Work Text:
Statement of Micah Black, regarding a series of dreams, and possible bodily changes. Statement taken direct from subject, March 9, 2019.
Statement begins.
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“Weird things have been happening recently. I mean, my whole life has been a bit weird, but recently it's been... different.
I should start from the beginning. We moved around a lot when I was a kid. That, combined with never really fitting in, made it so that I had no real friends through all of grade school. I’m trans. I don’t know why I’m telling you, but I guess it’s relevant to my story. My family has never been particularly supportive. But eventually, I moved across the country for college, met Penny - my girlfriend, and tried to not worry about it.
Until a couple months ago, when I get a call from my mom. She said she and my dad were moving, and they needed me to go through my childhood room. I reluctantly agreed, and decided to drive down the following weekend. Penny had work, so it was just me.
The trip started off fine, the drive is easy enough, and I can get along well enough with my parents for a few days. I got there pretty late Friday, so I didn’t get a chance to start going through my old stuff until Saturday morning. At first, there wasn’t anything too exciting, a lot of old art from middle and high school, clothes I hadn’t worn in years. Then I found something that caught my eye. A small, old looking book. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I swear I had never seen it in my life. I asked my mom about it, and she didn’t know anything about it either. She told me to just donate it, but something in me needed to keep it. Needed to read it.
That night, curled up in my childhood bed, I took another look at the book. It was weird. Really weird. On every single page, there was a single phrase written. The same three words on every page, “who are you”. And then, on the very last page, a single word. “Change”. Creepy, right? But it was easy enough to dismiss it as some old tchotchke my mom had picked up from a yard sale, so I tossed it in a pile of stuff to go through later, and went to bed.
I didn’t sleep well. I had a weird dream, but I don’t remember much of it. At least I think it was a dream. I remember being in front of a mirror, holding a scalpel. My body was moving, but I wasn’t in control. I remember reaching up, carving away bits of my face, and laughing. It was terrifying. I was easily the most scared I’ve ever been. But there was something else, too, a thrilling joy running through me, almost overwhelming the terror.
And then I woke up, exhausted and dripping with sweat. I stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, looking at my face in the mirror. I looked… different. I couldn’t identify what had changed, but something had, and I liked it.
I quickly got dressed and headed downstairs, excited to see my mother’s reaction to my supposed new look. She was excited, but not in the way I wanted her to be. She just beamed, and said something about how I was “growing up to be a beautiful young lady” and she was “so excited to see me looking normal”. We got into a fight, and I ended up heading back to school a day early.
Penny was worried when I told her I was coming home early, but I just told her I had gotten into a fight with my mom and she didn’t press it any further. That night, I tried to talk to Penny about what had happened. She tried to be understanding, but I could tell she didn't really believe me. I decided to just drop it, and life continued as normal.
A few days later, it happened again. I fell asleep in my bed next to Penny, and then suddenly I was standing in front of the mirror, scalpel in hand. My hand was moving, but I wasn’t controlling it. I tried to stop it, tried to scream, anything, but I couldn’t do anything except watch as my hand moved the knife against my face, changing it more and more. And then, all of a sudden, I was waking up next to Penny, again drenched in sweat. I touched my face and it felt… different. Again I ran to the mirror, and again my face had changed, but this time was different. Instead of a feeling of gender euphoria, and correctness, it felt wrong. Not me.
I tried to tell Penny that it wasn’t just a dream, it had felt so real. But she was sure I was in bed next to her the whole night, and I didn’t have any cuts or even scars on my face, so she must have been right. It couldn’t have been real. I tried to explain the feeling of wrongness I felt looking in the mirror, but Penny insisted I looked the same as I had the previous night.
Later that day, Penny had gone to work, and I was digging through the bag I had taken to my parent’s house, trying to find an old toy, when my hand grabbed something unexpected. I pulled it out, and there it was, the weird book I had found in my childhood room. On a whim, I flipped through it, not expecting anything different than a few nights ago. But to my surprise, it had changed. It was definitely the same book, but the words on the pages were different. Now, on every single page, was just the one word. “Change”. Before I had a chance to investigate further, Penny got home, and I shoved the book back in the bottom of my bag. Something in me told me I couldn’t let her see it, that she couldn’t understand and showing her would just make everything worse.
Over the next couple weeks, the dreams, or whatever they were, got more and more frequent, until it was happening every night. Every time, I woke up with that same horrible feeling, and ran to the bathroom mirror to find myself even more changed. Eventually, I stopped telling Penny. She couldn’t understand what was happening to me, and I didn’t want to keep worrying her. I tried to hide my fear, but I could tell she saw right through it.
Yesterday was the worst. I looked in the mirror, and it was not me. I had changed so much I didn’t recognize myself, there was no inkling of who I had been before. All of the joy and excitement I had felt before was gone, replaced with a cold, heavy dread. This was not me and there was nothing I could do about it. I thought back to when I had first found the book, how every page had asked the same question, “who are you”. I didn’t have an answer then, and I certainly didn’t now.
Yesterday afternoon, while Penny was out, I tried to burn the book. I stuffed it into a trashcan with some old newspapers and a lot of gasoline, and set the whole thing on fire. It burned all right, but when the fire died out, there was the book, sitting in the trash can, looking exactly the same as it had twenty minutes earlier.
I tried everything I could think of, tearing out the pages - there just kept being more, I even threw it as far as I could into a lake. But last night, there it was, on my bed, totally undamaged. I have it with me, if you want to take it. I think it will end up back with me, but you can try if you want.
There you go. That’s my story. I don’t know what’s happening, but I need it to stop. Please.”
Statement ends.
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Archivists notes, March 28, 2019
“Well. There is little to be verified about this statement. Mx. Black did visit their mother approximately three weeks prior to giving their statement, though she declined to provide any further comment. Black lived with Penny Garcia, who confirms their story.
There is one thing however. Exactly one week after making their statement, Micah Black was found dead in their flat, with dozens of small cuts on their face and body. Penny is confirmed to be out of town for multiple days before and after their death, and there was no sign of forced entry or any struggle.”