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“So, what’s the long version?” Sam asked, looking up from the poorly peeled potatoes.
Melanie stilled at the other end of the counter, gripping the carrot she was chopping a bit tighter.
“Sorry,” Sam said quickly. “If it’s too much-”
“No,” Melanie interrupted, returning to her vegetable chopping. “I guess we should tell you what happened to us if you’re going to be any help in stopping what's going on.”
Sam put the potato peeler down and looked at her. “What is going on?” He asked.
Melanie sighed. “If it’s anything like the last time, the Archivist is feeding off the fear of unwilling victims in the form of collecting statements for an eldritch god of knowing.”
She’d said it so matter-of-factly, as though all of this was merely common knowledge. Sam only blinked at her, having too many questions and no idea where to start. His mind felt like it was spinning out of his damn skull. All these technical terms Melanie had used, things so foreign to him...
“Right. So this Archivist was a- is a-" He stuttered out, trying to remember the exact word she had used. "Sorry, what did you call them? The... proxies, I guess? Of your fears.”
“Avatar.” Melanie answered, tossing the chopped up carrots into a pot. “A sort of conduit for the Fears here on Earth.” She shrugged before she continued. “The Magnus Institute was basically a temple to the Eye.” She scoffed.
Sam narrowed his eyes at that. “A temple? Do you mean like a church?”
Melanie shook her head. “No, it was an institution dedicated to paranormal research. But the greater purpose was to serve the Eye.”
Sam nodded, although he had no idea what that meant. “And the Eye is… knowledge?” He guessed, Melanie shrugged in response. “But you said they were our fear, how can someone be afraid of knowledge?” He questioned.
He noticed Melanie’s lips purse, as though she was trying to think about the best way to explain it.
“It’s more like the fear of being watched,” She explained, adding some vegetable stock to the pot and stirring with a wooden spatula. “Like someone is following you, they know all of your terrible secrets and they are going to expose them.”
“O-oh.” Sam let out in a shaky breath, the reality of that sinking in, causing dread to thrum in his chest.
Melanie just nodded.
“There were fourteen,” She continued. “All different, there was the fear of being buried alive, being controlled, death, destruction, violence, darkness… every human fear under fourteen entities…”
“Okay,” Sam nodded slowly even though he still had way more questions than answers. “Why fourteen?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Melanie pointed her spatula at him for emphasis. “Just because I worked for them doesn’t mean I knew all the logistics.”
Sam put his hands up instinctively. “Alright, I’m sorry.” He paused for a moment. “Did you just say you worked for them?”
Melanie nodded, returning her spatula to the pot. “I worked there, at The Magnus Institute.” She admitted. “I was an archival assistant to this guy, Jon. He became the head archivist after our boss killed the previous one, this woman named Gertrude who’d been there for like a hundred years.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Sam gasped, not seeing how all of this was something Melanie could just casually mention. “Your boss killed a woman?”
Melanie nodded curtly. “Among other terrible crimes.”
“Huh.” Was all Sam could say, he looked down at the potato he was peeling and then back up and Melanie. “So, did Georgie work there too?”
“No, Georgie did not work there,” She breathed with a small laugh. “She had this podcast-”
“Oh! She does that in my universe too!” Sam interrupted. Melanie sighed, turning towards him in a way that made Sam tense up. “Sorry, continue.”
“When I joined, it was just me, Jon, Martin, and Tim.” Melanie replied. “I was kind of replacing this girl, Sasha, who’d gone missing- that’s a whole other story- and Basira and Daisy joined us later.”
“Huh.” Sam replied, something clicking in his brain. “...Basira Hussain?”
Melanie perked up. “Do you know Basira in your world?”
“Not exactly,” Sam responded sheepishly. “We’ve met. Gertrude too, I think”
“Right,” Melanie nodded and continued. “Long story short, Tim died. Daisy died. Martin and Jon probably died.”
“Probably?” Sam asked.
“Nope.” Melanie shut him down, shaking her head. “We are not opening that can of worms.”
“Okay…” Sam considered his next question carefully. “Can I ask about the gifted program?”
Melanie shook her head. “There wasn’t one.” She informed him. “Just a bunch of academics parading around researching the occult and not even realizing they were contributing to their own demise.”
“Deep,” Sam nodded. “So, there was no gifted kids program? Nothing to do with alchemy?”
Melanie shrugged. “Not that I saw, down in the archives it was only ever reading and researching stories people told us.”
“That’s different…” He trailed off, he looked to Melanie, who was waiting for him to continue. “The Magnus Institute was in Manchester in my world. I went when I was a kid, they had this gifted program and I was a candidate… I saw something while I was there, some kind of ritual…”
“Right,” Melanie nodded slowly. “And this ritual was related to alchemy?”
“Right.” Sam confirmed. “I’ve been looking into it ever since. I knew they were up to something, just no idea what.”
Melanie shrugged, and Sam decided not to try and explain it. Her Magnus Institute was so different... He wondered how hers succeeded in its goal, and how they managed to stop it.
“How did you undo it?” He asked after a while. “The apocalypse.”
Melanie paused in her cooking. “Too much to explain.”
“Okay,” The gears in Sam’s brain turned wildly. “How does an institution dedicated to the paranormal destroy the world?”
Melanie sighed. “Once again, too much to explain. But long story short, our evil boss turned out to be a two hundred year old body hopping twink and tricked our friend Jon.”
Sam’s eyes went wide at that. “Same boss who killed Gertrude?” He gasped.
“Very same,” She shook her head. “Never saw it coming.”
Sam let out a humorless chuckle. “That is quite the plot twist.”