video; @unknown

[redshiftnpc]

[ The communicator bobs, turns, points at the floor. There’s muttering from a voice some of Anchor’s residents will recognize. When the camera rights itself, it’s a close-up of Creepy Joe’s face, the eye that was formerly sealed shut now open and writhing with tiny flower-like tentacles. His other is steady, crazed blue.

His mouth is still twisted, his lips still curving upward on the ruined side of his face, not quite hiding teeth too long and sharp for a human mouth. There’s movement behind and between his teeth, though it’s hard to see what it is until he opens his mouth--more tentacles, tiny flailing things growing from the insides of his cheeks, the roof of his mouth, his tongue. They make him lisp hoarsely as he talks.]

Don’t go down. Don’t do it. You’ll open the way to worse things, worse things, worse.

[ He glances behind him, and in spite of the close angle, some at Anchor might also recognize where he is. In his little hole in the wall, where he was recording the actions of Anchor’s new residents. ]

Trust me. I came back, didn’t I? I came back to help.

Comments

[scowlish]

Are you saying you have the Rash?

[redshiftnpc]

Rash?

[ A pause. ]

No. Not like that.

[scowlish]

You're sure about that?

[redshiftnpc]

I don't know.

Hasn't gone away.

Rashes go away.

[scowlish]

How long has your face been that way?

[redshiftnpc]

So long.

It fights me.

[scowlish]

[Hmm, he wouldn't be coherent if he had the Rash for that long.]

Fights you? In your mind or your body?

[redshiftnpc]

Both. The body, because there's a mind there, a mind behind it, one that won't talk to me.

[scowlish]

[Not the Rash, then. For nearly sure.]

Is that one of the worse things you're talking about?

[redshiftnpc]

No. Different. Other. From below, not above.

[scowlish]

Speak clearly, you make no sense. Was your face from above or below?

[redshiftnpc]

I make SENSE to people who LISTEN.

[scowlish]

You didn't answer my question.

[redshiftnpc]

[ Sry Onni ]

Came from between my mother's legs.

[scowlish]

[Gross.]

I mean the tentacles.

[redshiftnpc]

Maybe I knew what you meant.

[scowlish]

Maybe.

I'm just trying to work out whether I'll get tentacles on my face if I go near the door. I'd rather not.

[redshiftnpc]

You think I wanted this? You think I wanted THIS?

[scowlish]

No. Of course not. Who would?

[redshiftnpc]

The ones who did it.

[scowlish]

Someone did that to you?

[redshiftnpc]

Who wants to know.

[scowlish]

I'm Onni Hotakainen.

And you?

[redshiftnpc]

[ Silence silence silence.

Then:]

Joe

[scowlish]

Joe.

Someone infected you with that on purpose?