****
Scribblings
To: James Batten
From: Mark Davis
Subject: What do you make of this?
Dr. Batten,
I found this during the cataloguing project -
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
[red scribbles]
Dav [fading red pen]
Da [fading blue pen]
David [heavy black pen from here on]
David David David david
David Messer
Use as journal, order thoughts [written sideways]
Room 36
[crude drawn map of a building, Room 36 at the map’s center]
Where is everyone?? [written at an angle in the corner]
Finally found some food, and have retreated to room for the night. Sun setting soon. I can’t find the words to express how good it feels to write again. The sleek pen in my fingers, the rough matte of the paper against my hand, and the sheer physicality of the act itself brings me untold joy, reminding me in every little way that I am once again experiencing the real world. Ah, it’s snowing outside! It’s not snowing, that is part of my delusions. It still laps at the edges of my consciousness like a puddle held at bay by the wind. Another, stranger force pushes against it in my mind, a waking nightmare
[black scribbles]
cannot be described without the sliding… sliding back into the dream where I have been trapped for so long. Not the same dream, a different one, someone else’s… I can feel the two fighting over my mind like hungry wolves, viruses spiraling in combat, leaving me mostly free from both for the first time in eternities. I would like to find the date, to know how long I have been here. And also, to find out what happened to the staff. It’s been so long since it snowed! [last phrase struck through by a line] Will look for a newspaper in the morning.
12/17/2014
Very satisfactory lunch. It’s my second time consciously tasting food in 9 years, if I remember my last waking memories correctly. We fortified the building’s front door and sealed all other entrances. The other patients are all exhibiting cessation of neuroses as well, and we collectively decided to protect the building until we can determine the fate of the staff and others.
The streets outside, viewed via window, are empty. We should go play in the snow! Cars litter the streets, in some cases still running. No sign of struggle. Expedition has been proposed to gather resources. Not sure if I should mention the nightmare-presence I feel in my mind. Cannot determine if the other patients are feeling it. How are former mental patients supposed to act?
12/18/2014
Frank Ditmer has been acting as leader, doing a good job. They went out and came back with a large amount of supplies. No other people encountered as of yet, and no evidence as to their fate. All the cars left running are now empty of gas; Ditmer and crew turned off as many as they could in case we need to use them. Do you mind if I go play in the snow, daddy? [last sentence aggressively struck through, but still legible]
Heard a distinct phrase in the nightmare waters washing around the outsides of my mind; another patient, Kelly Jackson, said it out loud. At this point we have all realized that we are feeling the same external influence. Atmosphere is tense, though surprisingly stable. It seems each of us are clear of thought while the dark waves stalemate our various dementias.
Same force responsible for disappearance of everyone else?
12/19/2014
We put on music and had a good old-fashioned dance today. No idea how long this clarity will last. Danced with Kelly, nearly cried at the touch of another person again. Fortunately I held it in; I still have my dignity. Still no sign of any other people. Talking with people and forming friendships is exhilarating. Sure, you can go play in the snow, I’ll be right out. I was not aware of the passage of time, but it seems my body was. I crave interaction like a drug.
Frank is right. We are going to have to go out and search for the others eventually, as much as this place feels like rebirth and home. ‘ngyah t’reth. We might not even be safe. We have to find out where they went. I plan to volunteer. I want to see the world again, for however long I have. She’d want that of me, to live again, to be happy again, for as long as I can manage.
12/20/2014
Bitter cold. Sun is setting, and the three of us have stopped for the night in an abandoned house. Heat still works, but we are only keeping on a tiny light in the basement for fear of being seen by threats as yet unknown. Maps found at a bus station indicate that we are now two miles from the northern edge of Columbus, Ohio. How I got here from Florida, where my family lives (lived?) I’ll never know. It’s so cold outside, I wish I was still there.
Frank’s a good guy. Smart too. I think he was once a professor, like me. He won’t talk about his dementia, though. Each of us keeps that to ourselves, for fear… of the problem returning, or of being judged, it’s impossible to say. I know what they would say if they heard my delusion, that it wasn’t my fault, that accidents happen, but those words meant nothing to me nine years ago, and they will mean nothing now. Eyah sa’kagra. [last phrase struck out] … ? … ? Kelly sleeping next to me, will write more later.
12/[unknown symbol]/2014
The balance of the waters in my mind, dark and sinister on one side, and the blinding white of winter on the other, shifts… the closer we get to the center of the city. Walked very slowly and [symbol] for most of the short daylight, once we heard the sound on the wind. The day was unnaturally short, even for winter. We are resting now in an unlocked restaurant in a pseudo-suburban area… looks like a large college campus. I am grateful to have almost no troubling thoughts from my personal demons, but fearful of those demons that are not mine, who continue to whisper strange words and pictures.
[symbol] / [symbol] / [symbol]
[symbol] terrified. Reached the city center, now hiding in the underground parking garages. Entire population of others seems all still alive, but under mental influence. We can hear them now, tens of thousands, chanting above. It was only luck that they didn’t see us. [symbol]. Frank believes the foreign influence on us is the cause, I agree. Why we remain unaffected – perhaps our inherent insanity helps us resist the foreign one. [symbol] in the morning.
From creeping about, we briefly got up the internal stairs into the 34th floor of the [symbol] building, saw some sort of gigantic [symbol] to randomly shifting places and times appearing to slowly grow in front of the capitol building, as tens of thousands [symbol] and worshipped it. Frank is grim, Kelly terrified. I want to encourage her, make her feel better, but I am relearning all of my emotions again, and don’t know what to say. All I know is, it would be foolish to assume that the [symbol] will stay random forever. All of this has the signs of a horrific attack on the human race.
[symbol] / [symbol] / [symbol]
Running out of food. Frank caught and got killed [symbol] nights ago, stings my heart bitterly. Fanatics now aware of the existence of non-controlled, and are searching the high rises for us. Kelly is now speaking half in the other language, half in English. She refuses to physically let go of me at any time. I am making a distinct conscious effort to write correctly. I have only one plan. We are trapped.
I saw, out a window into a window, in another building, seven fanatics walk into a certain room and suddenly become confused. They looked around in terror, until they left the room, and resumed their mind-controlled behavior. [symbol] means there is something that resists the effects of the [symbol]. This behavior happened on the 32nd floor of the building south of the [symbol] building, two rooms from the east end.
That portal is my only idea. I can see the light of awareness leaving Kelly’s eyes, and I can hear the fanatics racing up the stairs. I’m [symbol] either way, so I might as well try. I’m going to try to make it to the roof and throw this book into the [symbol]. Wish me [symbol]. And if this lands in some time or place before 2005… I beg you to find a David Messer in Miami, Florida, and tell him not to let his daughter play
in the snow. I have
[large black single line, as of pen being jerked across page]
[END TRANSCRIPT]
[Source: An ancient scroll found in the Royal Library of England; scroll claims it was exactly transcribed from a book lost in the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria in 48 BCE]
I already checked, and there is in fact a David Messer in a psychiatric hospital near Columbus, Ohio in the United States. I have to be honest, this is rather disturbing.
Mark Davis
Archivist
Royal Library of England
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From: James Batten
To: Mark Davis
Subject: Re: What do you make of this?
Mark,
We’ve uncovered over thirty different documents purported to be from wildly different times and places, all describing these events in 2014, all supposedly written by different cured psychiatric patients in different cities all over the world. It’s a widespread and enduring hoax that, frankly, has this institution on its last nerve. Please have the item destroyed. Also, try exercising some scholarly skepticism in the future. Thanks.
James Batten
Head Researcher
Royal Library of England
Psychosis: Tales of Horror Page 7