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“—even doing here. He’s gone,” cried a small voice.
Muted sobs from another tape played a few meters away, trembling with grief and despair as flames roared in the background.
“It’s over, there’s nothing more for you to watch. Just go away.” Static started to distort the tape, increasing as the fury of the survivor crested like a wave. “Leave me alone—“
Across the room, the tape clicked and turned off, signaling the end. There was a shaky sigh, a bracing inhale, and the tape was ejected and placed inside a protective plastic case. It clacked against the others as it was arranged in a small cardboard box.
The room was silent, save for the soft sound of whirring.
“Been listening in have you?”
Martin’s chair creaked as he stood, and his steps echoed oddly as he approached, his voice growing louder. “You’re a bit early though. What, want to hear behind-the-scenes commentary hmm? Director’s cut?”
Despite his taunts, the whirring continued.
Martin sighed. “No. No, I know it’s time to go. And yes you’re coming with. We can even pretend it’ll be closure.”
[Click]
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[Click]
Martin fumbled for a moment, the tapes clicking in their box as a window was pushed closed.
“Ugh. Not exactly in the mood to trust doors,” he grunted. “So, traveling by windows. Take that leftover nightmare logic.”
He took in a breath, gravel crunching underfoot.
“Fog’s rolling in too,” he observed. “Should make walking through a slaughtered neighborhood extra cheery. Just great.”
“Statement of Martin S. Blackwood, regarding tapes that chronicle the events leading to the apocalypse. Statement taken a month after reality was restored. Probably. I think I’m losing days honestly. Anyway— Statement begins.”
Martin started to walk, and like a pianist settling his hands over the keys, his tone changed. It was calm, practiced, and with purpose.
“Finding all the tapes wasn’t hard. The burning of the institute, while… destructive, wasn’t a complete burn. I picked through the basement mostly, not really knowing what I was looking for.”
Martin settled further, his stride steady as he narrated, and his voice fell into a flowing pattern of speech.
“The archives were gone though since it was the target in the first place. Nearly everything burnt up and the strange thing was that it was still so… familiar? I guess you could say? It was— London felt hollow, like I was a hermit crab running around trying to find a shell of a former life that would fit, but everything was too big, too hopeless… and the only place I kept coming back to was the Institute. There just wasn’t much else left for me to do. All I could focus on was everyone I let down.”
There was a small hitch in his voice. “All I wanted was to sit in those ruins and just— just rust away into nothing. Just stay down there until I became a ghost, like J-Jon had said.”
He paused, swallowing until his tone was even again. “I forgot he had said that, until I relistened. I forgot a lot of things. Like Sasha’s real voice. Tim’s laugh. Or— or my own voice, even.”
“When the Eye’s power was reduced, and the entities forced back onto their side of reality, technology seemed to remember that it still worked. The archive’s fire system kicked on. I found the first folder, half-buried, but... otherwise untouched. Practically pristine. I picked it up, and it was the folder and tape for case number 0060122, the first statement from Adelard Dekker that I read about The Extinction.”
Martin’s voice went up in a huff, indignant. “Wouldn’t you know, there’s every tape we made scattered throughout the archives and a single goddamn tape player.”
The heat in Martin’s voice disappeared in a rush, crumbling and curling into something almost fond. “Of course he would want to get in the last word. Save just enough to tell his story… but maybe not the last word either, since you’re here—“
Martin choked, a bitten-off sound of surprise, and his shoes scraped against the pavement as the droning of flies buzzed at a nearly unbearable pitch.
There was a shuffle, and the tapes slid in their box as Martin avoided them, walking quickly away.
“Be glad you can’t smell what they were hovering over,” he muttered to the recorder. “But I also want to make one thing clear— this will be the last statement that you get from me. An even 200.”
“These tapes feel so... small, fragile almost? They fit into such a teeny-tiny unassuming box. I could just chuck this whole thing into a river, couldn’t I? But even if I did try to get rid of them… I heard somewhere that knowledge has a way of surviving. Maybe this will even be useful in the future. To have people know and understand the why of it all. For the people that come after.”
In the distance, there was a cascade of howls; one long and feverish sound of pursuit.
“Stray dogs,” Martin murmured. “They’ll keep away… especially with the wind in the wrong direction.”
He sighed, taking a moment to catch his breath.
“There’s nothing much else. Nothing that isn’t already on tape, or— or too private. I do hope though if you’re listening, that you don’t judge us too harshly? I— I mean, how could we have known? Do you think your small actions can end the world? For that matter do you even know which actions are your own? So much of our lives are out of our control…”
Martin’s voice started to take on a layer of static, but warmer than what has been heard before. It sounded like an old-fashioned radio, tinged with random outbursts of sound and life.
“But I— hope you don’t forgive. I need you not to, I need you to be afraid. I need you to be scared of this, scared enough to make sure it never happens again.”
Martin sucked in a breath, and then he coughed, long and loud.
“The world ended,” he rasped. “Because even with the entities gone again, it still feels like there’s a blanket of smog over the world. Everyone left alive, their fear is so- so thick. Everyone left alive knows the entities are out there, it’s— the thing is,”
Martin settled in for a rant, practically trudging up the road, voice now slightly hoarse. “The thing is that I don’t think The Extinction was properly manifesting until the population dropped, you know? Because now everyone in the world has this distinct fear of change, so now it has numbers on its side. It’s already here, so what comes next?”
“People are banding together and rebuilding and surviving and that’s all well and good but the thing is that we are very good at ignoring what is inconvenient, right? Humans are bloody fantastic at ignoring the big picture, it’s why the Extinction is here at all. The Earth is still dying. Those fears existed for a reason. We can’t properly comprehend the world ending until it’s right in front of us and even then we try to pretend everything’s fine like anything could ever be normal again.”
Martin cut himself off, a bitter dismissal. “Like I can ignore the bodies and bugs and hunters and now the figures in the windows. An entire street dead and gone and there are still human-shaped things behind the curtains.”
He kept walking, shoes kicking up dirt.
“They’ve been following me,” he quietly admitted into the recorder. “I’d say it’s paranoia but I know the signs well enough now. I shouldn’t have lasted this long without Jon. There’s a target on my back for ruining their fun, but for some reason, they... haven’t touched me.”
Martin scoffed. “All that means is either they’re waiting to see what happens, or that they’re being denied until I make my choice. If I turn around now… I don’t know even which of the powers would want the first bite honestly. We’ve pissed off enough of them.”
“I’m still marked by the Beholding though.” He tapped the recorder. “Cheers. Could’ve blinded myself and got rid of at least one, but there’s a weight to it that’s… almost comforting now?” For some reason I can’t bring myself to be afraid of it anymore. I think whatever’s left of me that’s human likes the romance of it all because it feels like—“
Martin fell silent for a long moment.
“He knew me. Really really knew me, and still, he loved me. Which is more than I thought I’d ever get, someone who loved me for me and not what I could do for them. With the Eye on me... it’s hard to forget, because sometimes it’s menacing, sometimes… not. With it, it's impossible to forget who I am. That I was a human being who was loved. The Lonely has a harder time with me now because I’ve never felt more in my body. I am here. I am here and I am alive when I shouldn’t be.”
Martin’s voice shook slightly. “Not that it’ll matter soon anyway right? I’m almost there… but I don’t think I was ready for the Lonely. My priorities were too different, even at my lowest. Now though? Now I have no choice but to remember. I have to stay alive and keep these, these memories alive. They’re important, I know they are, my friends were important, people are important, but I just wish I could still feel… anything. Anything at all besides this acceptance. I want to feel anger, and grief, and guilt and love and as funny as it sounds, even fear too—“
Martin cut himself off as more radio static washed over him, and the building desperation to his words dispersed in a haze, as neutral as a satellite dish against a starry sky.
“I feel… content,” he whispered into the recorder, voice small and resigned. “I’m alone, not because I was forgotten, but because I’m the Last One Left, where everyone that… that cared about me died. And somehow that feels right, like I’m… like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
“That shouldn't be much of a shock though should it?” He said as he came to a stop. “Considering the house I’m standing in front of.”
Martin swallowed, and his voice curled up at the end like he was trying to get himself to smile. “I had hoped that getting to the top of the hill would earn me a change of scenery.” He made a sound that could've been mistaken for amusement. “Only I get a sky so blue it hurts and the smell of more meat.”
The next sound he made, however, was unmistakably one of confusion. “Um, and… and is that smoke?”
He took a few hurried steps, and as he did, the recorder picked up the sound of flames, crackling and roaring with unnatural heat.
“Huh,” Martin said simply. “Tree’s on fire. It’s not burning or smoking, but it’s on fire… right. Think I’ve stalled enough.”
“I don’t know who will hear this,” he said as he walked away from the tree. “I don’t know how long these things will last, or what the world will look like when I’m gone, but for what it’s worth, ...I’m sorry.”
The radio static returned, and the signals of distant stations strained to be heard.
“End Recording.”
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Knock.
Knock.
A handle turned. A door swung open.
“So polite,” a smooth voice drifted up from oppressive darkness. “Glad you found the place.”
“It’s the only house on the road left,” he said as he descended the stairs, lower and lower and lower into the earth.
“And still you found it.” She drawled, purposefully playful.
“I don’t belong to you,” Martin said flatly.
“Everyone belongs to the Mother,” Annabelle Cane crooned. “Just like everyone belongs to The End. Just like everyone belongs to you.”
“They don’t—“
“Backing out?”
Martin paused. “Can I?”
“Will you?”
Martin did not reply.
Annabelle laughed softly. “How long did it take you before you realized that your constant terror was no longer your own?”
“Annabelle.” He warned, low and droning.
“You can’t deny your nature Martin, not now.” She said. “Not after you watched him destroy himself over it.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it?”
Martin sighed as he set the tapes down. “What do I need to do then?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “What feels right? What sings in your blood and fills your lungs? When it calls for you in your dreams, how do you answer?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“But you hear it?”
“Incessantly.” Static simmered beneath his words. “It hasn’t stopped.”
“What do you think about when you hear it?”
Martin’s voice was faint. “Loss.”
“Do you miss him, when you hear it?” She asked, and it was as delicate as a strand of silk.
“Yes.” And he allowed his heart to break, just one last time.
“You are a monument of loss,” she said, closer now, oh-so-close, purring words that should’ve been just for him. “Watching loved ones atrophy before your eyes. Change doesn’t even scare you anymore. You expect it and adjust. Hardships come and go and you keep moving, keep adapting. You yearn and reflect and mourn for your past, and once upon a time in a little cottage you stopped and cherished the present— but you’ve always faced the next inevitable moment head-on.”
Annabelle’s compulsion was a velvet croon in the dark. “Now take that, and think bigger.”
“Oh.” He trembled under the weight of it.
“Fiv-,” Martin croaked, and then coughed. He coughed, and he coughed, as radio waves spiked, a violent surge of warning—
“Five. Nine. Three. Seven. Five. Six.”
Behind his words, there came an odd clicking. The sound of ionized particles conducting electricity— hollow and choppy as they warned of radiation. “Three. Zero. Five. Eight. Three. Nine. Two. Eight. Four. Six."
“Four. Seven. Four. Nine." There was a peal of thunder as a sudden storm raged outside. The entire house shook, dirt and grit raining down from above. “One. Six. Two. Eight. Three. Zero. One. Six. Five. Zero. Four. Nine."
The cracked foundation shattered, and the already torn seam in reality widened and split, a terrible scraping of colliding concrete.
“Five. Six. Four. Eight. Four. Six.” Martin didn’t stutter at all, even as the ground beneath him rumbled— even as the sky above him screamed and the clicking of Geiger counters erupted into shrieks.
Martin pressed his face to the recorder and he prayed. “Four. Seven. Four. Eight. Two. Seven.”
The world wailed a horrible siren song.
Martin collapsed as if his strings had been cut, the recorder tumbling to the floor.
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For a long few seconds, the tape only whirred. Then, out of the silence, came the faint but steady pulse of radar.
Ping.
Ping.
“Oh,” he murmured, and the relief in his voice was sudden and wrong. “I can... sense you.”
Another ping echoed in the room. Martin dragged himself to his feet.
“There you are, Miss Spider.”
Annabelle’s voice was careful, any warmth it might’ve once contained now stripped away. “Hoping to draw me out for a proper chat?”
“Maybe I just like knowing where you are,” a calculated power had spread oil-slick through his tone. “Maybe I’d like to be polite and thank my generous host for everything you’ve done.”
Annabelle’s laugh was harsh and skittering. “I would prefer it if you were rude.”
There was a scrape as the recorder was picked up along with the rest of the tapes as Martin collected himself.
“I could hold onto those for you,” she offered, artificially sweet. “You travel light these days, don’t you? I’ll keep them safe.”
“I’m sure they would never be seen again,” He responded. “Which you could call safe, I suppose… I think I’ll keep them for now.”
“Of course,” she said. “Change can only be great and terrible when you have a remnant of what it was like before.”
“Change,” he said from a throat of chrome. “Is inevitable. Humanity isn’t over yet, but it will be.”
“Dead?”
“Warped. In a future distant enough to dismiss but close enough to fear.”
“Calamity’s Heir,” she hummed with a chess master’s idle curiosity. “What Earth have you inherited?”
“A haunted one.” Martin’s steps echoed as he started up the stairs. “Goodbye, Annabelle.”
“I’ll send you someone,” she promised him. “To give them to.”
Martin kept moving forward. “I know.”
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