Work Text:
[CLICK]
[A SIGH, BEFORE OLIVIA CLEARS HER THROAT]
ARCHIVIST
Right, this should be working…
To whomever may be listening, this is Olivia Newton, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. It has come to my attention that many of the recordings done by my mo- my predecessor, Adeline Newton, have been recently lost or demagnetised as a result of some—
[ANOTHER DEEP SIGH]
—gross negligence that I will admit was my own, so, I shall be re-recording the statements that have been lost, as well as recording newer ones that have come in more recently but have yet to be recorded.
And it appears that—
[SHUFFLING OF PAPERS]
—this is a more recent one. Well then.
[CLEARING HER THROAT]
Statement of Michael Solas, regarding an encounter with a strange figure during a… “live stream”, Olivia Newton recording.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
I’ve never had that many friends.
That might be a strange way to start this off but I guess it’s good… background info, I guess? I spend a lot of time online, and I meet most of my friends through online multiplayer games, or just gaming communities in general. And sure, it’s fun, but it kinda makes for a bit of a lonely existence outside of my little online sphere. I live alone too, which doesn’t really make it much better.
In any case, I have a pretty shit sleep schedule because of all my online friends, so a lot of the time I find myself up at 3am on Twitch or Youtube, watching random streamers. I like the smaller ones usually, it feels a bit more intimate. Streamers usually talk to their chat, so when it’s only around ten people, you actually end up feeling like you know the people in the chat and the streamer by time the stream ends.
It was… a few weeks ago now. I’d drank a couple beers and I was up late on Twitch when I saw it; a stream that had 0 viewers on it. And that’s not like, uncommon or anything, but— this one kinda drew me in, it felt like no other stream could’ve possibly been right for me to join in that moment, it had to be this one.
It was weird, I could barely see the streamer with how badly lit she was, just enough to see the look of blank concentration on her face. She had like… immense bags under her eyes which reflected the sickly blue glow of her monitor. She was playing a ridiculously old version of minecraft, with the render distance set low, going at a snail’s pace as it tended to in those early versions. We spent 10 whole minutes together in silence as I soaked up the silent atmosphere of this tiny stream, a stream that felt like it was still going just for me.
And then she looked up into the camera. And she addressed me.
Not my screen name, my actual real name. She said, “Hello, Michael.”
And I froze, because like, what are you supposed to do in a situation like that? I should’ve just logged off then and there, gone to bed and slept until 4 in the afternoon, but— look you have to understand, all my online friends call me by a screen name, I haven’t called my parents in ages, it’d been literal months since anyone actually said my name to me, it didn’t matter how little it made sense at the time, I was seen.
So I sat and stared as she kept speaking to me. Her voice was low and a bit monotonous, and scratchy, like she doesn’t talk all that often.
“Not many people make their way to my stream, y’know,” she said, “It gets lonely sometimes.”
It felt wrong to type into the chat to respond to her, to break that stillness she’d cultivated. She kept walking horribly slowly through the trees, fog enveloping her the whole way. She never bothered to put down any torches, and it seemed like she had the soundtrack off, so the only sound in the stream was her voice and the light clacking of her keyboard and mouse— I won’t lie, it was mesmerising.
“You must be lonely too, Michael, to make your way here,” there was my name again, just to assure me I hadn’t hallucinated it, “What sad existence do you lead that you’ve decided to watch me of all people?”
It stung, to be called out like that by someone I didn’t even know, but she was right. Maybe it was the beer, but I didn’t want to click away. I wanted to tell her everything, to pour out all of my deepest darkest secrets— but she kept talking before I could say anything, not even looking at me as she did, focused on her screen, like I didn’t even exist.
“Do you have any friends, real ones? Ones that actually know your name, Michael?” she jumped off a cliff, and it felt like my heart dropped with her, “When was the last time anyone touched you?” my breath hitched, and as if she heard me, she snorted, “God are you a creep or what? I meant a hug, Michael, no wonder you haven’t felt the touch of a woman in years.”
She almost looked excited as she questioned me on my own life. Her voice kept that monotonous quality, but her eyes, lit by the sickly blue of her monitor, were full of this… mirth. As if my misery was funny to her.
My room felt cold, but I didn’t have the energy or the will to get up and do anything about the fog rolling in through my closed window.
“Your girlfriend left you, didn’t she? And you still think of her as your girlfriend too, even though you know she’s so much happier without you. She has a new boyfriend, he treats her better than you ever could. But you already know that, don’t you?”
She was still focused on the game, digging endless snaking tunnels into the earth, letting darkness envelop the screen almost completely, the occasional torch placed out of pure necessity. She left me back in silence to my rising incredulity. Like— how did she know any of this?
…Did I even care? God, you don’t understand, she was so harsh, but it felt so good to be known, I just had to stay, to watch, to listen to her tear my life to shreds without a care, never sparing me a glance as the fog in my room grew thicker, heavier. It was ice cold, like one off the sea, and it clung to every part of me, water dripping down into my eyes from how much was rolling down my hair. It seemed to be leaking through the screen itself, though I don’t know how it could actually do that— the streamer was surrounded by the fog too, but it didn’t touch her, it felt like a natural part of her body.
“It’s just sad, Michael, how much you cling to them,” She paused before chuckling to herself, “Don’t you realise how sick of you they are? You do know that if you just disappeared today, they’d be relieved. Hell, they probably wouldn’t even notice you were gone for the first while. How does it feel, Michael, to be that worthless to everyone you love?”
I opened my mouth to respond to her question, to tell her she was right, that it felt awful, that I wished it would just go away— but that was when she finally looked back up at me from that tiny dim square in the corner of my screen, with so much disdain in her eyes, and her voice, to shut me up again, “Are you actually responding? I’m a streamer, I can’t hear you. You’re talking to an empty room.”
It should’ve hurt more, but I was at the point where I just felt kinda numb to it all. I was so cold, soaked to the bone in my shitty gaming chair that I got from the recycling centre, hunched over and staring into the darkness of the game with her. It was like some sort of fucked-up camaraderie. Maybe. I wanted it to be, I wanted it to be our loneliness to share, even though she kept making it very clear that it was only mine.
So I just sat back and let the fog consume me, I let her keep going, and played my part as a silent observer. I lost all sense of time, I didn’t feel hungry, or thirsty, I just felt so cold. But I couldn’t will myself to get up, to tear myself away from the stream and this stranger picking apart my life, not even to get a blanket. I don’t think I felt like I deserved comfort at that point. I just stayed and took it because at the very least someone was speaking to me, at least I wasn’t fully alone anymore.
I didn’t even realise it when it was coming to an end.
Eventually, she seemed to run out of things to pick apart, so she descended into silence again, and I watched as she made her way back up to the surface from the endless twisting mines she’d been exploring. It was like the fog slowly made its way back into my computer, concentrated back into the overworld. I was still damp, but for the first time in what felt like forever there was some warmth in the room. …I didn’t really like it. That cold had become comfortable, and now with all the clinging dampness and the warmth, it felt like trying to wear a blanket in the summer. I longed for her to descend back into the earth again, and for the fog to come rolling back out, to swallow me whole so I could just wallow in the cold.
But no, instead, she gave me one last look of utter disappointment and sighed as if it was all my fault, “Ugh, you’re just so boring Michael, you’re all used up. We’re done here, leave me alone,” and with that she ended the stream.
It should’ve been a relief but— but she was the only one who understood me! I couldn’t— I don’t have anyone else, you have to understand, I don’t have anyone who saw me the way she did, please, I need you to help me find her. That’s what you guys do right? Find weird paranormal shit? That’s why I’m telling you, I need you to help me, I just— I just don’t want to be alone.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
Hm.
Final notes. This is, of course, a clear manifestation of the Lonely, and it seems from a very powerful avatar indeed, to be able to spirit a victim away to The Lonely even through such a barrier as a computer. Though at first I wondered if the fog was psychological, it seems that prior to this statement, Mr Solas had gone missing for approximately a week before reappearing, so a definite sign of being taken away to the Lonely. Of course, the only corroborating evidence of his disappearance was a week of absences recorded by the automated attendance taking mechanism of his online courses as nobody else… had noticed.
[SHE SIGHS]
(muttered) I suppose Marcy tends to be right about these things…
In any case, it seems that since giving this statement, there have been no further reports of this… “streamer” appearing to Mr Solas, though from what this file says he seems to have started up an obsessive search for her online, though he cannot remember what her username is. For his own sake I hope he never finds her.
Recording e-
[A LOUD CRASH OUTSIDE THE OFFICE, FOLLOWED BY RAISED VOICES. THE ARCHIVIST’S CHAIR SCRAPES AGAINST THE FLOOR AS SHE GETS UP QUICKLY AND RUSHES TO THE DOOR, TAPE RECORDER STILL IN HAND. THERE IS A SUDDEN SQUEALING OF HIGH PITCHED STATIC.]
MARCY
I said, leave me alone!
SASHA
(overlapping) Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow—
ARCHIVIST
Good lord, what is happening here!
SASHA
(sounding suddenly very nervous, but trying to keep it together) Ah! Hello, Archivist, just, uh— checking in!
ARCHIVIST
(flatly) Ah, I see we’re not as spider-proof as we used to be. Was he bothering you, dear?
MARCY
Yes.
SASHA
Hey woah, I was just saying hi—
MARCY
And I asked you to, very politely I might add, go SHOVE IT.
SASHA
(gritted teeth) Not really that polite!
ARCHIVIST
(muttering) She really did send us her dimmest one, didn’t she— (normal volume) So what is an agent of The Web doing here in the archives, hmm? What tricks are you up to?
SASHA
No tricks, Archivist, really, I’m uhhhhh— (unconvincingly) researching-? For, for the mother. She wants me to figure out something and sent me here.
ARCHIVIST
(unconvinced) Well, you can stop bothering my assistant and head over to the library then, it’s just down the hall, shoo.
SASHA
Yes ma’am!
[HE RUNS AWAY. THE SQUEALING STATIC EASES DOWN AS MARCY EXHALES]
MARCY
…Ugh. I hope I never have to talk to him again.
OLIVIA
(amused) How annoying was he?
MARCY
GOD you wouldn’t believe it—
[CLICK]