The Interviews
Part 2 of 3
* Transcript of “Lottie’s Interview” *
Rosalia: Come in, Lottie, make yourself comfortable.
There is a scrape of chair legs against wooden floorboards as Lottie sits.
Rosalia: Go ahead whenever you’re ready, Lottie. I’m here all day.
Rosalia’s tone is warm, comforting, the smile audible. Lottie’s voice, in comparison, comes through as hollow, distracted. As though she is somewhere else, deep in her thoughts.
Lottie: Sorry, Doctor, it’s – it’s hard to put into words.
Rosalia: Of course. Take your time.
There is a long pause.
Lottie: I don’t feel safe, Doctor Sanchez.
Rosalia: If it makes any difference, you can call me Rosalia, or Rosa. But what do you mean by not safe, Lottie?
Lottie: I– I’m being followed. Someone – no, something – is following me. Always. Ever since I took that goddamned pill.
Rosalia: Can you describe this – this figure – for me? You’re shaking your head, how come?
A thin shrieking static comes through the recording, the tone of a heart flatlining, then stops.
Lottie: Not a figure. It’s just, it’s wrong. I don’t know how else to describe it. It follows me everywhere, even in my sleep. It’s – I don’t think it’s human. No, I know it isn’t.
Rosalia: Well, I’m not quite sure what to make of that, honey. I know you’ve been experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations, might this be one of them?
Lottie: No! Doctor, I swear to you, I’m in danger. It’s in here right now, it’s watching us.
Rosalia: Is that what you keep looking at behind me?
Lottie does not answer.
Rosalia: I believe you, Lottie, don’t worry. Is there anything else you can tell me that might help me help you?
Lottie: It tells me things, Doctor, it tells me all the things it’s going to take from me.
Throughout the interview, Lottie’s voice has remained empty, even as she is narrating her experiences. However, in the last few lines, a thin trickle of fear enters into it.
Lottie: It’s already taken my fingernail. Look. And it’s promised it’s going to take more. My skin. My organs. My soul. I need your help, Doctor, I–
* End of transcript *
The Interviewer: The recording seems to cut off before it ends – any explanation for that, Miss Sanchez?
Rosalia looks perturbed; creases deepen the smooth skin of her forehead.
Rosalia: That– the file must have been corrupted. There was more to the recording. I remember it vividly.
Rosalia’s features slacken, suddenly. As though every muscle in her face has loosened at once. The effect is disconcerting; a mask of flabby skin hanging on bone. When she comes back to herself, the animation seeping back into her features, The Interviewer is forced to repeat the question, to which she can provide no answer.
The Interviewer: Miss Sanchez, I feel I need to ask. You say that Lottie was missing parts of herself, that this entity – as she called it – was taking them from her… has it taken anything from you?
Here, Rosalia’s eyes fly to a spot on the wall, beyond The Interviewer, and her cheeks pale. She raises a trembling hand to her lips, as though she is impeding herself from saying anything. But The Interviewer (as well as the viewers of the footage) sees what she cannot seem to tell him. Her hand is missing all of its fingernails. Each of them has been removed, though there is no blood, nor wound, just smooth skin.
The Interviewer: Christ above.
Rosalia: There is something above, Damon, I can say that much with certainty, but it is hardly our Christ.
The footage breaks apart for a moment, fizzling, and then reforms. Rosalia is in the middle of speaking and, from her words, it seems she is continuing her account of Lottie’s stay at the drug rehabilitation center. It is unclear how much of her story has been lost. The blip in the footage has been neither explained, nor recovered.
Rosalia: … came in, screeching about some kind of writing that had appeared on the wall of her room although, when I asked her what it said, she could not seem to tell me. It was not as if she did not know. It seemed more like something was physically impeding her from saying. Needless to say, I rushed out of my office and followed her into her room. It was empty, of course but, by that point, there was a sort of paranoia that lingered over my head whenever it came to Lottie. I felt like there must have been someone following her, from the frantic accounts she told me, and I think I almost expected to find someone hiding in her room, someone responsible for the writing on the wall. But, of course, I made a quick judgement upon finding an empty room: she was simply hallucinating. It wasn’t uncommon. The only mysteries were why the drugs continued to affect her, and why I had started to fall for the delusions of a patient.
The Interviewer: Did you find any writing, then, or was it all a delusion?
Rosalia: Oh, we found the writing. I managed to take a picture of it, before it disappeared. If the fingernail hadn’t been proof enough that something was happening, this confirmed it. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It seemed so impossible. It still seems so impossible.
The Interviewer: What did this writing look like? Do you happen to still have the picture?
Rosalia: Yes.
* Insert: Photo of writing on the wall by Rosalia Sanchez *
You are standing at the threshold between worlds teetering and when the Twisted Saints find you they will take you and they will consume you and your mind will pool through your fingers and you will taste your thoughts and your fear and I will feed on it and this world will no longer exist for you there will be only the realm of the Twisted Saints Cztharz where
Rosalia: Lottie wasn’t lying; she had never been lying. The writing was appearing as we rushed into the room. I watched it write itself for a moment. And then it simply stopped, mid-sentence. There was no one writing, no one that I could see anyway, but I remembered to gauge Lottie’s reaction a moment before it would have been too late. I saw her eyes follow something. Something that I couldn’t see. They crawled up the wall, to the ceiling and then whatever it was must have disappeared. Lottie relaxed, visibly, despite the ominous words on the wall. And they were already fading. I barely managed to slip out my phone and take the picture. Within seconds, there was nothing left of the words. I couldn’t even tell you what they had been written in.
The Interviewer is studying the picture, disbelieving. He teeters in his chair, readjusts his tie, rakes a hand through his hair.
The Interviewer: I wouldn’t guess you have any idea what these words mean? They’re… unsettling to say the very least.
Rosalia: Oh, I didn’t have the faintest idea at the time. I’m afraid I do, now. Though I wouldn’t wish the knowledge on anyone. Not anyone who wants to keep their sanity, anyway.
The Interviewer: You might be our only source of that knowledge, Miss Sanchez.
Rosalia: And it will die with me, Damon.
The words linger, ominously, in the room. Rosalia continues her story, unprompted this time.
Rosalia: The words on the wall were hardly the end of this particularly unfortunate series of events. Actually, they might have been the beginning. The true beginning, at least in terms of my involvement in the story.
After that, Lottie refused to sleep in that room anymore. I found her a replacement, a touch closer to my office, to be safe, and I spent that night talking to her. Just talking. I was hoping to calm her down, or maybe to calm us both down. I think it worked for her; not for me. I was a mess the following day. Exhausted, irritable. I should have taken the day off, but I was too worried about Lottie and about what might have truly been happening to her. Or else what was evidently happening to my own mind.
Nothing quite so dramatic as the wall incident happened for the next couple of days or so, but I spent most of my time observing Lottie. Something was taking from her. I wondered, for a while, if she wasn’t self-harming. It happens with some of our patients. I even had cameras set up to monitor her in her room – another violation, but this one was gray area. If a patient poses a risk to themself, we have the right to invade their privacy to some degree, for their own safety. I watched those recordings myself and kept them hidden away in my office. I convinced myself that meant I was saving at least a shred of her privacy.
* Insert: List of (Interview) Questions and Observations by Damon Golding *
- Who sold the pill to Lottie, and have they been tracked and found? Where did Rosalia find it? Did she buy it off someone, too?
- Are they certain Lottie never took the pill again after the first incident?
- Is there evidence of the pill being distributed? Has anyone else taken it (besides Rosalia)?
- Why does she keep looking above me instead of at me?
- * Lottie’s symptoms: extreme nausea, inability to focus, vivid nightmares and daydreams, crippling fear of the dark, seizures (?)
- She heard him in the walls
- Twisted Saints (???)
- ** You are standing at the threshold between worlds teetering and when the Twisted Saints find you they will take you and they will consume you and your mind will pool through your fingers and you will taste your thoughts and your fear and I will feed on it and this world will no longer exist for you there will be only the realm of the Twisted Saints Cztharz where the stars feed on human flesh and the skies devour the soul and the burning fruit of the mind conjures the very essence of
* It is unclear where this list originates from; perhaps more of the story has been lost
** This excerpt is a mystery; the font seems to be an exact replica of the writing from Rosalia’s picture, while the message, though still unfinished, seems to be extended here; the source of these added words is unknown
I should not have read this before bed bro 🕳️
This was an awesome read. I’m laying in my bed reading. Constantly, I look towards my door as if I heard something…🔥