#submitted statement

I would like to preface this statement with something very important: I never meant harm to anyone who has read my works. 

I suppose I should start from the beginning. I have been writing for 30 years now and I’ve built up a fanbase with my works. Countless people have come to my book signing and those people have credited my novels to be extraordinary and different from other authors they’ve read. At the time, I’d feel a sort of ego boost and simply thank them for the compliment. 

It is always the silence afterwards that hurts the most, I think. When the person leaves, they walk down the sidewalk and to their life, unsuspected to their nearing doom. A week passes and they’re found dead, run over by a bus or a sudden heart attack or their apartment complex has a gas leak and they’re never able to escape in time. They die and I’m the reason for it. The death toll is different each time, too, but it rises and rises each time someone new reads my books. 

At first, though, my writing was simple. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was just that. I was working as a freelancer writer, too, and I never had a deadline. I could write and not worry as much. There is a certain joy in writing something you can enjoy. I found myself in a zone and sometimes, I would write the whole day. I lost contact with most of my friends as a  result, but I had a job to do, and it was to write. 

Who knew that could change in one day. 

Another thing I find important worth mentioning is I write on a typewriter. It is old, but it gets the work done. Many, many people use laptops, but you can never trust the internet.There are ghosts that live inside of the screens. Loved ones have died, but they’re still online, as if they’re waiting for someone to talk to them. I never want to encounter the ghosts of the past. A typewriter doesn’t have this problem, though. It works just as well as a laptop or phone can, and there is nothing like the feel of paper between your fingertips. The gentle click click of the words as they’re pressed into the paper gives me a sense of purpose when it comes to writing. The shrill sound of when you successfully finish a page, that was it for me. Surely, though, I have to adapt to the continuously changing world that is around us. 

At least, that is what my editor wants me to do. 

I’m not fond of change. As much as I want to accept the change of the days or the passing of the seasons, I can’t bring myself to it. I know by the end of the day, the end draws ever closer and at some point, as a whole, we must accept that. As I write these stories, I write endings for each and every one of them, knowing someone will read it and experience the satisfaction that comes from a complete storyline. To be an author is to be willing to accept that change will not come unless you alter the writing yourself. To be a part of the future is to be a part of the present, knowing and accepting that oftentimes than not, things will happen without your acknowledgement. 

I fear, as mentioned, the same has happened to me. 

This change… first occurred when one Olivia Gracestone had read my first piece in my new series, the ones I’ve been tasked to write by my editor. I remember the event clearly as it was at a book signing and she was very adamant about my works, even going as far as saying she had been a fan for a while. I signed the first page as she began to ramble and, as rude as this sounds, I was hardly paying attention. She left with the book and that was the last I heard from Ms. Gracestone. 

I received a call from her parents a week later. Olivia had died, tragically, in a car crash as she was passing an intersection. A speeding semi, they told me over the phone, was the reason for her death. When I had asked why they decided to call me, they had mentioned my book. Coincidentally, in the same book, the protagonist had been killed by a speeding semi, two, if I remember correctly, and it was the book that Olivia had read before she left that afternoon. She had, as her parents told me, going on about the book, describing how she really began to feel connected to the character and how they shared the same issues. College, I believe, was the main issue in that book. Olivia was going to be a freshman in college, just starting out. At the time, I brushed off these incidents as coincidences. 

The tragic death of Olivia Gracestone plagued my mind for weeks, but I continued to write because my editor was expecting something to be done by the end of that month. It was around May, I believe, I realized my works were becoming more of a problem in reality than actual fiction. As mentioned previously, I’ve grown quite a fanbase with my novels and collections, and because of that, more and more people were ready to buy my books. There were lines outside of the bookshops and talk on the internet about what my next big work would be. I was used to this type of pressure and excitement, as it was the driving force for completing my next work, which featured a small town coming together after an earthquake had occurred. 

A week passes. News coverage of a small town in Nebraska reported to have been hit by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. Lives were lost and homes were torn apart, rattled from their foundations. Coincidences. It was all coincidences, right? I watched the news with a solemn face and told myself it was a coincidence. The feeling vanished when I saw a face of a family, faces dotted by the small pigments of the TV screen. There was a little girl… with blonde pigtails and she was crying, clutching a stuffed bunny, and her father was speaking to the newscaster with a hand firmly gripped on his daughter’s shoulder. 

I briefly encountered a bit of writer’s deja vu as I continued to watch the scene. It shifts from the little girl and her father, to the entire town, again. The image pans until it settles on a house, amongst the carnage. A female steps out of the house with a book tucked under her arm, her face concealed by the curtain of brown and in that small moment of coverage, I was able to get a good look at the cover. 

It was my newest release. 

My center of gravity had shifted and the sounds hallowed out from around me. My room darkened as thunderclouds formed outside, and at some point, I had dropped the remote. The television continued to play the scene, but my focus was blurring. Tears were falling just as the rain began to cry from the clouds outside. Pent up emotion, I believed, and realization. The thunder shook the house when I went back to my room that night. I didn’t touch my typewriter for a week, I just watched it from my bed. 

Was this my change? 

I have this one piece I’m working on. A longer piece, I’m afraid. It details the life of an older man, unnamed for the time being, and his story is harder to write. I believe it is only because I haven’t found… myself drawn to this project. 

I’m afraid to finish it, I think, because if I finish it, will that be all I’m good for? For now, I’ll continue writing about other people’s lives and ignore the deaths that continue to grow around me.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

While none of our employees (at least the archival employees) plan on actually reading Mr. Kisler’s works, just for... safety precautions, we do have a few of his books at the institute. We sent them to Artifact Storage for further inspection, but at a glance... they seemed mostly normal. Something about them just felt... off. I don’t really know how to explain it.

They just... looked strange. But none of the others seemed to notice anything, so. I don’t know.

Mr. Kisler wasn’t available to speak to institute staff, but... there wasn’t really anything in this statement we needed further clarification on, so. We’ve looked into the events and deaths detailed here, and confirmed all of them. Whether or not the books had a part to play, it’s unclear, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Reality-altering books are actually a pretty common phenomenon, considering the nature of Leitners and the like.

I am deaf, have been since I was young, and had it not been for the fact that I couldn’t hear, I would likely be dead and not currently writing down my tale of survival.

Let me just say first that it’s not bad, being completely deaf, but there are some things you miss out on when you can’t hear. People have told me the roar of the ocean is an awe-inspiring thing - but for me, it’s nothing. But still, I can live just fine without sound. I can read lips and use ASL, and I’m certainly not illiterate.

The town I live in is very nice - we are, or, were, a tightly knit community. Luckily for me, many people had picked up some ASL out of kindness for me, a gesture I will never forget, and carry with me in memory of all those innocent lives.

I’m getting sentimental. Sorry. Let me continue my sad tale.

Our town hall has two levels, the main floor and an upper one, which is more of a balcony. It looks over the stage in the hall, granting anyone up there a good view of the performances below. The local theatre group uses it for sound and lighting sometimes, but it goes unused largely. The only other person that goes up there is me: as a janitor, I have to regularly head up into the balcony to dust and sweep. Sometimes I like to sit up there and watch people dance below, unseen by everyone under me. It’s kind of fun being an unknown spectator.

What would’ve happened if I hadn’t decided to sit up there that night? Would it have lessened the knowledge of what I saw?

I don’t know.

It was late that evening, and I knew that there was going to be a performance later tonight. The band playing was called “Hamelin” - I’d never heard of it until now, and judging from the others, no one really knew them as well. But it’d been a dreary month and the mayor had invited this strange group to come and play, maybe liven things up. Standard stuff, yes?

My week was going quite nicely and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to treat myself to a look at this “Hamelin” band. I was very curious as to who they were. Maybe I couldn’t hear their music, but I could certainly watch them perform. There was nothing out of the ordinary about this situation at all.

There shouldn’t have been.

Night came, and the lower floor filled with people chatting and awaiting the band that had yet to turn up. I’d taken my usual spot up in the balcony, leaning over the railing eagerly. I found it kind of strange that the band hadn’t turned up yet - it’d been, what, over half an hour at that point? Usually bands showed up well before the audience did. Maybe I should’ve given more thought to this strange occurrence, but I kept trying to rationalize it, and so I didn’t think it was suspicious at all.

Then finally, someone showed up.

As I watched, a tall lean man strode into the hall. The crowd fell silent and parted to let him through. He got on stage and put down a guitar case he’d been carrying, unlocking it and pulling out a shiny looking instrument. I figured he was part of the band.

It was then I noticed he was the only member of the band that had shown up. Again, I didn’t think it was suspicious. Maybe the other members were late as well, I thought. Or maybe “Hamelin” wasn’t a band, but rather, a stage name. Clearly there were good reasons for him being the only performer.

The man situated himself on a stool and pulled a microphone close to him, adjusting the guitar on his knee. He had long, heavily textured hair, kind of like mine, with a short-sleeved dress shirt coloured in red and yellow stripes. His face was long and tired, his eyes haunted and dark.

Looking at his shirt, thinking of the band name, I was suddenly reminded of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” Had you ever heard that poem? In that poem, the Pied Piper plays a pipe that enchants the horde of rats infesting the town of Hamelin. Through his playing he drives the horde into the nearby river, to which they all promptly drown. His music brings the rats death.

I thought that reference was just a coincidence. It couldn’t have meant anything. I wasn’t shivering at all.

He was speaking, the musician, his mouth moving, probably thanking the crowd for their time. There were still people whispering to one another in the audience. Everybody was just staring rapt at this strange, strange pied-clad man.

Then the man hefted his guitar, picked a note, and began to play. Everything was normal, his lips were still, people were gently swaying to the tune - standard. Normal. Perfectly normal.

Until he began to sing.

God knows how lucky I was to be deaf in that moment, because as soon as the man started singing, everyone went mad.

It was pandemonium like you couldn’t imagine it. Everyone immediately turned to the person next to them and lunged at them, their jaws snapping and hands reaching to rip at skin and shred at flesh. Some people grabbed weapons - one woman grabbed a bottle, another took his fork - while others simply threw themselves upon another, nails digging into pink, writhing bodies. People kicked and howled and broke. Blood flew everywhere.

All the while, that man sang. He would throw his head back wildly, leaning forwards and backward with an erratic rhythm. His mouth opened and closed. His teeth - they kept showing, flashing like fangs and knives in the light. His lips curled back in a raptured snarl. His eyes fluttered as if drunk in some horrid version of ecstasy.

He sang. And by God, did he sing.

A man tore another’s ear off with a flick of his head. A woman thrust her hand into someone’s eye. Brothers turned against sisters and mothers slaughtered their sons.

I should’ve run. I should’ve known that this would happen. I should’ve cried. But I just watched in abject horror as the community I knew and loved - one that had given and cared like humans - indulged in violent carnage like slavering animals.

It kept going. Everyone wouldn’t stop. The man kept singing. He wouldn’t stop singing. I couldn’t do anything.

Finally, the last person in the audience stood standing, a woman by the name of Agnes Tucker. She stood alive, bloodied and bruised, panting at the man on stage as he crooned his deadly melody. And then she grabbed her throat and violently tore it out. Her legs, at last, gave away, and the crowd lay dead amidst blood and bone.

The musician stopped singing. Everything was very still.

Then the man looked up, and met my eyes with a smile. He said something, and in that moment I had never read anyone’s lips with more clarity than his.

“Encore?” He said.

Our town hasn’t been the same after that. The police ruled the event as a drunken brawl and didn’t blame me for the massacre. The few people that hadn’t gone to the hall held a massive memorial, which I made sure to attend.

Nobody in the town talks anymore. We aren’t the close community we once were. Neighbours don’t get together and happily chat about the latest events. The town hall is abandoned and unvisited by anyone at all. Whatever people you do encounter on the streets will glare at you, as if your survival is an insult to that bloody carnage. Believe me, I know; that’s how they treat me these days.

We were once a lively place. But ever since that day, the town has been very, very quiet. And somewhere out in the world that accursed man still plays his merry tune.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- Mr. Ashner did not agree to give us a follow-up statement on the matter, as he claimed there was nothing else worth mentioning. Supposedly the town has begun to recover, but after a massacre of that size… I don’t have high hopes for them, to be honest.

- It’s notable that Hamelin is the name of the town in the tale of the Pied Piper, though that could just be a thematic coincidence. The theme of music with an almost siren-like effect on people certainly fits the story. There is even a survivor of the piper’s “attack” on the town of Hamelin who was deaf and could not hear the piper’s music.

The thing sitting at the end of my bed is not my cat. 

It’s not my goddamn cat, and at this point, it’s insane that no one believes me. I’ve talked to the shelter, I’ve talked to my boyfriend, and they all say the same thing. They tell me he’s always acted like that. That he’s always sat that way, and eaten his food that way. But I know that the thing on my bed isn’t Marshmallow. 

Okay, this sounds absurd, I’m sure, but I know in my gut that I’m right. 

The eyes are too human. That’s what tipped me off the first time. The pupils are too round for a cat’s. Did you know that you can apparently tell the time of day from a cat’s pupils? The smallest they get is at noon, and the largest is at midnight. This thing’s pupils take up practically all of the eye. It’s. Not. A. Cat.

It stares most of the time. Marshmallow used to purr when I pet him. This thing just stares. It looks and looks and I feel seen. 

When it’s not staring, it’s forgetting to breathe. It sits on my legs and doesn’t move at all. Like a weighted blanket is piled on my legs, but it’s so heavy that I feel like I won’t be able to get up for days. Too heavy to be a cat.

The weight is crushing.

I talked to my boyfriend about the thing that’s not our cat. We had adopted Marsh together two years ago. He was supposed to be our apartment cat, strictly indoors, but he had other plans. From what I’ve heard, Marshmallow is the father of 90% of the kittens in the neighborhood, and I still have no idea of how he got out of the apartment.

He’s always been a rowdy feline, and this thing is so so quiet. Like it’s not even trying to pretend it’s Marshmallow. Paul doesn’t notice, he says that Marsh has always acted like this, and I think he believes what he’s saying. I hope I’d be able to tell if my boyfriend was pranking me. It would be great if this was just a prank, a three-month-early April Fool’s joke. It would be great, but I don’t think it is. 

Whatever this cat-thing is, it’s got Paul wrapped around it’s pinky finger. He’s perfectly content to let it nap on his legs, and he plays with it when he gets home. I think he thinks that the stress of the job made me a little nutty. I’m five weeks into my residency at the hospital, and I’ll admit, I haven’t gotten the best sleep, but i’m not going crazy. I’m not. 

The night the thing showed up in our apartment, it was raining. Marshmallow had been outside all day and we didn’t expect him back ‘till late, but when I got home, he was right there on the edge of my bed like he’d always been there. The eyes were too wide, I could see too many bones, and before I could ask my boyfriend what this demon cat thing was doing on our bed, the thing that was not Marshmallow leaped off of the bed and scurried into another room, only to come out looking right. 

I know that most nurses have had hallucinations after long days in the ER, god knows that I have, but this wasn’t my brain, this was real, this was solid and real, it changed, like it knew i’d noticed it was off. Maybe it thought i’d chalk it up to sleep deprivation, but I saw and I know that what I saw was real. 

I think Marshmallow is dead. I mean, I kind of hope he is. That sounds awful, but I just don’t want to imagine him somewhere outside, afraid to come back home because whatever the hell is in our apartment scares him. It scares me too. I think whatever is on our bed right now killed him, and I think it wants to kill me too. 

I don’t know how long I’ve got, or if it’s playing the long game, or if I’ll even make it out of this room when I get up, but I pray to whatever God is out there, it won’t leave something like me behind after I’m dead. That it won’t drive Paul or someone else crazy with something that looks like me, but just slightly wrong.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- More… skinsnatching adventures, I guess. I hadn’t considered the possibility of these monsters targeting animals instead of humans, but it’s clearly not impossible.

- It’s interesting to note that while most creatures of this nature tend to be able to mask their true identity, there’s always at least one person who notices that something is off, if not wrong entirely. 

Okay, so.  First of all, let me apologize again for being so rude before.  It’s just.  Coming across your blog after years of very firmly deciding to believe the much more reasonable idea that it’s coyotes in the woods and not some kind of murderbeast?  It’s a shock.

Um.  I don’t really know where to start.  At the beginning, I guess.  But I’m not sure where it begins, really.

I first heard the sounds when I was about six.  That’s the first I remember anyway.  I was out looking at the stars with my dad, in the field between our house and the neighbor’s pond.  We live in a semi-rural place.  There’s a lot of land per house.  I grew up on about two acres, I think?  Dunno how folks live on those postage-stamp lawns where you can reach out your kitchen window and touch your neighbor’s house.  But that doesn’t matter right now.

We were out looking at the sky, something we did a lot back then.  It was beautiful.  I think there was supposed to be a meteor shower or something?  I don’t really remember.  But then I heard it.  Yipping, wild laughter, almost like distorted giggling, drifting through the trees past the pond.  Dad scooped me up and hurried back to the house.  He told me it was just the coyotes.

It wasn’t the last time I’d hear it.  Over the years, I grew more and more determined to ignore it, as parents and older siblings reassured me it was coyotes.  Didn’t sound like the ones I’d hear elsewhere, though.  Regardless, I never went near the woods when I’d go outside to play, never even cross the creek that ran through the backyard.  Mom swears she never told me it wasn’t allowed, but I’d gotten it into my head that it was dangerous.

I was… About twelve when I first saw it, I think?  Nothing concrete, really.  It was standing in the backyard, backlit by the light by the garage.  A silhouette of something humanoid and tall, with high, pointy ears like a wolf or a cat.  All I really remember is the figure dropping into a crouch as soon as it saw me, those ears sweeping backward.  I dove away from the window and went straight to bed, hiding under the blankets and clutching my teddy bear like a toddler again.

I really hope it was just my imagination.  The stress of middle school combining with a childhood fear.  The fact that there are children I remember starting school with who didn’t finish with me, and I don’t remember them moving away, that’s unrelated, right?  Has to be.  Has to be.  I just forgot about it.  I was a withdrawn kid, y’know?  Never made many friends.  And I’ve got memory problems besides.  They’re living somewhere else, just fine, going through college and building careers.  They’re fine.  They have to be.

I still hear them once in awhile, the hunters.  On winter nights, when the cold air carries the sound better.  They don’t come as close to the house anymore.  I still draw the curtains tight on those nights.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- A lack of detail on the location in the statement makes it difficult to pin down just what the creatures described here may be, but I spoke with Hazel and she believes it may be an aspect of the creature described in the monster file #09000, or the monster file #12000. The hunting department, unfortunately, cannot help us any further unless we get more details on the location, and we do not have access to these files.

- There are plenty of creatures that deal in hunting and mimicking the sounds of other creatures, but from what I can infer, the creature did not actually mimic coyotes, that was merely what they were explained as.

I am dangerous. That is a fact.

To share my story when I am a threat and a menace is ironic. After all, who hears out the beasts? Who wants to? You know that their teeth are sharp. But part of me cannot stand keeping it a secret. Withholding information - it’s a burden that weighs you down, and one that can only be alleviated through sharing the truth. It isn’t a secret to you, I’m sure. You, dear Archivist, who reads this now - you will know, sooner or later, against your will. Such is our nature. Such is fate.

With that, I give you my story.

I am a musician, and have been since I was young enough to still have my mother with me. I didn’t keep her for very long, because when I turned 12, she was taken, and I got another mother in her place. That other mother didn’t make music like my true one did. Its tune was scratchy, and ragged. It didn’t like my guitar, while my real mother liked it

It killed my father when I was 16. So I killed it. And after that, I was alone, later thrust into the hands of foster care with nothing but an instrument from another time.

My new foster parents were pleasant enough. They had three other children that they were taking care of, and I got along well with them. School, however, was a different story. I got bullied a lot, called various names, beaten and bruised on certain occasions - all not very fun things. I bore it, though. The last time I took action was when I killed the other mother, and since then I hadn’t the strength or will to do it again. I let myself be pushed around. I didn’t have the energy to fight back. That, I speculate, made me a prime target.

The only solace I found was with my guitar. It was a hand-me-down, given when I was 10. The instrument helped ease the discomfort of the harassment in school at first. Soon, however, the abuse worsened. And again I ignored it, telling myself I had no business trying to resist.

I think this was when it started growing, that throbbing, beating something inside of me. There was a connection being forged against my will inside my heart. Thankfully, I graduated without any fuss, but that feeling still lingered. It was only a matter of time before it would show itself.

On the night of my 21st birthday, I wrote my first and last song.

It came to me in the middle of the night, a strike of red lightning that scorched me and kept me awake until I’d written every last word down. And when I finished, I sat there, staring at it, uncertain of its conception but certain of its purpose. I knew what this song would do. I knew what I would do.

I was going to perform at a bar tomorrow evening, some dingy little establishment few would’ve heard of. The audience milled around in the dank space, sleepy and lethargic like the place itself, and the whole scene spoke of laziness. And there I was, clutching my instrument with white knuckles, desperately aching to start playing. That inspiration from the night prior had grown to a crescendo inside of me. If I didn’t let the crimson song out soon, it would’ve surely consumed me.

Onto the stage I got, and I introduced myself, trying to temper the tension in my jaw. I held my guitar tightly and poised my fingers fatefully over the strings. Droopy eyes turned to look at me.

I strummed the first chord, and I sang that song.

Do you know what euphoria feels like? I’m sure you could attempt to draw up descriptions; I’m sure you will even say that yes, you know what it’s like. It’s unlikely you could understand what my euphoria felt like, however. Despite this, I will try my best to tell you.

It is like a pure, unbridled, madness. It is a joy you can’t resist, a song that fills your ears and swallows you whole, dragging you down into the depths of mayhem. It is motion, movement, that commands your limbs to move and begs you to dance.

And dance the audience did - they moved, oh they did. They swung at one another and howled with rage. Broken glass flew and knives went deep into vocal chords, splitting them open and spilling the song onto the floor. Bodies were broken. Bones snapped. Chaos and bloodshed reigned.

And through it all I sang.

Mind you, I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t my choice to continue singing. Being possessed by that feeling is… not something you choose. It takes you and it makes you sing.

It was a long time before I finally stopped. The experience had left me greatly winded. My throat was raw, and my eyes watered with emotion that I wasn’t sure about. I glanced up tentatively at the messy scene around me.

The human body has a lot of blood in it, didn’t you know?

Red. Red. Red. So much of it throughout the bar. And it was very quiet too. Seeing as there was no one to stop me, I left.

That is the end of my story. Since that day, I have done the same thing over and over and over and over again. They whisper my name in the back alleys. They talk of that mysterious band, Hamelin - the band that, they say, has music which is to die for. I can assure you, it is.

Perhaps you are wondering why I would willingly expose myself like this. After all, sharing my crimes puts me at risk of being arrested, and surely a beast doesn’t want that?

Well, it’s true I don’t fancy being arrested, but at the same time I felt I had to tell you. To serve something the way I do - it’s a burden, all forms of servitude are. My kind just so happens to be an extremely deep lifelong debt I can never repay.

Do I regret it? Sometimes. Sometimes I feel something heavy in my chest, a deep seated guilt telling me - rightfully, I’ll add - that I’m a monster, that the slaughter left in my wake is an act that can’t be condoned no matter the reason. Other times I enjoy it, letting myself really get lost in the music, embracing that madness. Most of the time, I try to ignore it. It doesn’t always work.

Did I choose it? In a way, maybe I did. Or circumstance was just cruel.

Regardless, now you know. Hate me, fear me, inspect me like some prized specimen - do what you wish. But whatever you do, I implore you to be aware, for it may come for you just as it did for me.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

This statement has a direct connection to Case #0140111 – the band described there, Hamelin, is the same name Damien Piper uses here. The connection between violence and music is… not one I would’ve made on my own. It’s an interesting association.

Mr. Piper makes… interesting claims, but Blair has found several consistent reports about violent brawls in establishments across the country, all of them ending with no survivors–and all of them occurring on nights where the band Hamelin is playing.

Dolls are weird things, aren’t they? My mom used to own a bunch of them and eventually handed them off to my sister, Nicole, when she was just ten. I’ve never been a fan of dolls. Not saying I have a big fear of them, I just don’t like the way they look. They’re always watching you, even when you’re not in the room. Their presence was almost always there. I ignored the dolls, of course, and focused on important childhood things, like bugs and sticks and mysterious disappearances. Okay, maybe I was the only kid to focus on mysterious disappearances of a cat or dog gone missing, who cares. I had to spice up my childhood, somehow. 

Anyway, long story short, I hate dolls. And I steered clear of dolls until I came across one when I moved to Marticoo, Pennsylvania. It was a small town. Not a lot of people lived there and the people were… nice, I guess? They didn’t speak to me or my girlfriend, Lizzie, they just stared at us. I tried to strike up a conversation with a nice old lady who lived across the street from us, but she just looked at me. Her face was saggy too and eyes empty. Not, like, literally empty. They were almost void of life, I suppose. I figured maybe it was my lack of sleep catching up to me and I didn’t linger on it much longer.

You see, I was beginning a new job at the Marticoo Police Department as lead detective and I had a lead on a new case centered inside of Marticoo. Several people had gone missing and I put it upon myself to figure out why. Police Chief Warren Harper told me to ignore it (unbelievable, right?) but I continued on. I continued on because I wanted to help those that were missing. It eventually led me down a twisting path of other unsolved cases that were nestled inside of Marticoo, left to dust in an unopened archive in the library. Like, why would they hide the mysterious murder of one Amelia and Richard Tate, from the public? Or, the killings of not one, but two families in Marticoo? I had brought it up to Warren, but he simply told me those were stories someone made up for the press because the general public would “go into a frenzy if they ever found out about the murder cases”, were his exact words. Frenzy my, excuse my language, ass. Before I came here, I believed there were more than a hundred unsolved cases and not one single person at the police department was doing anything about them. 

It frustrated me, but I continued. The missing persons’ case, named the Luckfolk Case, was getting me nowhere and I began to feel very helpless, very quickly. Lizzie tried to encourage me but her words meant nothing to me. That’s probably very selfish of me to say, but it’s the truth. The town was sucking out every bit of hope I had because no one cared about what I was doing. I wanted to be called a hero or the greatest detective or something, just to prove I was somewhat mediocre. 

Anyway, I’m getting off track. Dolls, right? I stumbled upon a Raggedy Ann doll in one of the storefronts when I was walking in town. It was small and lay neatly on a shelf with its little doll hands in its lap. I stared at it for a while and as I was looking at it, I felt as though it was staring right back. Of course, I told myself it was just a childhood fear coming back to bite me in the butt.

 I was knocked from my fixation by a gentle tap on the shoulder. I spun around and there was a lady with dark brown eyes standing there. How long she had been standing there I didn’t know, and when I tried to ask who she was, she simply smiled wide. Her teeth were very white, that much I remembered. And when she finally spoke, after what felt like ages of just me standing there awkwardly, her voice came out in a whisper. Like, the whisper of fingernails against your skin. It chilled me to my bones, honestly, as I half expected her to be just like everyone in the town. Emotionless zombies. 

Anyway, she started talking about the doll in detail. How it was made, how the hair had come from a real person, though I’d like to believe she was just saying that to scare me, and how the town really, in my terms, loved their dolls. Supposedly, there was a doll festival in June, and I don’t really remember the details of it all since my memory has been slipping as of late. I don’t really remember anything at all. It’s all a fog in my head and I’m trying my best to get through it. But, the fog continues to roll on and on and on and on and on and on and on and then I am left alone in a place. What place I can’t tell you. Maybe it is Marticoo. Maybe it is my college dorm. It changes every single day. 

Sometimes I’m not in my own body. Sometimes I’m outside of my body as I watch it tear and claw and stab its way through a mass of bodies. It becomes a wild animal, crackling and snarling as the blood pools around my own feet, but I don’t move. I stay there as the blood continues to rise and rise and rise and rise and rise. I am covered in blood and laughing. She’s whispering in my ear, too. She’s so very proud of me. I must continue to please her. 

I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and there will be blood under my fingernails. There will always be blood on my hands. The red, metallic scent fills my nostrils once again and I am freed from my body. I am here to stay. I am here to kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Stab. Cut. Slash. Cut. Kill. Stab. Repeating the process until she is satisfied. I wish I could wake up from this endless nightmare. I want to wake up, please help me wake up.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- Well, for a variety of reasons, this statement is difficult to follow up on. A lack of fine details in regards to the people makes it impossible to find anyone to interview.

- Detective Wagonback was not available to make a follow-up statement. Along with that, the Marticoo Police Department refused to speak with Institute staff. Cordelia, unfortunately, warned us against having Kelly break in to take police records, so I’m afraid we won’t be able to do much with this case for the foreseeable future.

I need your help. If this goes on any longer, I won’t even be myself anymore. You deal with this sort of stuff, don’t you? If i give you my story, you have to help me do something. Please. I can’t bear to lose anymore.

I used to have a name. Leo isn’t my actual name, just a pseudonym I picked up to replace what I lost. That was the first thing it took from me.

It seemed normal at first. When I walked into that cafe, there it was, guiding me to a table and taking my order. Such a youthful face and kind eyes, despite the medical mask on its face - I think I just assumed it was sick or fearful of catching germs, something like that.

When I saw it I was, admittedly, quite smitten. And when it showed interest in me, you can bet I lapped up its attention eagerly. It’s not every day a handsome stranger compliments you.

I started visiting the cafe more and more as an excuse to see it again. I’m pretty sure it knew right off the bat, but if it did, it pretended it didn’t. I think it enjoyed watching me try to flag it down and it alone, just so I could hear its voice when it asked for my order in a giggly tone. Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask it out. I was disappointed when it said it had to think about it, but that was quickly remedied when it asked for my number. My number! I was over the moon. I was getting the person of my dreams, and they liked me back! That was impressive; I’d never had luck like this before. I eagerly gave it to it, and it promised it’d get back to me. Said it couldn’t wait to have me.

Maybe I should’ve paid attention to the way it said that. Couldn’t wait to have me. Have me for what? I thought - forgive me for my immature thoughts - that it couldn’t wait to have me as, like, a boyfriend. That made me very excited.

Our first date was to the park. Kind of boring, but I was so excited to spend time with it that I didn’t care. We hit it off perfectly. I couldn’t believe I’d found someone who understood me so well! Everything seemed very normal, in a too good to be true kind of way.

We were talking about The Phantom of the Opera when it took my name. You know how the Count wears that half-mask, the one that obscures half his face, so you can’t see him for who he completely is?

Hilarious, isn’t it?

Suddenly, out of the blue, it said in that laughing voice:

“Could I get your name?”

So I told it what my name was.

As soon as I did, something felt wrong. I stopped in my tracks, staring into the distance as it just… watched me with the most appraising expression. Like it was laughing.

With a crinkle of its eyes, it patted me on the shoulder, and bid me goodbye. Then it left. And I left standing there, suddenly realizing that something was wrong.

I couldn’t remember my name.

I was so confused. How do you just- forget your name? You don’t! It’s an intrinsic part of you that you can’t remove. Yet here I was, floundering around in the park, getting weird stares from passersby, unable to remember who I was.

First I was reeling. Then… then I was scared.

That thing that I was talking to earlier. It asked my name. It said “could I get your name?” And as soon as I told it, I couldn’t remember it anymore. I certainly don’t believe in fairies, but this… was exactly like those stories of changelings and pixies.

That thing took my name. It took who I was. No, it didn’t take what I’d done - I could remember everything I’d done until now, but not once in any of those memories did I have a name.

It came and took who I was. I had no name. I had nothing. I was nothing.

And that scared me so, so badly.

After that, I didn’t go back to the cafe again. Why would I, when that thing was there? Surely it’d take more from me if I went. But everywhere I went in the city, I’d see it. I’d see it standing there on the sidewalk, its eyes taunting me from above its mask. I’d see it in bookstores, its fingers tapping gently on the shelves. It watched me, it knew where I was. It was waiting to take more and I knew it.

Oh, and it wanted more.

Last night, it texted me. Three weeks, and out of the blue, a text.

“Could I have your face?”

So innocent, so unassuming, yet I know exactly what it means.

I know that thing will come again, and it’ll peel the skin off my face. I know it’ll skin me alive and wear me like a pelt, my flaccid limbs waving as it pulls me over its head. I know it’ll wear my name and pretend to be me, pretend to do as I do and walk as I walk. And all the while it’ll smile, those eyes gleefully twinkling with mirth, as it becomes me.

You have to help me. You have to do something, anything. Please, I’m begging you.

Do something, before it takes everything.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- God. I’m getting a bit sick of the skin-snatching statements. You can only read so much of this sort of thing before nightmares start up.

- Since there’s a complete lack of reliable personal details in this statement, it makes follow-up rather difficult. The rules the creature seems to follow in this statement cannot be applied to the Skinsnatcher, so the monster described in this statement most likely isn’t Natasha.

I still remember what she looks like. 

I have her eyes. A bright green, sort of like a grassy hill in the summertime. She had wavy brown hair that reached her shoulder that, as a kid, I would sometimes tug on to get her attention when she held me. She had freckles too, like I do, and they really only came out in the sun. I think I used to count them if I was ever, you know, worried or if I needed my center of gravity. 

She’s dead, though, and my center of gravity has since been skewed. It’s a lot knowing someone you love is dead. You continue to live after that while the person you love is still in the ground, neatly laid in a coffin with no real sense of what’s happening around them. All they know is the silence and all you know is the grief that is too loud. 

My mom was a kind lady. She went to my school bake sales a lot and made brownies, which were the best. Everyone loved my mom. She raised money for charities and taught my brother and I how to ride our bikes, as our dad wasn’t in the picture much. I never really knew my dad, save for the dusty photo frames that sat nearly on the mantle and the shadows that crept over his face. I only knew his name, Trenton Seymour, and how much of a ghost he was to my mother.

She really loved him.

I just wish I had told her to move on sooner. 

We had recently moved into a small house, tucked between two similar houses in a friendly neighborhood. I would walk to school and eventually, I would find myself at an arcade that seemed to hardly get customers. The old man, I called him J.J., was nice enough and I became a sort of regular for him, going there after school and playing until it was closing time. 

It became routine. My brother had his own routine, but I hardly paid close attention to his habits as I found myself becoming more and more engrossed in video games. They would be my escape from the soon to be crumbling world around me, and I wished I had realized the problems sooner instead of gluing my face to the dimming television screen as I play Pac-man.

The problems started when my father started talking to me. He really never spoke to me unless the moments where he’d ask me what game I was playing or if I was up late, but those were rare. He was a soft spoken man, too, never the one to really raise his voice or be condescending, as he never had a reason to be. 

Though, my dad changed. Not, like, a drastic change or anything, it was gradual. He started speaking more to me and my brother, laughing loudly and trying to get into our hobbies. I like to think he was trying to make up for lost time with us and I gladly took the change as a sign of hope that maybe, just maybe, things could go right for us all. My dad started warming up to my mom too, buying her roses and chocolates, surprising her with dinners he made. 

He was never the one to make dinners. 

My mom fell blindly for the change, too, and we continued to live like so. Obviously, he could’ve been wanting to start again or noticed how broken the relationship was, but it wasn’t that. It never was. 

One day, when video games could’ve pushed the boredom I had to the side, I stumbled across something in their room. It was a Raggedy Ann doll. It sat on their dresser, staring at my parent’s bed. As I stepped into the room, I felt as though it knew I was there, watching it. The button eyes were black and we held eye contact for a moment, and then suddenly there was static. It started off faint until it started almost hurting me and I had to leave the room before it got worse. I never went back in there after that.

The doll continued to haunt my dreams, though. Every time I would close my eyes, the doll would be there, grinning a stitched smile and in their hand, almost always, was a knife. It was dripping with blood, too. I could hear the blood in my dreams, dripping off of the blade and onto the ground. I told my mom about the nightmares and the Raggedy Ann doll and as a result, she told my dad to get rid of it. I later learned I wasn’t the only one having murderous nightmares. My mom was having them too, but they were scenes of her kids dying and she wasn’t able to stop the blood that oozed out of our still bodies. 

My dad promised to get rid of it after hearing our stories. My brother was the only one who hadn’t mentioned the nightmares, though he wasn’t at the house most of the time. 

And that was that. 

At least, that’s what my childhood innocence liked to believe. 

Childhood innocence can only cover up so much. It becomes the safety net you fall back on when you’ve got nothing else to hold onto. It’s the end of the tunnel that hurts the most, I think. You travel through the darkness and when you look back, it’s endless. It’s always dark and you can’t escape the dark, it’s always there, waiting. I’ve learned to befriend the darkness because it’s all I ever needed when no one else was there. The family was growing together but the threads that held us together were splinting. 

It was the nighttime when I realized my dad lied. I wish I had stayed in my bed that night, tucked under the covers and sleeping another nightmare. I didn’t, though, I was always so curious and when I heard my mom’s voice come out in a sob, I had to go investigate. Her cries were loud and almost pleading, and I wish my brother was there to deal with it. He was staying at a friend’s house. He never came to my aid. 

I saw my mother’s body on the carpet. The blood pools around her, just like my nightmares, and it spreads wide. Above her is my father, gripping a bloodied knife. He doesn’t see me. He is smiling, almost thrilled with his kill. From my place on the staircase, I could see the stab wounds and the glistening blood that shines from the lamps nearby. I wanted to scream. 

I think I might’ve. 

The next thing I knew I was outside, watching the rain fall around me and my back was against the ground. Death is a funny concept. In video games, you die and come back to your spawn point. And for a brief moment, I expected to do the same. But I didn’t. I could still taste and feel and see the rain as it fell, but I knew I was dead. Dead in an alleyway, left to be forgotten. My father was gone, ran off with the Raggedy Ann doll and I still remember what he said. Even if in my dying moments, his voice still rang in my head:

“Enjoy your life for it’ll be your last.” 

Of course, he was lying. And I’m here today, telling you the story of how my father killed my mother. I know you guys deal with supernatural activities, but I like to believe, even today, that the doll possessed him to kill my mother. It changed him. 

It created a monster instead of a father. 

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- It always comes back to dolls, somehow. I don’t like how common they seem to be in these things. They always seem to be accompanied by a startling amount of violence, as well, which is a fun and incredibly unpleasant surprise.

- I notice some similarities between this case and file #0191112. The doll juxtaposed with the violence, makes me think there’s a bigger connection here.