THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES #94 - Dead Woman Walking
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 พ.ย. 2024
- MAG094 - Case #0172904 - Georgina Barker
Statement regarding the last words of a possible corpse.
The Magnus Archives tells the tale of an encounter with university activism that left them feeling somewhat fearless.
Content Notes: Mortality, undead, depression
Starring: Martin Blackwood - Alexander J Newall; Georgie Barker - Sasha McKenna
Writer: Jonathan Sims
Director: Alexander J Newall
Editors: Alexander J Newall, James, Brock Winstead
MERCH:
Crowdmade: crowdmade.com/...
Teepublic: www.teepublic....
Redbubble: www.redbubble....
For more information or to hang out with the Rusty Quill community, visit:
WEBSITE: www.rustyquill.com
FACEBOOK: therustyquill/
TWITTER: @therustyquill
FORUMS: rustyquill.proboards.com
REDDIT: www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/
DISCORD: / discord
EMAIL: mail@rustyquill.com
Jon: "So… what happened?"
*[Cue: The_Ceaseless_Watcher_sound_effects.wav]*
God I love your comments-
They werent allowed to tell us their names 🤝🤝 the blanket didnt do anything
What does this mean
what does "they werent allowed to tell us their names" mean,,? i don't quite follow,, sorry
@@ephemeral8967 When a corpse is in a college to be studied the students aren't allowed to know their names
@@TheDoomBlueShell
........ oh
I listen to these at night with the blankets pulled up just over my chin because it makes me feel safe... and that DAMN EPISODE has messed me up.
So basically this entity gives you existential crisis
"This is The End!"
-the end........of your sanity.
it also plays chess with you
@@clipso9061 or whatever you want really
let the bodies hit the floor let the bodies hit the floor let the bodies hit the floor let the bo
FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRR
swiftfeathers oooh wah Ah Ah Ah! Oh wrong song oops
@@RoseMultiverse Ha ha. nice one!
I haven't listened to the episode yet and this comment made me scared
*tss tss*
Georgie: "Her name was Alex Brook"
Me: "and she's going to die."
She is going to live technically
*they weren't allowed to tell us their names* holy heck you guys are so good at storytelling
CallMeNIBS what is this from I’m confused
@@TH-is8cf Legally, if you're a med student working with a cadaver, your superiors can't tell you their names.
@@belindaluna2067 here, though, it's the context of where Alex has seen this person before that makes that line hit so hard. That fact is just normal and mundane...until it's about a person you saw moving about.
@@Vi_Vi_1 This was in reply to someone who didn't understand why "they weren't allowed to tell us their names" was such an effective line. Not everyone knows what that was meant to communicate.
@@belindaluna2067 makes sense! Looking back i see that i missed something haha. Either way, definitely a badass line
Local dead lady gives already depressed uni students depression 2.0
More at 5
now with new and improved existential dread!
Yeah that sounds about right
I’m cackling, because the first thought I had when Dead Lass spoke up was “if she tried that on me she’d be sorely disappointed”.
Like, great, I can finally defeat a spooky monster! 😃 With the power of horrible depression. ☹️
@@RainWelsh I second that motion!
@@RainWelsh Dead Lass: *Speaks*
Me, with suicidal, clinical, hereditary depression: Okay and?
I appreciate that Jon asked Georgie if it was alright for him to use his power so she could tell her story correctly. It shows that he respects this newfound power and doesn't want to make her uncomfortable. Good detail.
Honestly its great. Seeing him slowly adjust to the knowledge of his power to extract information from people. Although this man hasn’t had a good nights sleep in ages. Maybe he can befriend someone with a sleep related patron 😂
@@flamingtorrent2109 Sleep is but the younger brother of Death.
😂 do you not know how to communicate? Not a magical power
@@jennifermoriarty2188ah yes another ignorant individual. Like BRO HES LIKE A TRUTH SERUM ITS NOT THAT BAD ?? also just wait till you see👁
"the moment you will die will feel exactly the same as this one"
Isn't that something someone else said, in an earlier episode? That phrase seems really familiar
episode 70, near the beginning!
@@defme1 thanks!!!
Yes! In the episode "taken ill" from season 1 >:3!!
Book that was basically the death note but much, much scarier
Yeah with the death book
The way John gets exhausted from realizing most everyone he knows has been affected by these beings a bit like working in the field of sexual violence prevention and coming to know how much it touches all the people you've known
Exactly what i was thinking
FAIR, i dont even work in that feild but litterally almost every afab person i know is somehow affected 😔 i cant imagine how much that rate would increase working in that feild
Having no fear seems like one of the better aftermaths of these encounters
Well, complete lack of fear or anxiety would lead to a very quick death, actually.
But I guess she acts on the understanding of danger that she still has, and that's how she's getting by?
I mean if you see a complete lack of self preservation as a good thing then yeah I guess
*after episode 200* I HAVE HEARD THE VOICE OF DEATH ITSELF AND GEORGIE'S REACTION WAS 100% VALID
@@someoneawesome8717 except she said she recognizes danger. So yeah, decently good aftermath
Considering that she still has the ability to be cautious and mind danger, hell yeah. As soon as I heard that, I was overcome with envy, if I’m honest.
It's kind of fascinating how Georgie and the guy from Cheating Death have nearly opposing views on eternity, and how neither view is seen as objectively superior to the other. This series has some really great narratives and philosophies
the static when he invokes the power aaa
love the little audio cues, the sound design is really inspiring
Amanda C Ikr?
So exciting!!
It's so chilling I LOVE IT
AAAAAAA IKIKIK IT'S SO COOL
I wasn’t the only one who heard it
Oh yes they said fight, flight or freeze! Finally someone included the thrid option
the fourth is fawn, I think it means to flatter(?), but it confuses me
I'm Tired
Fornicate
@@riverunderhilll2018 As a response to danger, 'fawn' is meant to placate the person/thing which is presenting the danger. If you can make the dangerous thing happy, it won't be dangerous anymore, basically. :)
@@greywriter mood, also, if you're my previous group therapist there is a sort of subsection of its own in that fear response area which is protect and defend where basically if you percive someone else being scared or in a scary situation, you have the reflex to protect them.
It may have been the first time they've explain it as such but it's been used (as a response to danger) so many times throughout out the show......
Nice✌️
i find the fact that the episode is tagged with the trigger warning "mortality" is funny
For some people, its actually a pretty intense psychological trigger. Crippling anxiety and depression even thinking about it.
@@mimkyodar That's very fair, it was simply the contrast to the other content warnings that was amusing
@@mimkyodar I used to be that way, but then at some point I realized there was no point worrying about the inevitable, it takes away from living altogether.
@@Sxcheschka That's nice.
Sleepy Jon at the end is so nice compared to literally every other second of this, so terrifying then so cute so quickly y'all are fuckin with my emotions hardcore
This is going to sound strange, but bear with me for a second: his sleepy sigh-breaths made my ears very happy. It felt nice.
What if we the audience were the eye...
oh shit
That's meta as fuck
I think you are on to something here
If that's actually a thing I will scream
that would be really lame and overdone; I really REALLY hope they won't pull up that shitty old 4th wall break
Me: hears title
My brain: Heather's the musical intensifies
EXACTLY
I was like: Well, I guess we found the dead girl walking, but she's grown up since then
Yes
***S AM E***
I saw this comment and was like FINALLY someone sees it too
Yeah she kinda took a turn for the worse
When Georgie said "Then that means it's already ended" I...understood? And, christ, I'd never thought about it that way before? That's terrifying
Now I just feel left out. Everyone and their mother seems to have had some sort of supernatural experience, and here's little old me getting a boring old natural life. Where's my meeting with beings beyond the understanding of man, eh?
Normal stuff is ok though.
Take it from me, you want nothing. In a way its special due to how rare it is. Even those of us who chose contact with the separated are usually not ready when they contact back. Or when another faction decides to step in.
When I was younger I went on a hike with my parents and had a little digital camera with me that I was taking pictures of every other tree and interesting rock with. It must have been turned on and I took a few pictures without noticing and when I looked at them in the hotel room I noticed one photo that was very blurry but it looked like there was a masked face staring right back at me. I was convinced I had disturbed something paranormal and that it would come to haunt me at night but it never did.
Only years later when I found the photos of this hiking trip and looked at them on a bigger screen I realized that what I thought was a face was really just a part of my shoe.
Statement ends
There's my not-paranormal encounter
Count yourself lucky.
Well, idk, are you British?
oh fINALLY Jon has one rest jfc
@lila mansilla jesus effin' christ
dude the rerecorded intro _still_ gets me. He just says "The Magnus Archives" that bit more sinisterly.
"There are some things it doesn't help to know more about"
Oh, so the corpse just gave her a large existential crisis and that suddenly evaporated her fear? Come on man, I have an existential crisis every other day and I still get scared occasionally :(
Maybe if you find a magic zombie woman to give you Depression 2 it’ll work out better for you
I am only three-and-a-half minutes in, and I already identify with Georgina more than I am probably supposed to.
hooo boyyyy she's hella relatable
“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.”
And in an instant I understood. There’s no… difference between the present and the future, no other me that will suffer the indignity of death while I live on. It’s all a single moment, and there’s… there’s no difference between that last moment that ushers us out into oblivion and the one we experience now. The promise of a cold and lonely eternity in the grave would have been a mercy; at least it would be eternal. But everything ends, even the universe, even time. And… that means it has always already ended.
I felt every feeling within me boil up: anger, despair, joy, hope, fear. Especially fear. They overwhelmed me, and burned up with the monumental realisation of the scale we existed on. Not the meaningless vastness of the universe, but the… the smallness of it.
Very unsexy that I was squeezed into this universe with a sell-by date, and kind of sucks that for us humans, eternity only exists as what we're remembered by, and by whom. In a lot of cultures its seen that even if there is an afterlife, your spot in it is only guaranteed with your remembrance by living people. Can we even picture a non existence outside of being forgotten without removing what makes us human entirely? Is it even real if we can't view it through the lens and tethers and nuances that come with being human??
Anyway back to my silly horror thriller podcast, have a pleasant day
WAIT SHIT YOU WERE QUOTING THE EPISODE MY BAD I THOUGHT YOU WERE MONOLOGUING, CARRY ON LMAO
herbal phlegm HAHA bless you though and you’re absolutely right
I very much wanted to go *are you okay?*
@@lydiac9118 Nonexistence will feel exactly like it did before you were born. Was it so terrible? No. No one has nightmares about the non-existence before. People refuse to acknowledge it. Only the non-existence after existing frightens--because it is loss.
I'm agnostic about afterlife. The strangeness of the evolutions of consciousness, from dead matter sparking RNA information constructs to the mysterious group decisions of slime molds, make me wary of current certainties.
Forgot the Heather's song was dead girl walking not dead woman and ended up in this fandom this was my first episode.
Quite a place to start! How have you liked the podcast since? 🙂
@@TheNitpickChick my only criticism is that john and Martin need to go out already!!
Galactic Phoenix - Don’t know how far you are in the series, but the boys have been a bit busy! But they make time, in their own way. Patience. 😉
What a way to get into a series; I'm actually quite envious.
Oh no
In retrospect, I do wonder... has the static always been there when Jon asked his questions, from the very beginning?
It grows over the series
sleepy jon and extremely relatable depresso bean georgie barker testimony all in one episode? thanks Obama
I'm not 100% sure if this has happened before, to be honest, I think so but either way, I like the detail of Jon releasing a breath just after Georgie's done. Sounds like he's been holding his breath the entire time.
Officially REALLY getting to the point in this series where we're constantly going "holy shit. HOLY SHIT" at it all. The sound when Jon asked "what happened" made me SHIT MY TROUSERS (REAL) (NOT CLICKBAIT)
To clarify, "we" is me. We're not like. projecting on everyone here. That would be cringe
@@jellifygirl Why are you referring to yourself as "we" then?
@@L0zza they're royalty
@@L0zzahiveminds are like that, just respect the pronouns
Oh Jonathan 😞 Sleep now darling!
I love how this episode achieved not also the usual feeling of existential dread, but *also* managed to trigger Heathers the Musical flashbacks in some people. Including me of course. Job well done Rusty Quill, I guess now we know that Veronica grew up from a Dead Girl Walking to a Dead Woman Walking.
GOT NO TIME TO KNOCK
I'M A DEAD GIRL WALKING
Oh, so Georgie isn't an avatar herself. Thank god. I wonder why she was the one to survive though. I kinda feel like the only explanation would be that she brought "a sacrifice" with her. Like, the entity consumed Alex and didn't need any more power for now. But it also seems like the first wave of students were all consumed simultaneously...
I'm just wondering how it goes.
f̵̰̯̅̉͛̍̽̓̐̏̓̍͋̋ö̴̢̳̪͍̳́̓̅̏̿͗̏͌͌͆͛͋̍̽͝r̶̢̤̗͙̫̦͍̳̠̹̃ ̸̛͕̜̻̘͓̟̲͈̞͒̀̃͆̃̏̋́̂́̚͝ͅͅr̶͉̐͗̅̽ȩ̴̖̗͈̣͔̜̬̣͖̞̺̠̼̋̀̒̿̕͝s̴̢̙̻̱͔̥͉̰̻̦͎̎̇͌͝e̷̘̒̍͑̍̽͆̂̎ͅa̶͈̖͉̣͂̔̀̏͝r̸̠̘̈́̓̇́̈͒c̸̖̤̰̚͠h̷̰̼̞̀͒͐̍̂̑̈́̂̉͗̚͝ ̸̧͎͇̮̩̩̰͕͖͖̦́̄͛͗͑ͅͅṗ̸͇͓̜̉̓̔̄̕ų̷̧̗̯̙̖̝̱̪͖͙̪̐̄̄̌́͛͌͜r̸̛̼̲̜͇̻̠̾̀̍̽͌̈́͝͠p̸̢̢̨̠̪͓̰̱̰̟̔͑̈́͊̿͌ͅǫ̵̨̦̥͖̞͎͈͇̼͉̑̄͒͗̈́̈́͗́͗́̈͂̓̚ṡ̶̡̨̭̫̹͓̥̞͉͌̒̊̒̐͑͋̓̋̈́͠͝͝ę̴̧͉͉̣͚͚̱̬̫̞̺̀̔s̴̡̼̙̠̞̮̹̗̜̃͆͌̀̏͆̀̑͐ͅͅ
She's such a good friend to Jon!!! I love her.
Hey uh ik this episode is important in the fact that it reveals Georgie was always a part of it, Jon is learning to focus his powers, big ol inevitability of death monologue, but,,,,,
Jon's breathy tired voice has me actin up y'all
bruh big same
felt that last part 😩😩
Martin be like:
J-jon? 😳😏
The whole thing about mortality and all that reminded me of a time this summer where i told myself "time passes so quickly. One moment im here,ill wait a bit,and hours will feel like seconds." I told myself this because i realised how quickly everything passes by. I realised that between that moment,4 months ago,and this moment,right now,felt like a second. Back then i even told myself "on my deathbed,it will still feel like it was all a second." It scares me pretty bad..
It feels like a second because thats how long it took your brain to dismiss all the details as unimportant. Our brains aren't good with time. If you remembered every detail, you wouldn't be able to process the current moment. The Now is important, not the dreams of yesterday and tomorrow.
@@krishadyn5211 damn that makes me feel better ty
I'd almost bet her fear got stolen. These entities seem to prefer creating a new fear (mostly of something the subject used to love) over an existing fear. I suppose it's because they're a lot stronger (except for certain phobias bc yk.... They're phobias). So now imagine stealing fear as a whole. That's quite tasty I would say.
Hey! Georgie's statement was recorded on my birthday! That's fun
fun....
Same!
Same!
Mine too
“The moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one” is gonna stick with me for a while
this is the kind of existential thought that i love.
“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.” good shit.
Back here after 200, Georgie's reaction to the this situation is 100% what happened to me except I only took a week to recover from being dead in all ways except bodily
wait I've heard that before "the moment I die will feel exactly the same as this one" does anyone know where? Was it earlier in this podcast? edit: someone else asked the same question. it was episode 70.
I KNEW I GOT DEJA VU FOR A REASON!!!
My theory from this episode and what we know so far:
So, the book about when you'll die, the Death creatures, and this one right here are all manifestations of the End. A place that is related to death, like a medical building with labs with dead bodies, is obviously a place that the End would be drawn to. But, what Georgie said about the fear, I wonder if that has something to do with the phrase the End creature said. Like, since all the moments are the same and what is supposed to happen has in fact already happened, all the fear that Georgie was supposed to feel but also felt in her past has already been felt at that moment too. It makes us think that fear was what that creature wanted from its victims, so if the other entities are also about being fed the fear of the humans, then at least that means that Georgie is probably safe from other entities, like, she won't be drawing any other entity to her hopefully since she has nothing for them to feed on. But, if fear is not the only thing the other entities want, then she's not safe, like the rest of the world..
I have thanatophobia and, yeah, this is pretty accurate.
i've been waiting to watch this video only because it reminds me of Dead Girl Walking from Heathers :p
I was looking for a comment about that
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST
Right.
GEORGIE
Right.
ARCHIVIST
And… you’re… sure you’re okay with this? And with me recording?
GEORGIE
I mean… no? But… You told all your stuff, so… I mean, it’s just fair. I think.
ARCHIVIST
I mean, maybe I know something that can help.
GEORGIE
No, it’s not, erm… There are some things it doesn’t help to know more about.
ARCHIVIST
[Sotto voce] Right.
GEORGIE
So how does this work?
ARCHIVIST
Uh, you just… tell your story.
GEORGIE
Right.
ARCHIVIST
Would it help if I… ‘asked’?
GEORGIE
Erm… Yeah, yeah. Maybe.
ARCHIVIST
Okay. Statement of Georgina Barker regarding the last words of a possible corpse. Recorded direct from subject, April 29th, 2017.
Statement begins.
So… what happened?
GEORGIE (STATEMENT)
It was my first year of university, before I’d met you. I was still studying English at Balliol back then, and trying to hide how poor my family was from everyone else. None of them said anything, of course, but whenever they talked I could count the seconds before I got lost. Before one of them made a reference, or assumed something about my life, and I realised I was out of my depth. I’d learned what a punt was; there couldn’t have been that much more, surely?
I’d read so many books, and nobody knew any more about my subject than I did, but the way my classmates all seemed to read Latin, or reference philosophers I’d never heard of… I’d, I’d never been able to travel outside the country, but everyone seemed to assume I went skiing every winter. I felt I’d wandered onstage without a script. I felt boring, like I was being judged on all the experiences I’d never been able to have. And I always remember their faces when I’d get excited, and a hint of Scouse would creep into my voice. Like I was some sort of… curiosity. I was scared all the time, terrified that someone would see through me, see the fraud I felt like I was.
There was only one person I really felt myself around. Her name was Alex Brooke, and she was a medical student at Corpus Christi. She’d grown up in an ex-mining town in the Black Country, though I can’t remember which one, and she seemed to feel the same way I did. But where I was anxious and self-conscious, she was angry. I never met anyone who could skewer the pompous dickheads like she could. I think she actually head-butted some rich kid from Christ Church once.
She was a couple of years above me, and we met after we both went to some self-satisfied theatre thing in my second week. We simultaneously decided to ditch it halfway through when they started talking about the ‘highlights of the last season at the National’. We went for a drink instead, and just like that we were inseparable.
Alex was always so confident, so… utterly unafraid. I always admired her for that, even if I sometimes found it almost as intimidating as the posh boys quoting Latin. I think she made a point of never letting anything shake her. Even when talking about the most morbid subjects, she never lost that smile.
And as a medical student, there were plenty of morbid subjects to talk about. She’d discuss her dissections with me, I think just to watch me squirm a bit, and talk about how hungry she always got at the smell of preserved brain. Apparently, it’s exactly like tinned tuna. She liked to make that observation just before taking a big bite of her sandwich. I don’t think I actually ever saw her eat tuna any other time. Maybe she didn’t even like the stuff, she just wanted to make a point.
I’m sure you remember all the protests back then. I went on a few marches myself, so it didn’t exactly come as a huge surprise to hear that there was a group occupying one of the faculty buildings. What was strange about the whole thing was nobody seemed to exactly know what the group were protesting, or exactly when it had started. They’d taken over part of the Medical Sciences building, though, so I think most people assumed it was some sort of scientific ethics or animal rights thing. The staff were all very quiet about it.
Alex was loudly angry about it, as was her way. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was about, but reckoned I was probably on the protestor’s side, or close to it, but she was having none of it. Apparently classes were being changed all over the place to avoid that part of the building, and it was playing havoc with her schedule.
One night, when we were both through a few pints in Balliol bar, I mentioned that it was a bit weird there weren’t more police around, if they were illegally occupying the place, and she got this little light in her eye. This wrinkle round the edges that I knew meant trouble. I asked her what she was planning, but she just shook her head, and gestured to get another drink.
I didn’t see her again until the following afternoon. She called me up out of nowhere and demanded we have lunch. I didn’t point out that it was four. There was something in her voice that made me think she hadn’t slept, and not because she’d partied the night away. I pushed a plate of chips and sausage towards her, but she barely looked at it. Finally, she looked up at me, and I saw something new in her face. I saw fear. “They were just… sitting there,” she said.
Apparently, Alex had found her way back into the Medical Science building after putting me drunkenly to bed. God knows what she was planning to do; I don’t think even she was completely sure. Something about catching the protesters sleeping and bothering them the way she thought they’d been bothering her. She’d found her way to the rooms they’d taken over, and was about to go in, when she’d glanced through the small window on the swinging double doors.
They were lying on the floor, she told me. All of them. Not like they were sleeping, but like they’d just… collapsed, motionless, where they had been standing. There were no placards, no signs, just a couple dozen normal-looking students fallen to the floor.
Their chests moved up and down slowly, so Alex was sure they’d been alive, but… their eyes stared vacantly into the space in front of them, and everything else about them seemed lifeless and empty. Some of them were lying with their heads or legs at odd, uncomfortable-looking angles, but they either didn’t notice or didn’t care. They all seemed to have fallen away from a single, central point in the room. Kneeling there was the only figure who hadn’t collapsed.
She was an older woman, Alex said, and was almost completely naked. Her skin was pale and her head was shaved. Like the others, she was still, with only the movement of her chest showing she was still alive, but unlike those on the floor, her eyes moved. They gently swept from one side of the room to the other, like she was searching for something.
Then those eyes settled on Alex, staring in through the door. The eyes didn’t light up, they didn’t narrow, or show any sign they’d registered her existence. They just stopped moving and looked at Alex, as though waiting for her next move. And it was at that point Alex had recognised the woman, and run.
Obviously I wanted to know who the woman was, and I demanded Alex tell me, but she just told me to… Well, she said she didn’t want to say, and pushed her now-cold lunch away from her. I wasn’t letting her get away that easily, and I pressed the point. Who was this woman with the shaved head? Where had she seen her before?
Finally, Alex admitted she’d seen the woman during classes at the Medical Building. Was she a tutor? What was her name? Alex looked me right in the eyes. “They weren’t allowed to tell us their names.”
It took a few moments to work out what she meant, and when I did I felt dizzy. Alex had such absolute certainty in her voice, but she had to be wrong. It was impossible. I had no idea what to say, and all I could manage to do was blurt out, “Tuna?” She stared at me for a few seconds, then shrugged, and looked to the floor.
We sat there in silence for a long time, trying to understand what had just been said. I mean, there was no way that there could be something in a university building causing students to collapse, and nobody was taking any steps to deal with it.
Especially if it involved one of the cadavers, it just wasn’t possible. But the only other explanation I could come up with was that Alex was lying, and I just needed to look at her to know that was even less likely. So I did what I felt was the only thing I could do in that situation. I told her I’d go with her if she wanted to take a second look. She didn’t, but we went anyway.
It was Saturday, and the place was eerily quiet. Even without classes or labs, there were always a few students hovering about, going to and from places, eager to get some work done when everywhere wasn’t so crowded. But all we passed heading into the building was a single police car, sat empty, just slightly mounting the kerb. The door to the Medical Science building stood open; it was a bright day, but the hall stood dark. Alex looked at me, just once, as if asking whether I was sure about doing this. I wasn’t, but… I still nodded.
We stepped inside. The building was cool and quiet, with just the faint drone of the air conditioning in the background. I’d never actually been inside before, but Alex’s steps were confident in their direction, even if she wasn’t confident in her purpose. Finally, she pushed open a pair of doors to one of the teaching rooms, and… I saw the scene she had described.
There were the students, lying on the floor. But not just students. I saw faculty and even a policeman slumped there like the others. What Alex hadn’t mentioned was how grey they all seemed. Not in the sense they were sickly, but… like they’d had the colour simply drained away from them. And knelt in the middle was the woman. Her skin seemed grey as well, but in her it was clearly the colour of death. It didn’t matter that her ribs rose and fell like she was breathing, even if Alex hadn’t told me before there would have been no doubt in my mind what she was.
Her eyes settled on us with that same disinterested stare. No-one moved. Not us, not the corpse, and not the bodies on the floor. There was nothing but the sound of breathing, and maybe the faintest whimpering cry from somewhere among the fallen. Then, very slowly, without any sense of urgency, the dead woman began to stand up. I remember what it was like only vaguely, like trying to describe a dream long after you’ve woken up from it.
As the woman got closer, I could see something in Alex tighten, wind so taut that it finally snapped. She lunged forward, grabbed the corpse by its shoulders, and began to scream into its face. What did it want? What had it done? Demanding answers. The dead woman with the shaved head ignored her grip, leaned close to her neck and opened her mouth.
For a moment I had visions of teeth sinking into Alex’s flesh, of arterial spray coating the clean, white laminate, but all that passed between them was a whisper. Something soft spoken into Alex’s ear. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she turned to look at me.
Her eyes were different. They were still hers, and I could tell they still knew me, but something in them was gone. As my gaze met hers, Alex gave a simple, small shrug, so slowly, it was if every ounce of will she had went into that one small gesture. Her head drooped, staring at the floor, and she gently lowered herself down to lie there.
And just like that, I was on my own. It feels strange to think that even then I couldn’t find the strength to run. If I’m feeling generous to myself, I try to believe it’s because I was unwilling to abandon Alex, or maybe the thing had some power to keep me there, but honestly, it was fight, flight or freeze. And I froze.
I saw the dead woman approaching me. Smelt the chemicals that kept her from rotting, saw her lean towards me, saw her lips begin to form words. In desperation I slammed my hands over my ears and shut my eyes, willing myself not to hear, not to understand. As far as defences go, it was basically nothing, but I still think it saved me, at least a bit. I still heard the words.
“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.”
And in an instant I understood. There’s no… difference between the present and the future, no other me that will suffer the indignity of death while I live on. It’s all a single moment, and there’s… there’s no difference between that last moment that ushers us out into oblivion and the one we experience now. The promise of a cold and lonely eternity in the grave would have been a mercy; at least it would be eternal. But everything ends, even the universe, even time. And… that means it has always already ended.
I felt every feeling within me boil up: anger, despair, joy, hope, fear. Especially fear. They overwhelmed me, and burned up with the monumental realisation of the scale we existed on. Not the meaningless vastness of the universe, but the… the smallness of it.
And I realised I was in my bed. According to my phone, I had been for several days. I numbly got myself some water, and ignored my weeping mother. She tried to hug me, but her arms just slid off my limp shoulders.
And that was my life for several months. Eventually, the memory began to fade, and I started to feel again. I took the year out of university under the umbrella of ‘medical reasons’, and by the time I met you I was, well, I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person I was before, but I had started being able to actually live again.
I never learned for sure what happened to the people in the Medical Science building, or the dead woman. Someone said a police van and ambulance had turned up in the night, and taken them all away, but I couldn’t find anything more on it. None of them came back to the university, and I never saw Alex again.
There was one thing that never returned to me afterwards, though. Since that day, I’ve never been able to feel afraid. My fear’s just… gone. I’m not foolhardy. I can still recognise danger, and I understand the likelihood of harm, but actual fear? Simply not something I experience anymore. And I’ve never been able to figure out if it was cauterised, or… if it was stolen.
GEORGIE
So that’s it.
ARCHIVIST
I see. That, um… I mean, that -
GEORGIE
Explains some things?
ARCHIVIST
A bit. I can’t believe you never told me.
GEORGIE
Well, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were on the run from the police over two murders, so…
ARCHIVIST
No, you - You’re right, I…
GEORGIE
Are you alright? You look like you’re about to keel over.
ARCHIVIST
Uh, no, I- I just… Ther-There’s been a lot of statements, in not a lot of time. I’m… I’m exhausted. I kind of wish I knew, uh, knew even one person who genuinely wasn’t involved.
GEORGIE
Maybe that’s why you thought of me?
ARCHIVIST
Hm?
GEORGIE
I mean, it’s been years, and there must be other old friends you lost touch with. Maybe you did know?
ARCHIVIST
Yeah, maybe. I, uh…
GEORGIE
[Sigh] It’s alright, John, you sleep. I’ll tidy up here.
ARCHIVIST
Yes, I, uh… Yeah.
[CLICK]
Thank you!!!!＼（Ｔ∇Ｔ）／
You're welcome :)
Petra Iván thank youuu
You are welcome bro!
we talk all about his compulsion... but are we gonna talk about how Gorgie made the audio crackle when she repeated the corpse's words??
OMYGOD THE STATIC WHEN HE USES THE EYE POWERS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYESS!!! *I M D Y I N G*
Rest dearheart, let the fearless lady look over your dreaming and keep you safe...
This has been the only episode so far to give me real fear. Fear of my own mortality. The realization that I, no matter how long from now no matter how much I've changed, will experience death. "The moment you die will feel exactly like this one." I hadn't thought much of it when i first heard it in taken ill. But hearing her elaborate on what it truly meant, when the realization set in. Pure dread. The anxiety made me put down my food and start pacing. Phenomenal.
i visualise the static sounds when jon Compels someone as his own eyes going all crazy and static-y like a tv. big sucker for weird eye effects
Interestingly, this sounds very much like Changeling: The Dreaming’s Rhapsody.
It’s basically the best and worst way to get the magic stuff Changelings need to live.
You put a little of the magic into a mortal and then they are driven to create a masterpiece, afterwards they aren’t capable of creativity at all ever again.
I doubt that was intent here, putting a lot of fear into someone all at once for a big payoff that leaves the subject unable to feel it ever again. But I like the parallel.
I like how he offers to compell her so that shd can tell her story easier. Nice touch.
this was my first year experience of college as well
I'm sad now awwww
If this episode had a theme song, it would be, “Let the bodies hit the floor”
Eyyy the student marches! I remember being in London for that as a student
"The moment you will die will feel exactly the same as this one" and then feeling no fear.
The End gives me Epicurean vibes.
Jon X finally getting some fucking SLEEP
Alright, hands up, who else feels called out by the harbinger of Big Sad 🤚
Oh she is basically a ghost now
How was Georgie the only one who survived though
She says she thinks it was because she covered her ears, maybe that's why? Maybe something about the message being, even if just a bit, muffled?
maybe that's because she knew that she's gonna hear something she definitely wouldn't like and _really wanted_ not to know this information? cause she saw her friend mentally dying and realized it was nothing good? maybe it made it
Me: *hears the title*
Also me: *starts singing dead girl walking reprise*
(Im such a theater kid)
are we just going to not talk about how it goes staticy when jon asks questions??
I think I am missing something here
"The moment you die would be the same as this one"
What's supposed to be scary here,is it the realization that everything would cease to exist? or does it mean something else
Its...hard to explain.
The end is inevitable, there is no point in trying bc all things will end eventually.
Its scary bc it robbed people of the will to do anything bc they no longer felt it mattered
Yeah, I reject the statement so thoroughly its laughable to me. Feeling like you're already dead because YOU WILL DIE someday feels as relevant as lying in bed waiting to become rich because you're certain you'll win the lottery some day. It is the opposite of mindfulness.
Also in my experience, your death moment will feel different. There will probably be pain, or sick feeling, or tiredness. Its pretty rare that a death moment is "fully aware and bored".
Why is the eye the only one that exhausts you when you feed it? The others are all enthrallled by a kind of euphoric mania.
At first this was a genuine question but as I typed it, maybe its a way to keep its servants sane? Most of the time? (Looking at you elias)
Might just be the feeling of digesting a meal.
And now it's my phobia of death they talk about, great 😭
surprisingly comforting. if my last moment is like now (pretty relaxed while crocheting and listening to a podcast), then i'll be fine when i die. so i can understand her fear disappearing. everyone and everything has to end. death is so powerful that it doesn't need to feed on fear. it is simply inevitable.
Eeee, I know we've heard it a couple times at this point, but for some reason, the static coming in when Jon compulsed Georgie was... uuuuuuncomfortable. Was that woman one of the Death people? Like, the gambler dude who cut his finer off in the Institute? Still, very unsettling account from Georgie.
Funny little fact: Although the spelling is different in both names, my full name is pronounced Alex Brooke! I cannot describe the utter terror I felt when my full name was spoken by this podcast, late at night, in my basement. Genuine coincidence, still cant get over how eerie it is. Also good to know I shouldnt become a med student
This episode made me get existentialism and I'm not even exaggerating
I keep thinking that the corpse is Mary Keay lol
I think its the shaved head, Mary key had her head shaved too
I'm happy Georgie was able to make out somewhat alright, I love her so much.
"... its been a lot of statements in not a lot of time, im exhausted" ive been binging this show for the first time for days now, same jon, same... i feel like maybe it would be better to leave myself some time but like with everything else im simply not capable of that, so i guess this is my life now
I'm gasping each episode
This is one of my favorites....
IM A DEAD GIRL WALKINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
OMG, listening Jon so exhausted at the end hurt my heart. Give this man a break, a blanket and a purring cat ASAP
I feel an exestential crisis coming on.
When John asked her, the static sound was fainter than other times, I wonder if it's because she wasn't reluctant to give her statement and so didn't need to be pushed so much
There are some episodes I really relate to, and this is one of them, this is something that happened to me, and could be triggering for some people, so this is a little heads up:
Today 15 years ago (during "Good" Friday, I know the irony of that), I almost died from appendicitis, so I was admitted to a children's hospital (I remember vividly this image of the crucifixion while doctors and nurses pinched me with needles on the hands and feet) and let me tell you the obvious:
Witnessing and having a close encounter with Death really gives you this existential crisis (with some religious trauma included), and I had this realization.
Everything (God itself, those kids, & me) ends.
It goes without saying that before then I used to be a fearful kid, but afterwards, I feared no more, for fear, too shall pass.
The lead in to her statement is writing gold.
I feel called out because not only is my name Alex but I’m also this personality type
F
so, the dead woman was mary keay right? it says in page turner her head was shaven and here an ambulance took away her and the victims to never be seen again, just like it did the doctor's victims in mary's statement. it's weird that no one mentions this anywhere related to the ep.
Mary's body would be an evidence and wouldn't end up at a school. Also, she was skinned.
Also, I believe Mary mentioned before that she isn't with The End.
@@grinstrashcan I think the dead woman was one of the cadavers from Alex's classes, being used by The End.
"The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one." Dude wasn't this mentioned before? In like the dead book or smth, the one that predicted all the deaths of those included in it?? Hmmm....
Also if anything happens to Georgie I'm suing
Georgie is just the coolest, dude! Seriously, my God she is awesome
lmao it gave her depression
Instead of making her dead outside, it just made her dead inside
i knew it i knew it they feed on fear or something, they love the human whom they can pick the fear like fruit from, and thats why the statements where people had no time to properly fear or were too oblivious to fear or too adrenaline rushed to fear exist, bc they survived, the horrors had no moment to properly consume them with fear. Thats what the magnus archive can do, by doing this human thing of categorizing and SHARING fear they do something. i dont know
I noticed that the credits on the description list Martin instead of John. Just a little thing, great episode as always!
“i told her id go if she wanted to take a second look. she didnt, but… we did anyway.”
jesus
Oh my, the body said the same thing that the guy who received the book telling his death
And once again my theory is confirmed.
Looks like the tea spilled ;)
everyone wishes they had the compelling power.
love this song from heathers
the description for the episode accidentally credits alex instead of jonny! :0
This episodes monster: an existential crisis
Ooh what the dead lady said, I'm pretty sure that was in the death book
i'm not sure - was it in the book, or did the guy with the death book just say it in his statement?
Edit: I checked the wiki page, and it says the phrase appeared "in the narrator's musings about mortality near the beginning of the statement", so not in the book.
I got real excited when yall mention Corpus Christi til i realized yall might be talking about a different place