#plot time!

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Thomas: Statement of Laila Mansour on the death of Martin Laskonis, recorded June 18, 2031, by Postulant Thomas Schreiber of the Magnus Institute in Alexandria. Original statement given on November 1, 2029.

Statement begins.

Thomas (statement): Looking back, I wonder if maybe I could have saved him. Probably not, but part of me feels guilty anyway for what happened to Martin. Ridiculous, I know. I’m not the one who... infected him. But maybe if I had been there when it happened, I could have- I don’t know. Done something.

 I work in a general store near the docks. A lot of the customers there are sailors sent to pick up supplies for their crew, and that was how I met Martin Laskonis last year, in June. I helped him find what he needed, and we started talking. He told me he was working on a cargo ship scheduled to stay here for two weeks, and had never been to Alexandria before. I half-jokingly offered to show him around, he took me up on the offer, and we spent an amazing two weeks together. We both really liked each other, and towards the end of the two weeks, things got a little more serious. It was then that we came up with our arrangement.

There was definitely a spark between us, but Martin’s job meant he was constantly traveling, I felt at home in Alexandria in a way I hadn’t anywhere else, and neither of us wanted to completely change our lifestyles for someone we’d known for two weeks. So what we decided on was this: any time Martin had the opportunity to travel to Alexandria, he would try to take it, and we’d meet up again for however long he was there. If it had been a while since we’d seen each other, and Martin couldn’t get to Alexandria, we’d agree on somewhere else to meet. It was a bit unusual, I’ll admit, but it worked for us. We both valued our independence, and this allowed us to be in a relationship while still leading separate lives. It was an open relationship; we both sometimes saw other people when we weren’t together, but always looked forward to our next meeting.

We texted occasionally between meetings, but mostly just to arrange the next one. When we saw each other, we inevitably spent the first day or so catching up on each other’s lives, which I enjoyed infinitely more than texting.

Like I said, our partnership was unorthodox, but we were happy with it. We celebrated our anniversary of sorts this June by spending a week in Spain, and it sounds cheesy now, but I remember thinking This forever. This is how I want the rest of my life to be. I felt like I had finally found balance between connecting with other people and my love of privacy. And Martin seemed to feel the same way.

It’s crazy, that trip to Spain was only a little more than four months ago, but it feels like years.

It was the first week of October when this happened. I hadn’t seen Martin since August, so when he texted to tell me he would be in Alexandria for a few days, I was thrilled. He would be busy all of the first two days, so we planned to go out for dinner on the third day and talk about everything we’d been up to since we last saw each other. Martin was waiting outside the restaurant when I got there, and he kept looking over his shoulder. At first I thought he was looking for me, so I waved, but even after he saw me, he still seemed nervous. I asked what he was looking for, but he just laughed and said he thought he saw someone he knew. The restaurant was crowded, and Martin relaxed almost as soon as we were through the door.

Nothing noteworthy happened at dinner. I mean, we had a great time, and told each other some pretty weird stories, but nothing related to why I’m here.

Afterwards, we walked back to my place. The whole time, Martin stayed close to me and kept his arms wrapped tightly around himself, like he was cold, even though it was a warm night. And he kept scratching his arms. Something was clearly wrong, but I figured we could deal with it better once we were inside.

When we got to my apartment, I locked the door behind me, and Martin breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t live in a bad area, and Martin himself was prone to forgetting to lock doors and close windows and thought nothing of it, so this was what finally pushed me over the edge. I said I could tell something was bothering him, and if he didn’t want to talk about it right now, that was fine, but I didn’t want him to pretend nothing was wrong.

Martin went quiet for a moment, then told me he’d been attacked the first day he arrived in Alexandria. He’d been walking near the docks, when he saw someone facedown on the ground. He called out to them, and when the person sat up, he saw that it was a woman in a red dress. Martin started to ask her if she needed help, but before he could finish the question, she had pinned him up against the wall of one of the buildings. Martin’s pretty tall, and the woman was at least a full head shorter than him, but she moved fast, and was much stronger than her slight form would suggest. She held him there for a few seconds, and when Martin struggled, he felt a sudden, sharp pain in his stomach. He fell to the ground, and he said he couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few seconds, but when he stood up, the woman was gone.

Martin hadn’t been able to quite get a good look at her, because it had all happened so fast, but he remembered there had been something wrong with her skin. It was covered in dark spots that looked almost like holes.

I asked him if he had been stabbed, and Martin said that’s what he had thought too, but he was uninjured except for some scrapes where he’d hit the ground.

Since then, Martin kept thinking he saw that woman everywhere, and every time he did, his skin would get so itchy it felt like something was moving underneath it. He felt nauseous almost all the time as well, and had tried to see a Medica the day before, but they could find nothing physically wrong. He was almost certain that the itching and nausea were simply a stress reaction to his strange experience, but this realization had done nothing to actually lower his anxiety, and if anything, the symptoms were getting worse.

I felt terrible for having even brought this up, and I started to apologize, but Martin surprised me by thanking me for letting him talk about it. He said he felt better having gotten it all out, and I asked him if he wanted some coffee, and that was that. We talked for a while longer about nothing in particular, and then headed to the bedroom.

We had sex. There’s really nothing more to say about that. We were laying in bed afterwards, when I felt something in Martin’s shoulder move. Not like he was moving, more like there was something twitching under his skin. I sat up and tried to get a better look at his shoulder, but could see nothing. Martin absently scratched the spot and rolled over onto his side. I relaxed a little, and started to lay back down, when Martin suddenly sat bolt upright with a cry of pain and clutched his stomach. I offered to get him some painkillers from the bathroom, but he shook his head. He kept trying to tell me something, but was in too much pain to really get the words out, and I told him I was calling an ambulance. I had left my phone in the kitchen, and got up to go get it, and it was right as I was dialing the hospital’s number that I heard it.

It was a sickening cracking noise, like an egg breaking open and something horribly slimy emerging from it. I stumbled back to the bedroom, clutching the phone like a lifeline, rambling into the receiver about Martin’s nausea and the itching, until I stepped through the bedroom doorway.

My grip loosened, and the phone slid from my fingers onto the floor. I fell back against the wall, my legs shaking too badly to hold me up.

The sheets of the bed were soaked in blood and something else that I can only describe as some kind of mucus. Martin was not there, no, the pile of pitted, bloody flesh that lay at the end of the bed was not Martin, not anymore. The worst of it, though, was the worms.

They covered everything, the bed, the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. There were so many of them, had they had all come from Martin? They writhed and squirmed in a way that made me sick and yet drew me in. I stood paralyzed, watching them move and twist for… I don’t know how long. Until the sound of the ambulance siren shocked me back to reality.

I don’t know what I told the paramedics, but it can’t have made much sense; I was panicking, ranting about worms and blood and women in red dresses, and I think I passed out at one point, because I remember waking up in a hospital bed with no clear recollection of how I got there.

The hospital Medicas let me go, said there was nothing physically wrong, but that I had obviously been through something, and one of them gave me her therapist friend’s business card. I still have it, I think. Maybe I’ll use it. I don’t know.

That’s everything. That’s how Martin died. That’s the statement.

I thought it would help to tell you my story. But I’ve written the whole thing down, and I’m still just as confused and horrified by everything that happened as I was before I came here.

You will investigate this, right? The woman who did this to Martin, she’s still out there. If you can find her…

Thomas: Statement ends.

[deep breath]

This statement matches the last known location of Jane Prentiss. There is no evidence that the previous Archivist ever followed up on Laila Mansour’s statement.

I need to talk to Wolfe.

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Wolfe: Another victim of Jane Prentiss?

Thomas: It’s possible. She did have sex with someone who was definitely infected.

Wolfe: All right. I need to make some calls.

[CLICK]

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[typing]

Wolfe: [sighs]

[papers shuffling]

[more typing]

[footsteps]

Santi: You weren’t kidding about this place. It’s a goddamn maze.

Wolfe: Mm. It was worse a month ago.

Santi: And I thought Artifact Storage was bad. Were the statements even read, or just thrown in here at random? [he picks up a file]

Wolfe: I wouldn’t touch that.

Santi: [pause] All right. [he sets the file down]

[typing]

Santi: Did you ever meet the previous Archivist?

Wolfe: No. He practically lived in the Archives from what I could gather, and he always sent assistants if we needed any help with research. I never even learned his name.

[pause]

And now he’s dead.

Santi: Probably had a shelf collapse on him. I’m surprised it took forty years.

Wolfe: [slight laugh] That’s not funny.

Santi: Sure it is. Ready to leave?

Wolfe: Gods, yes. [he stands up]

Santi: Did you mean to leave this running?

Wolfe: Hm? No, you can turn it off.