--File 061: Letters--
When the video starts, all are gathered back in the living room. Darkness has fallen by now, but the house is brightly lit; all curtains appear to be tightly drawn. Bartosz is leaning against the wall by the window, looking occasionally through a crack in the fabric into the darkness beyond. He makes no comments, but his expression is moody and unhappy.
It can be surmised from all who are currently visible in the frame that Blaine is holding the camera. Emma is seated before him, back turned to the camera, on the one couch; Alex is leaning back in one of the chairs. He is looking unwell and tired, his eyes drooping closed every few moments, his head nodding forward. Across from him sits Anders.
Emma is pouring over the three sheets of paper that have been laid out on the coffee table in front of her. Anders is watching Alex with palpable concern, but says nothing.
Blaine: “Still feel like you’ve got it, Em?”
Emma: “Yeah, no, I’ve got it. Come here. I’ll explain.”
Blaine steps around the couch to sit beside her, camera zoomed in on the papers and the messy handwriting on them.
Emma: “We know the contents of the first letter we found. This second one is different.”
She begins to read out the contents of the note:
‘They came to tell me the truth. At first, I was angry, but it was Weiss who made me through it all. They had orchestrated my suffering- the suffering of us both- but it was Weiss who showed me the way.
The Others are the true end to us all. This reality cannot be shaken. I am filled with a peace I have not known in all my life. Excitement fills me at the prospect of what I must do. The best news of all?
My bitch mother must die first.
I shall kill her at last, and I will become who I was meant to be. Weiss and I will begin the cycle anew. I always felt that I was forgetting something was missing. We have been here before. We have won before. Time and again, we bring suffering to all the world.
There is comfort in knowing that victory is assured.
All we need is our missing brother. He who knows what we have felt, untouched by the cult, yet so awash in suffering.
He will come home when the time is right, and we will be waiting for him where it all began and where it all came to an end.’
Silence falls following this recital. Bartosz is frowning and still continuing to look outside, but says nothing; Anders is pondering the letter. Alex has been roused to wakefulness, but seems uncertain as to the meaning.
Blaine: “What are you thinking, Em?”
Emma: “For starters, he’s a passably good writer. Shame he put all his life into whatever this cult did to him.”
Anders: “We’ll be sure to let him know.”
Emma: “Don’t bother. The amount of ‘I’m the Chosen One’ here is over the top. It’s so cringy, I feel like I want to fold up and die in second-hand embarrassment.”
There is a snort of laughter from both Alex and Blaine; the contempt in Emma’s voice is comical.
Emma: “That aside, there’s an important clue at the very end.”
Bartosz: “You think it’s a hint on where we have to go.”
Emma: “Exactly. I think these letters, along with tomorrow’s game, will tell us where to go next… and last of all.”
A heavy silence falls on this. Bartosz looks with meaning at Blaine, and then turns to look back through the curtains.
Alex: “Anything else, then?”
Emma: “What do you think?”
Blaine: “I think they’re cocky.”
Anders: “How so?”
Blaine: “Grantham says it himself. What was it? ‘There is comfort in knowing that victory is assured.’ They’re getting cocky and sloppy.”
Bartosz: “You would know, eh?”
Emma: “Bartosz. Quit it. Do you see anything out there yet?”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Bartosz: “I’m still trying to figure that out. Keep talkin’."
Emma: “I agree with Blaine. They’re getting cocky. It’s going to make them mess up, sooner or later.”
Alex: “Preferably sooner.”
Emma: “I think Grantham here is talking about some kind of ritual.”
Anders: “What makes you say that?”
Emma: “He says his mother has to die first, and then he’ll ‘become who he was meant to be’. There’s a murder ritual here- that’s why Blaine has to kill me.”
A heavy silence falls on the room. Emma has said this statement so completely matter-of-factly that it has thrown everyone else off guard, including, apparently, Blaine. Emma continues without pausing, unaware either by choice or by accident.
Emma: “Grantham killed his mother, and he got powers over flies. Weiss probably had to kill someone, too, and he got his powers. Blaine kills me… and he gets powers.”
Blaine: “How do you figure?”
Emma looks at him very pointedly. One can assume she is thinking of the ‘Other Blaine’, but that is assumption, as she does not say this.
Emma: “Some strange notes near the end of my ‘other journal’. Someone starts to write very short, cryptic messages. ‘Beware the screens’, ‘beware the cameras’, ‘it’s the camera’- stuff like that.”
Anders: “What do you mean, ‘someone’? Wouldn’t it be you?”
Emma pauses delicately for a moment.
Emma: “It’s not my handwriting… and based on the ramblings on a mess of pages, I’m pretty sure it takes place after my death.”
Another unhappy silence falls. Emma pushes past it.
Emma: “So there we go. Murder is the required component for magic demon powers, it would seem.”
Alex: “And the last letter?”
Emma: “This one is… I think… I don’t know if there’s anything to this one, in all honesty, except to freak us the hell out.”
Alex: “More than we already are?”
Emma: “Maybe it’s more accurate to say that he’s trying to freak me out.”
Emma begins to read, but it’s done awkwardly:
‘Little moth trapped in the spider’s web.
To you, we owe the most, for your death frees us from this world.
I yearn to see your blood spilled,
Yearn to see our brother born anew,
Yearn to see the world end.
It is thanks to you,
Time and again,
Broken little bird.
You hope, and you trust,
And every time, you believe.
And always you are betrayed.
Trust the lion, little lamb,
And come to us again.
Come to me, as you know you will,
Believing you will avenge poor little Wynona.
So pretty in her mutated corpse,
Bloated with my gift,
You, too, will join her soon
And bring to us the gift of peace.
To Emma, a goddess who will be sacrificed
Again
And Again
And Again And Again
And Again And Again and Again-‘
Here, Emma looks up, placing the paper down on the table and shrugging.
Emma: “You get the point.”
The camera suddenly jerks up as Blaine stands and moves away from the couch. It drops to his side, and he paces in agitation. No one says anything.
Blaine: “Fucking… psychopaths.”
Emma: “Blaine. It’s fine. I’m fine. Nothing’s going to happen.”
Blaine: “That’s disgusting. I do not want him talking to you. I don’t want him anywhere near you.”
Bartosz: “What’s it matter who goes near her? You all just want the same thing.”
Blaine: “He does not get to leave her weird ass fucking letters about how she’s a goddess to be sacrificed!”
Alex: “It’s just a letter. He’s trying to get under your skin, Blaine. You can’t let them get to you.”
Anders: “Kid, you need to relax-“
Blaine: “Shut up! She’s mine! Not his! Not Weiss's, not Grantham's- mine!”
There is a long beat of very, very intense silence that follows this, in which Blaine and everyone else in the room has frozen. Emma’s eyebrows have shot up, but compared to the stricken looks on the others’ faces, she is not nearly so affected by the outburst.
After a long moment, Blaine spins around, drops the camera on the table in the hallway, and presumably shuts himself on the bottom floor bathroom. Another several seconds of silence follows this.
Bartosz: “You don’t seriously fuckin’ trust him, do you?”
Emma: “I do.”
Anders: “I’m…”
Alex: “They’re trying to get into his head. They’re fucking up his ability to think.”
Emma: “No, they’re not.”
Emma is the only one who appears calm. She stands, picks up the three letters, shuffles them together, and places them at the corner of the table before moving around the couch and heading toward the camera, which she picks up. The others watch her with oddly stricken looks. She alone appears unaffected.
Emma: “That’s everything there. We need to get sleep. Alex, I’ll show you to the one room upstairs. The rest of us can all take turns with the couch.”
Bartosz: “No. We’ll take the floor. You need rest, if you’re going to handle that game tomor-“
In true Emma fashion, the camera clicks off without warning.
--End Transmission--