It Knows

TRIGGER WARNINGS being controlled, gaslighting, being restrained and hospitalized.

ARCHIVIST:
Statement of Wendy Humbert concerning their newest… novel?

WENDY:
Ha. No- it’s about a novel that I read.

I’ve always been afraid of writing a novel. I’m a published author, I have two anthology stories published! I only write short stories… not out of hate for the novel medium, no, I just don’t have the commitment needed to write a novel. But a few days ago, a week maybe? My editor suggested I should just try, and to write a rough outline for a hypothetical novel.

I… can’t focus on things easily. I get distracted and that’s why most things I write have to be short, it’s stressful! I needed to write, I needed something. So, um. Three days ago, I began to look for some inspiration. I had zero ideas for this novel. I was walking around downtown, music in my ears, watching the world around me go. I love people watching, it sounds creepy, but there’s a delight and joy in watching people do their everyday thing. Watching them talk about things I could ever know, or seeing their reactions when they get a text or watching them cry and break down. There’s something curious about watching humans, disconnected from my and their reality. I can write their story! Do you know, do you understand, just how great that is?

While walking down an alley, I stopped at this door. It was ancient, old, his bookstore was an odd one in the back alley of downtown. it was kind of… how do I put it? It looked shitty. The sign was so weathered away I couldn’t make out the name. The door was what got me, it was wooden, antique and ancient. This dark shade of red that seemed darker than blood. The weirdest, most peculiar part, was the large spider web engraving. Woven intricately into the grains of wood– it caught my eyes. The door handle was rusty and- well. You see a mysterious, creepy door with a sign that looks older than the building itself? You have to enter it. At the very least, you have to look inside.

I think part of me wanted to be a character in my short story.

Just a door, a door between me and what could be one of the best stories I could write. My hand wrapped around the handle, rust flaking off the metal. Turning the doorknob, I felt chills up my spine. I was being watched by someone, I know I was. Pushing open the door…

It was just a bookstore.

The floor was linoleum, black and white tiles, diamond shaped. It was a large room, and in the middle was this tree. Dead, withering, and around it, lines and lines and lines of bookshelves. I felt like I was in some story, like a fantasy where I would be the chosen one. I walked inside, the scent of books and mold filling my nose. It was almost pitch black, except where I was looking, just lit enough to see where I was going. Fucking creepy. I began to browse the books. Reading the spines, I couldn’t recognize a single author. I’m telling you! I’ve read thousands of books, I know so many authors, but no matter how much I searched, not a single author rang a bell. You don’t realize how abnormal that is, especially for a modern day book store! Well… abandoned?

Augustus Finch? Oliver Wilson? Gregory Weston? Not only do these names sound fake, but their books were empty. No words, just empty, crisp, pages of nothingness. Except this one- reading the spine, I stopped. I felt something deep inside me tell me I had to take it off the shelf. To read it.

Opening it, it was filled with text, no margins, no padding… just words. Not a single centimeter of page left empty. I needed this book.

So I left with it.

From the walk home, to riding the train, I felt like I was being watched. That feeling, once again, returning in full. I got home, sat down, and looked at the book in my hands. I stared at the cover, once again, the swirling kaleidoscope of a spider web. It was golden against the dark red of the cover. Tracing the engraving, I opened it.

“Wendy opened the book-” the book read. “Wendy opened the book and began to read. They tilted their head a bit, squinting at the small text of the book. ‘How did it know?” they asked, ‘How did the book know what I’m thinking? Even as I’m reading this- NO! NO! Stop it!’ they cried, opening their mouth in shock. They began to read the next line out loud: ‘How do you know this?’ they asked again. This wasn’t right, no. A book, written who knows how long ago, should not have all their actions on paper!

This is wrong, this is bad, this isn’t right! They wanted to put it down, but something magnetic kept them in place.”

I flipped ahead in the book. I thought, hey! Maybe I could tell my future. Ha! No- this book…

“Wendy flipped ahead in the book, wondering what exactly this book could do.” It said. It knew I would flip ahead to that one page, and I would read that specific line and it would listen to me. LISTEN TO ME. HOW DID IT KNOW THIS!? HOW DOES IT KNOW MY EVERY MOVE? Do you know the horror that’s your every action being written down on paper in this random book without an author, without a title, without any fucking margins! No! No you don’t! Except maybe you do now, because you’re written in that book now! I know it because I read it! Jonathan Sims, the book said, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute.

I continued to read, I don’t know why I did, but I did! I couldn’t put it down, it was magnetic. It forced me to! God, and all it did was taunt me, Jonathan! It TAUNTED ME, LAUGHED AT ME. It told me how I was going to die, how my entire future would play out! I- I become nothing, I become nothing! I don’t have a future, no- this book. This book TOLD me how I would go insane, go mad, at the fact this book exists! That I would become nothing, that I am nothing, that I would quit my job and become a hermit. How does IT KNOW?

I’ve become a character- I’ve become a character and I don’t know what to do. I am a character in a novel! And the words I’m saying now, and I’m talking to you reader, are being read by a monster. By this person who KNOWS. By you reading this, I am hurting. I surely hope you are entertained by this! I hope you enjoy.

[Laughter]

Even- EVEN NOW. I am listening to the book, I am listening to what it told me to do. It gave me the address, it told me I would speak with you, that I would say these exact words while screaming, crying over how much… how broken I am after this. That no matter what I would say, the book would know. And do you know what the book told me?

ARCHIVIST:
Um… no.

WENDY:
It told me you would understand. YOU would get what I feel! You would know what this all means! What does the spider web mean! How does it know? Why I’m being controlled by some words on paper! I feel sick, I don’t-

ARCHIVIST:
Give me a moment…

WENDY:
The book said you’d say that too.

ARCHIVIST:
Do you have the book on you?

WENDY:
It said I would keep it home.

ARCHIVIST:
Why do you keep listening to it if you hate it so much?

WENDY:
Because it threatened me, Archivist. It said if I didn’t listen-

[Laughter].

ARCHIVIST:
…

Humbert-

WENDY:
Do not- do not say my name. Just tell me… why? Why, Archivist. What does this all mean? Why?!

ARCHIVIST:
I can’t do that.

WENDY:
That’s what the book said you’d do.

ARCHIVIST: I-

[click.]

ARCHIVIST:
After that, Wendy had to be apprehended by security.

I know what that book was. I sent Martin to go and pick up the book from Wendy’s home. I don’t want her to have that.

It must be- it was the Web.

I know it.

Statement ends.