Make Your Statement Face Your Fears

Fan blog Posting original statements for Avatar Ocs Fan Submissions Welcome

[instituteslosttapes]

I’ve been making avatar ocs lately and decided to post the statements I’ve written for them here! I just thought it’d be a fun thing to do in my free time and I hope everyone enjoys!!

Also if you have statements of your own you’re more than welcome to share them with me if you’d like them posted!

The idea is that these tapes have been found after the eyepocalypse and have been leaked

[instituteslosttapes]

S̷͔̜̒́t̴̺̼͑͘ǎ̵͎̜̚ẗ̴̬́ḙ̶̗̋̉m̷̜̱͂e̷̝͖̾̇n̷̟̕t̷̘̤̑ ̶͕̱͝1̷͚̎̊0̵̡̦͂4̸̞̣̋̚5̸̭͈͗9̷̤̣̐̆0̷͔̣͐

Statement of Mariam Bernard, regarding a disappearance, in her hometown of Bixby Oklahoma. Original statement 27th of August, 2009. Recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute London.

Statement Begins.

I’ve always been afraid of tornados. Any storms, really, if it meant high winds, the windows in my childhood home shaking, power flickering, I was always terrified. But nothing scared me more than Tornados did… well, still do. That's part of the reason why I moved, you know, not just for work but because of how few Tornados are experienced here every year. Sure I could’ve moved out of Oklahoma, but you’re never truly safe from tornadoes in the states, not unless you move to Alaska, and well… there just isn't that much demand for my job there. So I decided to move here, found a nice cozy job, found a nice apartment to rent and I’ve been here about three years now and I barely think about tornadoes any longer. It's a relief. Not worrying everytime there's a storm that will turn into something more violent.

I never once thought about going back home, even for my family. We had never been exactly close, you know. I was the middle child, there were five of us total and well I had always fallen to the wayside. I barely heard from my family while living here, not unless it was for birthdays or the holidays or the odd group text that I was never really acknowledged in anyways. Except for three months ago, when I had to fly home for a family emergency… My father died, my mother was devastated and all of my siblings were too busy with their jobs and children to fly out to Oklahoma to help so I went. If I’m being honest with you I almost didn't get on the plane. It was April and the most violent tornadoes tend to blow through my state at the time and there had just been an EF-2 tornado two towns over and I. Was. Terrified. But I knew I had to go, I knew that I had to be there for my mother and be the better child then the rest of my siblings who all claimed to be too busy to go. I had a job, you know, a good, well paying job, and I still took the time off to fly across the world and be with my mother after she lost her husband of forty five years. How hard is that to do? How hard is it to go and be with the woman who gave birth to you and raised you when she is going through the hardest time of her life like seriously?!

Sorry.

Sorry.

I’m getting off topic.

Where was I?

Right. Right.

Flying across the world to be with my mother and help her plan my fathers funeral.

The flight there was fine, there was some turbulence, but nothing that I wasn't used to. I got off my flight, grabbed my luggage, and waited outside for my mother to pick me up. The sky was clear, birds were flying overhead and the sun was hanging high in the sky. That filled me with relief, I had been terrified that I would land and I would see the thick dark storm clouds hanging overhead. But I didn’t and that brought me such… relief. I never thought I would experience such relief at seeing a cloudless sky.

The first few days I was there felt like such a blur, it was a lot of paperwork, helping my mother plan the funeral, she decided on a simple cremation, she didn't want a service, at least not a big one. We picked the urn, we got everything settled. I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and staring out the window at my parents backyard. We owned cows when I was a child, but once the kids moved out and my parents got older they decided enough was enough after the last one passed. The pasture sat empty, the grass overgrowing and choking out the wooden fence. That was when I had started to get nervous, it had been raining all day, and my mother had the windows open, she always had them open, she loved the fresh air when it rained. I hated it. I hated how my things would get wet when the wind would blow the rain into my room, I hated the sound of the thunder that wasn't muffled any longer by the panes of glass and my light purple curtains. I would hide under my bed until the sounds stopped. But I guess I am too old now to cope that way. So I stood in the kitchen and did the dishes, watching the storm clouds roll in despite the anxiety that crept up my throat from my stomach. The sky had gone from being a threatening black to a sickly green and it was as if every creature in the area had died. There wasn't a sound. I knew what that meant. I had kept myself very aware and educated on all the signs of an impending tornado. Even after being away for so long I never forgot the warning signs. The impending signs of destruction.

I was watching the grass, watching as it stood up straight and then was pulled almost down to the ground by the strength of the wind and I saw the clouds starting to clump together, the clouds stretching down from the sky like a long finger and I swear that I saw… a man. Or maybe a woman, but someone was walking through the pasture towards the impending cloud. I hadn’t seen anyone out here, except for a man who had been sitting in a van with a camcorder. It wasn’t an abnormal sight, people often parked in front of our house to watch the storms roll in as we lived far enough out of town that you were almost guaranteed to see a tornado touch down, if you were into that sort of thing. I watched as he walked towards the funnel cloud, his arms outstretched in supplication as if he was begging for forgiveness. I watched him as he dropped to his knees in front of it. That was when I ran out there, despite every nerve in my body I ran out there after him. I wasn’t about to let him kill himself in my backyard! Not like that! I couldn’t even imagine what way that would be to go. So I ran out there, fighting against the roaring wind to be heard.

I swear he heard me right before the tornado got to him. I swear to this day he looked over his shoulder at me and he smiled, a smile of almost… relief, as if he had been saved.

They never found a body. They had plotted a course for the tornado and followed it. Even mapped an area in which debris could have been thrown when the storm dissipated. They never found him. His van was towed a few days later after I had called the police that it had never been claimed.

I visit home more now. My mother is lonely so I try to visit more. I swear that every year, right before a storm, I see that man in his van.

After checking police records and missing person reports, the only case we can find of a person being reported missing in the year 2009 is Dustin McBride. He was reported missing in his home town of Burnsville, Minnesota after he failed to return home from a storm chasing expedition in Ms. Bernard's home town. The same man from statement 1089567 which was given to the institute a year after his supposed disappearance. If it were not from the statement from Mr. Mcormant, I would have assumed that Dustin McBride was in fact deceased. Perhaps Ms. Bernards fear of inclimate weather led to her mind playing tricks on her, and there was no one in that field that day, and Mr. McBride’s disappearance is simply a coincidence.

Statement Ends.

[instituteslosttapes]

S̶̤̀͛t̷̐͜a̸̯͘t̸̙͔̊e̵̛̙͝m̴̬̒ḛ̴̇n̷̩̈́̕t̸̲́ ̴̬͗̓1̶̬͝0̶̫̈́8̴̘̈́̀9̴͔̹̀5̶̜͉̄̑6̸̻͖͋̾7̷͉̝̓̓

Statement of Daniel Mcormant, regarding a tornado in his hometown. Original statement given the 23rd of September, 2010. Statement recorded by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

It took a lot for me to find you, you know that right? I mean I had to scour the internet to find someone who would listen to me. I eventually landed in a chat room where someone told me about you guys. A quick search and I knew I had to come here and tell you all what had happened to me. My friends had all laughed at me, and said that I was the victim of some freak accident. But this wasn’t an accident, there was no way this was an accident! He targeted me. You have to understand that. I wasn’t the victim of some freak weather accident, this was done on purpose. Was it done for revenge? I don’t know, I just know that he came after me. So that's why I bought a ticket here as soon as I could. So I could tell you what happened, so you could help me. So you can stop this from happening again.

I live in Burnsville, Minnesota. We get a lot of tornadoes there every year. Some people have taken to calling that part of the states ‘tornado alley’. Have you ever heard of that? I mean I’m sure you have. How common are tornadoes here? Probably not that common…. Are they? Anyways I’m getting off topic. I’ve always been interested in tornados, it’s hard not to be when you live in a place that gets them multiple times a year every year. We get alot of storm chasers there, people who spend their lives chasing tornadoes and other extreme weather phenomena. I always thought they were whack jobs, thought they were crazy to forgo finding proper shelter and instead sitting on the side of the road with a camera and waiting for the tornado to essentially pass right over them. It always interested me, but I never did it. I didn’t have a death wish.

My friends had invited me out for a drink, our buddy had just come back from a business trip and we wanted to celebrate his return. I was waiting for all of my friends, walking around the bar with a beer in hand and looking at the advertisement board. It was just a public board where people could post things like cats for adoptions, or things for sale and people talking about gigs for their bands or something. I was looking for a while when I came across a pamphlet that read

“Extreme Weather Adventures

Guaranteed EF-3 Tornado or Higher

Or Your Money Back.

With Your Tour Guide Dustin McBride.”

I admit it, I laughed when I read it. I had gone to school with Dustin. He was a weird kid and I hadn’t…. Always been the kindest to Dustin. It was just kids having fun, you know? I would tease him about his interests and my buddies and I would steal his stuff and hide it throughout the school sometimes… And I mean there was one time that we might’ve beaten him up because he had run into us and spilled his drink on a friend of mine but! It was all done in fun! It’s not like I… I bullied him or something like that. We were just in highschool! You know what boys are like at that age. I never meant to, like, harm him.

I saw my friends and I tore off his number and shoved it in my pocket. I didn’t have any intention of going. And then one day I had nothing to do, and I found his slip in my coat pocket where I had stashed it probably weeks ago. It had been raining all day and a quick glance at the weather showed that there was a tornado warning issued for my town so I thought… Why not? And I guess a part of me wanted to see if he was doing as bad as we all thought he would be doing after highschool, and I would most likely get my money back anyways. How could he ever guarantee that I would see a tornado of a certain strength? It wasn’t like he could control the weather. He knew who I was before I even spoke. I don’t know how he knew. Just that… When he answered the phone he said “Hi, Daniel”.... I almost hung up without saying a word to him at all. But for some reason I didn't, for some reason I stayed on the line, asked him about his tours and he told me he had a tour that he could do today. I didn’t see any reason to say no, so I said yes… He told me to meet him in the library parking lot, he would pick me up and take me on the tour.

Things were eerily silent when I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for him. I almost thought he wasn’t going to come as I watched the sky go from a dark black to an almost sickly green. Living in Burnsville my whole life I knew that was a tell tale sign of what was to come. Maybe I wasn’t going to get my money back like I hoped I would. Maybe I would be out the two hundred and fifty dollars I had given him when he refused to let me into his van that he had decked out with metal sheeting like you see on the tv shows. It seemed cheap to be fair, I was sure that other people who did this charged even more. So I didn’t think twice about handing him the money. Things weren’t as weird as I thought they would be. I thought he would somehow mention the things that I had done to him in highschool but he was… friendly. We drove for a while, looking for any more signs of tornados, he told me what to keep an eye out for and I did. I spent most of my time peering out the window as he drove out of town towards the flat farmland.

Soon enough the signs started, an eerie silence fell over everything, and then as if someone had opened a bag of golf balls and held it upside down, hail began to fall from the sky. Large, heavy spheres of ice began to fall and I felt myself press up against the seat, fearing that they would break through the window. Dustin didn’t seem bothered by it. He pulled over to the side of the road as he waited for the hail to stop. It felt like it had hailed for hours, but it was only about ten minutes, I was watching it fall absolutely mesmerized. I had never really watched hail fall, by the time it would start hailing my mother would have me and my siblings in the basement. Dustin grabbed my shoulder and shook me, pointing out the window at a massive funnel cloud starting to form in the distance. He started the car, despite the hail, throwing on the windshield wipers and he began driving towards the tornado.

At the time I didn’t find it odd that we were driving back into town, and the funnel cloud was getting larger and larger and I could see the tornado starting to really take shape. I watched as it grew as we got closer, watched as the large black cloud began to extend itself down towards the earth. The streets were empty, people were hiding in their homes or businesses, sirens had started to go off and I watched the tornado touch down. It was such… an amazing thing to witness with your own eyes. To see nature in its raw, most powerful form such as this. I didn’t realize where we were, what was happening until it was too late. Until I saw the building we were at. I owned a small mechanic shop, I had opened it up after my dad loaned me some money, I paid him back after a few years of being open and business was steady. I was doing great. I had to sit there in horror and watch as the tornado tore through my shop. I stared out the window as my sign rattled in the wind and the shingles began to fly off the roof, and then the siding, and it was as if piece by piece the tornado was intentionally taking apart my shop. I looked over at Dustin and he just asked me if I thought it was beautiful.

I wanted to get out of the van then and there, to start sifting through the rubble of my life. But Dustin kept driving. Following the tornado as it somehow seemed to touch nothing else. It tore the siding off a few houses, blew the glass out of windows but it didn’t touch the other homes as it did my shop. It didn’t make any sense! How could it! But it somehow targeted every place that meant something to me. The movie theater I had my first date, the restaurant where I had proposed to my fiancé, hell even the bar she broke up with me in three weeks later when she found out I was cheating. The tornado hit everywhere that meant anything to me. For some reason I stopped thinking it was a coincidence, it felt too planned, Dustin was smiling too much, commenting on the randomness of nature as he watched as the things I held dear were destroyed in front of me. Before I knew it we were in front of my home, the home I had bought to raise a family in, the home I had bought with my hard earned money. Suddenly I found myself begging Dustin to let me out, begging for him to stop the tornado but he just smiled at me and asked me if I thought it was beautiful…. I think I yelled at him then, begged him to make it stop, told him I was sorry, hell I even threatened to kill him once or twice. I think I even hit him at some point. His expression had changed nearly as quickly as the weather… It’s amazing the things you’ll do, say, to protect what little you have when it’s about to be destroyed.

I sat and watched in horror as the tornado tore through my house. Taking my possessions and my memories. The last memories of my parents and some of my friends and watched as it was all destroyed in an instant. Dustin didn’t follow the tornado. He sat there, leaving me to stare at the destruction of my life. The second I heard the door unlock I got out of the van. I don’t know how long Dustin sat there and watched me. I don’t care.

The news said it was an EF-5 tornado. They said it was a freak phenomen, that the damage was so localized, that it didn’t destroy more. I didn’t get my money back. But I don’t care. I just knew… know. That it was his fault. And no one believed me. Do you believe me? Please say you believe me.

Upon doing some research and reaching out to an Informant of the institute, it turns out that in 2010, the town of Burnsville, Minnesota did experience a freak tornado that seemed to only cause extensive damage to the property of Daniel Mcormant. Witnesses did report him in the company of local storm chaser Dustin McBride. Who has appeared in statement 103678. Mr. Mcormant has attempted to reopen his mechanic shop in several different towns and states including Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma, but they never seem to last long, all being destroyed in violent weather phenomena even when the national weather service reports no warning signs before the freak events. We have no information about the current whereabouts of Dustin McBride, but I hope to stay on his good side.

Statement ends.

[instituteslosttapes]

S̸̟͆̃t̸͙̍̿a̷̩̾̃t̶̛̳͓͒ȩ̷̥̈́m̷̦̮̑ẽ̶̢̈́n̵͔̋̌t̶̙̚ ̴̮̾̌#̵̛͖2̸̨͖̐͛0̴̞́̕3̴̫͆4̵̪̈́̀6̴̢͖͑̈́

Tw:

*death

Statement of Thomas Hampton regarding a tapestry in his possession. Original statement given the 7th of march, 2008. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head archivist of the magnus institute London

Statement begins

My grandfather always had the oddest sense of decoration. Though I think that most people from that generation had a very unique taste. My grandfather especially, he was a historian and an amateur archeologist so he always had very interesting knick knacks and decorations around his home. As I child he would show all of them to me, and I would ask a thousand different questions about where he had gotten them, what country they were from, what their purpose was and anything else I could possibly think of.

There was one item that my grandfather had that had always captivated me. It was a large tapestry that hung in his office. He told me it had been hand woven for him by a woman in Mexico named Constance Aguilar. She was some sort of mystic my grandfather said, and that she had the power to tell the future. He had been in Mexico following some leads he had read on an online forum about the Aztecs. Yes that's right my grandfather spent a lot of his time in online archeology forums so that he could attempt to plan his next trip and maybe stumble across some sort of other discovery. My sister always teased him and called him Indiana Jones, to which he assured all of us that those movies were actually based on his real life experiences. I'm getting off topic now…

This tapestry was huge, and by huge I mean it took up a majority of his wall in his office behind his desk. It was made with a variety of different colored yarn, depicting an image of what I could only assume to be my grandfather, staring over a massive canyon. I would stare at it all the time, trying to follow one thread from the end of the tapestry to the other end, but I would always lose track of it no matter how hard I tried. Sometimes I swore that the image would change and shift the longer I looked at it, that I would see my grandfather on a boat instead of staring over the canyon but when I would step back, the tapestry would look the same as it did before.

My grandfather died during a hike in the Grand Canyon. He was looking for artifacts from the Zuni and Havasupai tribes in North America. I know, I know don’t get me started on the ethics of it, but this time he actually had permission to dig! He had managed to get himself invited on an actual archeological dig with actual archeologists! But that didn’t mean anything. It did nothing to actually keep my grandfather from wandering off and deciding that he was going to go and look on his own. He had taken a trail that not many people knew about. Leave it to my grandfather to do something like that. From what I was told he slipped on a loose stone and fell to his death.

It was… hard on my family. Especially my siblings and I. My grandfather had been the glue holding us all together after our parents died, he of course didn’t take care of us since we were all old enough to do so, but he gave us all a reason to get together for the holidays and even just stupid sunday night dinners. I miss him. My grandfather left me his house, along with almost everything inside of it. I did however, let my siblings and other friends or family members come in and take whatever they wanted to remember my grandfather by. The one thing I had asked to be left alone was the tapestry in his office. Which, apparently, wasn't a very hard ask since most everyone else was creeped out by it. They told me they also thought they would see the design of the tapestry shift and change.

Everything in my grandfather's house was fine really. Sure it felt weird being there without him, but I had house sat for him multiple times, so I just always told myself that’s what this was. This was just an extended trip that my grandfather was on and he needed me to look after his house while he was gone. Things were fine… for the first few weeks at least. It wasn’t long after I had moved into my grandfather's place, that I would find myself drawn into his office more and more. I wouldn’t even do anything, I would just stand in front of his desk for hours and hours staring at the tapestry on the wall. My eyes once again trying to follow one strand from one end to the other. It wasn’t until about the fourth or fifth time that I found myself spending entire days in there that… the design had changed. The tapestry no longer depicted my grandfather, but… me. In the place where my grandfather once was, woven with thread, there was me. I was standing at the edge of a street, staring out into the distance.

It wasn’t until then that for the first time since my grandfather died, I thought about his death, and I thought about what the tapestry had looked like before he died, how it had shown a man I could’ve only assumed to be my grandfather, standing at the edge of a canyon. Had- Had the tapestry predicted his death? Had my grandfather been telling the truth when he said that the woman… oh god what was her name? Clarice? Charlotte? No no that wasn’t her name… or was it Claire? Constance? Was she actually a mystic? Could she actually predict the future? I remember how the tapestry would change the longer I looked at it, and I waited for the image to change as I felt myself start to break out in a sweat. I began frantically picking up different objects around my grandfathers office, a chalice used in religious ceremonies, an arrow head, a piece of a deer skull, and every single time, the tapestry would shift, showing me the multiple different ways that I assumed, I would meet my end, just like my grandfather. It began driving me crazy, I would constantly stare at the tapestry and wait for the image to change. If I left the house I would check the tapestry to see if anything had changed and sometimes it did. SOmetimes it showed me on a plane, or in the middle of the forest. I checked it today before I left the house, and it showed the same image it always did, me, standing at the side of the road. I'm scared, I don't know what's going to happen to me. Can you help?

Statement ends.

A tapestry that supposedly changes images and emotional trauma from losing a loved one. Sounds unlikely, perhaps just a case of a persons mind playing tricks on them. We attempted to contact mr. hampton for a follow up… but he was hit by a car on his way home from giving this statement. The tapestry is in our possession, and it shows a field of flowers. Some of our volunteers in artifact storage have said the image changes, and if they look at it long enough, they can see themselves. I have yet to see anything of that sort.

recording ends

[instituteslosttapes]

S̸̯̾̐t̴̗͂a̷͖̲̒t̵̯̹̕ê̴̡̟̅m̸̜̝͐̎ė̵́͜ͅn̷̙̰̔̕t̶̘̞͊̑ ̴̱͉͊#̸͕̊̕1̶̱͐0̴̢̼̿͗8̴̥̠̎7̴̧̜͌́6̶͉̉

Tw:

* bugs

* mention of abusive relationships

Statement of Alessio Giordano, regarding the death of their partner in the spring of 2001. Original statement given the 27th of October, 2001. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus institute London.

Statement begins

They’re my friends, you know. They’ve always been my friends. Whenever I’ve had a bad day, or even a good day, they’ve always been the ones I’ve talked to. They understand me better than anyone else. Better than therapists, my so-called friends, my family… even better than my partner David… but David could never understand me. He made it obvious he could never understand me, though I'm not sure how hard he tried. They understood me though, they didn’t even have to try. I talked to them about David a lot… They hated David. Who didn’t hate David though? He hurt me, they would never hurt me. They loved me.

Statement ends.

Upon investigation It appears as though Alessio Giordano did in fact have a partner named David, who disappeared in the spring of 2001, Alessio was questioned in his disappearance but was eventually released when the police officers working the case died…. Their bodies were found in the woods with their eyes and skin removed, supposedly eaten away by some sort of insect. We haven’t been able to contact or track down Alessio Giordano, and I’m not sure I want to…

Recording ends.

[instituteslosttapes]

S̵̲͒t̸͇͊̍a̶͓͗͆͜t̶̢͙͌e̶̦͝m̸̖̽̚ĕ̸̟̞n̷̞̣̂̚t̵͍̮̓ ̸̘̚#̸̱͘1̴̨̏0̴̢̓9̷̡̤̓̕5̸̧̔͝8̶̭͈̈́

Tw:

*bugs

*things crawling under skin

Statement of Abigail Hersh. Regarding her time working with Associate Professor Alessio Giordano in the summer of 2014. Original statement given the 19th of January, 2014. Audio Recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus institute, London.

Statement begins

I was never a squeamish child, or a squeamish adult for that matter. Things like dirt, bugs, mold, hell even death never bothered me. As a child I used to keep track of all the roadkill I would see on the side of the road, sometimes I would even walk through the woods in the hopes of finding a decaying animal so that I could take its bones home and add them to my small collection that I had stashed in my closet so my mother wouldn’t find them. I would scour the shelves at my local library for books on taxidermy, embalming, all of the things that a well adjusted child such as myself would be interested in.

I started working with Professor Giordano in 2014 after completing my undergraduate degree in anthropology. I was excited to work with them, you see, my university was one of the few with a Dermestid lab on site and I had always wanted to see them work up close, so when Professor Giordano offered me a temporary position in their lab for the summer I couldn’t pass it up. Now, I wish I had though. My job was simple, I was to keep track of what the Dermestids currently had in their tank and make sure that I swapped them out with something else so that the Dermestids didn’t start to eat the bones. It was easy, and fascinating. I didn’t see a lot of Professor Giordano while I worked there, which I didn’t think was that odd. I had never seen much of Professor Giordano even when I was taking one of their classes. You see it was online and they had only ever reached out to me in email. I saw Professor Giordano once, but never saw their face. They had directed me to where I was going to be working and instructed me on a few things all with their back turned to me. Which wasn’t that much of a red flag, I have anxiety too and sometimes it's hard for me to make eye contact with people so I just assumed that they were extremely socially awkward which didn’t bother me.

I only saw Professor Giordano a few times after that, it was usually in passing when I was coming in to start my shift and they would quickly shuffle into their office at the back of the lab and shut the door behind them. The work was actually quite boring, I would spend most of my time scrolling on my phone or applying for Master programs on my computer, occasionally taking breaks to watch the Dermestids work. They are fascinating creatures, they will eat all of the skin, meat, muscles and tendons left on bones until they are perfectly clean and ready to be bleached. The job was fine, I liked it and it was a good way to make a little bit of money and I didn’t really get any grief from Professor Giordano for being on my phone or things like that. So many people would have killed to have the type of job I did, even my friends told me so. I wish one of them had gotten it instead of me. I know that sounds awful to say but If you had seen what I had you would understand! You would get why I would have rather had it been anyone but me.

Professor Giordano had sent me home early one day, they said that they had an emergency to attend to and that they couldn’t leave me alone in the lab so I had to pack up my things and go home. They looked like they were in a rush so I tried my best to get all of my things together quickly and get out of there… It wasn't until later that I realized I had left my laptop behind and I had to go back and get it. I was working on my application for my masters degree and the deadline was for that next morning so I had no choice but to hope that the doors were still unlocked and I would be able to go back and get it. I went back as soon as I had noticed it was missing, by then it was almost five o’clock and most of the staff had left the buildings already. I went directly to the lab, there were still some of the other professors there so I didn’t really rouse any suspicions as I walked towards the Demestrids lab. It was dark in there when I finally got there, and at first I didn’t think that the door would be unlocked but I tried it, and to my surprise it was so I went inside and that's when I saw it. I saw Professor Giordano, at least… what I thought was Professor Giordano, it- it looked like them, but it couldn’t have actually been them. P-people don’t… People don’t look like that. They were missing an eye and there were holes and- and abscesses all over their face and I swear to God that I could see something moving under their skin. I tried to speak, I tried to ask them if they were okay, if they needed help or needed me to call for an ambulance but they didn’t say anything. They opened their mouth and a thousand of those… those beetles poured out of their mouth and began to come towards me.

Before I knew it they were scuttling up my legs, under my clothing and I could feel them biting me. I screamed and thrashed as Professor Giordano or… or whatever they were started coming towards me. Limbs jerking and body twitching as if they were controlled by something other than themselves. Almost like they were possessed. I think at some point I passed out, because when I woke up I was alone again, Professor Giordano wasn’t there and when I looked at myself I was completely unharmed… There were no bugs and the beetles in the lab were still in their dedicated cases. I grabbed my laptop and ran out of there. I never went back.

I'm sorry about the blood… I just can’t stop scratching.

Statement ends

We attempted to contact Ms. Hersh for a follow up statement but were unsuccessful. We did confirm however that an Alessio Giordano did indeed work at the state university in the years which Ms. Hersh attended, but is no longer employed there and we can’t find any other trace of them since then. It appears as if they have disappeared.

Recording ends.