Chapter Text
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GRIAN
Testing, testing… Okay, it looks like this is being picked up.
[Mumbled] Jeez, where did Mumbo even find this thing, it looks ancient…
Uh, my name is Grian Watcher, Head Archivist of the V.O.I.D. Institute, London. I’m pretty new at this being in charge thing, only got promoted last year, so it’s no surprise it took me this long to start doing this. Uh, recording the statements that is. There must be about a million of these things in the Archives and literally none of it is organised, and well, considering how old some of this stuff is, we really ought to get it digitalised. Hence, the tape recorder.
The building’s pretty old and the Archive is super deep in, so basically no actual recording software will run properly in here. Don’t really know the specifics, but X told me that it never really worked properly when he was Head either so I guess it's the thick walls? I dunno. But now I’m stuck making copies from this old thing.
[SOUND OF SOMETHING HITTING PLASTIC AND A BRIEF STATIC HISS]
[High pitched] Oh please don’t tell me I broke it already!
[SOUND OF LIGHT TAPPING ON PLASTIC]
Whew, okay, everything is good. [Mumbled] Pearl would have my head if I managed to screw this up immediately.
Anyways, I’m going to start making digitally recorded copies of all these statements. For clarification on tape, me and the rest of the Archive staff take the written testimony from whoever came in to report it and then investigate the background of the witness and the incident.
The V.O.I.D. Institute is a hub for victims of the paranormal and extraordinary in London, where they can come and tell us what happened without being judged. Or, eh, mostly not be judged. It’s the Institute of the Vague and Otherworldly after all, for Investigation and Documentation, not somewhere to talk about a rude coworker or a creep on the underground.
I’m getting well off topic at this point so I guess I’ll actually get on with my job now.
[SOUND OF PAPER RUSTLING]
Statement of Tango Teck, regarding the isolation and disappearance of his roommate, ‘Impulse’. Original statement transcribed September 4th, 2014, audio recording by Grian Watcher, Head Archivist of the V.O.I.D. Institute, London. Statement begins.
GRIAN (STATEMENT)
Jeez, I don’t quite know how to start with this. I’ve never really been one for the paranormal and stuff like that, always felt a little too far fetched for me. I’m a man of science, of physics and code, not ghosts and spooky things! But Impulse always loved that sort of stuff, and it’s him I’m here for so I guess I’ll just shut up about my scepticism.
I met Impulse in college, back in the States. We became pretty fast friends, despite our differences, and when we graduated, we came over to England for a change of pace, along with our friends, Etho and Bdubs. That’s not their real names, Impulse either, but we all play a lot of games and we just sorta started referring to each other by our game tags in real life as well as on call. I’ll put down everyone’s names at the end of the statement, cause I guess you’ll want ‘em. Even if it’s for nothing but the missing person report.
We had saved up over college and managed to snatch an apartment well in time for coming over. We got the keys in July and pretty much immediately after went shopping for decor. The place was already furnished, but none of us had really brought much with us, so we wanted to at least get some decorations and stuff to make the place feel alive. Etho got some games, Bdubs bought a ridiculously big plant, I was planning on getting a dog so I got some stuff in plans for that, and Impulse got a book.
The book. I’ll never forget that damn book.
That was definitely when things started. We had just been heading back home when Impulse spotted it. A tiny little antique shop, tucked in between a pub and a bookstore. It looked super old, like it had been there for about a thousand years, and displayed right in the store window was the book. It was an old thing, with little silver corners and what looked like a leather cover, though I couldn’t tell you if it was real or not. I’m guessing not though, because it was dyed black, with tiny little white dots across the entire thing, like the night sky or something, and surely that would ruin proper leather. The title was a shiny metallic blue, looped on the front in big cursive letters - Breaking into Void, and there was no author on the front that I could see.
When Impulse saw it, his eyes lit up like a little kid on Christmas, and he rushed in to get it. He’d always loved old, slightly creepy things and I guess this had piqued his interest. I was worried about the price at first, but the old guy at the counter seemed very willing to hand it away. It was almost concerning how eager he was. I thought he was just happy to get a customer at the time, but looking back, I don’t think he had purely good intentions. The book looked super expensive, like a collectors item or a museum piece even, but Impulse gave him 50 dollars and he just gave it up. I didn’t even think we could pay with dollars over here, but this guy took it.
That should’ve been our first warning, but Impulse just looked so damn happy that it didn’t even cross my mind to be worried.
The thing stayed in our living room for a few weeks while we got settled in. Impulse and Bdubs already had jobs planned out for coming here and Etho seemed to pick up a job somewhere because he was out for a lot of the day and earning money. I was working for a game company as a tester even before coming to the UK, but they had a branch here in London so I was able to work from home.
I mostly worked in the living room just so I wasn’t stuck in my bedroom all day, so I constantly saw the book. It was just lying on the coffee table, and while I hate to be ominous about it, I genuinely felt as though it was watching me at points, especially when I was the only one around. I only picked it up once, just to move it away from my workspace. It was freezing cold, like I had just dipped my hand in ice water, which was super weird considering it was pretty warm in the house at the time.
I remember opening the first page out of curiosity, just to see what it was about. I guess I was the first to open it in a while, because there was a bunch of awful smelling dust between the pages that gave me a headache. I put it down immediately after to just clear my head and get the smell out of my nose. I did see it was from some sort of library though, so I guess that was the author. I can’t seem to remember the name of it no matter how hard I try.
But then after the first month of rent and stuff, Impulse finally took the book to his room to read. After that, it was like he was attached to the damn thing. Whenever I saw him getting something to eat, it was always lying open next to him, the smell leaking from the pages like some sort of acrid smoke. I only tried to take a peek once. The page was filled with what looked like some sort of diagram. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, it had all faded with time, but what I could see was quite surprising. It looked like small sticks of dynamite, packed between the coils of some sort of machine. Then Impulse snatched it back up and went back to his room with a small laugh.
In the weeks after, I saw less and less of my friend. I could tell Bdubs and Etho were getting worried, and I was as well. Impulse was pretty extroverted, even at the busiest of times, and the idea of us not seeing him was really, really rare. At some point he began locking his door, and even when we asked to come in, he just said he was ‘super busy’ and that we couldn’t. We stopped trying after he began snapping at us. It got to the point where we just began leaving food outside his room to make sure he was eating. The plate was always empty when we came back, which was at least a little reassuring, but not enough.
Then, the noises started. They were super quiet at first, but still audible through the walls. It was clanging sounds, like metal on metal, which was super weird considering I don’t think Impulse even had access to that stuff in his room. We hadn’t seen him leave the apartment at any point, so the source of the material was something to be pondered over.
We didn’t need to ponder long.
Over the next 4 days, the noises grew in volume and ferocity, and I swear they didn’t stop throughout the night. Bdubs was super grumpy over his lack of sleep, and I’m fairly certain he was planning on breaking into the room at some point just to get Impulse to stop. He didn’t need to though, because at lunch on that 4th day, the house fell silent.
We were eating lunch at the time, a rare day where we were all home to eat together. Etho was making us some food when the banging stopped. I don’t know how to describe how a lack of noise could be so sinister, but we all stopped talking immediately. Etho turned off the stove and without even saying anything, we all began making our way to Impulse’s room. The tension seemed to rise every second that we couldn’t hear our friend, because while the banging was terrible, it was at least confirmation that Impulse was alive and moving.
We stopped just outside the door, and I tried the handle. It was still locked of course, but the metal was uncomfortably cold underneath my hand, just like the book had been.
I remember I called out and asked if he was alright. The lack of an answer prepared Bdubs to break down the door, landlord’s warnings be damned. Then just before he ran at the door, Etho’s face changed. He had been silent the whole time, but his eyes widened and he moved to stop Bdubs just as the explosion happened.
The noise was intense - I had never heard such a thing be so loud. We were blown back against the wall with the shock, and Bdubs hit his head right against the doorframe to my room. He was unconscious instantly, and I was in too much shock to check on him. Thankfully, Etho was not, and he immediately started checking that he was alive. The next few moments are pretty fuzzy, I might’ve passed out, I’m not sure. But I remember getting to my feet at some point and looking into Impulse’s room to see if he was alright.
The door had been blown off its hinges so I could see inside for the first time in about two months. I don’t know how to describe it, but it didn’t look…right.
The walls weren’t the right colour to start with. I could still see the yellow wallpaper underneath, but it was as though they had been overlaid with a static texture, like an old TV. Everything had been pushed to the side of the room to make space for the machine that lay in the centre. It was the same one I had seen in the book, dynamite and metal. Except now, it was clear the dynamite had actually gone off. The entire room was coated with ash, with an eye-watering smell drifting out of the room.
It took me a few weeks to realise it was the same smell that had come from the book when I tried to dust it off. It made me quite ill to think about how I might have been able to stop him.
Impulse was nowhere to be found. There wasn’t a body either. Etho called emergency services pretty soon after things went blurry and I woke up in the hospital with a pretty serious concussion. We had to book a hotel while our apartment was checked out. Police and the landlord were saying it was a boiler explosion of some sorts. I know they’re wrong.
Because I remember when I was looking at that room, it was bigger than it used to be. Comically bigger, almost two times its original size, as though it had been warped. And the soot stains and static on the walls weren’t the only things there.
There was a rip in the far wall, as though something or someone had torn through it. There was nothing on the other side of it but broken bricks and the height of a 3rd storey flat. But I went back a few days later and there was no hole on the outside. Nothing to indicate someone came through. But I know that when I was standing in that room, I looked through the rip and I could see the night sky twinkling back at me, despite the time being midday.
I don’t know what to make of it. I hope you do. We filed a missing person’s report as soon as Bdubs woke up, and we’re living back in the apartment now. It’s lonely without him. We don’t like to go into Impulse’s room. The static is still there. Everything else is back to normal but the static remains. The walls feel more sturdy too.
I burnt the book. I don’t know how it was still there when Impulse wasn’t, but I took it to the park and lit it on fire.
I know it was something with that book, and that’s why I came here. You’re all about weird things. And after all, he worked here before he disappeared. He seemed to like it. Didn’t save him though.
GRIAN
Statement ends.
[sigh] A tragic case indeed. I will say, Impulse worked here quite a while before I ever arrived, before most of us arrived. The only ones who would have known him are Mumbo and X. While I can’t ask X, Mumbo did say he seemed like a lovely fellow. Only worked here for about 6 weeks before he quit though. I can imagine that was around the time Mr Teck reported that he began shutting himself away.
I had Pearl look into the complex where the four friends lived. There was indeed an apartment rented out to Tango Teck, Ethan Hoslab, Berwynne Oliver-Ortiz and Rodor Essvi between the months of July 2014 and March 2015, but the remaining three seemed to move locations sometime in that last month. Mr Essvi was also reported missing the day after a supposed boiler explosion, which I’m not buying with the lack of any extensive injury described by Mr Teck. His case was quickly dropped due to lack of any leads and still remains unsolved.
Scar also tried to find any such antique store between a pub and bookstore, but unsurprisingly couldn’t find anything due to the lack of location given in the statement. He also tried to check out the apartment himself, but discovered that it no longer exists. Sometime in 2016, the building was burned down, with 5 injured and 2 dead. Suspected case of arson, with charges falling on none other than one Tango Teck, who disappeared in the days leading up to his trial. I am also unable to get into contact with Etho or Bdubs, who I assume are Mr Hoslab and Mr Oliver-Ortiz respectively, despite their contact details being left with us.
I do find it interesting that Mr Hoslab seemed to figure out the explosion before it happened, but with lack of evidence and no way to talk to him, there’s nothing more to go on.
While the changes to the walls and distorted room could easily be brushed off as shock due to the explosion, or some sort of hallucination, it is interesting that the so-called static walls remained afterwards. While there is no way to check it out now, the presence of the book does make me believe it.
While he can’t remember what sort of library it came from, I can bet it was the library of Joe Hills, which makes this case almost certainly believable. I can only be glad that Mr Teck burned the thing, and hope the man at the antique shop wasn’t hosting any others. With his want to give it away, it does seem as though he had an idea as to what it was. I can wish as much as I want that Mr Teck and his friends weren't also affected by the book, but with their lack of contact, I don’t have the highest hopes.
Recording ends.
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