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* Transcript of “Rosalia Sanchez’s Interview” *
Damon (who will be referred to from this point on as simply “The Interviewer”): Come in, come in. Make yourself comfortable. If it helps.
Rosalia says nothing. She is thirty-six, five foot eight, on the slimmer side, and has very evidently been suffering from illness. Her cheeks are gaunt. Her lips are pale, dry. Her eyes, which photographs of her report to be a bright hazel, are black in the recording. She does not look at The Interviewer as she walks into the narrow room, and seats herself in the chair across from him. She sits with her head bowed, her hands cradled in her lap.
The Interviewer: Right. Good. Listen, Miss Sanchez, I just need to ask you a few questions, and we’ll be out of here. Sound good?
Rosalia says nothing. The Interviewer fidgets, slightly, then sighs (he was not chosen for his expertise, but for his disarming quality).
The Interviewer: That’s fine. Alright then, let’s start simple. What is your name and age?
When Rosalia speaks, it is in the ghost of a voice. Raw, rough, pebbly; like hard velvet. The Interviewer startles, visibly.
Rosalia: Rosalia Sanchez. Thirty-six.
The Interviewer: Right! And what was your occupation previous to… all this?
Rosalia: I worked in a drug rehabilitation center. I helped patients who were recovering from long-term drug addiction or who were suffering from the effects of intense drug stimulation. Specifically hallucinatory effects.
The Interviewer: And, if my notes here are correct, that’s where you were when… well, when–
Rosalia: Yes. That’s where I was.
Rosalia’s voice is hard, stilted. Her answers are short. Her head remains bowed even as she speaks. From her folder, it is clear that she was once bright and kind, able to set anyone at ease, according to both coworkers and rehabilitated patients. This description does not seem to cohere with the woman being interviewed.
The Interviewer: Can you tell me a little bit about that day? What you can remember?
Rosalia: Not much. I was at work early and I left late. The clinic was especially busy that day.
The Interviewer: And why was that?
Rosalia: Because–
Rosalia heaves, suddenly. A sharp, flinching spasm that sends her body rocking forwards. The Interviewer flinches away from the table, then towards it, as though unsure whether to help her himself or to run for help. Rosalia’s mouth opens. She gags. Her tongue lolls from her mouth, too pink, even in the recording. Then, as quickly as it happened, she retracts into herself, folding back into her seat. She is a touch paler, but that is all. Her voice, when she continues, is calm, as though the interruption never took place.
Rosalia: I’m sorry. I have found I am still mostly in control of my own body but, well, there are exceptions to any rule. The clinic was busy because of a new patient we had just admitted. A small, thin woman. Frail. Her name was Lottie Herald.
Rosalia grimaces, though certain interpretations have suggested it to be a smirk. Did she think it fitting that Lottie’s family name was Herald? That she was the one to herald what was to come? The Interviewer does not pick up on this possibility.
The Interviewer: Yes, Lottie. And she was, from what I am told, the bringer of… well, of everything?
Rosalia: In a sense. She came to us of her own volition, alone. No mention of family, friends – really, of any ties at all. She had been homeless for the past year or so, at that point, and not for the first time. This wasn’t odd amongst our patients, but it made tracing her history that much harder. She came to us in a state that was like those we had seen before. And yet, at the same time, so very different.
The Interviewer: Same and different, in what ways?
Rosalia: She was experiencing vivid hallucinations, hearing colors and seeing footsteps, that sort of thing. She was shaking violently, and quite paranoid. This is common for most of our patients. Wouldn’t let any of us near her for some time. I was the first she spoke to.
Rosalia can be seen smiling here, a soft smile, and her first and last of the kind during the interview. She seems nostalgic, almost, at the memory.
Rosalia: But there were other, stranger things, too. For one, it is common for drug users’ pupils to dilate. But hers hadn’t dilated, they had swallowed her iris entirely. Her eyes were pure black, no distinguishable center. And another thing: the effects didn’t wear off. During the entirety of the nearly two weeks she spent at the center, she was experiencing the same, consistent effects, despite all evidence of her having taken the drug only once, the night before that first morning she appeared at the center. She was coherent, or mostly coherent, but she was experiencing consistently vivid hallucinations. She noted the same, strange phrases and saw the same hallucinations at the same hours of the day. It was an odd case, certainly.
The Interviewer: And what sorts of hallucinations was she reporting?
Rosalia: I rather doubt you want to know.
She chuckles, the sound as pale and dry as her cheeks. Observing the footage carefully reveals a strange bobbing in her throat, as though there is something trapped in the esophagus. It does not seem to affect her in any way, but the effect on viewers is disconcerting.
The Interviewer is pale, but insistent.
The Interviewer: Humor me. For the record.
Rosalia: Well, for one, there was a figure that seemed to be following her. She never described him in detail – I always had a feeling it was a him, which I know now, was not a feeling at all, but intuition – yet she did describe a pressing anxiety in his presence. From what she told me, he was a constant presence throughout her time at the center, but she reported specific interactions with him only at the boundaries of day and night: sunrise and sunset. I asked her about him, of course, but she would tell me very little. All she said was that there was something distinctly wrong about him. He appeared in places that should have been impossible. The sink drain, for instance, or the thinnest crack of shadow between the bed and the floor.
The Interviewer: I’m having trouble understanding. Who exactly was this him?
Rosalia: Not a who, a what.
The Interviewer: Right.
Rosalia: You don’t believe me yet. You will.
The Interviewer: I’m simply being objective, Miss Sanchez. And did this… figure, for lack of better word, did he interact with Lottie in any way?
Rosalia: He did. I didn’t find out the extent of it until much later. At first, I imagined him to be only another hallucination. The fact that he spoke to her matched that hypothesis. What I didn’t realize was that he could reach her physically as well. Hallucinations don’t do that, now do they?
The Interviewer: Did he harm her in any way?
Rosalia: Yes. I was helpless to stop it, because I was clueless to its happening. It was little things at first. Patches of skin peeking out from below her hair. A missing nail on her little finger. He was consuming her. First nails and hair and teeth; later skin and bone.
The Interviewer: What… how? For what purpose?
Rosalia: All good questions. I can only guess. I believe poor Lottie had unknowingly opened herself to his influence when she had consumed the drug. How, or to what purpose… I wish I knew.
The Interviewer: You said he spoke to her. What did he say?
Here is Rosalia’s second smile of the interview; this one is wide, grim, stretching against her cheeks like they are rubber.
Rosalia: This time, I assure you, you do not want to know. But, besides that, what he speaks of makes no sense in this reality. He speaks of another… plane. Of creatures that can only reach us through our dreams, through the pipeline of our thoughts.
The Interviewer: You said ‘speaks’.
Rosalia: Yes.
The Interviewer: Would you mind elaborating?
Rosalia: For the record?
She grins, humorlessly.
Rosalia: You must know why I’m here. I took the same drug that Lottie did; it follows that I would be experiencing the same side effects. For lack of a better word.
The Interviewer: You mean, you can hear this – this figure, too?
Rosalia: Constantly.
The Interviewer is visibly alarmed. He leans forward, agitated, as though to ask another question, but his hand flitting to his ear suggests that the arbitrators of the interview prompt him to ask her a different question. He settles back, reluctant.
The Interviewer: To get back to Lottie, can you walk me through the timeline of her stay at the center? The major events, so to speak?
Rosalia: Of course. As I said, she was quiet for much of her first week… timid, maybe, but I believe that the effects were at their most foreign to her, then, and that her mind and body were too busy processing them to wish for any distraction. That first week was also when she was most agitated. We would find her screaming and thrashing in her sleep, or simply gazing into space with a look of such extreme fear etched onto her features, that the nurses who saw her became frightened too. She grew thinner and paler as the days passed; I believe her energy was being drained, along with her physical body.
She came to me in her second week there. She seemed calm enough at first glance but her eyes… her eyes were terrified. Painfully so. She grabbed my wrist and a nearby nurse – one of the women I had worked with for years – rushed forward immediately to pry her off. But I had noticed her missing fingernail. Neatly carved off, not a trace of bloody or broken skin. As though it had simply fallen off. That in itself intrigued me, along with that fear in her eyes, and I told the nurse to let her talk. After all, it was her first time approaching any of us. She asked to speak to me in private, and I consented and brought her to my office.
The entire conversation, she was staring behind me, at the topmost corner of my office, in abject horror. Head tipped up, lips parted, even as she spoke. I noticed that her throat, when she swallowed, bobbed noticeably, as though something thick and hard were perpetually stuck in it. I didn’t comment on her strange behavior. Besides, I was too engrossed in her story to much care.
The Interviewer: And what was her story?
Rosalia: Well–
Here, Rosalia breaks off to look behind The Interviewer. It is a quick look, only for a second, as though she caught a glimpse of movement. Just as quickly, she returns her gaze to the man interviewing her, who has not noticed the disruption.
Rosalia: I recorded the conversation, incidentally, though I must admit I did it without poor Lottie’s consent. You can imagine I have never shown it to anyone, if only for this reason.
The Interviewer: Might we obtain a copy of the recording?
Rosalia: Certainly.
The interview breaks off in a foam of static, then dissolves back into the scene.
The Interviewer (to the camera): I will now be playing a segment which will be referred to, in future conversation, as “Lottie’s interview”.
Wow, that is creepy. I started get chills when you described 'the man'. Now I've got to go to sleep. Thank you for the inevitable nightmares.
Fascinating and well done. Looking forward to part 2!