#magredacted

MAG[REDACTED] - Blood in the Machine

Anonymous statement, regarding the statement maker's purchase and use of a strange desktop computer. Original statement given 4th of February 2024, recording by Arcturus Walker, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, Budapest. Put to tape on the 21st of March 2024. Statement begins:

I don't want to go into details as to why I came to make this decision. It was an offer too good to be true, just what a struggling university student needed: a cheap PC with great specs and with only 2 years of usage. I know how some sellers put enticing prices on Facebook Marketplace just to drop the real deal in later messages, but that wasn't the case. The owner got his hands on "something better" and saw no use in keeping this one around so he asked for the bare minimum that would still be a deal to him.

I went to pick up the desktop, it was a city away so I drove there. It was a bit weird how creeping closer to the destination all we had were dirt roads. I live in the suburbs, I know not all city councils pay it enough attention, but these weren't those dusty solid roads. These were muddy, the tracks barely visible and overgrown with grass. No, not grass, something more- vibrant.

The roads branched off a few hundred meters from my destination, only one going in its general direction so I followed it. I reached a house, no buildings in its neighborhood, crop fields on one side, a small forest on the other, the kind that always seems way more moist than the weather would allow it and always has that smell of thick mud and insects. I could only *enjoy* that for a moment before I got hit with something else, something fleshier. It was a stench that burnt into my nostrils. I try not to judge a house by the smell, my parents were chainsmokers and I've always been more ashamed to bring friends home than it seemed they were bothered by the odor. Assuming I just met a butcher, or really just someone that keeps their own livestock I headed inside.

It felt like a hallucination, it really did. I stepped into a corridor, my lungs full of the dull yet powerful stench that covered everything. My brain felt foggy and with a headache that felt like pressure on my skull I continued inside. I was hoping to pick up the computer and get going right away, and I did my best to accomplish just that. I lifted the PC which was rather heavy and hurried back the way I came when something caught my attention. As I was putting my shoes on my brain alerted me of movement. From all around. The walls seemed to have this rhythmic pulse to them. If I wasn't at the doorstep I would've fainted, that's for sure, but I made it out to my car, telling myself it's the headache getting to me.

The drive back was nothing out of the ordinary, but that foul smell just wouldn't leave my nose. I parked, opened my boot and to no surprise the aroma oozed out of the case like a thick invisible fog, bringing back that numbing pressure that I felt earlier. I grabbed all the cleaning chemicals and similar that I could find lying around, giving it a thorough rub on the outside. I pride myself on my expertise in software, but the hardware always confused me and I never bothered to learn it. Thus I did not want to open it up, which proved to be a grave mistake.

For 6 months straight there seemed to have been no problem with the PC. It worked as intended, was just as fast as I expected and the smell was only noticeable if you got up close to sniff the case. Which I didn't. But two days ago I didn't need to either. I woke up to a strange smell. It wasn't as strong or numbing as the one I felt at the house but it certainly wasn't pleasant. We had maintenance that night, we were notified that from 10pm we should be expecting a blackout. I didn't mind, but it seemed that whatever was in my computer did not like it. I decided to give it another round of cleaning once I was done with my cup of coffee. I dressed up and went to pull out the cables on the back, but they were a lot harder to unplug than I remembered. I ripped out the one which was most limiting length-wise and I pulled the rest of the case out from under my desk. As I saw the back of the PC I had to stop myself from throwing up.

Now I'm not afraid of gore, I grew up in a generation (and the subcultures) that made it such a commonplace it's usually unamusing. On screen, at least. But I didn't expect to come face to face with a chunk of skin stretching across where my plugs should have been. The cable I ripped out laid on the floor, a dark red liquid dripping from it, staining my carpet. Same thing could be found on the back of the case. Turns out the cable wasn't just stuck, it was *integrated* into the fleshy mess that shouldn't have been there.

That's when I got a screwdriver and ripped the case open. It seemed like the only logical way to deal with whatever infested my computer and I didn't know what else I could do. The case came away like a sticker, the inside melted to a wall of human-like skin, peeling away it left a residue of perspiration on the plastic.

The flesh monster's skin seemed to have formed a block, covering its insides from all angles, pressing against the vents and pushing out through the outlets. The cord I ripped had left a nasty hole that started to scar up, but I wanted to see what I was up against and I *didn't let it*. I scraped away the scar tissue with the screwdriver and pushed it through the wound, detaching the vein that supplied my cable from the wall of skin. The case still hugging it from the outside cast a shadow that made it hard for me to see in, so I turned on my flashlight, stretching at the hole with my tool, trying to take a peek.

I saw veins running across the surface, the inside was humid and *warm*, at least warmer than room temperature but it wasn't the heat of a working human body. It was starting to cool. In the middle of the case I saw something heavy, a huge knot in the middle of the circulatory system which kept beating in a steady rhythm. It was slow, the pulse was invisible from the outside, yet it kept pushing blood through the opening, trying to close it up, but the scarring slowed down significantly from when I first ripped that cable out. It ran on electricity, it had to have been the case, the inside had a greenish tone from what I could make out, meaning that during the blackout it started rotting. The system that somehow ran like a normal computer for months started to decay, which reminded me of the smell my brain ignored from my initial shock that once again sat heavy in my lungs.

I did not reconnect it but I didn't know what to do with it either. Who would have I called? I scoured the internet to find your institute, and I left my PC to you. Past making this statement I wish not to associate myself with this case any longer.

Statement ends. First thing after reading this statement I went down to artifact storage to ask about this curio. Turns out whoever left it to us delivered it too late, the "heart" was not beating and the thing once stretched against the walls of it's case now sat collapsed and rotten in the organic section, making any other follow-up almost impossible. Looking for the flesh house also yielded no results, meaning I will put this case to rest as-is. What does keep me wondering are the intentions of the seller. Why would an avatar of the Flesh sell a piece of itself to an unsuspecting individual? There was no mention of the *flesh block* attempting to leave its case meaning there was no intention of spreading the system either. Maybe they didn't intend the buyer to possess it for so long, maybe they tried to alert us of their vicinity. But they failed. They left us with a cold trail. *sigh* Recording ends

This is episode one of my series I call MAGREDACTED, here are all the episodes out now:

The Vast The Stranger The Dark

Statement of Jeremy Creek regarding a series of strange emails and their sender. Original statement given November 29th 2024. Put to tape on Christmas Eve, 2024. Statement begins:

I'd like to believe I've always been a rational man and am aware that the standards I keep myself to shouldn't have allowed for this to happen. Quick backstory, I had to switch from therapist to therapist because talk therapy focusing on my feelings did nothing for my wellbeing. Rational isn't even the right word, I was overzealously justifying every thought that came into my mind. I never found love and I simply don't believe I even need it. When I tell you I simply had no concept of what it meant to be drawn to someone or something before this and how my brain just blanks when I try to figure out the rhyme or reason to it, you'll understand why I'm reporting on this. I'm quite skeptical still, have no doubt about it, but I've read that your whole institute was built on the supernatural and when that amount of money is involved I can't help but wonder if there's more to you than a glorified Santa's mailbox for the psychotic.

So... I finished my computer science degree two years ago. After spending months in deep depression saying I'm "making up for all the sleepless nights I spent studying" or just "cutting my sleep debt" I finally came across a job listing I was interested in... No, sorry, came across isn't the right word, I subscribed to email notifications for more companies than I could count but I kept discarding the mails because none of the offers seemed enticing. I also specifically turned off recommended content, yet somehow I got more listings from this one company than all the others combined. What's more, I clicked on their page and it didn't exist. Not a single post, not even a deleted account, the waybackmachine had no record of any previous activity under that link, but the emails kept pouring in. They never seemed to stop, not when I labeled them as spam, not when I muted them, seemingly the mastermind behind it avoided using keywords just so the emails would end up in my inbox again. Changing their email address little by little to get through my filters. I was getting tired of this... scammy business so I unsubscribed from the whole site, which was just another futile attempt on my part. My previous address pretty much unusable I tried making a new account, but the new address was also, well I wouldn't say flooded, rather slowly but surely filled up with the same types of messages.

Thanks to the avoidance of keywords the texts began to twist from clear and professional to almost a desperate cry, they lost their impersonal tone and I began to get a picture of who the author was, or rather what prompt it was using. I never for a second believed that there was a human sitting behind a desk somewhere writing me all these twisted letters inviting me to their company. I was at a point in my life where I would have sold my soul to be hired, but if that's what they required they could've sugarcoated their intentions for a bit longer.

This is when I told a friend of mine about these mails and it wasn't long before our combined curiosity got the best of us. We decided to just wing it, with no reply to the emails we went to see the address it supposedly came from. About an hour away from my house, I parked my car tucked away behind a few streets just in case they'd try to do anything weird with my license plate. The apartment complex was ran down, the windows were covered in a layer of dried dust and limestone, the tempered glass doors that once meant to give the house a modern feel and a sense of security had completely failed at their purpose, the handle was rusted and tilted loosely in its socket. The silicon seal has hardened, snapped in half and was hanging out from under the doorframe. It was a cold afternoon in late autumn, so I tried scraping away at the layers of dust with the glove coating my knuckles. As it got more clear I could see a few houseplants wilted and rotting in their cracked pots, clearly uncared for for a long time. "It was dead inside" - I thought to myself - "at least no one was going to jump us". I reached for the doorknob. The smell of dozens of cigarettes once smoked in that staircase hit me as soon as I opened the door. The creaking hinges gave both of us goosebumps, but we pushed on.

Few important things to mention here: I have experimented with urbex as a teenager, so I was prepared to take only pictures and leave only footprints, that's also to say I was familiar with the feeling of an abandoned building. I never even knew what "presence" ghosthunters were talking about. But there was a deeply unsettling feeling that shook me to my core as I walked up the stairs. The address in the emails lead us to apartment 44. That's the 4th floor and to the right.

Well, right off the bat there was something strange about it. The door was torn clean off, slanted against the wall next to its frame. The apartment radiated heat, I can not stress this enough, the weather outside was below freezing and in the corridor it was no different. That signature muted smell of warm plastic mixed with the warmth smacked us in the face, you'd recognize that air anywhere once you've been inside a server room. And once again, no one in sight. The warmth was more inviting than I'd like to admit and well, here comes the part I regret, I unzipped my jacket, headed inside and for some reason my friend didn't object either.

After passing by a ran down kitchen we got closer to the source of the heat. The smell started to numb our brains. I worked gigs in maintenance where I got up close and personal with molten plastic cable covers, but it never smelt this bad. Pushing the N95 into my nose I carried on deeper, something made me want to push on. My friend stayed behind in the kitchen. I walked through an empty doorframe then pushed open the door leading to the innermost room.

I can't describe it any better, what I saw was a shrine. A shrine alongside the author of those emails. A shrine with its deity, its brain and its beating heart all in one. A supercomputer spreading over the walls, filling the room. You'd think there is no way anyone besides Google would have something akin to this. Yet it was there, its cables in an organized chaos, branded into thick tentacles with cable ties. They flowed towards the core of the mechanism that seemed to be hanging from the ceiling. There was exactly one, standard sized monitor in the entire room and it was tucked away behind the door. This wasn't meant to be perceived through human senses, I could tell that much. This wasn't made for people to use. I witnessed the epiphany of machinery and I felt helpless, unable to comprehend it. Only when looking back do I feel the extreme temperature that must have been in that room, as standing right there I only felt adoration for *it* and nothing else.

The rest of the story is a blank unfortunately. I woke up in a hospital bed after sleeping a whole day with second degree burns over my legs, arms and hands. I can only guess I got too close to some burning hot wires in there. My friend came in after me when I didn't react to him calling out my name. Since that day I keep getting these intense visions of similar machinery, they keep appearing in my sight and I seem to completely dissociate. They're not solely about the one I saw either, makes me wonder if there's a whole system of these out there. I also started sleepwalking, which I've never done before. Makes healing all these burnmarks that much harder. I think that's all the relevant information I have for you. Do get back to me if you find anything.

Statement ends. There's a reason I'm recording such a recent case and on Christmas Eve, no less. Jeremy has been reported missing. Two days after giving us this statement he left his flat unlocked and his family found no trace of him since. Notably, his PC has been ripped to pieces. Shallow clues, I'm aware, but the Extinction works in mysterious ways, we need all the data we can get.

Another thing to add, our institute rarely engages with the police, but for an ongoing investigation I can't help but provide the relevant information at our disposal. The details given here are vague and I haven't personally contacted the family yet to be able to see things for myself. As much as I don't like this, we are reliant on what the law enforcement is willing to share with us. But if the Extinction took roots inside Budapest we'll soon have bigger issues at hand than some tech savvy guy joining a cult. Recording ends.

Thanks for reading! Happy Holidays and an amazing New Year! And thank you for sticking with me through my hiatus. I would like to make this the actual formal announcement that I'm no longer that active in The Magnus Archives fandom, but whenever I get the inspiration I will write and occasionally post statements. My AMA is still open for ideas, my long term goal is to actually write a statement for every entity. Ahh, Extinction my beloved.

If you enjoyed you can find the rest of my works here: The Flesh The Vast The Stranger The Dark The Lonely

tw: non-descriptive mention of suicide and cults

*tape clicks on*

- I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU

- Sam, you know exactly why I'm here

- And why exactly would I tell you how I ended up here? You've got your own god serving you its powers on a silver plate and you still serve a different one- why would I talk to a traitor like you?

- Because I *know* you're no different

- NO DIFFERENT? HOW DARE YOU COMPARE US, YOU TWO FACED DISGRACE! I joined the Falling Titan's reign for the man I loved and as soon as the waves took him I changed sides. The difference between us is that I left. I didn't serve two powers at once. I didn't sell out like that.

- And your heartbreak as well as you leaving one entity sent you plummeting into the arms of another one...

- Do you really think I became like this over some breakup? You should know damn well that serving an entity requires stamina, effort and reassurance. I didn't just have a small depressive episode and stuck with The Lonely, I was destined and I finally arrived, I could feel it.

- Would you mind going into greater detail?

- You're just as ceaseless as your master, so fuck it. I need this off my shoulders. Go do your thing, and once it's over get the hell out of my sight

- Got it. Statement of Samuel Bolt, regarding the story of how he obtained his powers. Recorded from subject 2024 May 6th, archivist present: Arcturus Walker. Statement begins:

- I've had it rough since forever. I can't remember my childhood and it's probably for the better. I couldn't figure myself out. Depending on the circumstances I was always someone else. At home I was chatty, couldn't shut up about whatever caught my fancy back then, but once around people I knew it was a total blackout. I never said a word, almost to a comedic degree and around strangers once more it was like I transformed, I was brave and, perhaps not a leader but still, assertive in conversations.

And I got *respect*. Something I didn't get at home nor from those who were supposed to be my friends. So I craved talking to strangers, I frequented parties, beaches, conventions for trivial topics I wouldn't think about twice but it worked. People appreciated my attitude, were acting just how I wished they all did. In retrospect that is, as I actually hated approaching strangers. I found myself in this paradox, either I couldn't express myself or I had to do so around *people*. And how I hate people. Always did, that never changed. And the burnout, that damned exhaustion, I was living my daily life on battery saver to have enough energy for all that self fulfillment later. But now I can be myself, the fog listens, the empty houses are there for me to wander, to explore the perverted lives of those that never lived there, not really. It's amazing. I'm all alone, happier than ever. No need to fight against stupid amatonormativity, I never even wanted a spouse. I had one crush in my life and look where that lead me, to an entity that couldn't keep me around for a year. Heh, pathetic.

Serving your *better* god did me no good, I got way too existential for my own right. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good philosophical crisis every now and again, but it felt like the sky was peering down at me, my own insignificance took a toll and at that point I once again felt that need to prove myself to make it worthwhile. The others in the cult? Oh they bathed in the light, enlightened about their own meaninglessness they fully gave in to nihility. But I couldn't. It didn't feel right. Call me another stupid human, well I'm not even that anymore I suppose, but I needed purpose. And that was to be myself, with myself, without the whole entire universe towering over me.

- Huh, how did you find the Forsaken? What did it take for you to join and embrace it?

- To find it? I kinda always felt it was out there, the tranquility of isolation lifted my spirit, I could tell there was something otherworldly behind it. From the two of us you were always the one reluctant to spirituality and look where that lead you!

- To be fair, neither of us would have guessed the ones overlooking our world were born not of perfection but of fear-

- Mr. fancypants coming at me with that poetic language, oh please. Your little ego was stroked, because the way those scientific videos you always watched about our universe altered your brain chemistry, were just a step away from what one of those entities stood for. I still remember how full of joy you were reading your first Leitner, still not believing a word that text said but you just related so close to it, it was like someone read you. You chose a path and didn't even knew what you signed up for. Hell, neither of us did, I'll give you that. And I don't know what it took for you to be able to throw people into the sky, but the Lonely took nothing from me. Hear that? Nothing. Not until I gave it what I thought it deserved. It never drove me to do this, it calmed my mind when I most needed it, making every moment of peace last forever. I'm not saying it was easy serving it you know, I'm sure you can't relate but I'm plagued with guilt for every bypasser I sent into the fog. But it never made me feel like I needed to be different to align with it. I could join its grace without changing a thing, even carrying all that guilt. It allowed me to keep that part of my humanity. That's why I did it. Neither you nor your polycule of gods deserve the details-

- The Sam I knew would've never worn turtlenecks. I can guess the rest, thank you very much

- ...So am I free to go then, *officer*?

- Did it seem like I forced you to stay?

- Is that a rhetorical question? Get outta here, you bastard *tape clicks off*

Thank you so much for reading this episode of MAG[REDACTED] which was dedicated to The Lonely! I have an important announcement to make: I am an author for @magnusforgaza, please check them out and donate to the charities if you can! You can also request me to be your artist for any tier 1 commission!

You can read the rest of the episodes here: The Flesh The Vast The Stranger The Dark

This is episode dedicated to fans of Agnes Montague, the Cult of the Lightless Flame or the People's Church of the Divine Host

Statement of Lisa Yordanka regarding her experience with a strange mattress. Original statement given 22nd of August 1998, recording by Arcturus Walker, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, Budapest. Put to tape on April 2nd 2024. Statement begins:

I know about the entities. And I know that you must know about them as well. The ten lords in the sky beyond controlling our fears, but there's only one to which's power I consented to: the Desolation. I never thought a daughter of The Blackened Earth would be haunted by The Forever Blind. But I guess dark and destruction, flame and ash and coal go hand in hand. I never thought of their faction as the enemy. I thought we had some kind of contract binding us until we rid our area of The Mother of Puppets. Assuming they were the ones that brought it upon me.

I'm a coward. I have been devout to Asag ever since it enlightened me to it all: the human race deserves not what it has. The only one to bring destruction to it all is my God and no one else's. I would sacrifice myself in its name and yet, I haven't. I want to say I just haven't had the chance to, but that'd be a lie. I am afraid to die. Even in light of the powers at my fingertips I cannot bring death upon my shell. Because wouldn't that mean giving myself up to Terminus? Wouldn't that just feed The Coming End That Waits For All? Will I stop lying to myself one day? I can't bring myself to do it. It's that simple.

Until the inevitable end comes when I'll finally unite with the one to light my fire I will put this body to the most use that I can for both IT and the cult. So then, how come The Dark set it's blind gaze upon me? Why did I become their target? I don't even know what it counts, maybe as- as an artefact? A monster that came for me? Did something *posess* my mattress while I was busy fighting for Agnes?

It was a cold night, I remember. I got the chance to be around the chosen one, for a week I was blessed by her presence and I soaked it up, I could feel it in my powers. But the apartment she and Jude shared didn't have a guest bedroom nor a third bed, but luckily someone from the cult had a spare mattress we brought over to accommodate those that wish to see messiah and bathe in her immediate divinity. I was not the first to sleep on it. But I was there at the wrong time.

See, we had a bit of a commotion with our siblings over at the people's church, some started a protest that this joint of powers is a downright sacrilege towards their "Mr. Pitch", that whilst our flame is lightless, the heat it emanates is reminiscent of the thing they hate the most. They argued that our burning is parallel to that of the Sun which they're so desperately trying to blacken and thus we were harmful to their sanctity.

Though we tried to keep Agnes's identity a secret, their most sensitive to the world beyond ours could feel her presence and the gossip carried the word quick and far. So their target was set on our dear messiah's back and that was something I simply I could not let happen. The physical aspect of the fight was lacking to say the least, the darkness works by disorientation not by direct combat, which is what the flame excels at.

Thankfully my blessed abilities include striking a spark into all that's electric and once the churchmen's frosty void surrounded us all I was able to flick all the broken bulbs lying around, those that they ritualistically destroyed into a flashbang for those who still perceived with their eyes. The rest also felt their power dissipate. The destruction of their ego, their fear of eradication almost made me want to get up close and personal with those who were first to open fire but there was no need, for they all turned their backs and my family from the cult urged me to leave them behind. That mercy was undeserved and it hurt.

That evening I had a hard time ridding my system of the pent up adrenaline. I took to some meditation with the members who were still there by the nightfall, but I still struggled to fall asleep. The mattress seemed too wavy and for long long hours I thought it was just my shocked perception playing tricks on my brain. But then I felt something slam into the middle of my spine, a shocking pain piercing through my skin like a round knife. It was like a heavy wooden door shutting, again and again and again. I tried to scream. I see well in the dark, my heat perception is impeccable yet I couldn't find a thing in my vicinity. The room seemed empty and after half a second the darkness seemed to wrap around my neck, flowing down my throat, muffling any sound I made. Then another spring etched into the nape of my neck, with a power that should've sprung my head up but something weighed me down on the needle bed that kept on prying into my body, spring by spring until I lost consciousness.

I don't even have to mention. It was dark. The most pitch black one couldn't see. This one had to be lived by a soul, as I was sure that was all I had now. My, at least what I believe to be my projected- body was glowing. I wasn't floating though. All around me was all encompassing darkness, yes, but I was laying in a swamp of some sort of viscous liquid that barely felt like it was even there. At first at least. I could barely touch it, the texture escaped my fingertips. That was until I felt a bump forming under my back from what, I now felt as a tiny swarm of particles, a dark sentient confetti. Thinking they were about to transport me I relaxed my body. How naive of me. Expecting to meet face to face with one of the gods from beyond? In my right mind I definitely wouldn't have thought myself worthy and I still not am. But I let go to see where the darkness takes me. Nowhere.

All of a sudden I experienced an ache of a thousand suns burrowing under my skin, the wounds were still obviously there from where the springs burst into me, and now they were being pried open once again by the mysterious creatures, bleeding me dry in the dreamscape of their master(s). I was numb. The pain made my brain forget where my muscles were positioned. I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of a spinal cord injury. For a moment it all seemed to cease but right after the calm my whole being began to spasm. I was experiencing a shock, a fit that I can't describe. I wasn't conscious all throughout though, I can tell you that much. After all my muscles startes vibrating uncontrollably, I lost myself.

And then awoke. My head throbbing like a bad hangover, I climbed over to the bathroom. I spare you the details, I was in a rather sorry state. I do not know who cursed me in the church and I do not care to find out. I want them all to pay, to burn among the flames they'll wish so desperately to not see. But my fire will burn through their blackened eyeholes and etch a flash in the deepest corners of the minds of even those that could never see. And I'll leave this statement to you and the ages to come, to note the day those wretched monsters dare lay their closed eyes upon our Agnes.

Statement ends. There are certainly a few interesting details to this statement so I'll go over them in order. First, Lisa only seems to know about 10 of the 15 entities, which may translate to the Cult of The Lightless Flame having the same, limited knowledge. This can be seen by the fact that miss Lisa's powers described here more closely resemble The Extinction's, rather than The Desolation's. It definitely gets me wondering how someone devout could be snatched from their entity's grasp. Maybe the Future Without Us was already within her when she first joined the cult?

Still baffles me how such a new power would dare mess with the subordinates of the burning destruction. Miss Lisa's fear and inability to sacrifice herself may come from The Extinction preventing her from becoming an avatar to the *wrong* entity, or it could just be a manifestation of its powers, just like her wishing death upon the entirety of the human race. I was also unaware that the two most active cults at the time, at least of those serving the entities, held such close ties, even if we just witnessed them getting severed...

Two days after giving this statement the apartment under the name of Lisa Yordanka caught fire, which is assumed to be electrical in nature, her kitchen appliances being the most likely source, and whilst cameras don't show her leaving, no body was found. Per my deductions this means she had completed her transformation into an avatar, though maybe not the one she wished to become. I wonder if the metal from the springs could've helped her body transform, like a crystallization chain reaction. Those born of The Terrible Change seem to enjoy their robotic bodies more than their organic ones, which they often experience as flesh-prisons. *sigh* I hope this fellow avatar finds it freeing as well and not as another bound to something she doesn't even know about. Wonder if she's ever going to figure it out. Recording ends.

Statement of Frank Gabriel regarding his development of a fear of heights. Original statement given January 3rd, 2018. Recording by Arcturus Walker, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, Budapest. Put to tape March 25th, 2024. Statement begins:

The stage is my life, or better yet, my life was flying above the stage. Throughout the different phases of my life I always wanted to perform, so now working for the national circus is a dream come true. Was a dream come true.

It all started months ago, I don't know exactly when, but I started having a recurring dream. The dream consisted of a simple jump high up on the rope, maybe a meter or two across, where I reach for the trapeze I'm supposed to grab but it isn't there. It's not like I'm jumping into thin air, I see the rod clearly. I know my limits and the jump is possible, but I hold out for it and it seemingly jumps out of my reach. And then I fall. I fall and I keep falling way below the ground. I sometimes wake up mid fall. Sometimes only when it feels like I'll hit something. But it always just feels like it. I'm falling into a dark abyss, my stomach in a knot and I can't *see* the end.

I normally don't mind the feeling of freefall, I feel like if I found it unpleasant that would be a serious drawback in my line of work. I quite enjoy falling on the practice trampoline, the mat or the safety net if it's part of the performance. Sure, when it's unexpected it's not the nicest, but I also know nothing will come of it. But the feeling in my dreams is akin to anxiety. I *feel* something coming, that recognizable sense of impending doom hits me. I'm jumping to my death and I can feel it. I am falling towards my end in the infinity before I'm jerked awake. And it kept happening, again and again every night. First I woke up properly, then it just turned into a transition from REM cycle to REM cycle, dream to dream, but the dream was always the same.

It didn't affect me at first. The dreams, at least, I could definitely feel the effects of the lack of sleep taking a toll on me. But we only had a few weeks left of the season, so I soldiered through somehow. But off season I was stuck inside, with nothing to take my mind off of my strange dreams I relived them whenever my brain had any spare time. Which was admittedly a lot. I found myself starting to be terrified of the idea of climbing the platform, afraid that the trapeze will escape my grasp for real this time. The idea of the safety net didn't help either...

Every tuesday and friday the circus was open, each performer could go practice as they felt like. Last year I went every week, but this time I found myself avoiding it. I still went the first few times but then I started to hit the snooze and stay in. Still did my daily stretches though, but I don't have access to heights at home, of course.

So when I couldn't procrastinate further and had to climb the pole I was nervous, shaking a bit. Rationally I know nothing could happen, I was there when the safety net was fastened and I know very well that it was just a trampoline, but when does rationalizing our fears ever actually resolve them? I so wish it did. Deep down I was glad I was alone, no one saw my hesitation. No one could, except for the guy responsible for lighting, but he wasn't looking my way. Not yet. I haven't paid much attention to him before, but I noticed the lights were different during the shows, not bad, but noticably cooler toned.

He was a new hire, average height which made him look small among the acrobats, wore his dark hair in a half-up, his general style is as you would expect from someone that works the mixer. Hearsay said he took it up as a gig and will be gone soon.

Not soon enough. I was up on the platform, slapping my palms into the chalk, my sweat mixing into a sticky goo with the powder, I grabbed onto my trapeze and just hung there a for a bit and started swaying. I synced with the rythm of the lights blinking above me. I did my practice routine on a single handle, no jumps yet. Once it felt awkward to procrastinate any further I swung out and let go, reaching for the stationary handle as I noticed something in my peripherals.

The lights were on at the mixer booth and I could clearly see a figure watching me. The desk is off to the side, but he was facing the glass head on this time, towards my direction. As I could predict it my hands couldn't even touch the trapeze as I began my freefall at once, this time for real.

I had my back down, I closed my eyes bracing for the soft impact on the safety net that never came. I tumbled towards nothingness again, reopening my eyes to complete darkness. The air suddenly smelled fresh and a bit like ozone, as much as the pressure let me breathe and it was cold against my face, even past what the velocity would cause. I kept on falling for what felt like an eternity. I was turning my body, figuring out how it was most comfortable. I kind of just accepted my faith, not expecting it to end anytime soon when it did, suddenly and all at once. I got that distinct feeling that always woke me up before, but I didn't hit the ground. I came to my senses the moment before letting go of my trapeze, without time to react my body took on the pose I had tumbling down the abyss and I found myself sat on the net underneath, the shock of "hitting the ground" still weighing heavily on my chest.

I looked over to the mixer booth too late. The new hire wasn't in the room anymore. The stage was dark. I rest my head on the net for one deep inhale and climbed off. I packed my stuff and headed home.

I didn't go back again. I liked the circus a lot but I knew I couldn't continue what I did before. I collected my paycheck at the start of the new season and asked if I could take a break, maybe work a role that didn't involve heights. Their response was a dismissal.

Statement ends.

It's not often that I don't have to run statements through the team nor do a follow up, but this one needs no explanation to me. I worked a gig doing lighting for the national circus at the time. And I also know that the performers gossiped about me. My brother told me. Like that matters. I didn't have anything against Frank specifically, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Alone. As a freshly hatched avatar I needed people to test my powers on and who could be better than those trained at freefall? Those working with heights? And those that enjoy it? I didn't mean to traumatize this poor man no less get him fired.

Guess that's in the past now. I searched him up, but no new workplace was listed on any of his social platforms. Wish I could feel remorse, but I sold my soul to the entity of insignificance so, guess that won't change. He was a good test subject though, I enjoyed his dreams.

Statement ends.

If you enjoyed, you can check out the other episodes here:

The Flesh The Stranger The Dark

Statement of Damon Neilos regarding his encounter with a wild animal posessing deer-like features. Original statement given May 9th 2012. Recorded by Arcturus Walker, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, Budapest. Put to tape on the 30th of March, 2024. Statement begins:

My work requires a lot of commute. Or I guess the quality requires it. See I make my living doing wildlife and scenery photography for magazines like National Geographic and well, that's hard to do local. This is the reason I came to Hungary in the first place. I've met quite a few natives on my journeys, heard a lot about the country, for better and for worse, but you know, a village in a country smack-dab in the middle of Europe, no thick forests, no heights, no hiking, no arctic weather, I wouldn't have called it a challenge.

My work is often like military training. I had to learn to deal with dark, cold or otherwise harsh environments, but admittedly my sense of direction improved and I'm all the better at stealth, be that staying quiet or unseen. I work alone. It's not that I don't trust others but if I slip up, I know I'm to blame. I have a temper and always feel absolutely awful whenever I blow up at someone. And disturbing my work is definitely something that sets me off.

I'm used to all sorts of photography techniques, be that searching for my subjects on foot, waiting in a camo tent or leaving a motion sensor activated camera out in the woods. This night it was the latter on the menu.

I flew to Budapest and spent the first night there, the next morning moving over to Veszprém. My target was the town of Hajmáskér, but I chose to accommodate myself in the city. I was sent there to photograph abandoned buildings reclaimed by nature. I'm not one to shy away from a bit of urban exploration, abandoned places have a special place in my heart. Especially buildings, eroded by time, walls stripped of their paint standing in a brutalist manner but still somehow having trees growing through them like they aren't even there.

As soon as I got to the village I asked around. I had a plan prepared with a map and all that, but I was wondering if there was anything I should look out for, any place the locals would recommend checking out. My main prompt was to capture an animal near one of these buildings and I thought the most effective way to do that was to set up a camera and let it do it's job.

If there's anything I've learned from this job is that humans are scary. We aren't the biggest out there, but standing on two legs definitely gives us a size advantage. But even crouching, squatting, crawling closer to animals seems to scare them. We're predators and they know it. I'm only hunting for their photogenic angles, but they don't know that. They *can't*. For all survival instincts the machinery in my hands is as much a camera as a gun. I capture beauty, but the beauty feels like I am trying to steal the life within it. It perceives me as an active threat and I can't help but feel a weight on my chest every time I think about it.

And I was about to leave this deadly piece of machinery out in the wild, in the hand of the elements in hopes of grabbing a few nice pictures. I looked at some geographical websites, the creatures I could expect were rabbits, deer, maybe boars, but they rarely wander outside the forest. I set up a little tent, I had more luck with that than the tripod, as in the animals not shying away from it, and left.

I came back the next morning. Well it wasn't exactly morning, I arrived just before dinnertime, giving it the highest chance of a capture I could, though the only pictures I'd be using would be those made in the dark. I got out of the car and slowly approached the area. One thing I didn't know about Hungarian weather is how cold nights can get the further you are from the big cities, and even right next to Veszprém it was almost freezing still, the Sun hiding behind clouds in the foggy grey sky. I looked around with some binoculars, but I didn't see any creatures nearby that my steps could've scared so I went to retrieve my camera. The little tent over it was right up against a nearby wall, facing the abandoned barracks that drew me to this village in the first place.

The building looked like a castle from the outside, the roof was severely damaged, patterned with holes, breaks and protruding tree branches, inside cracked paint covered the walls and fragmented pillars stood still next to the graffities staining every surface spray cans could reach. Dystopian in all the right ways.

But it was also huge, tall and massive in all dimensions, which is an important detail since even shadowed from the wind by two walls I was still struggling to breathe in the sudden gust of air that didn't seem parallel to the path between the buildings. I was already in the warmest coat I brought along this trip and I still got a shiver down my spine from the breeze caressing my skin in all the wrong ways. And it was damn frosty.

That was when I spotted movement. Just a little flicker at the corner of my eye that made me alert the moment my brain processed it and so I seized the opportunity to follow its direction and check it out. I stopped the motion sensor and tried setting my camera back from night mode to single capture in daylight whilst tailing my next potential subject. The wind tried to resist my attempts of moving forward, my coat flapping aggressively against my back. My eyes never felt so dry, and I've been in the desert. I approached the corner of the wall that hid the creature from my eyes when I heard a sort of screech, overly reverberated and, though it was hard to tell next to the howling of the wind, it seemed to have been coming from *behind me*.

I turned my head around, grasping my hood and trying to see through the air current that was now blinding me, I noticed a strange animal. I immediately looked at the antlers to figure out the breed (which I identified as a red deer, cervus elaphus) and I unfortunately did not register the *creature* running towards me. Its skin oddly stretched on its bones, this poor thing seemed to have no muscles, yet it hurled towards me at a velocity I haven't witnessed in normal animals, in prey nor in predator. This specimen was way darker than the average deer around these parts and it had a noticeable "mask", shining in the same boney white as the antlers did. Only when it came closer did I realize how tall it was. I was paralyzed by fear, standing face to the wind, my camera limping from the strap on my wrist as I was waiting for- whatever really. I don't even know what I expected. Death? Maybe not. But I didn't think it'd flee either. I was waiting for its decision. I was waiting for my doom.

It stopped right in front of me. There were a single digit number of centimeters between the edge of its mask, which on closer inspection looked like a skull, and my face. I *felt* its breath as those empty eye sockets stared into mine. And then it vanished. It breathed on me and vanished. Or maybe I was just too shocked/busy staring to register the pain in my sides, though it became very noticeable once the creature disappeared.

I needed stitches. I gathered my stuff, tightened a shirt around my wound and drove straight to the nearest hospital. I said it was a bear attack. They advised me to wait with my flight back to Greece and that I needed to stay inside for a month. That month is finally behind me and my flight is two days, so I thought while I wait I'll give yall my statement. Supernatural or not, what I met was no ordinary bear nor deer, I am sure of it.

Statement ends. What Mr. Damon described can only be categorized as a *wendigo*. I'm sure you'll understand where my suspicion is coming from since these are creatures of Algonquian folklore, which is a language group encompassing tribes native to North America. Neither my nor my team's research yielded any results about what could've caused this sudden appearance in the middle of continental Europe. Nevertheless I followed up with Mr. Damon and he said that his memories of the encounter are hazy, which is understandable taking his state of shock into account, but that since then he developed some sort of sensory issue, where his skin feels awfully tight around certain limbs and especially certain joints. He reckoned it might be connected to his encounter because of the "wendigo's" appearance. He also mentioned this feeling to a doctor, though they fortunately seemed to find no such thing happening. I am having a hard time placing this creature under the rule of any of the fears, which is admittedly one reasons for my disbelief, but we also haven't received any other sightings from the area so I will have to leave it at that. Recording ends.

Thanks for reading today's episode! In my series this episode is dedicated to The Stranger (because of the skin and unrecognizable creature, I thought the wendigo was fitting). Next up is The Dark!

Here are the other episodes:

@arkturusz here, your personal Vast aligned archivist, father of MAG[REDACTED]. I'm currently working on extending the library of statements with my recordings. Hope you enjoy.

I don't take commission usually, but I do take ideas and suggestions in my AMA.

You can read all my The Magnus Archives fanmade episodes here: #magredacted