On your desk sits a manilla envelope. It is addressed To Whom It May Concern at The Magnus Institute, London. The return address is for The Usher Foundation in America. Inside is a letter written in delicate handwriting, alongside a document- no, a statement, written in significantly less delicate handwriting. The letter reads:
We have recently approved a transfer request of one of our Researchers to be sent to your Institute. I thought it best if you had this amongst their file.
Head Researcher at The Usher Foundation
You pick up the statement of Dylan Craw, automatically reaching for your tape recorder to read into. You can tell the statement must be at least before they turned 18 because it has their deadname on it.
Statement of: Desiree Craw
Statement Date: 10/05/20XX
Please record your experience from the beginning:
At first, it was only Mom who could hear them. Feel them. We all thought she was going crazy. But she wasn't.
She tried to tell my dad. She didn't want Shania and me to hear. But, like all kids do, we hid around the corner and listened.
Mom said the house was haunted. Shadow People, she said. We heard papers as she showed Dad stories and research she'd found online. She said she could see them. That they only appeared in the dark. She said they spoke to her. That they wanted things from her. She begged Dad to move. She said they wanted her babies. They wanted us.
I stopped listening to Mom and Dad's conversations after that. But Shania didn’t. She was always the brave one. The bold one. If there was something here that wanted to hurt us, she wanted to know what. And she wanted to know how to fight it. I just wanted to run.
Maybe that's why I did what I did.
Actually, it definitely is why I did what I did.
Have you ever watched the anime Blue Exorcist? The Shadow People in our house were like the demons in that show; you could only see them if they had hurt you.
Dad woke up one morning with a long scratch down his forearm. Then he started acting strange too. Neither of our parents wanted us to be alone at any given point of time. Not even to use the bathroom. Shania and I were "connected at the hip", so to speak. We all slept in the big bed in my parents' room together. When Mom and Dad went to work, we went to daycare. No 11 year old wants to be in daycare, but it wasn't my choice to make. I just wish I had been more like Shania.
I was 12 when my dad took his life. He left a note. Except the note wasn't written in his handwriting. Or in pencil. It was scratchy, and written in a deep red. I still remember what it said. "We want sacrifice, not submission." The note was pinned to his hanging body. A long, deep cut ran down his arm, blood dripping onto the floor. I was the one who found him.
After Dad died, none of us talked to each other except for the occasional "can you hand me the..." that came with sharing a living space with someone else. No one went into the same room as another. If you walked into the kitchen and someone was there already, either you left or they did. Though the meaning of Dad's note wasn't stated explicitly, it wasn't hard to piece together. Dad had thought they just wanted a death. But no, they wanted one of us to kill one of the others.
About six months after Dad died, it finally happened. I had climbed the kitchen counter to grab something from one of the top cupboards. I lost my balance and fell. Shania came running in to see if I was okay. I could see it behind her. The Shadow Person. If you can call it a person.
It was vaguely humanoid shaped, but too long and too thin. It was all black except for its eyes. Its eyes were like two pinpricks allowing light to pass through them. Its fingers were long and pointed, like claws. I could see it. I could feel it. The skin on my side burned and I knew it had pushed me off the counter. It wanted this. They wanted this. All of them.
I could see it wrap its arms around my sister. Shania was always there. She was always the brave one. The bold one. One time, she chased a kid off school grounds, cussing and hollering, after he lied and said he had hit me.
I was never as brave as Shania. And I have been made to regret the decision I made every day of my life since then.
Shania is one of them now. And she wants me to pay.
[a sigh is heard, presumably one of Jonathan Sims]
Statement,, ends. Okay. I- This is, not great I think. I will,, see if Martin minds doing some, follow up with Dylan. I think he's closer with him.
I will, do some research and, update the end of this tape when I'm done.
