thesphererp | Memory share.

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Memory share.

[Direct link to where it is here if ya wanna listen.]

You’re in your crowded office in front of your computer, edged to one side so that Nic, your boss and your best friend can’t see the wall of conspiracy that your space has become. Behind you there are maps of the East Coast, dotted with pins and various colored posted notes, all written with a sharpie. You’re going to figure out this Thomas Warren thing if it kills you. (And honestly, it might with everything. The last time you’d seen him you’d sassed him and he’d warned you. But warning you off might as well have been a red flag waved in front of your eyes, even with his computer experts trying to break into the PNWS servers. And with them wiping your phone. And stealing your sunglasses from your car for some reason.

Even if you suspect that the reason had everything to do with the same reason that Warren had stolen Richard’s coffee cup: DNA.)

It’s been three weeks since you’ve seen Nic, because he’s in Russia dealing with his own personal show and its murder forests and you just hope that Amalia can keep him safe. But he looks like you look, which is most definitely like shit from lack of sleep and food and too much coffee. You’ve been talking about the things that you’d turned up in your investigation, about how everything is all connected (as you’ve been saying for three damn years) when suddenly Nic’s face drains of what little color it’s managed to retain as he looks at his email. “Sorry, I’m just. Getting an email. One second.”

The color drains even further from his face as you just ask him: “What’s wrong?”

There feels like a long pause, and you wonder if you’ve been disconnected before he replies, in his ‘everything is fine don’t freak out’ voice which makes you want to freak out all the more. “You’d better take a look,” his accent matches your own, and know that there’s something wrong in the way that it comes out more. “I just…” Nic is leaving what he was going to say hanging for a second, and you’re already in your email box. It’s full of things, but there’s something that catches your eye. But Nic is speaking again. “It should be in your inbox.” And it is there at the top.

“Okay. You’re kind of freaking me out.” Because he is and it takes so little to freak you out right now, given that you’ve not had a good night’s sleep in three years. “But okay…”

“Yeah…” He pauses. “Just take a look and call me back.” Which is never a good sign, really. The last time he told her to do something without explaining what it was, there had been the phone call from Simon right before he escaped from Three Rivers.

“Okay.” Your voice is soft, weaker than you’d like it to be as you click off of Skype and start playing the video file. The file is tinted that odd shade of green that comes from night vision and for a moment you just wonder if this is another nanny cam video that could possibly be a black tape. If it is a black tape, it’s weird that it’s addressed to you and Nic and not Richard, but… There’s something niggling you, pressing there in the back of your mind. It’s the thought that you’re missing something, something important but you’re too close to see it. The video is dark and shadowy, but you can make out that it’s a bedroom. There’s a bed near the window, and the curtains are drawn shut.

Your pulse is thudding uncomfortably in your ears, and you clench and unclench your hands as the video goes on for a full minute. Honestly, it seems like a jump scare video more than anything else, and you’re expecting one and will murder Nic when he gets back for being such an asshole and doing this if it is. But then you realize that the image on the video isn’t static, and it’s not from a nanny cam. Instead the camera moves, panning towards the bed, and you realize that there’s someone actually in it, and that they’re asleep and don’t have any idea that someone has invaded their space and is recording them in their bedroom. (There’s something familiar about the sheets, even with the weird lighting, but you don’t let yourself think that. You can’t. Not yet.)

The camera lingers there on the woman’s foot for a long moment before it moves along her body, taking it’s time to reach the woman’s face against her pillows. But it stops before it reaches her, and instead moves to show the corner of the room. What’s there scares you more than anything else your life. You’ve seen them before of course, while going through Richard’s tapes, and you’ve talked to other people who have experienced them including Strand’s sister about when they were young and Richard invited them in. But this, without Richard’s calm voice at your side is worse than any black tape, and you’re filled with a furious anger that Nic would have left you alone to watch this, even though he’s on the other side of the world.

You cling to Strand’s voice in your head, and how it has to be apophenia but you can see the demon’s height, reaching almost towards the ceiling. You can see the length of its arms, hanging low at its side, the long fingers twisted almost like sticks. There’s the hint of teeth in the thing, lighter than the rest of the shadows that seem to make up the air around the bedroom. Panic is starting to set in now, sharp and acidic, because this is straight out of your nightmares and has been for three years since the cabin. Five things you can see. You can hear Dr. Bernier’s voice in your head, and you try, you really do to stop the panic, but all you can see is the demon on the screen in a too familiar room, and the camera is moving back to the bed.

You know what it is now, maybe you’ve known since the first time the camera was clicked on. This bedroom, this bed, this sheet, this foot… it’s all familiar and someone invaded the space of your apartment to record you sleeping and send it to you. Recorded you sleeping and the demon in the corner of your bedroom. It’s fucking terrifying on several levels. Level one of course is the demon, because it can’t not be when it’s ripped directly from your nightmares. Level two is the fact that someone broke into your apartment and you don’t know when they broke in and you had no idea and they did this and they could have--

You don’t want to think what they could have done, because your brain is flashing back to another time where there was a body hanging from an extension cord. That was Simon you’re pretty sure but. But but but.

The third level is terrifying but in the back of your mind of how someone knows when you were home. Ever since Richard had returned from Italy you were spending more time at his father’s house than at your own apartment unless one or both of you were out doing something on a case and since you’ve been back from Turkey you’ve been there nearly every night. It’s only when the two of you (when Richard) said that you couldn’t keep doing this that you slept here alone. God. Had they been there before?! How many times had someone been in your apartment when you didn’t know it?

How many times had a fucking demon?!

You want to call Richard. No, you need to call Richard. You need to talk to him, to hear his voice even if he tells you you’re insane. Even if he tells you that this isn’t a black tape. But Nic is in Russia waiting for you to respond and even if he’s an asshole who didn’t warn you for this, you can’t let him not know you’re okay (well, okay as you can be right now). So you call him back on Skype and he answers instantly. That’s reassuring if nothing else is right now.

“Nic!” You say, as soon as he manages to get his hello out to you. You can’t keep the anger out of your voice. “What the hell is going on?! How did someone get in there?”

“Don’t panic.” Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. You can’t stop panicking. You feel like you may never stop panicking again.

“When was this?” Maybe he’s had time to look at it, to do his Nic magic and figure out a time stamp or something so you’d know. So you can…

“I don’t know.” That’s not at all reassuring, nor is the hesitancy in his voice.

“I have to call the police!” Because your father is a cop, and that’s what he’s trained you to do in these sort of situations, even though there’s nothing that they can do against a demon. Some hysteria starts to bubble up inside of you, and instead what you think is: I need an old priest and a young priest.

But maybe Nic isn’t useless after all, because he’s been doing something while leaving you alone to watch this, even if you would have rather he’d been on Skype with you. “I already called them. One of the detectives we spoke with in season two is on her way. She’s going to take you to your apartment. She just texted, she’s about six minutes away.”

Six minutes. A lot can happen in six minutes. In six minutes you can watch this video three more times, and you do. You can hear Nic call your name, but you can’t stop staring at the freeze frame of your face in the video. You haven’t slept in three years, and now you’re just pretty sure that you’re never going to be able to sleep again.

[Spoilers for 306 of The Black Tapes.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Where are you?

Home. I couldn't be at my office anymore.

Company?

Please?

I'll be there soon.

[And true to his word, he is, with a bottle of scotch in hand.]

I thought we might need this.

[There's also a bag with a comfort cake in it.]

[Alex had put the tea kettle on, and she'd definitely had taken her shoes and work clothes off in favor of pajamas because this sucks more than she wants to say right now. When he shows up, Alex is just sitting on the sofa, wrapped up into herself and she's staring at nothing.

He knows her well enough to know when she's been crying, so Alex doesn't bother to try and hide that fact.

Her voice is softer than normal when she replies.]

Yeah. We probably are.

Edited 2019-07-26 02:25 (UTC)

[He sits the bottle down and crosses over to her, pulling her into his lap. He's not a touching person, but he knows she is and that she needs that contact.

He doesn't say anything, instead, lets her decided what to say.]

Voice: un.TheStrandInstitute

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audio - un; Angel

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audio | un: whiteroad

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audio; un: ambiguity

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