I-it is. A bit long. Sorry. If you’re certain you still want to hear it.
[He hesitates, really thinking of how to talk about this. It isn’t something he’s even had time to process, the story’s end happening just moments before he found himself here. Jon takes a breath, a sip of his drink. Something about it does calm as much as surprise him - he can taste it, for one. ]
It started when I was promoted to the Head Archivist position at the Institute I worked at. [If he wanted to be truly honest, it started when he was eight, with that damned spider book. But it’s not the important starting point here, nor is it something he feels comfortable sharing. As understanding and patient as Kitsuragi has been so far, Jon still wants to keep some privacy after everything.] I was tasked with making audio recordings of the statements people left us of their experiences with the supernatural. They were… odd. A lot of them. While most recorded easily as digital recordings, a handful of them would distort and only be able to be recorded on an old analog tape recorder. So I started. And it… [His hand trembles for just a breath.] It got bad.
We started being attacked. First by a living hive. A woman who had given herself to a Power, of Corruption, and all sorts of… things started to use her body as a hive. Worms, mostly. They attacked the Institute en masse, and we did all we could to stop it. [And it’s strange if Kim looks now, how all the little pocked scars marking Jon all over are just about the size for worms to crawl through.] After that, we found the body of my missing predecessor in the tunnels underneath the building. Detectives came ‘round, started asking questions. I thought- [He sighs, shaking his head once, hanging it low for a moment even with his shoulders.] I thought I was helping their investigation, but they had suspected me. Were investigating me when I wasn’t with them. Even after all the evidence provided proved my innocence, they still treated me like a criminal most of the time.
After that, I began my own search, was suspicious of my assistants until I was able to prove Tim and Martin were innocent… But. But my third assistant, my friend, Sasha. She wasn’t…. Right. It wasn’t until too late I realized some thing had killed her months before and taken her place. I don’t-
[He stares down at his glass, his voice quiet and miserable:] I still don’t remember what the real Sasha looked like. That … thing. It messes with your memories. All you know is what that thing made itself look like.
[Another breath, another sip of the sweet warm liquor.]
I found a man living in the tunnels as well, and brought him up to get answers. He knew more of what was going on with the Institute and the strange happenings. He told me a bit. That. That there were Entities, gods of Fear that lived just on the edge of our world. Everything we’d been seeing were bits of them seeping and slipping into our reality. Vampires, werewolves, spirits, all of them were part of these gods trying to get in. They fed on our fears and terrors, they were our fears and terrors. And our continued fear was gradually making them stronger.
It was a lot. Too much information, so I stepped out to have a cigarette. And when I came back, he was a bloodied murdered mess in my office. So I… I ran.
[Jon debates just how much he should tell of the rest. How much of his own involvement, how much he should say of his slowly losing his own humanity. He’s getting too personal. Too caught up in the small details of trying to paint the picture of what happened to really get the story across.]
I spent the next few months in hiding. The police definitely suspected me of both murders given all the evidence, as did my- [‘best friend’ is on the tip of his tongue. Would Tim mind if he called him that now? Probably.] assistant, Tim, did as well. I was given hints and clues to go investigate to find evidence to prove what was happening as well as my innocence of that second murder. I-
I saw… a lot of things. And while I was in hiding, other… things came looking for me. The detectives were still looking for me as well. [He hesitates, feeling like he’s overheating with the warmth of the liquor and rubs at his neck nervously before his third degree burned fingers land unconsciously at the jagged line across his throat.]
From there it sort of… Kept going. Proven innocent, and then sent out to find information about these Entities and stop rituals of their followers trying to summon them into our world. Successful for the most part for all that it mattered. And. And then I-... I died. Sort of. An explosion that killed my best friend, lost one of the cops, left the other cop in a state of eternal distrust of everyone, and I was… In a sort of coma. No heartbeat, no breathing, but active brain activity. Woke up after six months and everything was worse.
[For someone hearing these atrocities even in this scarce detail, it’s hard to see how it could have been worse. But for Jon, it was… horrid. Another breath. Another moment to get his composure.]
1/2 [ anyone backreading this for whatever reason, spoilers for the entirety of the magnus archives]
[He hesitates, really thinking of how to talk about this. It isn’t something he’s even had time to process, the story’s end happening just moments before he found himself here. Jon takes a breath, a sip of his drink. Something about it does calm as much as surprise him - he can taste it, for one. ]
It started when I was promoted to the Head Archivist position at the Institute I worked at. [If he wanted to be truly honest, it started when he was eight, with that damned spider book. But it’s not the important starting point here, nor is it something he feels comfortable sharing. As understanding and patient as Kitsuragi has been so far, Jon still wants to keep some privacy after everything.] I was tasked with making audio recordings of the statements people left us of their experiences with the supernatural. They were… odd. A lot of them. While most recorded easily as digital recordings, a handful of them would distort and only be able to be recorded on an old analog tape recorder. So I started. And it… [His hand trembles for just a breath.] It got bad.
We started being attacked. First by a living hive. A woman who had given herself to a Power, of Corruption, and all sorts of… things started to use her body as a hive. Worms, mostly. They attacked the Institute en masse, and we did all we could to stop it. [And it’s strange if Kim looks now, how all the little pocked scars marking Jon all over are just about the size for worms to crawl through.] After that, we found the body of my missing predecessor in the tunnels underneath the building. Detectives came ‘round, started asking questions. I thought- [He sighs, shaking his head once, hanging it low for a moment even with his shoulders.] I thought I was helping their investigation, but they had suspected me. Were investigating me when I wasn’t with them. Even after all the evidence provided proved my innocence, they still treated me like a criminal most of the time.
After that, I began my own search, was suspicious of my assistants until I was able to prove Tim and Martin were innocent… But. But my third assistant, my friend, Sasha. She wasn’t…. Right. It wasn’t until too late I realized some thing had killed her months before and taken her place. I don’t-
[He stares down at his glass, his voice quiet and miserable:] I still don’t remember what the real Sasha looked like. That … thing. It messes with your memories. All you know is what that thing made itself look like.
[Another breath, another sip of the sweet warm liquor.]
I found a man living in the tunnels as well, and brought him up to get answers. He knew more of what was going on with the Institute and the strange happenings. He told me a bit. That. That there were Entities, gods of Fear that lived just on the edge of our world. Everything we’d been seeing were bits of them seeping and slipping into our reality. Vampires, werewolves, spirits, all of them were part of these gods trying to get in. They fed on our fears and terrors, they were our fears and terrors. And our continued fear was gradually making them stronger.
It was a lot. Too much information, so I stepped out to have a cigarette. And when I came back, he was a bloodied murdered mess in my office. So I… I ran.
[Jon debates just how much he should tell of the rest. How much of his own involvement, how much he should say of his slowly losing his own humanity. He’s getting too personal. Too caught up in the small details of trying to paint the picture of what happened to really get the story across.]
I spent the next few months in hiding. The police definitely suspected me of both murders given all the evidence, as did my- [‘best friend’ is on the tip of his tongue. Would Tim mind if he called him that now? Probably.] assistant, Tim, did as well. I was given hints and clues to go investigate to find evidence to prove what was happening as well as my innocence of that second murder. I-
I saw… a lot of things. And while I was in hiding, other… things came looking for me. The detectives were still looking for me as well. [He hesitates, feeling like he’s overheating with the warmth of the liquor and rubs at his neck nervously before his third degree burned fingers land unconsciously at the jagged line across his throat.]
From there it sort of… Kept going. Proven innocent, and then sent out to find information about these Entities and stop rituals of their followers trying to summon them into our world. Successful for the most part for all that it mattered. And. And then I-... I died. Sort of. An explosion that killed my best friend, lost one of the cops, left the other cop in a state of eternal distrust of everyone, and I was… In a sort of coma. No heartbeat, no breathing, but active brain activity. Woke up after six months and everything was worse.
[For someone hearing these atrocities even in this scarce detail, it’s hard to see how it could have been worse. But for Jon, it was… horrid. Another breath. Another moment to get his composure.]