shift and distort his body, he can't get rid of his Lichtenberg figure scar and so smuggles The Boneturner's Tale into a library. (#17: The Boneturner's Tale) Mike finds another book in Cyrillic that he ends up burying in the wilderness when it "tried to read me back".
Eventually he finds Ex Altiora in a bookstore, which gives Mike the powers of the sky. Mike knows that this is the one for him, as he has always enjoyed the thrill of heights and vertigo. Though he can't exactly remember what happened next, he jumps into the void and fully acquires the powers of Ex Altiora, binding the being of lightning to it in the process. (#46: Literary Heights) He doesn't remember the events of case 0060711 (#75: A Long Way Down), but admits:
Mike: Sounds about right. Sometimes it's hard to keep track.

## Post-Statement

Mike releases Jonathan from his power and orders him to leave when suddenly there is a knock at the door. Mike answers and is promptly knocked out by Daisy, who asks Jonathan about him. Jonathan answers that he doesn't think Mike is human anymore and has killed people. Daisy has Jonathan help carry Mike into her car and she drives them out to her killing spot. After shooting the still-unconscious Mike, Daisy goes through Jonathan's things and finds the tape recorder got turned back on. Enraged, Daisy prepares to kill Jonathan when Basira suddenly arrives to intervene. Daisy tells Basira that Jonathan is a monster, that he has the ability to get people to tell their secrets just by asking, not to mention that he killed people. Jonathan insists that he didn't kill anyone and that Elias is the true murderer, but Daisy is unmoved since she already plans to kill him too. Basira convinces Daisy to not kill Jonathan but instead use his power of persuasion against Elias.

- Affably Evil: Michael Crew is a murderer, but he's also polite and doesn't outwardly seem to be particularly malevolent.
- Big Damn Heroes: Basira shows back up just in time to stop Daisy from murdering Jon.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Michael's attitude towards the events of "A Long Way Down". He doesn't even actually remember them but acknowledges that it's something he would do.
- Hunter of Monsters: Daisy, who seems to be heading into He Who Fights Monsters territory.
- "Rashomon"-Style: We get a look at a few past statements, such as "Literary Heights", from Michael Crew's point of view
- Vigilante Man: Daisy. In her efforts to destroy the manifestations of the entities, she shoots Michael Crew to death. She almost does the same to Jon, until Basira's timely intervention.

92: Nothing Beside Remains

Case 0172804-B. Statement of Barnabas Bennett, as given in a short letter to Jonah Magnus. April 9th 1824.

## Pre-Statement

Elias calls the police to tell them that the missing Detective Tonner will be at the Institute in a few minutes.

## Story

Barnabas becomes indebted to Mordechai Lukas and skives off payment believing that Lukas can't get legal enforcement. Lukas meets Barnabas and tells him "You shall pay me in kind." before leaving. Barnabas takes a cab home and after he gets out he looks back and sees no driver. Some time later, Barnabas is living in an empty world, and though he finds evidence of human activity there are no people anywhere. Barnabas writes a letter to his friend, Jonah Magnus, leaving it in the empty Magnus Institute in hopes that he will find it and do something to save him.

## Post-Statement

Elias: Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, Jon. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett. He retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came, bones that you can still find in my office if you know where to look. No, it was because he was curious. Because he had to know, to watch and see it all. That's what this place is, Jon. Never forget it. You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end all they are is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard. This, at least, Gertrude understood.

Elias goes out to meet Jonathan, Basira and Daisy in the hall and sends Martin to bring Tim and Melanie as well. Jonathan firmly asks Elias if he killed Gertrude and Leitner. Elias enjoys the feeling of Jon trying to use his powers on him, clearly not being forced to say anything, but assures Jon that he will be telling the truth of his own accord. When the assistants arrive, Elias confesses to them all.

Elias: I killed Gertrude Robinson because she intended to destroy the Archives. And I killed Jurgen Leitner because he was an unnecessary complication, likely to tell Jon too much, too early.

Shaken, Martin asks if Elias killed Sasha as well but Jonathan answers that she died during the Hive's attack and was replaced by a creature. (#39: Infestation) Elias confirms this, saying that the real Sasha was nothing like the thing the rest of them remember her as. Jonathan asks about Michael, and Elias answers that he's just bored and annoying.
At this point, Daisy pulls a gun to kill Elias to everyone's protest when suddenly the intercom buzzes. Elias answers and lets everyone hear Rosie tell him that the police have arrived. Elias explains that Daisy never went back to the police station after her interrogations at the Institute (#82: The Eyewitnesses) because Elias had given them evidence of her murders and they want her locked up, not for justice but to keep everything covered up, and for that end they would send another sectioned officer to kill Basira. Elias then offers a deal: he will tell the police that it was a false alarm if Basira agrees to work for the Institute. Despite Jonathan, Tim and Daisy all protesting, Basira signs Elias' contract. Elias explains that everyone who is tied to the Institute will die horribly should it or Elias be destroyed. Elias dares Daisy to call his bluff, saying that if he's right then she will be killing Basira as well as him. Daisy relents and Elias reveals his plan to use her as a mercenary of sorts should the need arise.
Elias dismisses all but Jonathan, congratulating him on how well he did on his own. Elias tells Jonathan that he can't give him answers, because as the Archivist he is to learn for himself, to experience for himself, to see for himself. Revealing that he was the one sending Jonathan statements from Gertrude's files, Elias tells Jonathan to continue his research into the Unknowing so he can stop it. Elias explains the Unknowing as a ritual designed to change our reality to one that the Stranger can manifest in in its true form. Elias can't give him Gertrude's research either, as Jonathan needs "to get better at seeing". Before leaving, Jonathan has one final question.

Jonathan: Elias, am I still human?
Elias: Jon, what does 'human' even mean? I mean, really? You still bleed, you can still die, and your will is still your own. Mostly. That's more that can be said for a lot of the 'real' humans out there. You're worried about ending up like that thing, lurking in the dirt under the streets of Alexandria. Don't be. Just do what you need to, and you'll be fine.

- Dead Man's Switch: Elias warns Daisy that if he's killed, or the institute is destroyed, everyone who works there will die.
- Figure It Out Yourself: Elias tells Jon that he can't tell Jon how to stop The Unknowing, because if he simply told Jon how, Jon would fail. Rather, Jon needs to "get better at seeing" in order succeed.
- Morality Pet: Basira to Daisy; Elias describes her as the last thing connecting Daisy to humanity.
- Noodle Incident:
  Basira: Daisy, where do I know [the name "Jurgen Leitner"] from?
  Daisy: Oh, the Yusuf case? "An Introduction to Higher Anatomy".
  Basira: Oh. Oh God. And you killed him? Shouldn't we be giving him a medal?
- Manipulative Bastard: Elias, in fine form. He threatens Daisy's life to make Basira join the Archives, then turns around and uses the Dead Man Switch to keep Daisy in line.
- Seen It All: When Melanie proclaims "This is insane!" Tim replies with a deadpan "You get used to it."

93: Contaminant

Case 9950503. Statement of Lester Chang regarding the cleaning habits of his father-in-law. Original statement given March 5th 1995.

## Story

When first meeting his in-laws, Lester notices a dichotomy between them in that his mother-in-law Sandra is rather messy while his father-in-law Greg is an extreme neat freak. Although they often have terrible arguments because of it, they stay together until Sandra and Lester's wife Dani both die of a hereditary condition. After this, Lester and Greg only ever talk when Lester chooses to reach out, and when he visits he finds that Greg has become more extreme in his compulsive cleaning tendencies.
Eventually, Lester tells Greg that his obsession with cleaning his home is an unhealthy coping mechanism and he needs to go to therapy, but Greg laughs hard before opening a cabinet of small bottles of gin. He downs three before saying "There is mold in my drain." in a way that unsettles Lester enough for him to hurriedly leave. Lester decides that Dani would want him to still try to help Greg, so he books a nearby hotel and visits Greg every day, however Greg can't be dissuaded from his practices. One day Lester manages to look inside Greg's bathroom and although it's as pristine as the rest of the house he spots a ring of purple fungus around the bathtub drain which smells of rotten milk. Greg catches Lester looking at the mold and gets mad at him, yelling that he knows "how to keep his house pure". Lester runs away again and waits a couple days before going back to let Greg calm down, but he can't stop thinking about the purple mold, even in his sleep.
When Lester goes back again, Greg doesn't answer the door but it's unlocked so Lester lets himself in. Lester notices that "the cleanliness didn't look quite as fresh as it had before". Greg is sitting on the sofa, wearing the same clothes Lester saw him in days earlier, covered in sweat and in a catatonic state. Lester looks to the bathroom door and sees that Greg has sealed it, but the smell of the mold is strong and Lester sees purple tendrils poking through the sealant. Lester looks back to Greg and realizes that he is completely covered aside from his head with gloves and a scarf, then looks closer and sees purple around his eyes and mouth. Greg starts to move but Lester runs for the third and final time, convinced that if he had stayed he would have died.
Lester tries to go back one last time but finds a local moving service, Breekon and Hope, loading up their van with Greg's things. Lester tries to talk to the men but they only mutter to each other in Russian and Lester is forced to leave again by the overpowering smell. Lester later sees the house empty and the smell gone from it, and he never hears from Greg again.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan explains that Elias had given him this statement as a hint of what to do next, and he recorded it while preparing to move out of Georgie's flat. Jonathan wasn't sure why Elias chose this statement until reading about Breekon and Hope at the end. Since the Stranger isn't the power of disease and decay, Jonathan considers that maybe Breekon and Hope aren't working for it but rather are privy to whatever horror needs moving. Jonathan is interested that Breekon and Hope had a location in Newcastle as well as the one in Nottingham that Sasha had researched much earlier, (#2: Do Not Open) and thinks that if it still exists then he has a lead.
Georgie walks in and gets mad at Jonathan for disobeying her order to not record any more statements in her house and demands answers from him, revealing that she's locked away the other tapes he recorded and won't return them unless he obliges her. Jonathan starts from the beginning, explaining that he was first hired as a researcher at the Institute before Elias chose him to replace Gertrude. Georgie points out how weird of a choice that is since Jonathan doesn't really have the qualifications, nor do his assistants. Jonathan is surprised to hear that Georgie already knows that there are real monsters out there, claiming to have seen some, and confesses that he thinks he's turning into a monster due to his need to record the real statements and feeling the writers' emotions while doing so, and having gained his powers of compelling which he demonstrates on Georgie when she asks for proof. Jonathan explains how there are entities outside our reality and they can reach through via avatars, people who receive powers but lose themselves in the process, and now he's bound to serve the Eye. He tells Georgie about the Unknowing, how it is meant to change our reality to be closer to that of the Stranger. Georgie asks Jonathan if there is an entity tied to Death, and he recalls hearing of one called the End. (#62: First Edition)

- Evil Smells Bad: Lester describes the smell coming from the shower drain as sour, like old milk.
- Neat Freak: How Lester describes his father-in-law.
- Purple Is Impure: The mold that Greg is obsessed with and that ultimately kills him is purple in color.
- So Crazy, It Must Be True: Georgie accepts Jon's explanation for what's been going on with almost no skepticism.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Lester's wife and mother-in-law both die within the same year from a hereditary condition. The doctors describe the chances of it happening as astronomical.
- What Cliff Hanger?: Georgie asks if one of the entities Jon is taking about is like death. Jon says yes and asks why she's asking. Georgie pauses, then replies "I'll make us a cup of tea," and the episode ends.

94: Dead Woman Walking

Case 0172904. Statement of Georgina Barker regarding the last words of possible corpse. Recorded direct from subject April 29th 2017.

## Pre-Story

Georgie isn't very comfortable with Jonathan recording her story, but decides it's fair since she made him tell her his baggage.

## Story

In college, Georgie always feels out of place because of her impoverished background, and the only person she feels like she can be herself around is Alex Brooke, who resents the rich kids that look down on them. Alex is a medical student and loves to talk about morbid things in front of Georgie to gross her out, specifically comparing the smell of a preserved human brain to canned tuna. At some point protests start at the Medical Science building, though no one is sure what their point actually is. Alex gets mad about the protests since her classes are being relocated to avoid them. Georgie casually wonders out loud why there's so little police presence, which gives Alex an idea and she runs off.
Late in the next afternoon, Alex frantically calls Georgie and asks to meet up immediately. Alex tells Georgie that she had gone into the Medical Science building to find where the protesters were sleeping, and found them in a room lying on the ground as if they had fallen away from the center of the room, where a naked woman with a shaved head was kneeling and slowly looking around before her eyes stopped on Alex. Alex recognized the woman and ran. After much prying, Georgie gets Alex to say that she recognized the woman from a class at the Medical Building and wasn't allowed to hear her name, and Georgie realizes that the woman was one of the cadavers.
Although neither of them really want to go to the Medical Building to look again, they go anyway and find the scene just as Alex had described it. Georgie sees that all the fallen people are drained of color. The cadaver looks at the girls and is still for a few seconds, then slowly stands up and walks toward them. Alex freaks out and grabs the cadaver and demands to know what it is doing and why. The cadaver whispers something into Alex's ear, then Alex releases the cadaver and turns to face Georgie. Georgie sees that something in Alex's eyes is gone, and Alex shrugs before she sinks to the floor. The cadaver then walks toward Georgie, and although Georgie covers her ears and closes her eyes she still hears the cadaver's words: "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one." Georgie understands that there is nothing but the present moment and that because everything will end, then technically everything has already ended.
Georgie finds herself at home in bed, and had apparently been there for several days. Georgie is numb and devoid of emotion for several months. Georgie never knows for sure what happened to the bodies in the Medical Building, and never sees Alex again.
Georgie: Since that day, I've never been able to feel afraid. My fear's just… gone. I'm not foolhardy, I can still recognise danger, and I understand the likelihood of harm, but actual fear? Simply not something I experience anymore. And I've never been able to figure out of it was cauterised, or… if it was stolen.

## Post-Story

Georgie notices that Jonathan looks exhausted after she finishes her story, and he explains that he's taken in a lot of statements recently and it's starting to overwhelm him. She kindly tells him to get some sleep.

- Call-Back: The dead woman's words, "the moment you die will be exactly like this one," are very similar to something another victim of the End writes in his statement in Ep. 70 "Book of the Dead."
- Death by Despair: Implied to be what happened to all the people in the room in the medical building.
- Despair Event Horizon: Immediately after the dead woman whispers in Alex's ear, she crosses this line.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Essentially what happens to anyone who hears what Alex hears. In this case the madness takes the form of complete catatonia.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The dead woman, a walking corpse, resembles a zombie but is never named as such.
- The Un-Reveal: Averted. We get to hear what the dead woman whispers to Alex.

95: Absent Without Leave

Case 9770211. Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 9770211, statement of Luca Moretti, given November 2nd 1977.

## Story

Luca entered the war to serve his king, not Mussolini, and has learned how hard it really is to kill another person. Although the Italian ranks are trained in the mountains, the actual battles happen in open fields and are against tanks which causes Luca to lose respect for his leaders. When the Italian king signs the armistice and concedes to the Allied Powers, Luca and other Italian soldiers are imprisoned by their former German allies for two years until the war officially ends. Italy is thrown into chaos as the government has crumbled, and Luca has to find his own way back home.
When he finally arrives home, Luca finds some of his old comrades preparing to go into the mountains to take care of deserters who had "gone rotten" and were attacking people. Luca recounts his father's stories of fighting in World War I, specifically those about "wild deserters" who ran from their ranks into no man's land and lived in tunnels under the mud, and at night they could be heard coming out to collect the corpses to eat. Luca joins the other soldiers on their hunt and they soon find a cabin whose resident has cloudy eyes and a bullet hole through her throat yet lurches toward them on sight. Antonio, the group's leader, screams in terror and tackles the undead woman to the ground. Everyone but Luca descends on her, screaming and stomping until she stops moving. There are gunshots from an unseen location and one of the soldiers takes a bullet through the head, but remains standing for five minutes before falling dead.
The soldiers solemnly continue their mountain trek, accepting that sooner or later they will die. They are shot and killed one by one over several days. When there are only three left they find a cave that smells of their death. Antonio gives Luca a kiss on the forehead before throwing himself off a nearby cliff. Luca wanders into the cave, not caring to see whether his last remaining companion follows him or Antonio.
The cave grows narrower the deeper Luca goes until he is crawling. Eventually Luca finds himself crawling over a soldier's corpse, one wearing an old Italian uniform. Luca shines his light around and sees more dead soldiers embedded into the cave walls, with a variety of uniforms. Luca continues moving down the cave, forced to crawl over corpse after corpse. At some point the corpses open their eyes and all stare at Luca. At the end of the cave, Luca finds a deserter covered in tear-streaked dirt and aiming a rifle at him. Luca accepts that he won't be able to kill the deserter before getting shot, but he suddenly hears several gunshots at once and the deserter falls. Luca knows he has just witnessed an execution by firing squad, though there is no one else in the tunnel.
Luca leaves the cave and makes his way to Britain, never to return to Italy.

## Post-Statement

Martin vents that he doesn't like recording these statements in Jonathan's stead, and mentions that Jonathan has been looking into a depot in Newcastle as well as taxidermy. At this point Basira makes herself known, apparently having been in the room and reading a book, not listening to Martin. Martin is surprised by her presence and notes that she has been reading a different book every time he's seen her. She explains that she's not trying to escape since she believes Tim that none of them can leave.

- Buried in a Pile of Corpses: As Luca makes his way through the cave, he discovers numerous corpses half-buried in the walls and ceiling. As he presses on, he encounters more, until eventually they completely cover the cave interior, and are stacked two or three deep.
- Dwindling Party: The members of the expedition are picked off one by one, until only Luca is left.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The old woman at the mountain cabin.
- River of Insanity: The journey up the mountain to find the deserters goes bad quickly, and ends with everyone except for Luca dead.

96: Return to Sender

Case 9961505. Statement of Alfred Breekon, regarding a new pair of workers at his delivery company. Original statement given May 15th 1996.

## Story

Alfred wanted to name his delivery company "Breekon and Sons" but had no such sons so went with "Breekon and Hope" as a gag. He has a few depots and plenty of drivers. One day, two huge men come into his office, and he can't quite describe them apart from that they "seemed solid", "somehow heavier than the world around them". Alfred asks if he can help them but they only exchange words in Russian. After some silence, Alfred tries again and introduces himself with an extended hand. One of the men turns to the other and repeats Alfred's introduction in a Cockney accent, then the other introduces himself as "Hope" in a similar voice. Alfred watches in shock as they repeat this to each other for several minutes before they turn back to him. A butterfly enters through the open window and lands on "Hope", who grabs and eats it. "Breekon" then asks Alfred for keys to a van, which he gives to them so they'll leave. Alfred feels "Breekon"'s flesh as he hands him the keys, and "what I felt beneath the skin of his hand convinced me I had made the right choice."
Alfred thinks that is the last of it until the men eventually come back and start to run deliveries. Strange people start coming in and ask for "Breekon and Hope" and Alfred learns that they mean the huge delivery men. They bring various packages including a sack full of hair. Alfred doesn't investigate too much for his own safety, and he stops going home at night because when he sleeps on a cot in the office he feels the delivery men watching him, and he doesn't want them knowing where he lives. Alfred's other drivers start to disappear. He notices that one of the delivery men's regulars is dressed as a circus ringmaster.
Over the years, Alfred's manifests fill with delivery entries in his handwriting, though he never wrote them. Eventually, Alfred finds a package on his desk with the label inked over but the words "Return to sender" written in his handwriting on it. The box is cold to the touch and produces the sound of shifting sand. He finds it in his records, but the item description only reads "Goodbye". Alfred finds himself more and more drawn to the package and doesn't think he can resist for long. He remembers that his brother once went to tell the Magnus Institute about his "visions of demons and witches" and had mentioned how freeing it was to tell them, so he decides to do the same.
Alfred: It has been freeing, talking to you, but not enough to free me from my fate. I am not the sender, but I am going to open that package. I know I leave Breekon and Hope Deliveries in safe hands. Safe hands where the skin feels wrong.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan found Alfred's corpse at the abandoned depot in Newcastle, bitten from the inside out. At the top of the stack of mail there was this statement, left by Elias. Jonathan is irritated that Elias could have just given him the statement but had Jonathan find it himself instead. Jonathan is albeit glad to know a little more about Breekon and Hope and their connections to the Circus of the Other and the Stranger. Jonathan also found the company's log book which contains delivery information from after the company closed until 2013.
Jonathan and Daisy go to the Trophy Room (#54: Still Life) and get the jump on Sarah Baldwin (#28: Skintight). Jonathan uses his compelling powers to get information from her. She is partly made of the same Sarah Baldwin that disappeared in 2006 (#1: Angler Fish), and had gone with Ghost Hunt UK to Cambridge Military Hospital as a little fun before finding out there was something there that punished her. The Trophy Room has become "a place of power" for the Stranger's forces and used as a storeroom by Breekon and Hope. The ancient gorilla pelt that was kept there is important to the Unknowing but was stolen by Gertrude. Jonathan says that he doesn't know where the pelt is, so Sarah punches Daisy and escapes.

- Alien Blood: When Daisy shoots Sarah, Sarah leaves behind sawdust and cloves instead of blood.
- The Mafiya: Alfred initially thinks the two Russian-speaking men who show up at his office are mobsters.
- Origins Episode: For Breekon & Hope.

97: We All Ignore the Pit

Case 0090303. Statement of Jackson Ellis, regarding the geographical oddities in the town of Bucoda, Washington. Original statement given 3rd March 2009.

## Story

Jackson moves from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Olympia, Washington for a newspaper job only to find out that the company has closed down before his first day. Unable to afford his new rent or the trip back to Pennsylvania, Jackson moves into an apartment with Tommy Krycek, who he meets in a bar. Tommy lives in a small town called Bucoda an hour away from Olympia.
When he first arrives, Jackson can't shake the feeling that he doesn't belong there. When exploring the town, Jackson notices that the other people seem to stop and stare at him for a moment before going on their way. He soon finds a pit in a street intersection, almost perfectly circular and sloping down to a small hole at the center. It's too regular to be a sinkhole or crater, and Jackson sees that the road curving around the pit seems to be much older than it. Jackson tries to ask Tommy about the pit but he ignores the questions.
Jackson becomes obsessed with learning about the pit, even more so when it doesn't appear on even the newest maps. Jackson asks around at the local diner but everyone has the same reaction as Tommy to his questions until an old man approaches and says "Nothing for you down there. You just go and enjoy your sky." before spitting mud at Jackson's feet and leaving. Jackson tries to forget about the pit but it invades his dreams.
In one memory which he cannot tell was a dream or not, Jackson climbs down into the pit and goes to the hole in the center. He hears a voice and is compelled to put his arm into the hole all the way up to his shoulder. The hole closes on Jackson's arm and he is trapped, and though there are people nearby they ignore his screams for help. Jackson suddenly feels teeth and a tongue brush against his arm "as though tasting me" before retreating into the darkness and releasing him. Jackson then wakes up in bed "fully dressed, dusty, and with long, thin scratches that snaked around my arm".
Jackson starts looking for an excuse to move out and finds one in the form of a job in another nearby town. The night before Jackson is scheduled to move out, he is woken up at 2AM by the sound of Tommy leaving. Jackson almost decides to leave well enough alone until he sees shadows moving in the window and looks outside to see what appears to be the whole town walking in the street. Jackson knows that they are going to the pit and finds himself following them. The whole town gets into the pit, and Jackson feels "a warmth and shuddering below my feet, as though the Earth itself was screaming". A woman in the pit suddenly snaps out of the spell and starts to scream before being sucked down. Jackson runs back to the house and hides under his bed, feeling "the ground rock gently beneath me" and driving off as soon as day breaks without waiting to see if Tommy comes back.
Jackson stops at the pit and sees it to be empty but larger, and the road has shifted around it. Jackson sees an elderly woman who he knows isn't from Bucoda, staring down at the pit and standing beside a car containing a distraught young man. The woman spots Jackson and motions for him to leave. That night, Bucoda is destroyed by an earthquake.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan wonders why Elias gave him this statement as it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Stranger or the Unknowing, though it adds to his theory of an entity that rules over caves. Jackson is currently living in Tacoma but refused an interview. Although Jonathan finds reports of Bucoda's destruction, he is intrigued by the lack of any corresponding photographs and how the roads are undamaged.
At this point the light goes out, and as Jonathan searches for the fusebox a woman's voice tells him he would rather not be seeing things right now. She introduces herself as Nikola Orsinov and mentions that she killed her father, Gregor. She also demonstrates that she is an artificial being made of plastic and with a "borrowed" voicebox. Nikola explains that she decided to meet Jonathan in person after he and Daisy jumped Sarah earlier. Nikola instructs Jonathan to find the gorilla pelt for her or she will kill him.
Nikola: I want to wear it when I dance the world new.

- Creator's Culture Carryover: A minor example: Jackson Ellis is American, but he still says dates in the European format ("17th June 2008") and uses terms like "torch" instead of the American equivalent "flashlight." Granted, Jonathan may be doing some intentional localization.
- Kill the Lights: Nikola Orsinov shuts off all the lights in Jonathan's apartment before making her entrance, maintaining mystery about her true nature and making her threats more menacing.
- Masquerade: Whenever Jackson asks anyone about the pit, they mishear, misunderstand, or ignore him. Possibly crossed with Weirdness Censor, as Jackson states that the people didn't seem evasive, but rather that they simply weren't able talk about the pit.
- Nothing Is Scarier:
  - In the statement itself, we never find out what it was that was in the pit that nibbled on Jackson's arm.
  - Nikola Orsinov notes that sometimes not being able to see something is actually a good thing.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Bucoda.

98: Lights Out

Case 8640514. Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 8640514, statement of Doctor Algernon Moss, given May 14th 1864.

## Pre-Statement

Martin and Tim discuss how Elias is still having Martin do the recordings despite having requested to stop. Tim has forbidden Jonathan from recording their conversations and mentions that Elias was not the one to hire him into the Archives.

## Story

Algernon encounters Maxwell Rayner, a blind man with a young Arabian boy for a guide. Algernon spitefully outbids Rayner at an auction to get a packet of documents supposedly from the HMS Terror's logbook. Rayner approaches Algernon in rage and whispers to him "Pray the Sandman only brings you sleep".
This terrifies Algernon as he and a friend had found a strange book of stories as children, and one such story was about a demonic version of the fairytale Sandman which throws sand in the eyes of naughty children, plucks out their eyes and feeds the eyes to his owl-like children. The story ingrained itself into Algernon's mind and merged with memories of his abusive father who would sternly say "Lights Out" when he caught Algernon staying up to read.
That night Algernon is visited by the Sandman, a tall creature with sand pouring from its mouth and emanating darkness which consumes Algernon. Algernon comes to the idea that he would rather lose his sight than see only darkness, which is now a distinct concept to him. Algernon reaches towards where he knows the Sandman is, grabs sand from its bag and thrusts it into his own eyes. Algernon is permanently blinded but is spared by the Sandman. Algernon writes to Jonah Magnus asking for advice on how to get back at Rayner.

## Post-Statement

Melanie enters and asks Martin where Elias is, and she agrees to help Martin record more statements.
Melanie goes to Elias' office to bring him a coffee, but he knows that she's tried to poison it and stresses that he wasn't kidding about her and everyone else following suit if he dies, then gives her some pointers on how to properly poison someone before telling her that this is her first warning before he has to escalate things.

- The Ageless: This episode reveals that Maxwell Rayner was alive for at least 150 years, prior to his death at the hands of the police in #73 ("Police Lights").
- Assassination Attempt: Melanie attempts to poison Elias with painkillers dissolved in a cup of coffee. Elias sees through this immediately, and chides her for trying to kill him in such an obvious and poorly-planned way.
- Dark Is Evil: As The Sandman approaches Algernon, the world around him is enveloped in "choking" darkness.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Maxwell Rayner apparently sics The Sandman on Dr. Moss as punishment for outbidding him at an auction.
- Dramatic Irony: The audience has quite a bit more context for the statement than Martin does, but due to his failure to communicate with Jon or even Basira, Martin is totally clueless as to the significance of what the statement reveals about Maxwell Rayner.
- Eye Scream: Dr. Moss does this to himself after being confronted with an eternity of being trapped in darkness, claiming that sightless and darkness are not the same thing, and that the former is much more preferable to the latter.
- Foreshadowing: The item that Algernon Moss outbid Maxwell Rayner for was a collection of documents from the HMS Terror, one of the ships sent to explore the Northwest Passage as part of a failed expedition led by John Franklin. This is an early hint of the People's Church of the Divine Host's interest in the Arctic, where they would later attempt a ritual to summon the Dark into the world.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Sandman is described as being tall and thin, with black sand trickling from his mouth, and joints that twist and move with every step it takes.
- Origins Episode: Provides a partial origin for Maywell Rayner, head of the People's Church of the Divine Host, though it brings up as many questions as it answers.
- The Sandman: The Sandman appears first as a character in a book of horror stories as a monstrous creature that steals the eyes of children who won't go to bed. Later, it comes into Dr. Moss's bedroom at night, bringing smothering, impenetrable darkness with it.

99: Dust to Dust

Robert E. Geiger. Incident occurred in Boise City, Oklahoma, April 1935. Victim’s name given as Stefan Brotchen. Statement given 20th February, 1952. Committed to tape 2nd September, 2007. Gertrude Robinson Recording.

## Story

Robert and his photographer Harry are sent out to Boise City, Oklahoma to interview the farmers who have been hit worst by the Dust Bowl storms. One of these is Stefan Brochten, who has nothing left but his farmhouse. When arriving, they see farming equipment and remains of livestock partially buried by the dust. Robert and Harry make sure to keep their facial orifices covered to prevent breathing in the dust blowing through the air. Stefan welcomes them into his house and they interview him. At one point he offers them water but Robert declines, imagining Stefan drinking mud from a bottle.
After the interview concludes, Robert shakes Stefan's hand and finds it to be feverishly hot. Robert looks at Stefan's face and it too is red and sweating. Stefan suddenly vomits up dirt as Harry sees a massive dust storm coming straight for them. Robert tries to talk to Stefan but he is unconscious and drooling dirt. Robert insists to Harry that they have to try to get Stefan into the city. They carry him out to their car as high-velocity dust whips them. They start to drive away but are overtaken by the storm which chokes out the engine. Robert and Harry block up any opening the dust could get in from before waiting for the storm to pass.
Stefan starts to talk at some point, and Robert knows that he is already dead because "there was no way he could have made those noises unless his lungs and throat were fully packed with sediment." Robert doesn't remember exactly what Stefan said but knows it was some kind of promise "that when the sky fell and became an eternity of mud, he would carve out a place for us in the heart of the forever buried. He would show us the love of choke." In the darkness of the storm, Robert can't see anything but feels Stefan's burning hand on his face. He hears Harry scream followed by sounds of an altercation, then the car door opens and shuts and Robert is alone. After the storm passes, Robert searches around and finds Stefan's mud-coated corpse but no trace of Harry.

## Post-Statement

Due to Boise City's past of fraud and deception Gertrude had expected the Spiral's presence but it's location in the Dust Bowl and the words of the dust inside Stefan indicate another entity's power, that being the Buried. Gertrude sees this as the final bit of proof that the Buried's plans are to take place in North America. She suspects astronaut Jan Kilbride of something to do with it.
During Gertrude's thoughts, one of her assistants, Michael, interrupts to let her know he translated a Spanish statement for her.
Jonathan is stunned that Michael was an assistant to Gertrude, disbelieving that the Distortion could have been a human at one point. He wonders if the Distortion is a separate being that took on Michael's appearance for some reason, but can't think of a reason why. Jonathan reckons that becoming an entity's avatar is unhealthy for those around you and decides to distance himself from his assistants.
Jonathan tells Georgie that he needs to move out of her flat immediately, but she insists that he mustn't cut off everyone around him, that he needs "anchors".
Walking down the street, Jonathan is accosted by Breekon and Hope who tell him that Nikola has changed her mind and toss him into their van.

- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: A famous real life dust storm is here shown to be caused by the Buried, one of the Dread Powers, and a real life journalist was a witness to it and other supernatural events.
- Blunt "Yes": When Jon tells Georgie he feels he's putting her in danger by living with her, her response is a matter of fact, "Well, yeah, you are."
- Call-Forward: Even in his human form, Michael's laugh sounds eerily similar to the one he has as the Distortion.
- Cliffhanger: Jon is kidnapped by Brekon & Hope, on orders from Nikola Orsinov. This is particularly rough, because the next episode focuses on other characters entirely, followed by a six-week hiatus for the show.
- Deadly Dust Storm: The story of the statement takes place during Black Sunday, a severe dust storm that hit the area in 1935.
- Foreshadowing: When listing people who met messy fates from being near Getrude, Jon mentions Gerard, even though he had no non-supernatural way of knowing Gerard Kaey was working with her, indicating that Jon's getting deeper into his transformation into the Archivist.
- Historical Domain Character: Robert E. Geiger was a real journalist for the Associated Press, and, as is stated in the episode, credited with being the first journalist to call the area by the name "the Dust Bowl" in print (though in real life, it was actually his editor that put the name in the article while rewriting it).
- The Reveal: Michael, a.k.a. The Distortion, was Gertrude's assistant at one point, begging the question of what happened to turn him into his current state]].
- Shown Their Work: Boise City, Oklahoma is a real small town and was founded as described in the episode.
- Sinister Southwest: While the main statement takes place in Oklahoma, it has a southwestern flair due to the desertification going on, and the story focuses on mysterious supernatural occurrences in a desert environment.

100: I Guess You Had To Be There

Assorted live statements. No further details available.

Martin, Tim, Basira and Melanie attempt to take live statements while Jonathan is gone, but without his abilities it doesn't go well.
Martin interviews Lynne, who claims to have seen a ghost of a burning woman in her former home and had just come in because she thought she would be financially compensated for making a statement.
Tim interviews "John Smith" whose friend supposedly disappeared in the London Underground but he devolves into conspiracy theorist ravings about government experimentation.
Basira interviews Robin who apparently found a stone circle that wasn't there before while walking his dog and somehow got trapped in a spiral, however he tends to ramble off on tangents and Basira has to get him back on track every few seconds, and his story ends with him just leaving the spiral without a hitch after realizing he was late for dinner.
Melanie interviews Brian who is dealing with a spider infestation that apparently no one else can see and ends up having a breakdown during the recording. While Melanie leaves to get him more tea, Peter Lukas materializes in the room in search of Elias, and puts Brian under some kind of curse when learning that he's not an employee of the Institute and thus unprotected.

- Affably Evil: For the walking incarnation of isolation and loneliness, Peter's voice actor is surprisingly chipper, but there's a distinct edge of menace lurking beneath.
- All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists: Averted. All of the statements given sound realistically incoherent and with the sort of credibility you'd expect from the average testimony of supernatural activity, with the strong implication that it is the Archivist's powers that gave previous statements their exhaustive and expressive quality. More specifically:
  - Martin's statement giver is overly curt and undescriptive.
  - Basira's keeps going off on tangents and completely skips past crucial points.
  - Tim's is a secretive, paranoid Conspiracy Theorist.
  - Melanie's is a stammering, rambling Nervous Wreck.
- Breather Episode: Unlike the rest of the series, this episode is (mostly) played for comedy instead of horror.
- The Cameo: "John Smith" is voiced by one of the Rusty Quill Gaming players, James Ross.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Tim's statement giver, "John Smith", is convinced that his friend was taken by the government and that they have a secret biological weapons testing ground and holding facility underneath London.
- Day in the Life: A look into some of the more... frustratingly mundane of statements that the archival assistants take in Jon's absence. Until Peter Lukas crashes the party looking for Elias.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Lynne becomes a more prominent character in the final act of Season Five, where she has renamed herself 'Celia' after losing her original name in a Stranger domain. She later goes on to be part of the main cast in The Magnus Protocol.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Even more so than other episodes. The tone and incoherent nature of each "statement" easily leads one to dismiss these people as cranks but each testimony includes enough elements of the Powers at work (the Lightless Flame, the Spiral, the Church of the Divine Host and spiders) to be more than mere coincidence. Word of God confirmed in the third Q&A session that what they experienced was in fact real, keeping up with the already stated claim that all statements read on the podcast relate to actual events.

101: Another Twist

Statement of Michael, taken from subject. Date: the last day of the Archivist's life.

## Pre-Statement

Nikola Orsinov finds and turns on the recorder to tell Elias that she has Jonathan in her secret hideout which even the Eye cannot see, and that her plan is to wear Jonathan's skin instead of the ancient gorilla pelt for the Unknowing. After she leaves, Michael arrives and tells Jonathan that he intends to kill him so as to stop the Unknowing while also preventing the Institute from winning, but first allows him to ask any questions he has first which leads to the statement.

## Story

After Michael Shelley lost a friend to the Spiral's forces, he searches for answers and ends up working at the Magnus Institute. Gertrude Robinson manipulates Michael, allowing him to believe her to be frail and tired. She eventually takes him abroad, which is not unusual so he suspects nothing. They are ferried north by Captain Peter Lukas to a place called Zemlya Sannikova where Gertrude intends to stop the Distortion and other of the Spiral's forces. When they find them performing their ritual, Gertrude gives Michael a map of the Distortion's hallways and instructions on how to manipulate the hallways until he becomes the Distortion itself. This causes the Twisting to fail and the rest of the Spiral's forces to be scattered while the Distortion, now "Michael" is "reduced once again to feeding on the unsuspecting and confused".

## Post-Statement

Jonathan accepts his death at Michael's hands, and Michael produces a door for him to enter. Jonathan tries but the door is locked, confusing Michael and then horrifying him when he too is unable to open it. Michael suddenly disappears with a scream and the door opens to reveal Helen Richardson (#47: The New Door), who is now the new form of the Distortion but distinct from Michael as she wants to help Jonathan and he follows her into the hallways.

- Arc Words: "He trusted her."
- Bizarrchitecture: A house made of impossible angles on a nonexistent island was a key part of the Distortion's plan to take over the world.
- Bound and Gagged: Jon's been tied to a chair and gagged after being abducted, and for the first few minutes of the podcast Nikola Orsinov carries on a one-sided conversation with him and his tape recorder while he only makes (increasingly irritated) muffled responses. Michael later frees him so that Jon can properly take his statement before he kills him.
- The Bus Came Back: Helen Richardson from episode 47 becomes the new host of the Distortion and releases Jon.
- Call-Back: The description of the map Gertrude gave Michael Shelley is remarkably close to Jon's description of the map Helen Richardson tried to draw of the Distortion's domain.
- Evil Gloating: After capturing Jon, Nikola turns on the recorder and explains many of the details of the Unknowing and her intent to kill Jon, even describing the location she has him in. She explains that she wants Elias to hear. Of course, Jon escapes.
- Genius Bonus: Sannikov Land is an actual mythical island in Russia.
- Oh, Crap!: One for Michael, when he realizes that his door is locked. This is immediately followed by him being eradicated and replaced by the Helen avatar.
- Origins Episode: For the Distortion's Michael persona.
- Reality Is Out to Lunch: Appropriately for the Spiral, the embodiment of madness and deceit, Sannikov Land and the ritual of the Great Twisting was such a bizarre and impossible sight that no one who saw it (except Gertrude) believed they were sane any more.
  Michael did not go mad, though no words you could have said would have convinced him otherwise.
- Shoot the Dog: Gertrude used the real Michael's trust in her to sacrifice him to the Distortion, forcing it to incarnate in him instead of remaking the world in its image.
- Sins of the Father: Part of the reason Michael has come for Jon is that the part of it that remembers being the real Michael has always longed for revenge against Gertrude, but couldn't get at her. So her successor will just have to do.
- Unreliable Narrator: Michael insists that Michael Shelley is gone, and it's only angry at the Archives because Gertrude not only destroyed its plans but forced it to wear evidence of its failure. However, the way it keeps repeating the Arc Words and the fact the Helen incarnation is not angry suggest pretty clearly that it's lying.
- Villainous Rescue: Just as Michael is about to take Jon through a door and kill him, the Distortion cottons on to the fact a decidedly human emotion is influencing its actions and intervenes.
- Was Once a Man: This episode confirms that Michael Shelley the archival assistant is indeed the source of the Michael avatar.

102: Nesting Instinct

Case #0140406. Statement of François Deschamps, regarding the family and presumed marriage of Benoît Maçon. Statement given June 4th 2014.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan argues with Elias about how long he was kidnapped for and how little help Elias is providing. Elias realizes that Jonathan's powers are increasing when he offhandedly mentions that Gerard Keay was working with Gertrude, something he had never actually learned. Elias explains Gertrude's research to Jonathan, that the Unknowing is in the form of a dance at a ritual site, the wax museum where Jonathan was held, and that the best way to stop it is to disrupt it after it has already begun. Melanie then barges in with a knife to kill Elias, but Jonathan is able to talk her down for the time being.

## Story

François works as a bartender at the Le Papillon Blanc in Toulouse, France. One of his coworkers, Benoît Maçon, is lonely and lovelorn to the point of enviously staring at couples and even going into the back of the building to cry after seeing a child. In early May, their manager Lucille asks François if he knows of any significant changes in Benoît's personal life as he has become uncharacteristically jovial. François doesn't know anything but after only one day of watching Benoît act so differently he cannot help but ask him what happened. Benoît excitedly tells François that he has finally fallen in love and hugs him. François notices "a damp smell, like decaying wood" on Benoît which surprises him as he is normally a clean man.
Over the next month, Benoît continues his joyful demeanor as his smell grows worse and his clothes become unkempt. François realizes that for all Benoît talks of his new girlfriend, he never calls her by name instead using a pet name of "mon petit scarabée", "my little beetle". François also can't get Benoît to confirm any specifics about her, even what she looks like, though he mentions that she has children.
In early June, François is casually watching Benoît take an order when he sees an insect slide out from under the nail on Benoît's right ring finger, terrifying François until he is met by a man "too old for his poorly dyed hair" and an old woman who ask him many questions about Benoît, and although he cannot answer all of them he supplies them with Benoît's address and accompanies them there.
François: Do you really need me to describe it? You saw it for yourselves. The flowing tide that swarmed and scuttled as soon as the door opened. The smell that rolled out of that apartment like a choking wall. The thing that embraced Benoît. Mon petit scarabée. The only thing I don’t know is if you saw in as much detail as I did the look of sheer contentment and joy on poor Benoît’s face as his family crawled all over him. I don’t care about what the police might have done; your young colleague was right. You should have burned the place to the ground. I have nothing more to say to you.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan explains that the statement was written in French and he was able to read it despite not knowing French. Jonathan wonders why Gertrude hadn't committed this statement to tape if she had directly taken it anyway. One of the questions she and Gerard had asked François was "Étranger ou la saleté", "Stranger or Filth". Jonathan supposes that they were searching for more information on the Unknowing but had found another entity at work here. Basira finds that Benoît died within a month of the statement but details are inaccessible. François declined an interview but sent the Institute a wedding invitation with Benoît's name, though Jonathan can't read the rest of the French on it. Jonathan corroborated Gertrude's travel to Toulouse with the plans on her laptop and finds that she didn't return to London afterwards but instead went to New Zealand, so he resolves to find any statements from New Zealand around that time. Jonathan mentions that he has moved into a new apartment and remembers his promise to Georgie to talk with Martin. While talking with Martin, Jonathan learns that he has been recording statements and asks that he let the others help him with it so he doesn't get overwhelmed.

- As You Know: At the end of the statement, François writes to Gertrude if he really needs to describe the thing they both saw, before doing just that.
- Bait-and-Switch: François's comment that Benoît seemed like a totally different person when he came to work after he got a date at first seems to point to a Not-Them infestation. It's actually the Corruption; Benoît is just really happy because of his new girlfriend.
- Foreshadowing: For a reveal near the end of the series: Elias doesn't know that Nikola had Jon imprisoned in a wax museum, even though she made a point of telling Jon's tape recorder just that. Meaning that whatever is listening through the tapes, it isn't Elias.
- Gratuitous French: At a couple of points Jon reads a phrase in French and then translates it into English. This is despite the fact that the whole statement is in French and his emerging Archivist powers are automatically translating it for him.
- Honey Trap: Sad-sack failure at life bartender Benoît finally gets the girlfriend he's been uselessly pining for and she's the most amazing thing ever? Yes, of course "his little beetle" is a monster. He at least seems happy when "she" devours him.
- I'm Standing Right Here: To head off her assassination attempt, Jon tells Melanie that for right now, they need Elias, but they can get rid of him later. Elias says this almost word-for-word; Jon replies that he could be spying on the conversation anyway, so it doesn't matter.
- Not So Omniscient After All: Elias seems to be less powerful than the Archivist. Jon knows more about the Unknowing from getting kidnapped one time than Elias knows from being the boss of the woman who spent years investigating it. Elias also seems to be limited to information that directly affects him, while Jon can get things related to the statements.
- The Omniscient: Now that Jon is more aware of what exactly being Archivist entails, he's starting to develop powers that come with the position. He knows Gerard and Gertrude worked together without ever having read it, and at the end of the episode he realizes he flawlessly translated the entire statement despite not knowing a lick of French.
- Pun: Gertrude was not above a little bit of Gallows Humor; her notes refer to the dancers who will enact the Unknowing as the "corpse de ballet".
- That Liar Lies: Melanie flat-out does not believe the supposed Dead Man Switch connected to Elias exists, which is why she feels so comfortable trying to kill him.
  Melanie: It's not even a good lie!

103: Cruelty Free

Case #0140207. Statement of Dylan Anderson, regarding an unusual pig he acquired on his farm near the Marlborough Forest, New Zealand.

## Story

Dylan keeps some pigs on his vineyard to dispose of waste and use their manure for fertilizer. One day Dylan goes to check on the pigs and sees a huge pig in the pen that wasn't there before. The other pigs avoid it and Dylan sees malice in its eyes. He asks the other workers about the monster pig but they don't know where it came from either. Dylan considers having the monster pig sent to the slaughterhouse but worries that it would kill whoever came to collect it. When Dylan feeds the pigs, the monster pig eats all the food while the others stay away from it. When the monster pig is eating, Dylan gets a closer look and finds it to be covered in scars. Over the next few days, the monster pig starts to kill and eat the other pigs and scares Dylan away when he tries to evacuate the survivors to another pen.
After some months, Dylan's brother Kurt comes to visit for a few weeks, and his first night staying there Dylan hears sounds from outside. Dylan goes straight to the pigpen where he finds Kurt standing in a trance repeating "Long pig, short pig, wide pig, narrow pig". Dylan shakes him out of it when he sees Kurt start to open the pigpen gate. Kurt makes up an excuse and returns home to London early a few days later.
Carley Brothers Circus, an Australian circus that occasionally tours other Pacific islands, arrange to set up in one of Dylan's fields and things go smoothly for a few weeks until a clown disappears. As missing person searches start up, Dylan silently suspects the monster pig. Dylan has a dream that he is watching the missing clown perform and slowly eat himself as he does so, occasionally stopping to say "Long pig, short pig, wide pig, narrow pig". Dylan goes out to the pigpen the following morning and finds a human femur beside the monster pig. Dylan doesn't know what to do, doubting that any police force could kill the monster pig but also worrying that it will continue to kill if he doesn't do something about it. The indecision drives Dylan to lie down in the pigpen and wait for the monster pig to eat him so he won't have to choose. But instead, the monster pig lies down beside him and makes a happy sound. That night, Gertrude Robinson arrives to ask Dylan about the circus and provides him with a solution for the monster pig: burying it in concrete.

## Post-Statement

Not much followup could be done as the search for the missing clown is still open and Dylan couldn't be reached. Jonathan remembers that Dylan's brother Kurt was living in London in 2014, so has Melanie track him down.
Jonathan meets Kurt on the street, and though he doesn't want to cooperate Jonathan compels him to answer his questions. Kurt tells him that Gertrude left with "some weird guy" shortly after helping Dylan with the monster pig and left some papers with him, which he sent to Kurt to get back to her. Jonathan compels Kurt to reveal that he accepts bribes to not give tickets and uses that to blackmail him into helping find those papers.
Jonathan meets with Daisy in the tunnels since he theorizes that Elias "has a hard time seeing things" there. Jonathan asks Daisy to keep everyone safe while he goes abroad and starts to come up with plans to use the sectioned police officers against Elias.

- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Dylan has a favorite pig named Toby. Naturally, it doesn't last long when the Pig gets there.
- Blackmail: Jon's growing rapidly more comfortable with his powers. To get some papers Gertrude accidentally left at Dylan's house from Dylan's brother Kurt (who lives in England, and was supposed to return them, but didn't), he compels Kurt to tell him his darkest secret, and then says he has it on tape now, so Kurt had better hand the papers over or Jon will show the tape to his superiors.
- Buried Alive: Gertrude's solution to the pig is to wall off the pen and fill it with concrete with the pig still inside.
- Circus of Fear: Averted with the actual circus—Gertrude and Gerard came to New Zealand because they thought it was the Other Circus, but it's actually just a regular one. The nightmares Dylan has after the pig eats a clown, however, definitely qualify.
- Covered with Scars: Dylan notices that the monster pig was covered in scars; most looked like bullet wounds, some were blade scars, even one that looked like finger marks. The implication is that the pig was a beast of the Flesh that's been killing for years, maybe longer.
- Driven to Suicide: After the monster pig almost kills his brother and eats a clown, Dylan goes into the pigpen and lies down, inviting it to eat him, because he's afraid of what the pig will do and doesn't want to be alive to see it. Of course, since he's able to give the statement, it doesn't—it likes him, for some reason, so it just lies down next to him instead.
- Fed to Pigs: A clown was eaten by the monstrous pig but it's not clear if the clown fell into the pen or the pig broke out. Dylan almost shares his fate by volunteering himself to be eaten but it didn't and chose to lie down next to him instead.
- Gluttonous Pig: The monster is a pig that has a habit of eating the other pigs and it ate a clown.
- Madness Mantra: "Long pig, short pig, fat pig, narrow pig."
- Sinister Swine: The monster pig, which is abnormally large, covered in scars and old injuries, and can seemingly mind control people into entering its pen so it can eat them.

104: Sneak Preview

Case #0171106. Statement of Timothy Stoker, on the disappearance of his brother, Danny, four years ago. Statement given June 14th 2017.

## Pre-Statement

Martin is about to record a different statement when he notices Tim and asks for a library book he borrowed to look for information on the Unknowing. Tim gets mad that no one has told him about the Unknowing or how the Circus of the Other fits into it, since as far as he knows there have been no circus-related statements since case 0051701 (#24: Strange Music). After Tim explains why it bothers him off-recording, Martin convinces him to record it as a statement so Jonathan can understand Tim better.

## Story

Tim's younger brother Danny gets into urban exploration, especially into "ghost buildings", old buildings that were built over by newer development. Danny suspects that there are remains of such a building underneath the Royal Opera House, one created by Robert Smirke. Tim tries to talk Danny out of it but Danny explains he has well-researched plans to dodge security there. The morning after Danny goes to the Opera House, he returns before Tim wakes up and sits still and silent, almost unresponsive. Tim sees that he's been crying and hears him mumble the name "Joey". Tim gets him to lie down and he mumbles "the show must go on".
Tim goes back to sleep and wakes up a few hours later to find Danny gone again with no note. Tim finds some sketches Danny made, each of a clown with dark hair and red diamonds on a white face. Tim retrieves Danny's plans to get into the Opera House and follows their direction to get inside the decrepit passages beneath. Tim finds his way to an auditorium that is a direct copy of the Opera House's previous incarnation's theatre. The whole place is carved from the earth, including the audience which are faceless humanoid carvings.
Tim turns his headlamp towards the stage and sees something that almost looks like Danny but isn't quite right. Tim calls to him and instantly knows it was a mistake. A spotlight turns on and shines on a clown crouched at the side of the stage, the same clown as in Danny's drawings. It drags itself across the stage toward "Danny", using one arm or leg at a time. When it reaches "Danny", the clown stands up and takes his hand. It turns to Tim and asks "Shall I?" and before he can answer he whips the skin off "Danny" to reveal it to be something like "an impressionist painting of a dancer, all colours and shapes that made you feel movement you couldn't see". Tim finds himself outside the Opera House as people move inside. Tim holds an old flyer for a circus, written in Cyrillic and with the clown's picture labeled as a guest performer. The flyer disintegrates and Tim never sees Danny again. He joins the Magnus Institute shortly thereafter to try to find answers, but gives up after a while.

## Post-Statement

The clown Tim saw was Joseph Grimaldi, or Joey the Clown, a performer who lived in the late 18th to early 19th century. Tim knows that he is in some way associated with the Circus of the Other and by extension the Unknowing, and vows to help bring it down. Elias arrives and talks to Tim in private and warns him to stay out of it, but Tim tells Elias that he will only do so if he's dead.

- A Day in the Limelight: We learn more about Tim's background and the reason why he joined the Institute.
- Ambiguous Situation: It’s never stated if Danny is dead or not or if he was killed the first time he went to the opera house.
- Big Little Brother: Danny was taller than Tim.
- Developing Doomed Characters: The first half of Tim’s statement is him describing Danny and his life and their relationship. The second half is Danny’s disappearance.
- Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Danny went through various phases and interests, only to discard them after getting bored. According to Tim, he was losing interest in sailing when he learned about urban exploring.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Tim and Danny are implied to have this dynamic, with Danny being Foolish (not having a permanent job, trying out and discarding various hobbies) and Tim being Responsible (gaining a First Degree in Anthropology from Cambridge and working a steady job in publishing). Unlike other examples, Tim is genuinely proud and supportive of Danny.
- Historical Domain Character: The Monster Clown Joey is apparently Joseph Grimaldi.
- It's Personal: After learning about the Unknowing and the Circus of the Other's involvement, Tim vows to go after them to avenge his brother.
- Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: Tim gives Elias this ultimatum. Elias brushes it off by saying that he'll come back when Tim is feeling more reasonable.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Nobody clued in Tim about the impending end of the world until now. As the same entity that killed and flayed his brother is the one behind the coming apocalypse, he is not pleased.
- Monster Clown: Joey, a clown whose face is painted in blood, who crawls and walks in a deeply unnatrual, unsettling manner and who seems to be responsible for the flaying of Danny.
- Nothing Is Scarier: It’s never revealed what exactly Danny saw to drive him to tears when he first explored the opera house.
- Origins Episode: We finally find out the answer to why Tim works at the Institute despite seemingly having better career options.
- Precision F-Strike: "Either kill me, or fuck off".

105: Total War

Case #D-1862-143. Statement of Second Lieutenant Charles Fleming, regarding his experiences during the Taiping Rebellion. Original statement undated, but apparently written in early 1862.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan is at the Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing, China, "something of a sister organization to the Institute", which he found out Gertrude visited before going to New Zealand. According to the librarian there, this statement is the one Gertrude looked at then.

## Story

Charles is a soldier fighting the Chinese in the Taiping Rebellion. He is well-familiar with cruelty, drowning survivors of an enemy ship without knowing if he was told to or if he did so of his own accord. He begins to be haunted by the faces of those he killed. One night Charles' ship, the Nemesis, sinks without a clear cause. After he jumps from the deck, he sees corpses all around him in the water until he surfaces and sees that they are gone, yet they continue to haunt him.
Charles wanders war-torn China for over twenty years. He is captured by three peasants who argue over whether to ransom him and to whom, until the ghosts haunting Charles reappear and destroy them. Wherever Charles goes, more of the dead join the entourage following him.
Charles: Though war and death have found me in this land, I have no place here. I came for no cause but violence and greed, and have been humbled by the unimaginable brutality of true and total war. I have nothing left, except to hope that what remains of my own life is neither long nor memorable.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan hopes that Charles experiences were mostly hallucination or supernatural, not wanting to believe that such horror could humanly exist, though he declines to look it up and find out for sure. Jonathan is surprised that the one record Gertrude looked at seems to have nothing to do with the Stranger or any circus. He is ready to give up on this lead until realizing that this is the wrong file and Gertrude had accessed it in 2004, not 2014. Jonathan asks the librarian and finds out that Gertrude had two statements sent to a location in the United States.

- Better to Die than Be Killed: Among the horrors of the war is the mass-suicide of the people of Haungzhou, who were massed so thick on the lake they drowned themselves so that Charles could walk along their backs.
- Early-Bird Cameo: This is the first mention of the Nemesis, which reappears later in episode 137.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After helping introduce opium to China, Charles himself becomes addicted.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Charles says that during the Siege of Anqing, people were not only eating human meat, but price-gouging it.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Basically everyone in the Taiping Rebellion counts, but Charles somberly recounts himself being one alongside his crew mates on the Nemesis.
- War Is Hell: Perhaps the most chilling example of this, with the very real atrocities of the Taiping Rebellion combined with The Slaughter's influence even leaving Jon shaken.

106: A Matter Of Perspective
Case #0081002. Jan Kilbride’s account of his time spent aboard the space station Daedalus. Statement date February 10th 2008.

## Story

Jan is selected to go on a mission aboard the space station Daedalus by a man named Fairchild, along with two other astronauts. He only ever interacts with Manuela Dominguez since the other astronaut, Carter Chilcott, is doing an isolation study and as such is not to be contacted outside of maintenance checks. However, Manuela doesn't like to talk about her home life and her research is separate from Jan's. Jan notices that his work is very similar to a study done on the ISS years earlier, which somewhat annoys him.
Over time, Jan starts to get a feeling of something coming towards them. Eventually the thing calls out, the sound so powerful that the whole station shakes and Jan feels like his bones will disintegrate. He goes to the window to make sure that the Earth is still there, and it is. Jan notices droplets of blood floating around him and discovers that his ears are bleeding. He pushes himself towards a medical kit but suddenly stops without any clear cause, left floating in the middle of the room and unable to reach anything. Left with only his thoughts, Jan realizes how insignificant he and humanity as a whole is when compared to the unimaginable vastness of the universe. The thing's cry comes again and Jan screams with it in despair. Jan finally manages to grab onto a rail just as Manuela comes to ask about the station shaking, but she apparently hadn't heard the sounds.
For the next month, Jan is left in an existential crisis, not doing any work and just staring out the window into space. One day Jan goes out to work on the solar panels, but doesn't remember if he was instructed to. Once outside, however, Jan pushes himself away from the station, floating much farther than the tether should allow until he can no longer see the Earth, the station, or anything else besides stars. Jan sees stars start to blink out and wonders if he is witnessing the end of the universe until he realizes that they aren't burning out, something is moving in front of them. The thing is so huge and dark that Jan can't see all of it at once and he knows that it won't even notice him if he doesn't scream. Jan wonders if it and possibly other things out there have consciousnesses incomprehensible to the human mind.
Jan: And I wish that I could convince myself that ignorance was the same thing as safety. But then, how many weeds have you unthinkingly stepped on in your lifetime?

## Post-Statement

Melanie explains that in spite of the statement ending with Jan still out in space, he did come back to Earth with the other astronauts and he gave his statement in person soon thereafter. The Daedalus seems to have no connections to the greater scientific community. None of the assistants have been able to find any trace of Jan after his return to Earth.
Melanie: I really don't want to say he vanished into thin air, but… he vanished into something.

Basira arrives to gossip with Melanie about the other assistants.
Elias meets with Melanie for her first "performance review". Melanie tells Elias she doesn't even know what her job is since she doesn't have anything to do apart from Elias occasionally sending a statement to record or Jonathan calling to request research, so most of her time is put towards her own research. Elias refuses to fire Melanie and tells her that for all the things he knows, he does not know how to get her to believe that killing him is really bad idea. Instead, Elias talks about her father, who died in the fire at Ivy Meadows (#36: Taken Ill). Although Melanie had been told that he died from smoke inhalation in his sleep, Elias places the knowledge in her mind of how he truly suffered. Horrified, Melanie asks him to take that knowledge away but instead he threatens to make it worse by giving her the memory of seeing it happen, putting it so deep into her mind that she will see it every time she closes her eyes. Elias insists that she must not become a bother to him again, before giving her a satisfactory mark on her review.

- The Anti-Nihilist: Kilbride used to think of himself as this, finding comfort in the vast size of the universe and not seeing any intrinsic point to it all; after his experiences on the Daedalus, thinking about it just makes him sick to his stomach.
- Call-Back:
  - Kilbride was aboard Daedalus at the same time as Chilcott from "Personal Space".
  - Melanie's father was one of John Amherst's victims who died in the fire in the Ivy Meadows Resting Home from "Taken Ill".
- Eldritch Abomination: During the mission, Jan hears an inhuman roar that makes his ears bleed and feel like the whole station is shaking, though his fellow crewmember Manuela claims not to hear it. Later, while out for a spacewalk, he drifts far away from the station until he bumps into... something gargantuan that blots out the stars as far as he can see.
- Mind Rape: Elias makes Melanie know how her father really died and threatens to make her see it every time she closes her eyes if she keeps trying to interfere in Elias' plans.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The audience never actually finds out what the Corruption did to Melanie's father, as Elias doesn't say it out loud. All we know is that it's enough to make Melanie cry. Melanie.
- Switching P.O.V.: We see the events of "Personal Space" from Kilbride's perspective.
- You Need to Get Laid: Melanie claims that according to Georgie, Jon "doesn't". Basira says that that "explains a lot".

107: Third Degree
Case #0100102. Statement of Howard Ewing, regarding his interview with an unidentified member of British Transport Police. Original statement given February 1st 2010.

## Pre-Statement

Jonathan arrives in Chicago, Illinois where Gertrude and Gerard were when she had the statements sent from the Pu Songling Research Centre. At the apartment Gertrude and Gerard used, he finds that anything they would have left is gone, but they left a forwarding address of the Usher Foundation in Washington, DC. The owner mentions having heard calliope music from a nearby park while they were there. A Greyhound route from Chicago to Washington passes through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which is where Gerard died. Jonathan also knows he's being followed, have seen the same cop in different places on different days.
At the Pittsburgh hospital, Jonathan learns details about Gerard's death. He had been admitted after having a massive seizure and was found to have late-stage cancer, dying soon thereafter during another seizure. He also learns that Gertrude was arrested when she broke into the morgue holding Gerard's corpse.
After getting more details on the arrest from Martin, Jonathan tracks down the officer who arrested her and finds that Gertrude was found next to Gerard's corpse and reading from "a large, strangely-shaped book" and the corpse was mutilated, though there was no indication that Gertrude was responsible. Gertrude got the police to let her go without charges and never retrieved the book from evidence, which disappeared after a year. Jonathan also saw the cop from Chicago and is starting to feel ill. He later gets a statement in the mail from Elias "to tide you over".

## Story

Howard is cleaning Moorgate station with some coworkers when the loudspeakers turn on and a voice says "This is a security announcement" before a muffled sound plays. After a few seconds of silence it plays a shrieking sound which rattles them. They then detect a smell "like burning chemicals and spoiled bacon" and find it to be coming from the nearby train tunnel. Looking inside, Howard sees a burning train with people inside, screaming in pain and unable to escape. The voice on the speaker repeats "Will Inspector Sands please report.", a code meant to alert station staff of a fire without causing a panic among the civilians. One of Howard's coworkers shakes him to wake up, and he sees another coworker walking towards the burning train. When the police arrive, all they find is the burned bodies of Howard's coworkers.
Howard is taken in by the police and questioned by an officer who won't show ID and whose presence seems to make the room heat up. Howard tells his story in response to the officer's questions and is taken by surprise when the officer asks "What do you love most in the world?". Howard tries to be silent but his tongue burns, so he answers that is father is. The officer asks "Who am I?" and Howard is truly unable to answer and is let go. The next week, Howard's father is dead of a heart attack. Howard's father is cremated despite him making other arrangements.
Howard: I know he'll be back; the policeman with three bright pips on his shoulder. And he'll ask me what else I love. And I'll tell him. Then he'll ask me who he is, and I won't say. I don't want to cause any panic.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan goes to bed and wakes up rejuvenated and has learned that he now has a "physical dependence" on recording statements. Jonathan is annoyed that Elias didn't inform him of this sooner. Jonathan decides that once he's finished his investigation in Washington, he's going back home to London.
At a rest stop during the Greyhound trip, Jonathan explains that he's seen a woman following the bus in her car, who then comes over to Jonathan. The woman instructs Jonathan to keep his hands on the table and he's surprised to hear that she's English. She introduces herself as Julia and explains that she's learned of his investigation and tells him that he's "attracted the attention of something we've been watching for a while". Julia tells Jonathan that she will take him the rest of the way to Washington. On the road, Julia mentions that she once gave a statement to Gertrude at the Institute, that being case 0020312 (#9: A Father's Love). When Jonathan asks why she would be in the States, she simply replies that she's "hunting". At this point they are pulled over by police officer Max Mustermann who has Julia get out of the car and open the trunk. To Mustermann's surprise, the trunk contains a man who shoots him. The man gets out and Julia introduces him and Jonathan to each other, the man being Trevor Herbert (#10: Vampire Killer, #56: Children of the Night). Mustermann is apparently a monster of some kind, and Trevor orders Jonathan and Julia to help him finish killing it.

- The Bus Came Back: Jon runs into Julia Montauk ("A Father's Love") and Trevor Herbert ("Vampire Hunter" and "Children Of The Night" in the U.S.
- Covert Distress Code: The episode features the real-life code "Inspector Sands", which is used by public transport authorities in the U.K. to alert staff of dangers such as bombs or fires without causing a panic among civilians. The last line of Howard's statement implies the transit police officer is none other than Inspector Sands, possibly being an Anthropomorphic Personification of the concept.

108: Monologue
Case #0092008. Statement of Adonis Biros, regarding his performance on stage. Original statement given August 20th 2009.

## Story

Adonis was inspired to become a stage actor after he visited the great amphitheatre in Athens, Greece as a child. His greatest passion is the monologue, when all lights are on him and he can talk to the open air and almost see none of the audience. He is currently playing the role of Jacques in a production of As You Like It, where he gets to give the "All the world's a stage" monologue.
During one performance, Adonis sees a figure in a black cloak and an "old Greek chorus mask" in the third row which he knows to be an empty shell and evidently cannot be seen by the other actors. He doesn't see it the next day, but when he escapes the other actors trying to get him to have a drink with them he starts to see it in windows or at the end of a street, not chasing him but simply appearing wherever he goes and waiting for him to come to it. Eventually Adonis gives in and walks toward it, but has a change of heart at the last minute and strikes it down, revealing it to be a prop stick inside. At his next performance, Adonis sees more and more of the hollow masked figures appearing in the audience until they fill out all the seats.
Adonis: After the show, David came up to me. He wore his best director's smile and made as to shake my hand. His mouth moved telling me how much this performance had meant to him, how right the energy had been, and how whatever I had tapped into within myself, I should reach for it again at the next performance. I tried to listen, to nod, but his eyes were hollow and I knew that he wasn't really there. I have another performance tonight. In less than four hours I will be on that stage again, speaking those empty lines to emptier ears. I could run of course, but I won't. Where would I run to? All the world's a stage, and I can't escape my monologue.

## Post-Statement

Martin explains that Jonathan is having them research any statements about theatres or circuses for more leads on the Stranger, but this one doesn't have much in common with other such statements. Martin mentions that Tim is working on something. He also wonders what's happened with Melanie, who seems to be depressed and not doing any work. Martin calls out to Basira to ask her about Melanie but gets no answer. Martin comes back into the office and finds Peter Lukas has appeared there. Peter cordially asks if Elias had asked Martin to record a statement concerning him, explaining that it's his idea of a joke, then asks how satisfied Martin is working under Elias. Peter seems surprised to hear that Elias committed two murders himself.
Peter: Well, I'm sure I've disturbed you quite enough for one day, Martin. I have a meeting to get to and a few things to tell Elias to his face about wasting both our time. Be seeing you, as it were.

Peter leaves and Basira soon arrives, asking if Martin called her. Martin asks if she saw someone else leaving, which she didn't, and then explains that he saw Peter Lukas and that he was rather creepy. Basira starts to talk excitedly about things she has learned regarding the People's Church of the Divine Host, but Martin cuts her off to ask about Melanie. Basira explains that she won't say anything but she suspects Elias has something to do with it.

- Be Careful What You Wish For: Adonis says that he sometimes wishes all his castmates and the audience would leave him alone onstage to do monologues. He certainly gets that.
- Malevolent Masked Men: By the end of the statement, all the audience members have been replaced by identical masked figures.
- No Body Left Behind: When Adonis strikes the masked figure, it crumples to the ground, leaving behind just a cloak and a mask, and a stick that was propping them up.
- White Mask of Doom: Adonis describes the mask the figure in the audience wears as being like an old Greek chorus mask with a neutral expression and a hint of mourning about the mouth and eyes.

109: Nightfall
Case #0172906. Statement of Julia Montauk, regarding her initial encounters with the hunter Trevor Herbert. Statement taken direct from subject, June 29th 2017.

## Pre-Statement

Before the statement, Julia, Trevor and Jonathan are waiting for Mustermann to recover so he can potentially corroborate what Jonathan has told the other two as they don't trust him otherwise and will kill him if he's lying, but if he's right then "you talk to Gerard", though he's still apparently dead. Jonathan convinces Julia to make a statement about how she met Trevor while they wait.

## Story

Wherever Julia has gone in life, her father's legacy has followed. Everyone who gets to know her ends up only caring about knowing the daughter of an infamous serial killer. At the suggestion of "one of my better counselors", Julia takes a job as a night security guard at an office building, since she won't have to be in contact with many people and so she can face her fear of the dark. Various different companies move in and out of the building, but one that always stays is DKN Systems. Julia doesn't know what exactly they do other than the fact that they do work at night. She notices that the employees dress similarly and have "irises so dark that they almost seemed completely black". Only one of them, Vardhan Darvish, ever talks to Julia. He usually comes to let her know about a blown out lightbulb in the building before engaging in friendly banter. He gets nervous and leaves after Julia jokingly suggests that he's breaking the bulbs for an excuse to talk to her.
Trevor has been tracking Darvish on a lead from investigating the disappearance of other homeless. Once he sees Darvish he knows that he's affiliated with something dark. After spying on him at the office for three days, he sees Darvish taking a delivery from Outer Bay Shipping and immediately knows that the box he takes has a person inside.
Julia is overseeing the unloading, which she is told is a batch of computer parts. She returns to her desk for a few hours before seeing on CCTV that a homeless person has snuck inside.
Trevor hears the security guard coming up behind him and quickly hides in a closet.
Julia reaches the fourth floor searching for the homeless man. She sees the door to DKN Systems standing open and dark. She calls out but hears only a faint dripping sound. Julia goes inside and sees the office to be bare, as if it had never been used for business. She starts to check rooms, and finds a meeting room where the floor is covered in water. In the middle of the room, the three other DKN Systems employees Julia recognized stand around a table with a man lying on it, who Julia doesn't recognize. Each employee has their arms outstretched and mouths opened as if screaming, though there is no sound. Julia yells at them to stop what they're doing, but they don't respond. She decides to get the man on the table out of there and steps forward into the room, but instantly sinks down into the water. The water is "colder than anything I had ever experienced" and she sees her flashlight sink out of view. She struggles to find the water's surface.
Trevor, having watched this go down, runs over and reaches down into the water and catches Julia's jacket. It feels like something else is trying to drag her down, but Trevor is able to pull her up enough for her to grab onto the doorframe and climb out. Trevor turns and sees Darvish, angry and shouting. Trevor stabs him once in the chest but Darvish fights back and knocks him to the ground.
Julia's mind slowly clears from the water's influence and she sees Darvish and the homeless man fighting. She picks up the homeless man's light and shines it at them, and sees that his "irises weren't dark, it was just that the pupils were so wide that they swallowed them completely". She then sees a tattoo through Darvishes torn shirt of a closed eye symbol. Suddenly enraged, Julia grabs the homeless man's knife and stabs Darvish in the throat.
Julia: I have never felt rage like I did then, and I have never felt anything as wonderful as the satisfaction of ending his life. There was a shiver in the air as the floor behind me dried in an instant, and the three silent screamers dropped down dead. Well, I suppose they might have just been unconscious when they fell, but they were definitely dead by the time we left. The man on the table had never been alive to begin with.
Julia and Trevor leave together and become a hunting team. They go to America after hearing about a wolfman there, and although they don't find it they have plenty else to hunt.

## Post-Statement

Mustermann recovers enough to berate them for talking so much. He admits that he was trying to capture Jonathan and take him back to England and to Nikola for the Unknowing. He demands that they turn off the recorder for any more questions, since they don't know "what's listening in". Julia and Trevor force Jonathan to obey.

- Family of Choice: Being associated with the Dark through her father's murders has made Julia's life hell— it's little wonder that she's decided to go with The Hunt.
- Fun with Acronyms: It's unknown what DKN Systems actually stands for, but considering what they serve, it's not a stretch to believe it's an abbreviation of 'DARKEN.'
- Gallows Humor: As the statement comes to an end, "Musterman" finally starts to heal up... and as soon as his lungs are in somewhat decent shape, he complains that Trevor and Julia are talking too much.
  "You could have at least chopped my ears off, too. You people just won’t shut up! Hhhhow am I supposed to get the lungs lined up right, when I can’t even con-concentrate..."
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Julia tried to move past her father's crimes, seeing therapists and taking jobs where she didn't have to interact with too many people, but sooner or later someone found out and she had to move on, find a new therapist and/or break up with whoever she was dating.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Julia and Trevor.

110: Creature Feature
Case #0121403. Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, recording statement number 0121403, statement of Alexia Crawley, given March 14th 2012.

## Story

Alexia is a cinematographer, and first works with Dexter Banks on a movie called Red Ronin in 1997. Although she is initially excited to work with him, she soon learns that he's only really interested in recreating things from other movies. Alexia gets outed as transgender before she can make a movie of her own, which eliminates any chance she has in the movie industry apart from continuing to work with Dexter. Alexia turns out to be very good at making Dexter's movies better than just the homages they're conceptualized as, and they both realize that as much as they dislike each other, neither of their careers will last long without the other.
One movie that Dexter obsesses over for years is Kumo Ga Tabeteiru, a Japanese horror film about a kaiju spider which has no apparent protagonist; instead, the movie just has its victims walk up to it and allow themselves to be devoured. Though Dexter has vivid memories of this movie, neither he nor Alexia can find any record of it actually existing. Eventually, Alexia gets a phone call from Dexter who excitedly tells her that they're going to be making a movie just like Kumo Ga Tabeteiru, revealing that while he still didn't find the movie or a screenplay, he found the book that was its source material. Alexia is surprised that Dexter would be more excited to find a book than a film since he doesn't usually care about other media.
Production on the movie, named "Widow's Weave", begins, and Dexter asks the casting director to only get "no-name untested hopefuls" for the cast, which is odd since at this point his studio is prestigious enough to attract the best actors in Hollywood. Dexter also announces that for the film's giant spider he has gotten Neil Lagorio, a famous practical effects monster artist. Alexia is excited by this, being familiar with Lagorio's work and having met him before, until Dexter explains that Lagorio's team will have a private workshop that only he will be allowed to enter. Alexia tries to protest this but Dexter denies her, saying that the restrictions were set by Lagorio himself. Further production is troubled, since all Alexia has to go off of is Dexter's memories of Kumo Ga Tabeteiru, and he often has outbursts that hinder progress. Alexia becomes impressed with actor Brandon Omar, who plays "the closet thing the film had to a protagonist" and who Alexia occasionally sees speaking with Dexter who looks like he's actually listening.
Dexter starts to demand that they only use old, non-digital equipment and spends much more time editing than should be necessary. Shots start to disappear which Dexter denies when Alexia asks about it. One day Alexia has to go into Dexter's office to have him sign off on a schedule change, and she finds it to be dark with film strips threaded all over the office. She touches one and Dexter appears, suspended by the film, and gives her permission to do whatever she needs with the schedule. Alexia "[tries] very hard to convince [herself] that he had only had two arms." Everyone on set starts to get impatient with the lack of apparent progress from Lagorio's workshop, as no one has seen people enter or leave it or even heard sound from inside. They run out of scenes they can shoot without the spider.
Dexter soon announces that the spider is ready for everyone to see. The cast and crew gather outside the workshop and Dexter says that he will take the actors in first. Half an hour passes with no sounds from inside, when suddenly a crew member reads on his phone that Lagorio is dead and had been bedridden in Connecticut for the last year. Everyone looks to Alexia as they realize that there is no animatronic spider and there is something else happening inside the workshop instead. Alexia goes inside the workshop and sees it to be empty until she looks up and sees a web with hundreds of silk-wrapped shapes and a great spider dripping poison onto Dexter as it wraps him in silk.
Alexia: Then in a moment it was all gone, scuttling up and into nowhere, pulling its impossible web behind it. I never knew how to describe my relationship with Dexter and I still don't. How he was complicit and how much he was simply caught in his own neuroses and fears, I don't know. I know he didn't deserve what happened to him. I found the book by the way. And I burned it. If I ever track down the man who used to own it, I might just burn him too.

## Post-Statement

Martin thinks that the book Dexter found was a Leitner. He explains that Dexter and almost a hundred actors disappeared in 2012, and that after giving her statement to the Institute, Alexia talked to the press, telling about the giant spider and everything else, and was ridiculed. Basira found some LAPD information unreleased to the public that every February since this incident, a dessicated corpse with no organs washes up on Redondo beach, and the only one to be identified was one of the disappeared Widow's Weave actors.
Basira tells Martin what Elias did to Melanie and insists that they have to work together if they want to take him down. Basira explains that while Elias can see most anything that he wants, there are times when he is preoccupied, as he didn't know what happened with a stack of papers Martin had knocked over during Melanie's "performance review".

- Ambiguously Evil: Brandon Omar, the actor who plays a prominent role in Dexter's spider movie, is said to have been one of the few people Dexter listened to, and also the one who led the cast to the spider. He isn't portrayed as at all sinister in Alexia's story, but given that The Web is involved...
- Famed in Story: Dexter Banks is apparently quite a famous film director.
- Foreign Remake: According to Alexia, this was basically all that Dexter did; he took favorite scenes of his from obscure foreign movies, glued them together with mediocre screenplays he wrote himself and had Alexia recreate the shots from the movies. The first movie of his to get an Oscar nomination (and the first movie of his that Alexia worked on), Red Ronin, was based on a samurai movie from the early 1970s, Blade of the Avenger, using much of the same plot (along with some added scenes from Westerns and other samurai movies), but set in the U.S. and being about a nihilistic ex-Marine.
- Giant Spider: The Japanese spider movie Dexter obsessed over, and his remake of it, Widow's Weave, features a giant spider that attacks a small island, consuming the residents as they one by one simply walk up to it. Towards the end of the movie shooting, Dexter leads the cast into a studio where a real, colossal spider apparently traps all of them and feeds on them over a long time, with another body turning up on a nearby beach once a year.
- The Movie Buff: Alexia says that she's never met anyone who knew as much about films, and as little about everything else, as Dexter Banks.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dexter Banks may be intended as a caricature of Quentin Tarantino, who also is a big movie buff, worked in a video rental store when he was younger and has a known habit of recreating/homaging scenes from obscure foreign films.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Dexter finally got started on his big spider movie remake when he came across the book it was supposedly based on (no doubt another Leitner book), which he thought was better than getting a copy of the film or its script. When he told Alexia this over the phone, she felt uneasy about it, but it took a moment for her to figure out why - it was that Dexter would never say a book is better than a movie.
- Prima Donna Director: Dexter was this, in spades; egotistical, unable to accept creative input, and kind of a hack if not for Alexia's involvment in his films.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Alexia states that her relationship with Dexter was built on over a decade of "disdain and interdependence." Although they hate each other, they also need each other (Alexia because she can't get other gigs as a cinematographer, and Banks because he knows that she's responsible for a lot of the success of his films)
- Trans Tribulations: Alexia lost any chance she had of directing her own movie when she was outed as trans.
- Troubled Production: In-Universe, the production of Widow's Weave struggles because, among other things, the director is obsessed with remaking shots from a film only he remembers, insists that they film on non-digital equipment, then vanishes into the editing room for far too long, not to mention that the film revolves around an animatronic spider that was never actually being built (and the cast being fed to an actual giant spider).

111: Family Business
Case #0173006. Statement of Gerard Keay, deceased, regarding the death of his mother, Mary Keay. Statement taken posthumously from subject, June 30th 2017.

## Pre-Statement

Before the statement, Julia and Trevor give Jonathan a book and tell him to read the last page before leaving since they don't like using it. Jonathan reads the page which details the final moments of Gerard Keay's life. Gerard appears and grumpily tells him that he's not helping "the Hunters" anymore until Jonathan explains that he's the Archivist.
Gerard is dismayed that Gertrude hadn't stopped the Unknowing before she died and refuses to help Jonathan unless he destroys his page so that Gerard can stay dead, so Jonathan tears out the page to destroy later. Gerard explains that the Unknowing can't be stopped until it's already started and Gertrude had something she thought could accomplish that, which she hid in a storage unit rented under the name 'Jan Kelly' and hid the key at the Archives which Jonathan has already found (#62: First Edition).
When Jonathan asks Gerard about Gertrude, he learns that she also had to read statements to sustain herself though Gerard doesn't believe she recorded them. Gerard didn't fully trust Gertrude as she shared many similarities with his mother, only working on forwarding her goals, "but at least Gertrude tried to do something worthwhile with it." All Mary had wanted was to establish her family as "a little mystic dynasty of her own", akin to the Lukas family, but that wasn't what Gerard wanted to pursue so it wasn't fully realized. Jonathan offers to record Gerard's statement, which he amusedly accepts.

## Story

Gerard learned about the dark powers in the world at a young age as Mary often included him in some of her studies in Leitner's books. She believed that Leitner knew how to use the power of the entities without becoming enslaved by them. Gerard mentions that his father worked in the Archives but quit to help raise Gerard, however he didn't get the chance as once Mary learned she couldn't have another child she murdered him to practice with the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead (#62: First Edition), though Gerard thinks it didn't work since he'd never seen a page for his father in it. Mary would travel a lot and take Gerard with her, meeting with monsters and looking for more of Leitner's books to collect.
As Gerard grows up, he learns that his mother's obsession is foolish and dangerous and that the entities would just as quickly destroy you than help you. Gerard distances himself from Mary but cannot fully cut her off, and once she knows her dream of a magical bloodline has failed, she decides to "try and take full control of the book". Gerard enters Mary's bookstore to find that she has flayed herself and has made several pages from her own skin. As she starts to lose consciousness, Mary tries to give Gerard the tools and orders him to help her complete the ritual, but instead he turns and runs, slipping and falling on the blood-soaked floor before getting out. Gerard is apprehended by the police as everything logically points to Mary's death being a murder and he was seen running from the scene covered in blood. Gerard is ready to accept a life in prison, but is let go when much of the evidence is "contaminated".
Gerard arrives home to see Mary, the ritual having partially worked, and she berates him for not helping her finish it so she could be truly immortal. She follows Gerard for the next five years, coming in and out of existence and forcing him to do her bidding, though while she's gone he tries to destroy her progress and her other books. Eventually Gerard meets Gertrude who has him get the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead for her, and after a week she shows Gerard the destroyed remains of Mary's pages.
Gerard: I never even considered that my mum might have taught Gertrude how to make pages for it before she was destroyed. I think you know the rest. I joined Gertrude's work for a few years. Didn't realize how ill I was until it finally caught up with me. Then I died. I think… I think I finally understand why she brought me back. I just don't understand why she left me behind.

## Post-Statement

Gerard explains that Gertrude wasn't just trying to stop the Unknowing, but every entity's ritual. Gerard asks what Jonathan knows about the entities, and when Jonathan theorizes that they feed on fear Gerard refutes this, saying that "they don't feed on it. They are it." Although he doesn't know how it works, each entity came from a different category of fear, and while they've changed and redefined over time, they've been the same fourteen entities ever since the Industrial Revolution. Jonathan speculates that if these entities came from fear then maybe other feelings have entities as well, but Gerard vehemently denies that, though he can't explain why. Together, Jonathan and Gerard go over all fourteen entities and what fears they belong to.
The Eye, specializing in the fears of being watched, followed, of secrets getting out, of an obsessive need to know.
The Spiral, specializing in the fears of madness and being unable to trust yourself.
The End, specializing in the fear of death.
The Stranger, specializing in the fears of the unknown and of things that aren't quite right.
The Lonely, specializing in the fears of being fully alone or cut off from anyone else.
The Desolation, specializing in the fears of pain, of loss, and of destruction.
The Slaughter, specialzing in violence and war.
The Vast, specialzing in the fears of height and depth and "our own insignificance before the universe".
The Buried, specializing in the fears of being trapped and of small spaces.
The Dark, specializing in the fears of darkness and things that could be in it.
The Corruption, specializing in the fears of rot, of disease, of infestation and swarms.
The Web, specializing in the fears of spiders, of loss of control, of traps.
The Flesh, specializing in animals' fear of being killed for another being's food, of the body being mutilated, such fears that "get weird" when the entity touches humans.
The Hunt, specializing in the fear of becoming prey and the instinctual need to kill or be killed.
Gerard explains that most of these entities have a corresponding ritual that, when completed, will cause our reality to change enough to allow its entity to manifest, possibly multiple entities that are alike enough. Gertrude had learned that all these rituals would be happening close together and had already eliminated some, and the next ones she was going after were the Unknowing and the Rite of the Watcher's Crown, the Eye's ritual which she supposedly already knew how to stop. Gertrude and Gerard had also been trying to track down Jurgen Leitner, but when Gerard found him he couldn't believe that the "pathetic old man" before him was the great sorcerer his mother had taught him to expect, and so let him go.
Gerard: I think… I think I'm ready to go. I'm done. Hide my page, and when you're out of here, burn it.
Jonathan: I will. Thank you, Gerard.
Gerard: Gerry.
Jonathan: What?
Gerard: Gerard was what my mum called me. I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.
Jonathan: Thank you, Gerry. Uh, I dismiss you.

Gerard disappears and Jonathan returns to Julia and Trevor, telling them that he needs to go back to London and thanking them for their help.

- Barred from the Afterlife: Gerard's spirit is bound to Leitner's book, trapping him in a state where he's dead, but still exists.
- Bystander Syndrome: When Jon first asks Gerard for help, he is quite unconcerned with the fact that the world might end if he doesn't since he is trapped in a book.
- Dead Person Conversation: Almost the entire episode is made up of a conversation between Jon and the spirit of Gerard Keay.
- Devil, but No God: There are the fourteen (according to Smirke, anyway) Powers, based on the fears of living beings, but that's all. There's no opposing pantheon of hope, love, etc.
- Fate Worse than Death: Being bound to the skin book hurts all the time, worse than any living being can imagine, and you can't even die to escape it. The only way out is for someone to take pity on you and burn your page.
- Ghostly Goals: Gerard refuses to help Jon unless Jon promises to destroy Gerard's page in the Leitner book, freeing Gerard's spirit.
- Infodump: Gerard gives a lengthy one regarding the name and nature of each of the Powers.
- Parental Neglect: Mary Keay was interested in her son mainly as a vehicle for creating some kind of independent occult dynasty, and otherwise had no time for him.
- Primal Fear: Gerard explains that the cosmic entities that exist adjacent to our reality don't feed on fear; they are fear. Specifically, each one is a primal fear, e.g., the fear of death, madness, disease, darkness, etc...

112: Thrill of the Chase
Case #0111311. Statement of Lisa Carmel, regarding her involvement in a series of murders. Statement number 0111311, 13th November 2011.

## Story

Lisa has always been bored by horror, but true crime scares her in a way she loves because of the fact that it really happened. Her fixation on real-life murders leads her to organize what goes on to be known as Murder Club, which meets biweekly to discuss books about killers and other violent topics.
One night, Murder Club meets at Lisa's flat, and as the members are chatting before the meeting proper there is an unexpected knock at the door. Lisa is worried that her landlord has sent in a new roommate without alerting her, but instead she finds a man in a polystyrene mask who charges in and starts swinging a knife around. Everyone dodges around his swings as Lisa collects knives from the kitchen, noticing that she's tapping her foot as if to music as she does so. Eventually one of the club members kicks out one of the man's legs and he falls, hitting his head on the coffee table and going still. The club unmasks the man but they don't recognize him. Another one of the club members suggests calling the police, but Lisa walks over to them with six knives from the kitchen and everyone slienty takes one. After a few seconds of peace, the club members all descend on the man with their knives. Everyone feels good after the body is sufficiently mutilated, and two members carry it out to dispose of.

The rest gradually leave and Lisa goes to bed, waking up to her panicked roommate who soon runs away after seeing her serenity despite being covered in blood and gore. Lisa cleans up before taking her knife and going to another club member's house, whose mother tells her that he isn't home and had shoved her when he left. Remembering that he had gone to a whiskey shop the day before, Lisa goes there and finds two other club members, one with a knife in the other's throat. Lisa runs as the surviving club member gives chase and for the next five days the club members hunt each other, picking each other off one by one.

Lisa: And I was thinking yesterday how strange all this was. And it occured to me that while it might seem ridiculous, maybe there was something supernatural about all this. Maybe the chase isn't as normal as it feels. Before we killed that man, I don't think any of this would have felt right. So I thought I'd come and talk to you, before it all comes to an end. So sorry if Andrew or Ananya attack anyone here because they saw me come in. I don't think they will, they're usually pretty careful, but still. I think that's all of it, really. I'm probably going to leave now, try to hunt down my friends. It's weird, you know? I don't remember feeling this way when we first set up Murder Club. But I suppose at least we don't have to change the name.

## Post-Statement

Basira remembers hearing about the investigation into these murders, and recalls that Ananya was the last survivor, arrested just as she killed Lisa. She remained silent except to plead guilty and died in prison a few months later, having just "stopped". The masked attacker is new to her, though, and she thinks to look through missing persons reports from around that time.
Daisy arrives to let Basira know that Jonathan has returned and quickly left with Martin and Melanie to go to a storage unit, and needs them to distract Elias. Basira tells Daisy that an escape plan is being made, then asks how she feels after making a kill, using wording from Lisa's statement. Daisy only answers that it feels "good". Basira mentions that she's stopped having a certain dream since she started working in the Archives, though Daisy still has it.

- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: At one point in the statement, which concerns the Hunt, Basira reads "[...w]e were just about to dive into the main discussion, when there was another knock at the door" - and is interupted when Daisy, a Hunter herself, knocks on the door of the room in which she's recording.
- Dissonant Serenity: Lisa is almost blasé about the fact that she and her friends have taken to hunting and killing each other with knives.
- Foreshadowing: There is a minor hint here at the nature of the Powers and how easily some of them can connect to one another. While the presence of hunting and the people possessed obviously indicate that the Hunt was at work here, the members of the group briefly tap their feet to an unknown rhythm after killing masked man, even though music is more associated with the Slaugher than the Hunt.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: After the Murder Club kill the masked man who attacks them in Lisa's flat, they all begin hunting each other.
- True Crime: The members of the Murder Club are all true crime enthusiasts who meet to talk about their shared interest.

113: Breathing Room
Case #571-U. Statement of Adelard Dekker, regarding the near death and subsequent activities of Justin Gough. Statement undated, likely circa 2012.

## Pre-Statement

Before the statement Jonathan, Martin and Melanie enter Gertrude's storage unit and search around. Melanie finds the destroyed remains of the gorilla skin while Martin finds a huge stash of explosives.

## Story

A coroner Adelard knows tells him about a string of suspicious deaths by carbon monoxide poisoning where the bodies had damage to the throat, and for which there was evidence of a second person being present for the death as there are never traces of carbon monoxide gas in the deceased's homes. The coroner explains to Adelard that the carbon monoxide appears to have materialized directly in the victims' blood. Adelard thinks that an entity's avatar is killing these people which he finds out to be Justin Gough, a man who suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to use a barbecue as a space heater while camping. He died at the hospital but was resuscitated. The nurses Adelard talks to say that when Gough woke back up, he screamed about terrible things he saw while dead and needing to pay a price. Gough cut all ties in his life shortly after and never left his house according to the neighbors, but Adelard suspects that he leaves by night to repay his debt.
After two days of spying Adelard sees Gough leave his house, and he looks like a walking corpse. Adelard realizes that Gough is no longer human and so can only be killed by a Hunter, but Adelard decides to continue spying on Gough just to see how he works. Adelard is disappointed when he deduces that Gough is an avatar of The End, but thinks it worthwhile to try to deal with him anyway. Adelard follows Gough to a house where Gough sits in the bedroom and appears to fall asleep in a chair. Both he and the man in the bed convulse and Adelard realizes that Gough is causing others to die the same way he did. Remembering that certain brain injuries can disable one's ability to dream, Adelard retrieves a skewer from the house's kitchen and sticks it past Gough's eye into his head, "scrambling his brain a bit". Adelard leaves the house and tips off the police who take away the now-catatonic Gough. Adelard warns Gertrude that he suspects Gough won't be disabled forever.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan explains that this letter was found in with the explosives which Adelard had left there, and he doesn't know if Gertrude had the chance to read it herself. Basira found that Gough was kept in a care facility until he disappeared in 2015, and around that time many of the facility's staff died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

- Blood from the Mouth: What Justin develops, as The End manifests itself as a form of carbon monoxide poisoning.
- Dead Man's Switch: A literal example for Gertrude: Jon finds it in the archives, wrapped in a block of plastic explosive.
- Eye Scream: Adelard drives a meat skewer through Justin's eye and into his brain as an impromptu trepanation to cut off his ability to dream and break The End's hold over him. It turns him into a vegetable, but it's dubious whether the procedure has the intended effect. The action is described by Adelard in... well, let's say loving detail.
- Foreshadowing: In the beginning of his statement, Dekker mentions that he though the incident was related to a "new emergence" he was investigating, but he found that it had nothing to do with it. Later, we learn that the "emergence" was the new power, the Extinction; considering that the victims were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, he might have thought that the manifestation played on a fear of the planet being destroyed by pollution of the air.
- Not Quite Dead: Or brain-dead. Adelard notes that between the brain's ability to recover from trauma and the resilience the Powers' avatars possess, Justin may eventually return. Jon states that Justin disappeared from his care home in 2015, with several of the staff dying from carbon monoxide poisoning.

114: Cracked Foundation
Case #0092204. Statement of Anya Villette, regarding a cleaning job on Hill Top Road. Original statement given April 22nd, 2009.

## Story

Anya is hired to clean out a freshly-built house on Hill Top Road. Inside, she notices that the lights are dimmer and the air is colder than they should be. As she cleans the kitchen, she becomes entranced by a tree she sees in the backyard with eight branches, and she envisions herself walking out to it and it bending down to grab her. As she continues to work, she notices unexplainable movements in the furniture's dust covers and unnatural shadows.
By the end of the day, Anya is fully unsettled and quickly packs up before remembering that she didn't clean the closet under the stairs, which isn't required but she likes to do as a sign of her dedication and thouroughness in her job. She opens the door and finds not a closet but stairs leading to a basement, something she had not been informed of. Wondering if she is still expected to clean the basement, Anya decides to go down and survey it. As she descends the stairs, the air becomes warmer and there is an abundance of cobwebs.
Reaching the basement room, she sees it to be very unfinished which relieves her as that means she doesn't have to clean here. She then sees a large crack in the floor, a foot wide and unfathomably dark inside. Anya finds herself at the edge as eight legs reach up towards her, then suddenly she wakes up in a chair in the house proper. Anya runs from the house.
Anya: But now everything's wrong. I went to clean that house on April the 23rd, 2009, which according to all of you is tomorrow. But it can't be. That was two weeks ago. I've tried to talk to my friends about it. Those of my friends I can find, but they seem distant, like they don't really know me. Everything is just… wrong. I can't find my favorite coffee shop. And I don't know who you people are.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan has found no indication whatsoever that Anya existed, nor are there any agents or owners related to the new Hill Top Road property. Jonathan contemplates going to the house to directly investigate but ultimately decides that to do so would be unwise.
At this point Jonathan, who has been hiding in a location in the tunnels, hears Tim coming and emerges to meet him, having figured out that he was using the tunnels to go to and from the Archives without encountering his coworkers, and through his growing powers was able to know exactly when and where to intercept him. Tim tries to convince Jonathan to turn off the recorder since he believes that the Eye and/or Elias are listening through it, but Jonathan refuses as they could spy on them regardless and he instead thinks that whatever is really listening wants to stop the Circus of the Other as much as Tim does. Tim explains that as much as he hates Jonathan, he's the only one who he can trust to not be another version of the Not-Them since he's too important to the Eye for it to allow him to be taken. Tim reveals that he found the wax museum that will play host to the Unknowing, and that the Stranger's forces robbed two graves for skin, one of which was Gertrude Robinson's.
Later in the tunnels, Jonathan gives some of the explosives to Daisy while Basira distracts Elias. Daisy mentions that she has been killing mannequins for Elias, as well as a clown.

- The Bus Came Back: This is Tim’s first appearance since “Sneak Preview”. It’s reveals that Tim has both been conducting his own research into The Unknowing and his trauma from Not!Sasha has caused him to distrust Martin, Basira, Melanie and Daisy, resulting in him avoiding the group.
- Double-Meaning Title: “Cracked Foundation” both refers to the house itself and to Jon and Tim’s shattered relationship.
- Giant Spider: When Anya looks into the crack in the basement floor, she sees eight spindly legs reaching for her.
- Innocuously Important Episode: On its own, the statement just seems like a bizarre isolated incident of someone finding her reality shifted so nothing is familiar and her friends don't recognize her. This later turns out to be because she was transported to an alternate universe similar to her own and that the house she cleaned on Hill Top Road houses a crack in reality that leads to the multiverse, indicating that she was one of the "accidents" Annabella alludes to in Season Five's "This Old House" (Episode 196).
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: After the events at Hill Top Road, Anya complains that the people she thought she knew (those she can find, that is) seem different, she can't find her favorite coffee shop, and everything is just wrong. This is a particularly extreme example, since the fact that Jon can't find any evidence of her existence implies that she may have come from an Alternate Universe.
- Parallel Universe: Where Anya comes from; her name indicates she's most likely another version of Anne Willete, from Ivo Lensik's statement "Burned Out". The time shift aspect also serves to potentially explain the date discrepancies in Father Burroughs' statement, "Confession" and "Desecrated Host".
- Un-person: When Jon tries to follow up on Anya's statement, he can't find any evidence that she exists, nor can he corroborate the details of her statement.
- When Trees Attack: Anya has a vision of the tree in the garden grabbing her.

115: Taking Stock

Case #0070401. Statement of Mikaele Salesa, regarding an antique meat grinder in his possession during the Autumn of 1999. Original statement given January 4th 2007.

## Story

Mikaele makes a statement for the Institute at their request, which he agrees to as they are one of his best customers.
Mikaele starts out as one of Jurgen Leitner's assistants, but quits after he witnesses another assistant "get literally eaten by a book". He decides to become an antiques dealer, buying some items from Leitner's clients to start though he avoids dealing in books. Although he initially carries only mundane wares, his clients start to offer him items equivalent to Leitner's books in nature. Since the artefacts "are not so volatile as the books", Mikaele accepts the offers.
Mikaele decides to tell the story of how he made a rule that only he is allowed to take stock of his inventory.
In September 1999, Mikaele's ship's cook, who he refers to only as "Cook", is in charge of taking stock. Mikaele notices that Cook has been taking longer to finish this job and so goes in to check on him one day. Mikaele finds Cook staring at a rusty antique meat grinder. Since Mikaele doesn't know it to be a "weirder" item and doesn't think it would sell for much, he agrees to let Cook buy it from him. When Cook carries the grinder away, Mikaele notices that it seems lighter than it looks. Cook makes hamburgers that night and Mikaele jokes that he used the meat grinder already, and although Cook laughs and says the meat was frozen Mikaele doesn't think it tastes that way.
Over the next few days, Mikaele detects a meat smell on Cook that wasn't present before, and he smiles a lot more. Cook continues to make meat dinners, and though Mikaele's quartermaster assures him that she stocked up on enough frozen meat for it to make sense, Mikaele doesn't trust it as the meat tastes more fresh than that. Mikaele thinks it's something to do with the grinder and stops eating the meat as he notices that Cook keeps more and more of his arm covered. Mikaele sneaks into the kitchen one day while Cook is away, and finds that he left a boiling pot to make stock with bones which Mikaele knows the quartermaster had not added to the supply. Mikaele sees the grinder, now free of rust and looking like new and producing the same meat smell that's on Cook.
Mikaele decides to surprise Cook while he' making dinner and finds him with his right arm elbow-deep in the grinder, and though Cook is turning the crank nothing is coming out. Mikaele sees Cook's severed left arm butchered on the counter, as a new arm starts to come out of the grinder. Mikaele grabs Cook and demands to know what's going on and Cook tries to attack him with a bone from the boiling pot, yelling in Croation. Mikaele is able to overpower and kill Cook, and the crew help him clean up and throw the body overboard. Mikaele later sells the meat grinder to a "Canadian gourmet" who later goes missing.

## Post-Statement

Jonathan explains that the plan to stop the Unknowing is coming together but for now all he can do is wait, which he doesn't like.
At this point, Helen (The Distortion) comes to visit Jonathan as she took another person into the hallways who died there, but she didn't like it. Since the real Helen had memories of feeling better after talking to Jonathan, she thought she could seek help from him but Jonathan doesn't trust her and kicks her out.

- Badass Normal: Mikaele serves no power and therefore has no supernatural backup, but, at least by the time he gives the statement, has been dealing with artifacts that could kill him horribly with very little trouble for years. In fact, unlike most other statement-givers, he is at no point actually afraid or in danger, just disgusted and annoyed with himself for slipping up.
- Double-Meaning Title: Stock refers both to wares a business sells and to a type of broth made from animal bones. In this case, Cook’s arm bones.
- Fingore: The sausage is very homemade. Eventually escalates to Cook's whole arm.
- I Ate WHAT?!: Even before he confirms it, Mikaele stops eating Cook's meat once he suspects where it's coming from.
- Noodle Incident: Mikaele gave his statement as some kind of repayment for an artifact he sold the Institute causing trouble. (From the sound of it, the artifact was a firearm associated with the Slaughter, which doesn’t point to good things.)
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Mikaele used to work for Leitner. After seeing one of his colleagues get devoured by a book, he swiftly reconsidered his career choices.
- The Secret of Long Pork Pies: Mikaele says that the meat dishes tasted too fresh to be canned.

116: The Show Must Go On

Case #7870211. Abraham Janssen. Incident occurred in the Court Theatre Buda, October 1787. Statement taken journal entry dated 2nd November of that year. Committed to tape 4th October 2013.

## Pre-Statement

Elias gathers Jonathan, Martin, Basira and Daisy to discuss their plan to stop the Unknowing, which is to blow up the wax museum just after it begins when it's most vulnerable. Elias tells them that they may be "confronting The Stranger in a rather direct manner", so he wants to play them one of Gertrude's tapes to give them some idea of what they could encounter.

## Story

Abraham is chosen by Wolfgang von Kempelen to secretly operate his chess-playing automaton, the Mechanical Turk. Abraham sits hidden underneath the table and chooses on what moves to make, but the physical movements are done by the Turk itself, impressing Abraham, although he is unsettled by the Turk's uncanny appearance. The first exhibition is before Empress Maria Theresa and goes quite well, exciting Abraham enough for him to continue operating the Turk for the next year at various other exhibitions, though he can never shake his nervousness regarding the creepy automaton and even starts to dream about it. Wolfgang makes other strange inventions during this time, including a "speaking machine" which features a horrific artificial mouth, and though it can only make screaming sounds Wolfgang is certain that it will one day produce actual speech.
Fifteen years after Abraham left Wolfgang's service, he gets an invitation from him to a performance at the Court Theatre of Buda in Budapest. Though it's a long trip, Wolfgang begs him to come as he is "the oldest friend of the Turk". This wording is deeply unsettling to Abraham but he decides to go to support Wolfgang and to get over that fear. Once in Budapest, Abraham can't find Wolfgang and learns that the theatre used to be a monastary three years prior. On the night of the performance, Abraham goes to the theatre and enters along with several other people, and he notices that all the theatre staff are not humans but automata. One of them takes Abraham by the shoulder and guides him to a balcony seat. Intimidated by the automata, Abraham stays silent as more people are led to the seats around him. In front of each seat is a mechanical bird in a cage.
Once all the seats are filled the theatre goes quiet and Abraham sees the Turk on the the stage, looking around. He notices that instead of the elaborate coat the Turk normally wears, there is "something hairy, coarse and brown". The mechanical birds activate and screech sounds of "creatures in pain". Abraham watches the Turk raise a sword above its head, then bring it down into the false table Abraham once sat inside to operate it. The birds go quiet for a few seconds as blood spreads out from under the table, then resume their screeching as the Turk sets up Wolfgang's speaking machine on the table. Then, despite not having legs, the Turk stands and separates from the table before engaging in a dance. The speaking machine activates on its own and, to Abraham's horror, begins screaming Hungarian words. Reality is broken, everything and everyone shifts in and out of existence, objects change, Abraham detaches a screaming clockwork heart.
Abraham then hears a battle cry and sees five soldiers, a blood-covered captain and four subordinates weeping from empty eye sockets, who are unaffected by the chaos and roll a cannon in, fighting through the horde of automata. They fire the cannon at the Turk and the chaos ends, everything becomes real once again. They leave as quickly as they came, leaving carnage, broken automata and dying people.

## Post-Statement

On the tape, Gertrude is impressed that the almost completed Unknowing was stopped by an avatar of The Slaughter in such a simple way. She suspects that a disruption to the Unknowing would be far more damaging to The Stranger the closer it is to manifestation.
Elias and Jonathan decide that Martin and Melanie should stay behind at the Institute while the rest go to the wax museum. Elias advises against bringing Tim along but leaves Jonathan to his own decision.
When Jonathan meets with Tim afterwards to discuss the plan, Tim assures Jonathan that when things go bad, he's going down swinging.

- Achilles' Heel: Like the other Powers, the Stranger is most vulnerable during its big ritual. Some agents of the Slaughter are able to one-shot the cast with a cursed cannon because of this.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Wolfgang von Kempelen, the creator of the Mechanical Turk and a mechanical speech synthesizer, is revealed to have been a servant of The Stranger. He and his inventions are also instrumental in the ritual Abraham witnesses.
- Clockwork Creature: The Mechanical Turk, the ushers, and the birds.
- Reality Is Out to Lunch: As the ritual Abraham describes is enacted, things become weirder and weirder until he experiences a "moment of absolute nothing." When he returns to existence, reality has become nightmarish, bizarre, and chaotic. As he puts it, "nothing was anything." Possibly averted, in that the ritual may have altered Abraham's perception of reality, rather than reality itself.
- Villainous Rescue: The Unknowing of 1787 was stopped by agents of the Slaughter, who hit it with a cannon shot while it was at its peak.

117: Testament

Case #0170208-A to F. Assorted statements of Magnus Institute archival staff, prior to their departure for Great Yarmouth.

## Jonathan

Jonathan explains the plan, and that if they do it right that it will be centuries before the Unknowing can be attempted again. Jonathan admits that Daisy's desire to take care of it by herself legitimately seems like the best option, but "it wouldn't feel right" if he didn't go as well, Tim refuses to not be a part of it, and Basira wants to be there for Daisy. Jonathan finally accepts Georgie's advice and admits that he does trust them all, apart from Elias. He also learned that the second body the Circus took was that of Jurgen Leitner, buried under a false name by the Institute.

## Basira

Basira mentally prepares herself for the coming fight. She explains that she depends on Daisy as a "fixed point" that she can look to for stability. She resolves to "choke down the fear" "because that's how you keep going."

## Melanie

Melanie knows she's staying behind to help defeat Elias, but she's not happy with any plan that doesn't end with him dead. She decides to tell the story of her trip to India. After learning of ghosts of soldiers there when doing her research, she decided to go and to her surprise found them to be "a huge angry mass of dead flesh and guns" which hit her with a bullet, though it disappeared by the time she got to the hospital.

## Martin

Martin anxiously hopes that everything goes well with the mission, and in the meantime he anticipates the execution of his own plan regarding Elias.

## Daisy

Daisy: <sigh> <loads gun> Okay.

## Tim

Tim is angry that all someone needs to do to have their life ruined is to be unlucky once. He swears to hurt the Circus, to go crazy on them if they catch the others. He remarks that Robert Smirke failed in his mission of "balance and fear" and that the only person who really affected them was Gertrude and she didn't care who she had to sacrifice to do it, so he hopes Jonathan has the guts to sacrifice him if need be.

## Post-Statements

Jonathan still has Gerry's page and is reluctant to burn it and lose all of his knowledge, but he sucks it up and does it anyway.

- Lock-and-Load Montage: A rather short one: Daisy's "statement" consists solely of her loading a gun and saying "Okay."
- Remember That You Trust Me: Jon ends up doing this to himself: after reflecting on what his paranoid attitude in the previous season cost him, he makes the conscious decision to choose to trust his companions.
- The Reveal: Melanie finally gives a statement on the time she was shot by a ghost in India...
- The Un-Reveal: ...though she doesn't give much more detail than to basically say "I got shot by a ghost." Oh, and that apparently, the ghost was a weird mashup of people and guns.

118: The Masquerade

Case #0170608-A/B. Original recordings of a Magnus Institute visit to the House of Wax, Great Yarmouth, and an internal management dispute.

## Institute

Martin records himself burning various statements. After a few seconds, Elias is outside the locked recording office door demanding Martin to let him in, but Martin mockingly tells him to use his own keys. Elias runs to get his keys and gets into the office. They get into an argument when Elias takes Martin's action as "a cry for attention" and thinks that Jonathan put him up to it. Martin yells that he gets to be angry without a point too. Martin brings up that Elias must have had his seeing powers since the beginning and could have warned them about Prentiss or the Not-Them but chose not to for no clear reason. Elias then tortures Martin by giving him knowledge about his father who left when his mother started to get sick. Martin apparently has a strong resemblance to his father which caused his mother to secretly resent him. Elias places his mother's thoughts of him into his mind and tells him to stop burning statements before he leaves. Melanie then comes in with evidence from Elias' office, having stolen it while he was preoccupied with Martin.

## Wax Museum

Jonathan, Tim, Basira and Daisy set up the explosives and find a tape recorder left by Jonathan when he was kidnapped (#101: Another Twist). Jonathan tells the others that the Circus have made a sort of auditorium in the center of the building. Calliope music starts to play and they peek into the "auditorium" and find that the place has become Bigger on the Inside. They see the Anglerfish (#1: Angler Fish) preparing to skin some of its latest victims. Tim demands that they do something to save them but Jonathan doesn't want to risk exposing themselves. As they argue, Daisy returns, having set up the last of the explosives, and gives Jonathan the detonator. As they start to make their way out, they hear Nikola Orsinov initiating the Unknowing. Reality distorts around the team as they fall into confusion.

- Call-Back: The statements that Martin burns are ones that have been read by Jon in previous episodes.
- Deadly Closing Credits: At the end of the episode, Daisy has been affected by the Unknowing, and she's pointing a gun at Jon. The last thing we hear is Jon yell "Daisy," and then a gunshot, followed by the end credits.
- Fate Worse than Death: Jon thought that the anglerfish simply ate the bodies of its victims after flaying them. He discovers that instead, that they're still alive, and have been turned into wax figures.
- Foreshadowing: Martin confronts Elias with the fact that he allowed Prentiss' attack on the Institute and let Not!Sasha run around posing as the real Sasha even though his powers must have tipped him off about them. Elias doesn't provide an answer, but in Episode 160, we learn the reason why.
- Iron Woobie: Martin takes being on the receiving end of Elias' Mind Rape a lot better than Melanie did.
- Oh, Crap!: "Oh God... Oh God... They're not waxworks." Doubles as a Wham Line, along with "I guess you don't need skin to sing."
- No One Gets Left Behind: Tim wants to try and rescue the victims of the anglerfish, but Jon argues that they can't help them.
- The Un-Reveal: The Anglerfish is finally met in-person in this episode, but isn't given any description, leaving the audience to suffer Nothing Is Scarier forevermore.
- Wax Museum Morgue: Averted, horribly. The people who have been turned into wax figures are still alive.
- We Need a Distraction: Martin distracts Elias by burning a bunch of statements.

119: Stranger and Stranger
Case #0170708. Unknown.

As the calliope continues to play, Jonathan encounters Sarah Baldwin and Nikola while he slowly loses his mind. Sarah tells Jonathan that she's Tim and gets him to give her the detonator.
Daisy runs into Breekon and Hope but she doesn't fall for their tricks and outright kills Hope.
Tim and Basira meet each other but Tim doesn't trust her and runs off.
Jonathan realizes that Nikola is not Tim and so she taunts him in the form of Gertrude Robinson and berates him for failing to stop the Unknowing and for being an unworthy successor. Nikola then changes into Jurgen Leitner and blames Jonathan for his death as he had left for a smoke break when Elias came. Nikola becomes herself again and invites Jonathan to dance with her.
Breekon rages at Daisy for killing Hope but she only laughs as he traps her inside the coffin.
Basira focuses her mind on what she does know, teaching herself to walk and to leave the wax museum.
Jonathan regains some of his sanity and sees Nikola's past as the clown Joseph Grimaldi who was made into the Dancer by Gregor Orsinov after joining the Circus of the Other. Sarah informs Nikola that Hope has been killed and presses her to finish the dance and as she says goodbye to Jonathan, Tim arrives and attacks Jonathan, but he uses his compelling power to make Tim see Nikola in the form of Grimaldi, then the detonator in his hand. Nikola silences Jonathan and tells Tim that the world won't be any better with the Eye ruling it, but Tim only cares about hurting the Stranger.

Tim: You sound stressed. You know, I hear the Great Grimaldi's in town. You should go see it, cheer yourself up.
Nikola: That's! Not! Funny!
Tim: I know.
BOOM

- Ax-Crazy: After the Unknowing whacks everybody over the head, Daisy completely loses her connection to humanity and morphs into a laughing, growling thing to tear half of the deliverymen apart with her bare hands.
- Double-Meaning Title: In addition to revolving around a ritual of The Stranger, this episode sees things getting quite strange, indeed.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Nikola got to the theme music. That means you're in the Unknowing's audience.
- Mind Screw: In spades. Most notably, Sarah claims to be Tim to take the detonator from Jon, but when the detonator next reemerges it's actually in Tim's hand.
- Surreal Theme Tune: The calliope music used as the theme for this episode is bizarre, cheery and dissonant.
- Taking You with Me: Tim apparently sacrifices himself by detonating the C4 to disrupt the ritual.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nikola puppeteers Gertrude and Jurgen's bodies to deliver one of these to Jon. It works... almost.
- Voice of the Legion: This is how the puppeted entities sound, their voices overlaid onto Nikola's.
- Uncertain Doom: Tim, Jon, Daisy, and Basira.

120: Eye Contact
Case #0170908. Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the dreams of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive. Details pulled directly from subject.

## Pre-Statement

Elias explains that Jonathan is in the hospital and "everything but braindead" as his nervous system is working but nothing else is.

## Story

The Eye watches Jonathan experience the dreams of everyone he has taken a live statement from.
Jonathan dreams of a sterile room of tables with disembodied hearts beating and leaking blood, surrounding a forlorn-looking Lionel Elliot (#34: Anatomy Class) holding an apple which he tries to throw at Jonathan but breaks his elbow instead.
Jonathan turns and sees Tessa Winters (#65: Binary) typing rapidly and trying to outrun an endless flow of words which cause her pain. She sees Jonathan and angrily starts to eat her keyboard.
Jonathan passes "those places he can no longer watch. The silent wards of peeling skin, the empty warehouse of thick darkness and frightened children, the rusted train car that smells of eager, infectious hate." (#28: Skintight, #73: Police Lights, #76: The Smell of Blood) He then sees the scene of Breekon and Hope standing with the coffin on the side of the road (#61: Hard Shoulder) but doesn't see Daisy anywhere. The carved words on the coffin have changed from "Do Not Open" to "I Am For You". Jonathan walks into the coffin but is still visible to the Eye.
Jonathan makes his way onto a subway train and watches Karolina Górka be crushed by the compressing carriage, (#71: Underground) and sees one of the train's ads which bears the word "Dig". (#88: Dig)
Jonathan sees a door which does not lead to what he knows it used to. (#47: The New Door, #101: Another Twist)
Jonathan turns and sees Jordan Kennedy covered in a swarm of ants, beyond which is the form of Jane Prentiss burning in an incinerator. (#55: Pest Control) As Prentiss staggers toward him, Jonathan thinks that even entering the dreams of Jude Perry (#89: Twice as Bright) would be better but she is able to shut him out.
Jonathan finds himself inside a dark building where he sees Trevor and Julia hunting the darkness. (#109: Nightfall)
He is then in the graveyard where Naomi Herne (#13: Alone) calls out for help, but he cannot do anything.
He sees Georgie in a dissection room, (#94: Dead Woman Walking) looking at him in pity.
Jonathan then looks up and sees the Eye, endlessly watching, and is forced to start his dreams from the beginning again.

## Post-Statement

Martin arrives with a police officer, and as Elias offers his condolences for the loss of Tim and Daisy the officer arrests him for a variety of crimes. Elias informs the officer that he has a flash drive that he wants to get to Chief Inspector Henderson containing certain evidence. Elias admits that he's impressed with Martin for taking such a bold role in the coup. After Elias is taken away, Martin is surprised by Peter Lukas suddenly appearing again. Peter congratulates and compliments Martin on taking down Elias and explain that while Elias is still the "beating heart" of the Institute, he arranged for Peter to take over as the operational head of the Institute should he be removed. Peter requests to meet with Melanie and Basira and to hear any updates on Jonathan's health.
Peter: And don't look so down! I know change can be scary, but eventually it happens just the same. I think we're going to great things, Martin. Great things.

- Adventures in Comaland: Jon experiences a repeating succession of dreams while in a coma. Averted, in that despite his attempts in his dreams to wake himself up, he is unable to do so.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The dreams that Jon visits are those of former statement givers, including Dr. Lionel Elliott (Episode 34: "Anatomy Class"), Tessa Winters (Episode 65: "Binary") and Georgie (Episode 94: "Dead Woman Walking"), or reference events of other statements, such as "Dig" (Episode 88) and "Underground" (Episode 71).
- Fate Worse than Death: Jon is trapped in a coma in which he has a rotating series of nightmares that belong to the people whose statements he's taken. He must watch each one play out again and again, unable to change anything no matter how much the people in the dreams beg him to help, with the the Eye always filling the sky above him.
- Infectious Insanity: Each of Jon's dreams that Elias narrates represents a different "gifted nightmare" whose statement Jon took directly from its subject. The tape recordings apparently are a way for Jon to put a barrier between him and the Beholding - otherwise, he relives the statements on repeat every time he falls asleep.
- Wham Episode: The Unknowing was seemingly stopped and Elias is arrested, but Tim and Daisy are apparently dead, Jon is in a coma-like state and Peter Lukas has taken over the Institute.

### Previous

### Index

### Next

- The Magnus Archives Season Two
- Recap/The Magnus Archives
- The Magnus Archives Season Four

Top