Chapter Text
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ARCHIVIST
Test… test… test… 1, 2, 3… test…
[CLEARS THROAT]
That’s probably good! I mean, it looks like it's recording alright. Okay, here we go… again.
My name is William Byers. Ew. That sounds so formal. My name is Will Byers, the recently appointed Head Archivist of the Usher Foundation, Washington DC. We are an academic institute dedicated to studying the paranormal and esoteric. All of that is just a… nicer way to say we get told scary stories by, well, unreliable sources all day, to say the least. I know for a fact that there are real cases out there, and some of them even find our way to us. But a larger majority of them are, if I’m being honest, total bullshit.
My job as of now is to get this archive in order. I will have the help of my three assistants; Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, and Michael Wheeler. I have also heard from my sister, El- I mean, Jane Hopper-Byers, that she was going to drop in and help sometimes? Whatever that means. I’m at least 90% sure that she’s not actually employed here. But I won’t complain about extra help! Looking around, we’re gonna need it.
From where I’m sitting, I can see probably upwards of a hundred boxes cramped full of files. I could probably work here for ten years and not even make a dent in all of the statements in this office, let alone the archive. So for the foreseeable future, I will be recording the written statements, having my assistants do some follow-up research, and hopefully coming up with a better organizing system than I have right now.
As I said before, I am the “recently appointed Head Archivist,” and I’m not really sure how I got this job in the first place. My predecessor, Joyce Byers, has recently gone missing. Yes, we are related. She’s my mom. I don’t… I don’t know where she is. I don’t know how to help. There is nothing I can do. So I applied for this job. I asked the head of the institute, Elias Bouchard, if I could take over, and he said yes. I don’t know why he did it, but I’m here now. I’m taking over her work. If… when, when she gets back, this place won’t be a complete disaster, at least. It’s the least I can do for her.
Moving on… as you can probably hear, I’m recording this on a tape recorder. I tried to do these recordings on my laptop, which would be so much easier, and it worked for a few of the statements. But some of them just will not record. Every time I play the audio back, it ends up distorted, and static-y, and just so wrong. So I dug this tape recorder out of an old box and hit the record button. Hopefully this works, because I am five seconds and a small push away from absolutely losing it.
I think that's enough backstory for now. Anyways…
Statement of Samuel Patrick, regarding an odd occurrence during a game night with friends. Original statement given October 3rd, 1995. Audio recording by Will Byers, Head Archivist of the Usher Foundation, Washington DC.
Statement begins.
[STATIC]
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
I’ve always gotten way into things. It’s happened for as long as I can remember. Playing pretend on the playground, insisting the other kids had to follow my rules, or in group projects needing all the work to be to my standards, or when I finally got a job and couldn’t stand to see others doing sloppy work. I’ve liked to be in charge of things. It’s just in my nature, I can’t help it.
I was also often told I had an overactive imagination. When I would enforce my rules during games of pretend, they were usually more complex than other kids my age. And in school, while I was a good student, more often than not I would catch myself zoning out, daydreaming about some adventure I wished I could live.
I grew out of it mostly as I got older. I have a job at a law firm out near Bowie, not really anything important. I’m just a filing clerk, nothing really special. But when I was coming up on a year at my job, it was like something came over me. All at once I felt so completely and utterly unsatisfied. I was bored and exhausted all the time. Every day started to blur together. Half the time I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what the date was. Even now, I don’t think I can remember the month this happened in.
When I saw the flyer on my way home from work one day, it was really no surprise how quickly I picked it up. It was a drawing of a bunch of fantasy characters; wizards, elves, knights, the works. It caught my eye immediately. On the top it stated in bold, red letters “Dungeon Master Needed!” I read a little further. It was a group of five people in need of a storyteller for their game. The way they made it sound, I would be a perfect fit.
Have you ever heard of Dungeons and Dragons? I hadn’t really until I saw that flyer. Well, I had, but only in bullshit media propaganda that tried to tell me that the rapture was coming next week. It’s honestly a fun game. You just get to make up a story and a world it takes place in and lead your players through their adventure. It’s the perfect game for an overly-imaginative control freak like me.
Well, I took the flyer home with me, called the number, and just like that I was scheduled to be their DM the next Saturday. Like I said, I’d never even heard of the game before, let alone played it enough to run a good game. So I went down a bit of a rabbit hole for the next week, doing all the research I could about the game, learning every single rule. I was kind of obsessive, if I’m being honest. I was just so desperate to get some interest back in my life, and yeah, this was an effective way to do it.
That Saturday came so quickly. I was so excited, but I also had this sinking feeling that I was going to screw something up and I’d be right back to my old life that had absolutely zero interesting things about it. But it actually went really well. I knocked on the door of Fred’s house and there they all were, smiling, excited to see me.
Like I said before, there were five of them. Fred, Mary, Pet- oh, shit, full names, my bad. Fredrick Davis, Mary Rodriguez, Peter Gonzalez, Lauren Taylor, and Gary Harris. Fred was our mage; Mary, druid; Peter, ranger; Lauren, our paladin; and Gary, wizard. Our first session was simple enough, just a one-shot to get us used to each other, but we all really clicked. Soon enough, we were playing every Saturday. We had even started hanging out outside of our sessions like real friends. I was so, so, happy.
But, of course, it had to end.
It was Saturday of August I think? It was warm, I remember, and Fred’s house always had horrible ventilation, so we were all sweating. We got set up on the dining room table like we always did, talked for a while about our weeks, and got ready to play.
Something was… different. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was like there was something in the air. Everything felt tense, ready to snap. Nobody was acting any different. It was like the atmosphere itself was preparing for something, and all of us were ignorant to what it was. I shook it off though. I was always so prone to getting worked up over nothing. I figured it was just my usual anxieties. I wish I would have stopped us there. Made up some excuse. Anything.
We began playing like we always did. I always like to start my players off with shopping, using the gold they’ve won from any previous adventures, and then try to get us right into the action of the story. Of course, that didn’t always happen. Sometimes we would get off track, but it was always in good fun, and surprisingly didn’t bother me that much.
That time it was Gary. His character bought an entire ham and bet with Lauren’s character that he could eat it in one bite. I let him do it, but made him roll for it. He rolled a natural 1. That is the absolute worst you can roll in any situation, it essentially means that not only do you fail, you get some sort of negative consequence. I thought I would be funny, so I told him that he choked on the ham. I figured it’d cost him a few points of damage, miniscule compared to his full health, and then we’d be on our way to the rest of the game, laughing at Gary’s well-meaning stupidity.
But then Gary started actually choking. In real life. Not in the game. Lauren immediately jumped up to help him, and he ended up fine. But none of us thought that coincidence was very funny. We laughed it off eventually, resolving that at least it would be an interesting story even if it was scary at the time. We moved on. We shouldn’t have.
We got to our first fight. It was meant to be a kind of warm-up for the rest of the one-shot. Wolves, sent by the final boss. It was supposed to be easy. It should have been easy. My players were struggling. They kept having horrible rolls. I think the highest we had all night was a ten, and even that wasn’t great. And the worst part is that my rolls were so high. The highest they’d ever been. This wasn’t luck. Under normal circumstances maybe it would have been, but not this time. Peter had rolled to strike one of the wolves, but he, expectedly at that point, failed miserably. The wolf attacked his character, biting his leg and awarding him 3 points of damage.
Peter cried out in pain. Everyone jumped, scared, but certain it was just him getting into the game in an albeit odd way. But Mary, who was beside him, looked down and screamed. His leg was torn open and bleeding. There was so much blood. There was so much screaming. Everyone scrambled, trying to help our friend. Fred ran for his first aid kit, Lauren stayed by Peter and put pressure on the wound, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of soapy water and a wash cloth, hoping that would help.
Our first priority was making sure Peter was okay. When we were certain that he wasn’t about to actively die on us, we tried to call 911. But our landline went dead. On the other end, all we could hear was a faint ringing sound that never stopped. At that point, I was so confused and scared and hyped up on adrenaline that I was ready to run Peter to the hospital myself. I stumbled my way to the door, desperately turning the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t even see out the windows. It was like looking into a world made of static whenever I would try.
We tried everything to escape. And I really do mean everything. But we were trapped in every sense of the word. There was nothing we could do. Something in my brain was tugging me back to the table. I felt it in my soul that we had to finish the game. That it was the only way out. And everyone else felt it too. Without speaking, we all made our way back to the game. We looked at each other, eyes saying everything that we were too afraid to say out loud. It never even occurred to me to wish it was a dream. I knew what dreams felt like. This wasn’t one. This was real.
We finished the game. I tried so hard to make it short, make sure I wouldn’t hurt anyone else, but it was like the dice had a mind of their own. By the end, everyone's injuries were too numerous to count. Except me.
Everyone lived. I thank God everyday that everyone lived. I was never really religious, and after that day, I don’t really think I am now. But everyone lived, and that is a miracle that to this day I will never forget. We got to the hospital and everyone has made full physical recoveries.
They all say they don’t blame me. And that could be true. But I blame myself. I don’t know what I could have done to stop it, but I know I should have done something. None of us play D&D anymore, needless to say. They’ve invited me to at least ten movie nights, and even more weekly hangouts. I just can’t face them. It’s my fault all of this happened. I couldn’t look them in the eyes knowing I put them through all of that.
That’s it. That’s my story. I’m going back to work now.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
That was… a little bit of a personal one. I played a lot of D&D growing up. Nothing like that ever happened, of course, but it does set me on edge a little bit.
Despite my personal issues with it, this statement doesn’t give itself a lot of credibility. Seeing as it all happened in someone's home, and not someplace more public doesn’t make it easy to fact-check.
I’ve had Mike and Lucas call and confirm the story with all of the victims involved, and they all remember the events more or less the same way. Dustin has gained access to hospital records of all five victims from early August of 1995, containing all of their injuries, most notably, the alleged leg injury of a Peter Gonzalez.
I tried reaching out to Samuel to see if anything else important has happened since, but he declined to comment.
I don’t blame him. It’s… hard to talk about stuff like that. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep it all in the past. The important thing is that all of the victims are alive and well. Dustin even found a recent MySpace post of all six of them together. It seems that Samuel was able to get past everything that happened.
I’m glad this story has its closure. It’s good.
I think that wraps everything up then.
End recording.
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