Latest / INSPIRE STORY / Wrote Myself A Letter_ I Got A Response

Transcript

Wrote Myself A Letter_ I Got A Response · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to creep Cast. How do you guys doing today?
• 0:18
  We are reading a story called I wrote a letter
• 0:20
  to myself and I got a response. I got a response,
• 0:24
  which I if I wrote, if I wrote myself a letter,
• 0:26
  I would respond, I would say, you know what, hey
• 0:29
  nice to I would I would carry a nice, pleasant
• 0:31
  conversation with myself.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Is that because that's the only one who will write
• 0:33
  you back?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And that is the only person that I will write
• 0:35
  me back. And I'll tell you another person that I'll
• 0:37
  write me back. Are you guys about this new merch
• 0:40
  we're wearing merch?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We got new, beautiful, new marching, beautiful new merch. It's
• 0:47
  the we're both wearing to eat me like a bug shirt.
• 0:50
  It's beautiful like a bug.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We also got a long sleeve shirt as well. Where
• 0:56
  Isaiah's the Jeff Goldbloom. I'm in the tumor on this.
• 1:00
  We have a beautiful crew neck. We have a beautiful
• 1:03
  crew neck sweatshirt with a ghastly little ghost and then
• 1:06
  a nice pair of shorts. Because it's a springtime, put
• 1:09
  out your legs, playball, get out there, stay comfy. So
• 1:13
  just wanted to let y'alls know creepcast dot store. Go there,
• 1:17
  grab some beautiful merch if you want to support the
• 1:19
  channel and if you just want some new kicks, so
• 1:21
  new to look fresh, feel free. Also, for all of
• 1:24
  our audio listeners, thank you for listening on Spotify and
• 1:28
  Apple podcast. If you haven't done that yet, please go
• 1:30
  to Apple podcast or Spotify and check out creepcast where
• 1:34
  you can give us a five star rating there and
• 1:36
  listening on the audio it helps us out a lot.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Isaiah who writes this beautiful, beautiful story.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: This story is written by Veris Stahl Veris style. However,
• 1:46
  you we have covered his work before. His real name
• 1:51
  is Brandon Faircloth. He has several different stories on Amazon,
• 1:57
  one of the being Roadside Sarcophagus, which I believe we
• 1:59
  show that last time, but just ever more. They'll be
• 2:01
  linked in the description. Be sure to show Brandon some love.
• 2:05
  Brandon has some stories that we've covered before, one of
• 2:08
  which being my job is watching a woman trapped in
• 2:11
  a room. And I understand that Hunter and I had
• 2:13
  a bit of a crash out with that story.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Okay, Thomas, That's what I'm here to tell you.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Things aren't like you think they are. They never have been.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I need you to.
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: Tone down the valley girl accent by like two notches. Okay,
• 2:32
  because I could tell, I could tell, I know you.
• 2:35
  I can tell that you are trying to drive this
• 2:39
  into the realm of parody and we're not there yet. Okay,
• 2:42
  all right, all right, I'm sorry, but that was kind
• 2:46
  of unfair considering my job's watching a woman trapped in
• 2:51
  a room was like a fifth part of some interconnected
• 2:54
  story that we were coming in midway through, so we
• 2:56
  didn't understand.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: A lot of it. So today we're going with a
• 2:59
  one off, like a single story, not attached to any others.
• 3:03
  It's five parts to itself. Because the author certainly shows
• 3:07
  talent as a writer, and we want to give him
• 3:09
  a fair shake. I think that's only fair to give
• 3:11
  him a fair shake. I want to give him fair shake.
• 3:12
  I know what Hunter wants to do. Hunter may want
• 3:14
  to want him to suffer. No, I think it's I think,
• 3:16
  you know what.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: We obviously the idea of the story for my watching
• 3:22
  a woman trapped in a room whatever, that cool concept,
• 3:25
  but it just went into an angle to where obviously
• 3:27
  there's more to the story we didn't know about. So
• 3:30
  I think it's only fair that we give somebody like
• 3:31
  you're saying a fair shake, and this is a nice
• 3:34
  This is a five part a five part series. That is,
• 3:39
  it isn't connected to anything else, at least that's what
• 3:41
  we looked up online. So I think this is this
• 3:46
  is a better representation.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, And also I just want to say
• 3:51
  to the audience, we really appreciate you guys being so supportive. Again,
• 3:54
  Brandon's links will be in the description. Be sure to
• 3:56
  show him some love. But it's been really cool that
• 3:59
  every time we cover for an author online, we normally
• 4:02
  see posts about the authors, sometimes even in the creep
• 4:05
  cast upreddit, talking about how supportive the audience has been,
• 4:08
  how their books are doing better now, how they're getting
• 4:11
  more traffic on their websites. It's really cool that being
• 4:15
  featured on creep cast has become a thing that a
• 4:17
  lot of authors are looking forward to instead of dreading.
• 4:19
  And that's all thanks to your guys' support. So it
• 4:21
  means a lot coming from us, and it means a
• 4:23
  lot to them. So thank you guys for that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You guys are an amazing, amazing audience. We appreciate you,
• 4:28
  and thank you for directing that love to the people
• 4:31
  that are writing these stories. In doing so, it does
• 4:34
  nothing but help keep the horror writing community afloat and happy.
• 4:39
  So just know that, just keep giving people love man
• 4:43
  so he can do so without further ado. Let's get
• 4:45
  into it, man. I wrote a letter to myself and
• 4:47
  I got a response. Kick us off, dude.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: I've been on my knees trying to scrub up all
• 4:52
  this blood and the scraps of paper for the last
• 4:54
  half hour. I'm making some progress, but it's slow and
• 4:58
  I keep having to stop when my handstarts taking too much.
• 5:01
  I'm out of my apartment for the moment, sitting on
• 5:03
  the floor in the hallway, and I could feel my
• 5:05
  nerves settling some. I'm going to write this out so
• 5:09
  i'll have it all recorded, and also so I can
• 5:11
  wait a bit before having to go back in. It
• 5:13
  started when I was bored yesterday. The internet was out
• 5:16
  of my apartment, and after casting about for a couple
• 5:18
  of hours trying to read or do some cleaning as
• 5:21
  out of ideas to entertain myself, That's when I saw
• 5:24
  the box of stationary on my desk. My aunt Emma
• 5:28
  had given me the stationary as a birthday gift. The
• 5:30
  week before, and there was nothing inherently wrong with such
• 5:33
  a gift. It was a box of high quality paper
• 5:36
  and envelopes, personalized with my initials at the top of
• 5:39
  the sheets of paper and on the back fold of
• 5:41
  the envelopes as a twenty year old, as a up sir,
• 5:45
  as a seventy year old man, I don't know why
• 5:47
  I said twenty whatever. As a seventy year old man,
• 5:50
  I would probably have thought, that's okay. I don't know
• 5:54
  why I can't read all of a sudden gift of
• 5:57
  the gift of what is the literacy? The gift of
• 6:01
  literacy has been taken for me. As a seventy year
• 6:03
  old man, I would probably have thought they were the
• 6:05
  cat's pajamas. But as a twenty five year old man,
• 6:08
  not so much. But still I was very bored. So
• 6:11
  I sat down at my desk and started messing around
• 6:13
  with it. First, I tried writing as neatly and fancilly
• 6:17
  as I knew how. My handwriting is horrible, and my
• 6:19
  best efforts looked like a slow fourth grader as opposed
• 6:23
  to a slower second grader, but it was something to do.
• 6:28
  Then I do it a little bit, but my drawing
• 6:30
  skills are equally lacking. I was feeling myself getting drowsy,
• 6:34
  but then the thought occurred to me of what to
• 6:36
  do with the stationery. I'd write a letter to myself.
• 6:40
  It was a stupid idea, but I thought it was
• 6:42
  kind of funny too, So I took out a clean
• 6:44
  sheet of paper and set to work. Hey, Scott, how
• 6:47
  are you today? My day is okay, if kind of boring.
• 6:51
  Christine's out of town visiting her parents, and the internet's dead.
• 6:54
  I have zero ideas of what to do with myself.
• 6:56
  This is lame. Goodbye, sincerely, Scott.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I shall see right now done. I've done she like
• 7:00
  that before.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've been like I'll like if the power's
• 7:04
  out or whatever, it's like, well, I guess it's time
• 7:07
  to set up a calendar for the year, even though
• 7:09
  I don't use paper calendar.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like or even just like writing something to
• 7:13
  myself in that way.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I do that a lot in my sketch books, just
• 7:16
  like writing some weird thing is I wouldn't even say
• 7:19
  it's note taking. Sometimes it feels like a direct like
• 7:22
  like trying to almost conversate with yourself in some weird
• 7:24
  way of like some I don't know. I'm just saying
• 7:27
  I've died. I'm curious if other people who are listening
• 7:29
  to this if if they've done something similar in some
• 7:31
  weird way.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done. I've done strange stuff like that. I've
• 7:35
  left pranks for myself before, Like I've been what does
• 7:40
  that even mean? I've been. I've been old on old
• 7:44
  laptops and stuff like that. And it'll be I've like
• 7:47
  found passwords that are like or not passwords. It'll be
• 7:51
  a document that's held like bank account passwords, and I'm like,
• 7:54
  why did I have to save? And I'll click on
• 7:56
  it and it'll just be like a word doc that
• 7:59
  just says like idiot or something like that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see, I see.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Like in like at some point years back, I was like,
• 8:06
  I'm going to leave a file that just says idiot,
• 8:08
  but I'm going to title it something important, just so
• 8:11
  years later I prank myself.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Or prank somebody else stumbling upon the computer or something.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, but it's always myself. It's always me. Sure it's
• 8:19
  pranked by my own I don't think so.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: And then you kick your feet and you giggle, yeah.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm like sitting on my bed doing
• 8:25
  this and like my feet are in the air and.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Going, well, I'm so funny, I'm so creative. Then you
• 8:32
  go to the bank and then like hello, mystery idiot.
• 8:33
  You're like, huh, what that did?
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: You're actually your entire account is built on that name.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I like call Kayla and I'm like, sweetie, what's going on.
• 8:44
  She's like, I don't know, idiot. What's happening a fucking idiot?
• 8:47
  And what do you think is happening?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's like an end of a Twilight episode or
• 8:53
  Twilet Zone episode or something.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Like Rod Sterling And he's in his own world.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, completely complete and total fucking moron approaches and realizes
• 9:06
  that he has the dumbest fucking name imaginable.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: He's so stupid he forgot he made his name idiot on.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That he's so fucking stupid that idiot fits the name.
• 9:15
  Of course, this can only happen in the Twilight Zone.
• 9:18
  That would be a great episode.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Actually only only a man.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: A man, this foolish was tricked by everyone, but one
• 9:26
  day he decided to trick the only person he could himself.
• 9:29
  It happened here in the Twilight Zone.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It happened in the Twilight Zone.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: The Twilight Zone. I want to make a video about
• 9:35
  the Twilight Zone. It was such a cool series, especially
• 9:38
  for the time it's on.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I think if you have an Amazon Prime, the old
• 9:42
  series is on there, and it's like it holds up
• 9:44
  so well. It's such a fun watchman, It's really really fun.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I want to I was talking to uh, some of
• 9:50
  the my editors and stuff like that about if we
• 9:54
  could set up like a little set to look like
• 9:56
  one of the sets from the Twilet Zone, and if
• 9:57
  we could do like black and white, like grainy of facts,
• 10:00
  so I could like do a review of the Twilight
• 10:03
  ass Rod Sterling, you.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Should let me.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: You totally could do that, and I just do the
• 10:07
  voice the whole video like this.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Entire time being called a fucking monkey brain idiot.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Imagine in the world where you're yourtuber and imagine over
• 10:19
  your YouTuber and everyone hates you.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You'll probably meet Kenyana Windagoon, two fucking simple brained idiots,
• 10:30
  mouth breathing assholes who He's like, what am I even reading?
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: What is this? Imagine being so stupid that everyone cries
• 10:39
  and they hate you. I'm like, Wow, Rod sterling. Thanks
• 10:43
  Rob's picture.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: It's almost like it's my life every day.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Uh where were where were the novel? Yeah? The novelty
• 10:56
  of the idea clearly worn off quickly, but I did
• 10:59
  fold it up and stay in an envelope, at least,
• 11:01
  even going so far as to address the letter to myself.
• 11:04
  Standing up from the table with a sigh, I laid down,
• 11:07
  and fairly soon I was fast asleep. When I woke up,
• 11:09
  it was early evening and the room was only dimly
• 11:12
  lit by the fading twilight outside. I reached over and
• 11:16
  turned on my bedside lamp, blinking blearily at its brightness.
• 11:20
  I hated taking naps. I always felt groggy afterwards and
• 11:23
  had troubles sleeping later in the night. Rubbing my eyes,
• 11:28
  I rolled discontentedly onto my side and began getting up.
• 11:32
  When my eyes slid upon my desk, I sat back down.
• 11:35
  The envelope of the letter I'd written was different now.
• 11:38
  It was in a different spot, for one, but I
• 11:40
  could tell from the bed that it was also a
• 11:42
  different color and looked like it had a small stain
• 11:44
  in one corner. Standing up and going to my desk,
• 11:47
  I looked at the envelope closer before picking it up.
• 11:50
  My name and address was still on the front, but
• 11:53
  hadn't I written It's smaller and more sitter than that. Regardless,
• 11:57
  the envelope itself was definitely different, so clearly I hadn't
• 12:01
  written this at all. My next thought was that someone
• 12:04
  had come into my apartments, either prank me or try
• 12:06
  and scare me. The obvious answer was Christine. It didn't
• 12:10
  really seem like something she would do, but she was
• 12:13
  the only other person with a key. After I had
• 12:16
  a quick sweep at the apartment for intruders, I texted her.
• 12:19
  She swore she was still half a state away and
• 12:21
  even sent me a picture's proof. She also seemed worried
• 12:24
  and asked if I called the cops, but I wasn't
• 12:27
  to that point yet, and he had to look inside
• 12:29
  the envelope first. I pried it open carefully and peeked inside,
• 12:33
  seeing a light blue piece of paper that matched the
• 12:35
  envelope and was wholly different than the cream colored paper
• 12:38
  I'd used earlier in the afternoon. When I unfolded it,
• 12:42
  I was surprised to see it really did look like
• 12:44
  my handwriting, but it wasn't the same letter. Instead, it
• 12:49
  seemed to be responding to mine.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Good to hear from you. I've been watching you when
• 12:53
  I can for years, and it seems like universes have
• 12:56
  finally given us a way to talk. I'm guessing that
• 12:59
  you have apartments on Nesbit Street in Baltimore, right, and
• 13:02
  your uncle Tom gave you the box of stationary for
• 13:05
  your birthday. It's so weird. I guess things have to
• 13:07
  line up just right. If this actually works and you're
• 13:10
  reading this, I know it will probably come as a shock.
• 13:13
  I don't think your side knows about us like we
• 13:15
  do you. That's cool, we could swap stories. I'll keep
• 13:18
  it short for now. Hope to hear from you again soon.
• 13:21
  Glory in peace, Scott.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I read the letter three times. I really couldn't tell
• 13:27
  I didn't write it other than the content itself, which
• 13:30
  was decidedly weird. Whoever was doing this was either a
• 13:33
  very good prankster or I had a dedicated stalker that's
• 13:37
  taking the time to learn my handwriting. Either way, I
• 13:40
  was calling their bluff. Hey man, go to get a response.
• 13:42
  So are you like me in some other world? That's crazy?
• 13:46
  Tell me some facts about your world and we can compare.
• 13:49
  And if you have some kind of souvenir you can
• 13:51
  send next time. That'd be awesome looking forward to the
• 13:54
  next letter. Put the new letter in an envelope, addressed it,
• 13:57
  and set it on my desk. I then took out
• 13:59
  my tablet, plugged it in, and set the camera to
• 14:01
  record at an angle where I could see my desk
• 14:03
  in the door to the bedroom. Not about just sitting
• 14:06
  and waiting, but the idea was too tedious and would
• 14:09
  make it less likely anyone would come back. I was
• 14:11
  assuming this wasn't some kind of one shot joke or harassment.
• 14:15
  The time would tell either way. I decided to go
• 14:18
  grab something to eat and see a movie. Four hours later,
• 14:21
  I returned home to another blue letter.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I understand you being skeptical. I think it's all a joke.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, here's some info, Like you asked, and I
• 14:30
  sent along something that might help convince you. Our world
• 14:33
  is a lot like yours, though it's different in some ways.
• 14:36
  About forty years ago, we had a lot of animals
• 14:38
  started dying off. Not all of them, of course, but
• 14:41
  most of the birds, all the dogs, and a few
• 14:43
  other species here and there. Still don't know why. But
• 14:46
  around that same time we lost our mirrors. What I
• 14:49
  mean is our mirror stopped showing our reflections. A lot
• 14:51
  of them just went dark, and some of them where
• 14:53
  they have twins in your world, was show us your
• 14:56
  reflections instead, we knew it was reflections. But because all
• 14:59
  the right his backwards and I get tough from letters,
• 15:02
  you don't actually write backwards anyhow. But after that, a
• 15:06
  lot of people started changing, getting weird or violent. It's
• 15:09
  stabilized some now, but it was really bad when I
• 15:12
  was younger. A lot of people died AnyWho. Like I said,
• 15:16
  things are better now, though we do have odd stuff
• 15:19
  pop up and people go missing. Some is your world
• 15:21
  like that. From what I've seen and what I know
• 15:23
  of studies people on our side have done observing active mirrors,
• 15:27
  it seemed like things are a lot better over there.
• 15:29
  If so, I'm kind of jealous. But in close you'll
• 15:32
  find one of our nickels. It's got President Robert Kennedy
• 15:35
  on it. He was present from nineteen sixty nine through
• 15:37
  nineteen seventy seven. That's kind of funny timing what's going
• 15:40
  on in the world. I don't know for sure, but
• 15:42
  I think he's I don't know for sure, but I
• 15:45
  think I read he's one of one of the differences
• 15:48
  between your place and mind right back soon. I just
• 15:52
  want to say this really quick too. If that first
• 15:55
  message came, I would crumble that paper. I would not
• 15:57
  give a fuck.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Me.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: If I saw somebody right back there like hey man,
• 16:02
  I'd be like, okay and throw I would assume it
• 16:06
  was a prank.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't be afraid. You wouldn't be afraid.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Listen. If I got the respect like now at this stage,
• 16:11
  it would it would fuck me up.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: This is like some Twilight Zoh shit, I'm saying the.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Very first one where I was like, okay, I would
• 16:18
  I would seriously probably disregard it. But this would be
• 16:23
  this would be sucking me up. I would not respond anymore.
• 16:27
  Keep the world separate, is what I say.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Robert Kennedy thing's funny. You never got murdered
• 16:34
  by sir hand, sirhand, sure, dude. I looked back in
• 16:39
  the envelope and found a nickel tucked into the corner.
• 16:42
  On one side, it had a man's profile with the
• 16:43
  name Robert F. Kennedy listed under it. On the other
• 16:46
  side is what looked like a large turkey glowing over
• 16:52
  glowering over a shield, bristling with spears and covered with
• 16:55
  stars and stripes. Oh that's funny. Yeah, yeah. Sorially, the
• 17:01
  United States bird was uh, it was gonna be a turkey,
• 17:06
  but then they changed it to the bald eagle. Yeah,
• 17:08
  that's funny. What the I don't know what word? Frick?
• 17:13
  What the frick? There? You go? Thank you it. It actually
• 17:16
  stopped recording over two hours, but it was enough. At
• 17:19
  the forty two minute mark, I watched as my cream
• 17:22
  envelope gave a shudder and disappeared. Thirty minutes later, the
• 17:25
  blue envelope it faded into existence a few inches over
• 17:28
  on the desk. I wasn't sure what to do at
• 17:30
  this point. I thought about asking Christine for advice, but
• 17:33
  it would be hard to explain over the phone, and
• 17:35
  I didn't want her to worry. I could call the police,
• 17:38
  but what good would it do. Even if I showed
• 17:41
  them the video, they would think it was fake and
• 17:44
  I was a jackass wasting their time. I didn't know
• 17:47
  if I believe everything the letters are saying, but I
• 17:49
  couldn't deny the evidence was compelling, and if the guy
• 17:52
  really was another me could wind up being something really great.
• 17:56
  It might even become famous for discovering some parallel dimension.
• 17:59
  First things for I needed to write another letter. Wow,
• 18:02
  so this is big news, right. So you're saying you
• 18:05
  can see us through mirrors. That's kind of embarrassing. Can
• 18:08
  you hear us too or just see us? Do your
• 18:10
  people have any theories on how this all happened? Have
• 18:13
  other people on your world? Had this happen? Where you
• 18:15
  can talk to people from my world? Very curious to
• 18:18
  know more. This time I watched this. My letter disappeared,
• 18:21
  only to be replaced with another response a short time later.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got a lot of questions. I understand now.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: We can't hear you, just see And I don't know
• 18:30
  about anyone actually communicating like this before. No one knows
• 18:33
  why the world is changing so much. When the other
• 18:36
  things started appearing last year, people said it was the
• 18:38
  end of the world, that we were being judged. But
• 18:41
  people are just going crazy, you know. I don't believe
• 18:44
  in all that stuff. Things are changing and we have
• 18:47
  to change with it. Hey, did you say you have
• 18:49
  a Christine? Is she a hot blonde girl there too?
• 18:53
  She your girlfriend?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I didn't like the tone of the new letter anyway.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: The fuck are you talking about.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I mean that that was the way I phrase it.
• 19:03
  They've discovered inter dimensional communication, and the guy's like, you've
• 19:06
  got a lot of questions. It's like, yes, I have
• 19:09
  a lot of questions.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. Hey, so is your girlfriend hot? You?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Do you fucking that chick that we like? You got
• 19:17
  a babe? I let I got one too? You want
• 19:19
  to have immediately immediately?
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: It makes you think that, yeah, he's gonna try to
• 19:24
  swap out yes, Oh.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where it's going because he's talked about how
• 19:27
  terrible his world's been, fact about how people have gone
• 19:30
  insane and it's monstrous. I don't even think it's an
• 19:31
  alternate hymn. I think it's like a demon or something
• 19:34
  like that line about being him. Uh, but if it
• 19:36
  is an alternate version of him, it's going to try
• 19:38
  to switch places.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't like the tone of the new letter, and
• 19:42
  I had even more questions now, but I wanted to
• 19:44
  keep him talking, so I tried to respond in a
• 19:45
  way that would make him happy. Yeah, she's my girlfriend,
• 19:48
  she's great. We're playing on getting married next year. If
• 19:51
  you have a Christine too, tell me more about your
• 19:53
  world when you can but let her shut it away
• 19:55
  fairly quickly, and I waited for an answer, but none came.
• 19:58
  It's getting late, so eventually wind to bed, though I
• 20:01
  would wake up periodically and check the desk. Around six
• 20:04
  in the morning, saw the blue envelope and I jumped
• 20:07
  out of bed to read the two lines were in there.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: I did have a Christine. She was a fucking whore.
• 20:12
  I had the punisher.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I hope yours isn't a whore too, loll Okay, all right,
• 20:19
  so we're finding it all right, Okay, we have whoa
• 20:29
  and then we have a little red pillar here.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Huh. Then we've got a man going his own ways.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I believe this. This doesn't feel like a parallel protagonist.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Here is a bit of a migtow red pillar a
• 20:43
  little bit.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Also, there's a lot of time. There's a lot of
• 20:46
  unpacked there. I did have a Christine, but she was
• 20:49
  a fucking whore. I had the punisher. I hope yours
• 20:52
  isn't a whore too, loll So this is when I
• 20:55
  killed her. Yeah, well exactly so he definitely killed her.
• 20:58
  But I read that also like him saying, like I
• 21:00
  hope yours isn't a whore.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Too like it.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Still I'm getting that feeling of he's this motherfucker's playing
• 21:06
  on swapping.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent that's where this is going.
• 21:09
  He's gonna try to swap with him. He talked about
• 21:12
  everyone from his world got super violent and it's getting
• 21:14
  better now. It did not he is still super violent. Yeah,
• 21:17
  well yeah, definitely it is. Uh yeah, well this can
• 21:21
  only go in good directions. I'm sure.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So I will say, you've uh with the red Pill angle,
• 21:26
  you have peaked my interest.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Oh that makes you like the story?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, I like it, But I'm like, Okay, I
• 21:33
  didn't know we were going to be dropping some fucking
• 21:35
  whoes here, dude.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just like the hard hard w we have. We
• 21:40
  had a Migtow story yet jokes, we've made jokes about here,
• 21:46
  but there. I don't think it's literally an in cell
• 21:48
  horse story. I think it's just like everyone's hyper violent
• 21:51
  and the.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Word well yeah, I know, I'm just saying it was
• 21:53
  just yeah, I mean, have we maybe I don't know.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like we have. I feel I feel one
• 21:58
  hundred percent like we have. Like there's barely can find
• 22:03
  out because you hate any time that you spend with me,
• 22:05
  and you can't stand my company or presence. I understand,
• 22:09
  and you're just my friend for the show. You've made
• 22:11
  that clear several times off camera that you want with
• 22:14
  me aside from this. Yeah, thank you. Uh hold on,
• 22:18
  let me look page. Maybe we I mean, I mean
• 22:23
  there's David King.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess day, I guess David King
• 22:27
  is probably pretty red pill codd whatever, it's whatever.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's keep going.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I want to. I'm I'm getting I'm I'm I'm hooked in.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: You're waking up a little bit, getting.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Bones. Yep. We'd like to take a minute to thank
• 22:44
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  back to the episode. I was done. I didn't know
• 25:19
  what this was, but I knew it had to be real,
• 25:21
  and it was feeling more and more like it was dangerous.
• 25:25
  Throwing the letter down, I started looking around the room.
• 25:27
  I saw the small mirror I had hanging on the
• 25:29
  back of my closet, and I yanked it down quickly,
• 25:31
  hearing it crack as it hit the floor. I tried
• 25:34
  to think of any others, and the only ones that
• 25:35
  came to mind were in the bathroom and the one
• 25:37
  Christine had hung over a mantel in the living room. Christine.
• 25:41
  I looked at my phone and saw it was almost seven.
• 25:43
  She was going to be back in town this morning,
• 25:45
  probably coming straight here. I tried calling her, but it
• 25:48
  went straight to voicemail, like it was powered off. I
• 25:52
  didn't oh, I didn't have her parents' number, so I
• 25:56
  had to resort to leaving her a voicemail and text
• 25:58
  message telling her not to come to my part apartment
• 26:00
  that I would meet her at hers when she got back.
• 26:02
  I debated what to do until she arrived, but ultimately
• 26:05
  decided I couldn't stand being in the apartment myself, so
• 26:08
  I left a note on the door saying Christine don't
• 26:11
  go in the apartment. Call me instead. I'll explain to
• 26:14
  meet you, and left the building. For the next few hours,
• 26:16
  I basically drove a circuit between our two apartments, occasionally
• 26:19
  parking outside one place or the other. I was sitting
• 26:22
  outside her place when I got a call from her phone.
• 26:24
  It was her mother. She said Christine had knocked her
• 26:27
  phone too the toilet getting ready for bed last night,
• 26:29
  and they had put it in a bowl of rice
• 26:30
  to dry out. Christine left to come back home a
• 26:33
  few hours ago. She must have forgotten it. I felt
• 26:37
  my mouth go dry. Her mother was asking what she
• 26:39
  should do to get Christine the phone, but I told
• 26:42
  her I'd have to call her back and hung up.
• 26:44
  Based on when she left, she should have been back
• 26:47
  at least an hour. At that point, I knew she
• 26:49
  wasn't at her apartment, so I sped back over to mine.
• 26:53
  Saw her car part down the street from the place.
• 26:55
  My head started pounding running up the stairs. I reached
• 26:59
  my door and saw the note I had left was gone,
• 27:02
  and its place was a blue sheet of a nice
• 27:04
  stationary bearing a drawn of a red ink cart and
• 27:07
  the words come on in and my handwriting, Oh no,
• 27:13
  I started yelling her name as I fumbled the door open,
• 27:15
  but as I entered, I could tell she wasn't there.
• 27:17
  The apartment felt empty and lifeless right into the bedroom.
• 27:20
  Stumbling to a stop at the doorway, my mind had
• 27:23
  difficulty making sense of what it was seen. At first.
• 27:27
  On the wall next to my desk, there were strips
• 27:29
  of paper plastered to the wall and making the outline
• 27:31
  of a small door about three feet tall. The strip
• 27:34
  seemed to be some combination of blue and cream paper,
• 27:37
  speckled here and there, with spots of crimson and soggy
• 27:40
  near the baseboard, where there were partially bloody handprints on
• 27:44
  both sides. So someone had been trying to hold on,
• 27:46
  oh god, being getting pulled through the hole in the
• 27:49
  wall or where the door would be.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Leading away from the paper door, the floor was covered
• 27:54
  with more blood, and as I looked closer, I could
• 27:56
  see several thick runnels in the wood that I thought
• 27:59
  at first grapes or cuts of some kind by something
• 28:02
  heavy being drug. But then I saw one of Christine's
• 28:06
  bloody fingernails, tore off at the nail bed and ragged
• 28:10
  jutting out of one of the grooves. She had raked
• 28:13
  into the floor in her fight to get away.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: God damn Lord, rough, take what this is. Just let's
• 28:18
  hit the gas.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Good cod. I collapsed to the floor and began crying.
• 28:23
  After a few minutes, I pulled myself together enough to
• 28:25
  look around the room for any other clues or some
• 28:27
  means of helping her. That's when I saw the blue
• 28:30
  envelope on the desk.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: You were right, she's a hot one, better than mine even,
• 28:36
  but I can tell she has those same slutting ways.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, I tell you what I tell you.
• 28:43
  I said it's.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Bear trap. Oh you were right. She's a hot one,
• 28:51
  better than mine even, but I can tell she has
• 28:54
  those same slutting ways. It's in the eyes. But don't
• 28:58
  you worry. She'll find less tolerance for that over here,
• 29:02
  and I'll be sure to keep it corrected. Don't bother
• 29:05
  trying to come across either, Bud. I figured out how
• 29:08
  to do it. I'm gonna have to keep it close
• 29:11
  to my close to my vest. I have to apologize
• 29:15
  for not being completely honest before things are worse here
• 29:19
  than I let on. Maybe this Christine could keep me
• 29:21
  happy and satisfied with my life. But who's to say,
• 29:25
  like I told you, some people are really losing it
• 29:28
  over here. Might be I have to come visiting again
• 29:31
  sometime more permanently. Tell then glory in peace, or as
• 29:37
  you would say, sincerely, Scott.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, No, every implication is horrible.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: The implications are heavy.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: It's pretty rough, dude. That's uncomfy. As I'm finishing writing this,
• 29:56
  I dread going back into that room. I know I
• 29:59
  have no way of in her back, and I know
• 30:01
  I can have her blood being found in my apartment
• 30:04
  even without heart evidence. There will be questions when she's
• 30:07
  reported missing, but all of that is in the background.
• 30:10
  At the moment, I can't shake the feeling of being watched.
• 30:13
  I look around and see no one. But then I
• 30:15
  noticed a dingy brass store of the elevator across the
• 30:17
  hall from where I'm sitting. The reflection there is dark
• 30:20
  and distorted, but I can still see myself in it,
• 30:23
  or at least a version of myself. It looks like me,
• 30:27
  but I can tell that it doesn't because that version
• 30:29
  of me is laughing.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: That is the end of part one, Part five series.
• 30:35
  I will say, ramp up.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: That is.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of rough, Pumpkins. I'll be honest,
• 30:40
  we're you know, getting a little in there. I will say,
• 30:43
  I think it's it's interesting the idea of parallel parallel world.
• 30:48
  You know what kind of reminds me of is that
• 30:49
  a VHS short where the guy opens that portal between worlds.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, he goes over
• 30:55
  there and it's like it's a week demon worshiping. Yeah,
• 30:58
  and like the there like Genitelli or like monsters or whatever.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, you know, I still like this, this idea
• 31:07
  of contacting your parallel live self and he's able to
• 31:11
  interact in your world. It's just it's gonna set up
• 31:14
  a lot of kooky moments. But this idea too. Immediately
• 31:17
  that his girlfriend got dragged off like that, I mean,
• 31:20
  we don't know for a fact that we have dissumes
• 31:23
  she's probably probably dead, right or no.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Uh no, he still got her. That's why I said, like,
• 31:29
  we'll see if this one can keep me satisfied.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so yeah, we're going into uh little
• 31:34
  oopsie daisy territory.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a funny way to describe what's happening
• 31:39
  to her.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a no no, no, no, no, no no no.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: My read on.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: It was an oopsie Daisy.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I thought she was Oh it's interesting. Oh no, no, no,
• 31:48
  that's not I mean, she may wish she was dead,
• 31:50
  but that's not what that Well, that's.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I picked a big bouquet of oopsie Daisy.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: This is what I did. And I'm sorry.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I see, I see, I see what you're saying.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Let's let's just keep it rolling though into part two.
• 31:59
  Here Part two.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: That boy, Scott, I know you're a good guy at heart.
• 32:06
  I know that because well you're me, and despite my flaws,
• 32:09
  I like to think i'm a good guy too. I
• 32:12
  understand that your world's different than mine, and that has
• 32:14
  to have affected you a lot. Who's to say what
• 32:17
  you would be doing, who you would be as a
• 32:19
  person if you had grown up like I did. My
• 32:22
  point is I don't blame you for anything. I just
• 32:24
  need you to listen to me. Spent a lot of
• 32:27
  time with my dad growing up. I don't know if
• 32:29
  that was true for you, or what your version of
• 32:31
  dad was even like, but mine was great. He was
• 32:34
  always there for me, and not just out of some
• 32:36
  sense of parnal duty, but because he really loved me
• 32:38
  and wanted me to succeed in life. One thing we
• 32:41
  did a lot was go hunting, sometimes for wild pig
• 32:44
  or rabbit, but mostly deer. I remember the first time
• 32:47
  I killed it. Deer wasn't a clean shot. Made a
• 32:51
  track it over a mile before finding it dead in
• 32:53
  some underbrush at the edge of an empty field. Father
• 32:56
  took out his knife to show me how to feel dressed,
• 32:58
  but before he to me, he stopped put his hand
• 33:02
  on my shoulder.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: We never kill things or heard things unless it's necessary
• 33:06
  for your survival or some greater good. The deer is clean,
• 33:09
  healthy meat that will feed us and your mom for
• 33:12
  several weeks. Us being willing or able to kill this
• 33:15
  deer doesn't make its life unimportant. It just means that
• 33:17
  we have value ourselves above others while still trying to
• 33:20
  live a good and virtuous life.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Understand, I said that I did, and I was being
• 33:25
  honest at the time, But of course that was the
• 33:27
  understanding of a child. The world has taught me to
• 33:30
  more fully appreciate the importance of his words.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Now, how do we also not know that this isn't
• 33:34
  bad Scott or evil Scott.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Because it's in the italics From what the story said,
• 33:39
  so far, because he could.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Change it over though, you know what I mean, Like,
• 33:43
  I mean.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: He could, but I'm assuming they're not breaking that rule
• 33:46
  yet at least. Okay, this sounds to me like our
• 33:50
  Scott is desperate and because of the other world. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 33:56
  he's trying to get Christine back and he doesn't know
• 33:58
  how else to do it other than plead. He's bagging here.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's on his knees begging for sure.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. My father would also tell me stories about his
• 34:04
  own childhood. My favorites were always about the dog he
• 34:08
  had growing up named Rex. Hunting dogs. Has that round
• 34:11
  you of anything Hunter told you anything.
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: Close mos only for a moment. In the moment's gone.
• 34:24
  My dog is dust in the wind. My little Pauper
• 34:29
  is still dust.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: In the wind.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Every time I opened up the subreddit, it's still just
• 34:34
  post of like wheelchairs with machine guns mounted too.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah dude, yeah, you big lips son of a bitch.
• 34:43
  You're ruining my life.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: You're wellgo. You couldn't get out if you wanted to.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: You know that, you sat.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: You're sounding very much like an evil Scot right now.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, you're you're my Christine and hopefully you
• 34:59
  just satisfied me this life. Jesus, Come on, man, I
• 35:07
  can't even wear the leather dress. You wear the leather dress.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: I can't far it's gone my asshole, this dust.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: How's that Pleathan Field, Christine.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: It feels good, Daddy cutting all that le Uncle, we're cutting.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: My father would also tell me stories about his own childhood.
• 35:39
  My favorites always about the dog he had growing up
• 35:42
  named Rex. Dad had gotten him when he was eight,
• 35:45
  and he loved that dog more than anything. They really
• 35:48
  were best friends. I think they would play together, explore
• 35:51
  the forest around the farm where my dad grew up,
• 35:54
  and were generally inseparable as much as life allowed. When
• 35:57
  Dad got a little enough to drive, Rex would ride
• 36:00
  everywhere with him. He was big for a dog, apparently,
• 36:04
  so he could easily sit in the seats and stick
• 36:06
  his head out of the window to catch the smells
• 36:07
  as they drove to down or out to go camping.
• 36:09
  My version of our father never went to college, but
• 36:12
  he was a smart man and a hard worker. He
• 36:14
  opened up a little hardware store at nineteen, and within
• 36:17
  a couple of years he had bought a house and
• 36:19
  was saving up ring money. To that girl that is
• 36:21
  our mother. One night he was closing up shop, he
• 36:25
  heard Rex start growling. He turned to see where the
• 36:28
  dog was and found him at the back door, packles
• 36:31
  raised and teeth bared. At first, my father thought it
• 36:34
  was a raccoon or another dog maybe, grab Rex by
• 36:38
  the collar and opened the door to look out. It
• 36:41
  was dark and he couldn't see much, but suddenly he
• 36:43
  was knocked down and being attacked. He would never say
• 36:46
  by what, although I've always suspected that was more to
• 36:49
  keep from scaring me too much than because he didn't know.
• 36:52
  Rex broke free of his grasp and charged the thing.
• 36:54
  Whatever it was. He snapped, snarled, bit and claud and
• 36:57
  after a moment my father was free of it. He
• 37:00
  was preoccupied by Rex, who was fighting it for everything
• 37:03
  he was worth. He was an older dog now, but
• 37:06
  no one was going to mess with our dad. Rex
• 37:08
  drove the thing off into the woods, but he was
• 37:11
  hurt badly, too badly to make it. In fact, the
• 37:15
  father held him crying as he died. The First time
• 37:18
  Dad told me that story, I was fifteen. I was horrified.
• 37:22
  I've been hearing stories about Rex for years. I loved Rex,
• 37:25
  but like I knew him, even though he died well
• 37:27
  before I was born. Truth be told, Rex wouldn't have
• 37:31
  lived that much longer anyway, but still it was so
• 37:34
  sad set their crying my eyes out, and I remember
• 37:36
  my father started crying too, because one of those few
• 37:39
  times I ever saw him cry, reached over and hugged
• 37:42
  me before explaining why he was telling me the story
• 37:44
  in the first place.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Scott, this world is a hard place, and it's going
• 37:48
  to get harder. Rex and me, we loved each other
• 37:52
  with everything we had, and he sacrificed himself to save me.
• 37:57
  That's a listen. If you're we have a life worth living,
• 38:02
  you can't be afraid to make sacrifices, whether it's something
• 38:05
  that's important to you or someone else. Sometimes the cost
• 38:09
  has to be paid, and you have to be willing
• 38:11
  to pay it. Being too afraid or too weak to
• 38:14
  do what needs to be done is greater sin than
• 38:16
  trying and failing or making the wrong choice. Always remember that,
• 38:20
  and I have, Scott.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: I've tried to make the best decisions of my life,
• 38:24
  and all things considered, things have fared out well for me.
• 38:28
  For instance, I remember the first time I saw our Christine,
• 38:32
  I felt such a strong surge of excitement and anticipation
• 38:35
  that I didn't even know what to say to her.
• 38:37
  Later when we made he's going into okay, well we
• 38:41
  made love for the first time. I remember.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: She cried, Okay, what what what?
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: What? What the what the hell are we doing here?
• 38:50
  She cried, Bro, you honestly same same, that's me too.
• 38:55
  That's that's me too, man, I feel you.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: That's that's just what it's like. Fifty eight minutes to
• 39:00
  me crying, you know, talking about you know, how I'm sorry,
• 39:04
  how I'm scared and stuff like that. That's typically how
• 39:06
  it goes.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she cried.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: If I'm honest, I cried a little too. What Oh, oh,
• 39:15
  you're right, Oh my gosh.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, fucking bear trip? How do I go? How do I?
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Okay? You know what? You know what? You know what
• 39:24
  this one time that was a bear and you caught
• 39:27
  it in your trap?
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: That was I just don't even know that was did
• 39:31
  you look ahead scroll to the end?
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: No, I swear that was a hell mary pass.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: That was That was insane, fade away.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Three pointer, buzzer beater, dude, that's what that was.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: That that was actually ridiculous. That was actually that that okay,
• 39:49
  good job. Wow, okay. So I was like, why she cried?
• 39:55
  Why would you even mention that I cried a little too?
• 39:58
  And then the next sentence and I think I was
• 40:01
  too hard on her Initially, Scott, I thought she was
• 40:04
  a whore, like the old Christine. God, this story is brutal,
• 40:09
  by the way, this is, this is rough, This is rough.
• 40:12
  But yeah, you're right. The entire time it's been bad Scott.
• 40:14
  It's been evil Scott writing this. Man, I'm honestly so
• 40:22
  upset that you were right that it's hard for me
• 40:24
  to continue. You were that right about something, that about something.
• 40:28
  I set you down and was like, no, no, Hunter,
• 40:31
  that's not what's happened.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I was just sitting there and I was like,
• 40:33
  at what point, even like right now, when he's writing
• 40:35
  notes and stuff, we've established that the guy can change it.
• 40:38
  Evil Scott could change it, right, So I was like, well,
• 40:40
  what's the difference between that and him typing? I just
• 40:43
  figured at some point it would happen. But I part two,
• 40:46
  I was kind of the same boat as you though,
• 40:48
  where I was like, maybe it's too early, but that's
• 40:50
  a that's a great twist, because it's great because it
• 40:53
  reads like it's him pleading, but really it's like that's
• 40:57
  what sounded like. It's an earnest way of Yeah, it's.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: An earnest way to be like, I only take life.
• 41:02
  That mean that I need to yeah like him. Yeah,
• 41:06
  I think I was too hard on her initially, Scott.
• 41:08
  I thought she was a whore like the old Christine.
• 41:10
  But I think living in a softer, kinder world kept
• 41:13
  her from developing some of those rough edges, and I
• 41:16
  was trying to weigh down on the old Christine. She
• 41:19
  still got a slut look about. Oh my gosh, I
• 41:25
  need to call my wife and tell her I love her.
• 41:28
  Still got to look about her face at times, so
• 41:30
  she bears watching. But I do think she can be
• 41:33
  rehabilitated if you are firm with her. Okay, all right,
• 41:36
  you know what, you've had a couple, You've had some
• 41:38
  dubs here between the red pill.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I told you a red pillar.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Fucking don that's become more true as the stories go on. Well,
• 41:47
  oh dude, okay, I want to apologize.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: To go ahead, Well, I want the fucking evil Scott.
• 41:54
  I want I want our regular Scott to man the
• 41:57
  fuck up. A doctor stranger doorway and get this motherfucker
• 42:01
  that's what I want.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that'd be so funny if like he's about
• 42:05
  to kill if like bad Scott's about to kill Christine
• 42:08
  and he's like any last words? And then a doctor
• 42:10
  strange portal appeared like our shot what apologized to you too, Scott,
• 42:21
  and I came back and took you by surprise, and
• 42:23
  what okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, took you. Took you
• 42:34
  is kidnapped. That's what Because if you go to the
• 42:37
  NFL kidnapped. Okay, he's kidnapped. Yeah, that's what means.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I like, people are gonna fucking are going to be pissed,
• 42:49
  lose their my God, damn dude, Tommy Taffy, Tommy Taffy.
• 42:54
  You can pretend there's a wrestling match happening, but what
• 42:58
  evil Scott's not being so generous by going to the
• 43:01
  next room coming.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: In, Tommy to have you out the decency of shutting
• 43:06
  the door.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Good God, wat.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Watch out.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: We haven't talked about on the podcast yet, but yeah,
• 43:17
  that's being made into a film.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well I was just I was gonna say
• 43:21
  we should whenever comes out, we should watch it.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: And talk about it for sure. Yeah, I want to
• 43:26
  apologize to you too, Scott. When I came back and
• 43:29
  kidnapped you by surprise from your bed, well, I'll be honest,
• 43:32
  I was disappointed. I expected more of a fight, but
• 43:35
  you were half asleep. Just like our Christine, you've had
• 43:38
  the luxury of a softer life than I've had. I
• 43:41
  don't think less of you because you couldn't stop me
• 43:43
  from forcing you through the door. I also want to
• 43:45
  say I'm sorry because I know from your perspective, I
• 43:47
  may seem like a bad guy. I took your girl
• 43:50
  and then you from this cushy life and push you
• 43:52
  into a world that, well, from your point of view,
• 43:55
  might seem a bit like hell. I want you to
• 43:58
  know I didn't do that out of some ill will
• 44:00
  towards you or even Christine. That I had to get
• 44:03
  out of there and sacrifices had to be made, and
• 44:06
  those sacrifices are valued by me. Scott. It's important that
• 44:09
  you know that. Don't worry about trying to get back either.
• 44:12
  I know from the peaks I've managed to get in
• 44:15
  the last couple of weeks that you were trying and
• 44:18
  you had figured out that Combining our two papers was
• 44:21
  part of it, but you won't get the rest. And
• 44:24
  I made sure to not leave any of your letters
• 44:26
  or envelopes on my side anyway, S letter and envelope
• 44:29
  will be the only paper from your old world you
• 44:32
  will have. Trust me, it isn't enough. I don't say
• 44:35
  this to trick or discourage you, but because I don't
• 44:38
  want you wasting time and energy chasing some impossible goal
• 44:41
  when you should be focused getting your feet under you
• 44:44
  and making a new life. I really help you two
• 44:46
  crazy kids to make a go of it over there. Lol.
• 44:49
  Who's to say you might be better at that life
• 44:52
  than I ever was. As for me, I just got
• 44:54
  back from walking in the park across from your, I
• 44:57
  mean my apartment. It seemed like I could hear birds
• 45:01
  singing everywhere, and I saw a woman walking a dog.
• 45:04
  Can you believe it? A real live dog?
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Fuck this guy?
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: That's that's cool. I know this world isn't perfect. I
• 45:13
  can already see a lot of impurity and corruption. Maybe
• 45:16
  I can help correct some of fat in time, but
• 45:18
  for now, I'm just going to enjoy my new life.
• 45:21
  I won't be writing you again, I'm afraid, but I'll
• 45:23
  think of you often. I'm going this afternoon to buy
• 45:26
  a puppy. I name it after you. Well, that'd be weird.
• 45:30
  Helloel have a good life, sincerely Scott.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: End of part two.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Was cool. I like, let me ask you this.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Did he kidnap both his own like, because new Christine
• 45:46
  and new Scott are basically good Scott, good Christine? Or
• 45:48
  however you want to look at it just to make
• 45:50
  it easier to say, uh, so that he could cover
• 45:53
  up his murder in the other world, or do you
• 45:55
  think murder is like not a huge issue in that universe?
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Murder's not a huge issue because he said, while describing
• 46:01
  his dad, he said something attacked him and my dad
• 46:04
  never told me what. Uh. And then there at the
• 46:06
  end he says, can you believe it a real live dog,
• 46:09
  implying and the other universe dogs are gone, like some
• 46:12
  capitalismic events happened. So I don't think murder would be
• 46:15
  that big of a deal. I think it was because
• 46:19
  both others Scott and Christine were probably the only two
• 46:22
  people who would see through his illusion, right, Like if you,
• 46:25
  if someone wanted to replace you who look exactly like you, Hunter,
• 46:28
  they would have to probably replace you and your wife, right,
• 46:30
  because your wife could tell Yeah, I mean realistic. They
• 46:35
  also have to replace your family, Harry and Nick too.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Like you'd have to replace your family and stuff.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if I'm wondering if.
• 46:43
  Speaker 7: Baked it enough, I feel like you could someone could
• 46:46
  probably trick.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Your parents as an adult once you've puved out of
• 46:48
  the house.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: That's probably true. Yeah, I just didn't know. I didn't
• 46:51
  know if it was something where it's like, oh, here
• 46:53
  to cover my tracks and with this murder I did,
• 46:55
  here's these days.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Well, it's just me. I don't know. It's odd. It's
• 46:58
  it's weird to me that he would has been dialed
• 47:01
  in this episode. So maybe that's what's going to happen.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. All I'm saying is that I
• 47:05
  thought the whole idea would be He's like, yeah, my
• 47:08
  Christine sucked, Yours is better, and he was going to
• 47:10
  basically be like, Okay, I'm going to steal your life
• 47:12
  and I'm going to like date this new Christine and
• 47:15
  like this world.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: They That's where I thought it was going. So that's why.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of confused of like, well, why the funk
• 47:19
  would he So I mean maybe the moral be offered
• 47:22
  in obviously, but I also didn't know if he's like, hey,
• 47:24
  I feel bad for taking you from your world, but
• 47:27
  here you can have your girlfriend with you or this
• 47:30
  like that way, if it was a crime, then it's like, well,
• 47:32
  at least people won't be looking for you, people won't
• 47:35
  think that you.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Murdered her because she still is here, et cetera.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: But that would make a problem for him in his
• 47:40
  actual world, because now Evil Scott has to deal basically
• 47:44
  with her parents, who we've already established are like, hey,
• 47:48
  she dropped her phone, you know, does she make it
• 47:50
  over to your house? Okay, all that kind of stuff.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: So I don't know Part three. Let's just let's keep
• 47:55
  going Part three, Paul, I'm joining this so far. This
• 47:59
  is pretty unique.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: It's a fun take on parallel universes, for sure. I
• 48:03
  like the idea too of notes, like notes being doorways.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, they're like writing back and forth to each other.
• 48:08
  And it's like, do you still do.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: You still like the mirror idea? I feel like I
• 48:12
  could do it without the mirror.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was fine in the first part, but
• 48:16
  I think we've gone beyond it now. I think I
• 48:18
  think the mirror thing was being used as it set
• 48:20
  up to get us that payback or to get us
• 48:23
  the payoff of seeing himself laughing in the mirror. But yeah,
• 48:26
  even then, if that's all it does, we could do
• 48:28
  without it.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well even just I understand the idea too
• 48:32
  of like your reflection is like reflecting into another world
• 48:35
  all that kind of stuff. I think that's it's fine
• 48:38
  or whatever. But I do like the idea of creating
• 48:40
  like almost a how would you say that. It's not
• 48:43
  like it's probably like an incantation or something, but like
• 48:45
  writing on a paper to yourself can be summoning, like
• 48:51
  a summoning or a ritual. There you go, like a
• 48:53
  ritual you know that you would never even think to do.
• 48:55
  It's like anybody could do it, but who who's going
• 48:57
  to write a letters to themselves would do that?
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, like it's a gateway that's always there for everyone,
• 49:03
  but just no one's done that.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Right do you think in this in this universe when
• 49:06
  people do that, people who have diaries, do you think
• 49:09
  that they connected that way?
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: That's no, because it's not addressed, because a big deal
• 49:15
  about the address and everything. Right, Yeah, yeah, I bet
• 49:18
  that that might be the deciding factor because otherwise than yes,
• 49:21
  anyone with a diary would have this would have happened.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: To the twist of that part was really nice though.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: That was great. That was very well done. That honestly
• 49:29
  like elevated the story several levels for me, Like the
• 49:32
  turnabout Uh, if if you hadn't predicted it, I would
• 49:36
  be much more excited about it. Because it predicted it.
• 49:39
  I have to be.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know, it's just for people
• 49:43
  who don't know. When we're reading this. In the first part,
• 49:46
  it's just a talicized when we're talking about our protagonist,
• 49:49
  normal Scott, and then it's bold letters when it's referring
• 49:53
  to evil Scott. But in this one it was basically
• 49:55
  all italicized, so it immediately reads like a letter or
• 50:00
  like just a super long plea for hey, please open
• 50:03
  this fucking door and give me back my girlfriend or whatever.
• 50:06
  But that's how I just you know, even reading like that.
• 50:09
  That's just the great thing about this like writing format,
• 50:13
  is being even being able to trick the audience in
• 50:15
  that way, you know, because because that's you know, I mean, now,
• 50:20
  if you look at the formatting as italicized as our
• 50:23
  world and bold as our world. Then it's like, of
• 50:25
  course you would be a talisized, you know, with that
• 50:27
  kind of vibe.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah. I woke to ashes fluttering down onto
• 50:32
  my face, like sullen snowflakes, covering my skin in one
• 50:35
  hundred gray kisses of burned down yesterday. Coughed as I
• 50:39
  sat up, pulling in another spasmodic breath. As I wiped
• 50:42
  it my eyes, dashes had caked there because I had
• 50:45
  apparently been crying in my unconsciousness. My hands came away
• 50:49
  black and running. As my eyes began to water again
• 50:52
  and blinking through the smut and the tears, I could
• 50:55
  see the flakes falling down on me through a hole
• 50:57
  in the roof, or rather the ceiling, because Scott's apartment
• 51:01
  wasn't on the top floor, yet looking around it was
• 51:04
  Scott's apartment, or a very close approximation of it. I
• 51:08
  was far more run down and dirty, and some of
• 51:10
  the decorations were different, but the layout in the general
• 51:13
  appearance was similar. My head was still drifting through a
• 51:16
  fog so thick I could scarcely tell I was even
• 51:19
  in a fog, but I was starting to remember myself
• 51:22
  and Scott parts of what had happened. I looked up
• 51:25
  again and remembered that there should be at least three
• 51:28
  floors above this one, and at the edges of the
• 51:30
  hole in the ceiling, I could see parts of those
• 51:32
  ruined rooms hiding in the shadows up there. It seemed
• 51:36
  that the top part of the building had been destroyed
• 51:38
  somehow at some point in the past, and through the
• 51:41
  hole that was left behind, I could see the ashes,
• 51:43
  and beyond that the stars. I came back to myself
• 51:47
  as I remembered Scott attacking me, well, not Scott, but
• 51:50
  someone that looked like him, a lot like some older
• 51:54
  crazy twin brother. He had dragged me into Scott's bedroom,
• 51:58
  and I had seen the floor and wall were covered
• 52:00
  in blood. He did his finger in the blood and
• 52:02
  trace the outline of a rectangle inside the perimeter of
• 52:05
  a strange claws of colored paper paced it to the wall.
• 52:08
  I felt amazement pushed through my chair as I saw
• 52:11
  a crack appear in the wall where his finger had traced,
• 52:13
  and at his touch swung open as a door. I
• 52:16
  had known then what was coming next, however insane or impossible.
• 52:19
  All of this was I fought harder to get away,
• 52:22
  but he was bigger and stronger, and when he slammed
• 52:25
  my head against the floor the second time, I couldn't
• 52:28
  fight the darkness that rose up around me any longer.
• 52:31
  I felt the back of my head at the memory
• 52:33
  and gasped at the pain as my hand found a
• 52:35
  clotting wound in my sweaty tangle of hair. I started
• 52:38
  looking around again, and I could see I was in
• 52:40
  the living room of this place that is like Scott's
• 52:43
  apartment but not. My brain had been screaming the thousand
• 52:47
  things that are wrong since I first woke up, but
• 52:49
  I could only process a few at a time. Just
• 52:52
  as I realized that not Scott was coming back from
• 52:55
  the bedroom, my hand found its way up to my
• 52:57
  throat and the dog collar there. Oh oh, oh, gosh.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Hello Christine.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: His grin was so like Scott's that it's familiarity made
• 53:09
  it all the more ghastly. On this man, I.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Just want to say, I love how he's introduced, like
• 53:14
  you keep thinking that it's going to be a one thing,
• 53:15
  and so that now we're all from the perspective of Christine.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, that's what this has been.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's sick.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: You don't know who's talking at any given point. Yeah,
• 53:25
  and not in a bad way, and like a mist
• 53:27
  it's great.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is great for a parallel where it's
• 53:31
  like I don't know who's real or who's the who's who?
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: You know? Yeah?
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Anyway?
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry, hello, Christine.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: It uses the medium to play well into itself. I agree.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: His face was thin, and his eyes were two bright
• 53:43
  pieces of glass and sunken pits, glittering with intelligence and
• 53:47
  ill will. I can now see that it somehow was Scott,
• 53:51
  despite the longer hair and the harder, harsher lines on
• 53:54
  his face. Just wasn't my Scott. I didn't know how
• 53:57
  it was possible. Once the thought was fixed in my mind,
• 54:00
  I knew it was true.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Hello, where did you take me?
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: I tried to sound confident, but it was a weak attempt,
• 54:08
  given I was sitting hurt and confused in a dog
• 54:11
  collar in some bizarre place with some bizarre version of Scott.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: A smile widened. That's a fair question. This is my world.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: I brought you from yours after hearing good things about
• 54:21
  you from Scott, well, the other Scott.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: He raised his hands in a playcating gesture.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Look, I know what you're thinking. I kidnapped you, knocked
• 54:31
  you out, and brought you to this place. Hell, I
• 54:33
  put a collar on you. I guess this all looks
• 54:36
  really bad. Huh.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: This guy is such a jerk. I know, it's like
• 54:43
  just a awful man. He crouched down on his haunches
• 54:47
  next to me.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I brought you here because I missed my old Christine. See,
• 54:51
  we were together here too. Things didn't work out too well.
• 54:55
  I'm not saying it wasn't selfish to take you away,
• 54:57
  but it was with love in my heart. And as
• 55:02
  for this, he pointed to the dog collar, I just
• 55:05
  want to make sure you didn't run out if I
• 55:07
  wasn't awake or paying attention when you came to. My
• 55:10
  world is pretty different from yours, and it's not safe
• 55:12
  out there A lot of the time. I wouldn't want
• 55:15
  you getting hurt on my account.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: I stared at him, trying to keep any scorn out
• 55:20
  of my expression. He was clearly insane, and I didn't
• 55:23
  want to risk setting him off, especially when I really
• 55:26
  didn't know what was going on or what this place
• 55:28
  was like. That was the key. I needed as much
• 55:31
  information as possible, and I needed to see how much
• 55:34
  latitude I could get before trying to escape.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: So you'll take the collar off now.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: He chuckled and shook his head.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I can already tell I'm going to like.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: You better, sighed wistfully.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: He went on, No, not yet, honey. He'll take some
• 55:48
  time for you to acclimate, and I tell you do,
• 55:50
  I'm afraid you'll be your own worst enemy. For now,
• 55:53
  Just rest and I'll bring you some food. Your chain
• 55:56
  goes far enough for you to reach the bathroom over there,
• 55:58
  but just remember, do not flush it during night time hours. Okay,
• 56:01
  it's very important. This building is fairly secure, but the
• 56:05
  neighborhood has gone to shit lately. Lots of home evasions
• 56:08
  at night, and they target buildings where they hear noise
• 56:11
  or see lights. The blinds keep the lighting pretty well,
• 56:14
  but the pipes in this old bitch keep a fuss
• 56:16
  when you when you flush, So just save that for
• 56:19
  the morning and we should be shiny, golden.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: The next few days. I do like how like, even
• 56:24
  though it's not the focus of the story, there is
• 56:26
  some attention given to the alternate world. Like there's no dogs,
• 56:29
  there's creepy.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: It makes more compelling it does.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, why don't.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I feel like that's like there's
• 56:35
  obviously something odd that happened to where all dogs died
• 56:37
  or something.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: But it almost just feels like I think it just
• 56:41
  animals are wiped out.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like just a fucking weird dystopian future or
• 56:46
  something are parallel.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of the Road of Yeah, yeah, novel.
• 56:51
  It feels like that world. That's why I was.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: It almost feels like it's. Uh, I don't. I still
• 56:56
  don't know if I'm thinking creatures as much as just
• 56:58
  like you know, I mean, like fucking homeless gangs or
• 57:01
  like new barbaric tribes or forming in city scapes.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: The next few days were a cycle of sleeping, eating,
• 57:08
  and trying to figure out the best way to escape
• 57:10
  and where exactly I would be escaping too. Last part
• 57:13
  was primarily facilitated by not Scott. He spent hours each
• 57:16
  day talking to me, seemingly starved for conversation and human contact.
• 57:22
  He had some kind of job, and, depending on something
• 57:25
  he called occurrence reports, he would be gone working for
• 57:28
  periods of time most days, but whenever he was there,
• 57:31
  he was usually talking to me. He would tell me
• 57:33
  stories about himself sometimes, but a lot of his time
• 57:36
  was spent asking me questions. What was my childhood like,
• 57:40
  what had my life been like before he took me?
• 57:43
  What kind of things did I like to do, like
• 57:45
  to eat, etc. It was also strange he had this
• 57:49
  aura of discord and violence around him, so palpable. The
• 57:53
  air fairly vibrated with minutes when he was in the room,
• 57:56
  But he was never rough or even rude to me,
• 57:58
  aside from the obvious of holding me against my will.
• 58:01
  It was made stranger because parts of him did remind
• 58:04
  me of my Scott, the way his face would light
• 58:06
  up when he was telling a story, or the way
• 58:08
  he would look at me sometimes when he didn't know
• 58:10
  I was looking. It somehow made it all worse instead
• 58:14
  of better, seeing those glimpses of something I love for
• 58:17
  being choked to death by whatever sickness had taken root
• 58:19
  to him. I tried to find out more about the
• 58:21
  world I was in from him, and he told me some,
• 58:23
  but not much. He said the years ago before he
• 58:27
  was born, things had started changing. A lot of animals
• 58:30
  had started dying off for no discernible reason, and all
• 58:33
  at once. This had led to the partial collapse of
• 58:36
  a number of ecosystems around the world, which led to
• 58:38
  disease and famine and death. According to not Scott, things
• 58:42
  stabilized some eventually, but they were never really right again.
• 58:47
  Strange things would happen. People would disappear or go on
• 58:50
  murder spreeze. Pods of dolphins started killing off large portions
• 58:53
  of the shark and the well population of the Pacific. Then,
• 58:56
  in nineteen ninety eight, over two hundred thousand people across
• 58:59
  the globe admitted suicide within ten minutes of each other
• 59:02
  for no apparent reason. People called it the Awakening now
• 59:07
  because that was when the world governments and media began
• 59:09
  admitting that there was an ongoing major problem. They didn't
• 59:12
  know how to stop it. Not Scott told me with
• 59:15
  a laugh that it wasn't like the world was ending,
• 59:17
  but sometimes it sure felt like it. After the Awakening,
• 59:21
  a lot of fanatics started popping up, religious zealots, doomsday preppers,
• 59:25
  militant groups itching for a fight. He said. Those groups
• 59:28
  caused disorder and could be dangerous to be around, but
• 59:31
  mostly they were just scared people looking for an answer.
• 59:34
  For the most part, civilization was still chugging along. Governments existed,
• 59:38
  people went to work. As time went on, strange became
• 59:41
  the new normal. Then people started going insane. Not the
• 59:45
  normals scared I'm going to wear a bulletproof vest to
• 59:48
  the grocery store insane, but more the I'm going to
• 59:51
  eat the bus driver's face insane. He said that actually
• 59:55
  happened to him when he was writing The Metro one Day.
• 59:58
  People turning crazy didn't happen a lot at first, but
• 1:00:00
  in the last five years it was building. There were
• 1:00:04
  more random acts of extreme violence, a teacher chopping up
• 1:00:07
  her third grade class, little boy stabbing out his father's
• 1:00:10
  eyes while he slept. But there were more subtle versions
• 1:00:12
  of it too. People would develop strange obsessions or fetishes.
• 1:00:17
  They'd become paranoid or have wild mood swings for no
• 1:00:19
  apparent reason. Not Scott said that most days at work
• 1:00:23
  there would be at least one or two people crying
• 1:00:25
  or laughing uncontrollably at random times throughout the day.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I think he's got it, he's got a snap to
• 1:00:31
  it sometime.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, he killed Christine, so I'd imagine he already
• 1:00:35
  has well.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: I meant, I meant to our to our new Christine.
• 1:00:39
  He's got I mean, there's got to be something that
• 1:00:41
  is gonna I don't know. I'm just wondering, Yeah, what
• 1:00:44
  kind of statistic thing. Well, because I'm wondering if he's
• 1:00:46
  gonna lie and be like, you know, oh, she tried
• 1:00:48
  freaking out on me and she was did this or that?
• 1:00:51
  Or yeah, she's just like, oh she was seven sections
• 1:00:53
  of the guy and I killed her.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm taking or already thought she.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Was doing that. He thought that she was with another guy. Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  He had tears in his eyes when he told me
• 1:01:03
  that last, and I felt my heart breaking a little
• 1:01:06
  at what he said next.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: I know what's happening to me. It's happened to me already.
• 1:01:11
  I've done terrible things, not just what I've done to
• 1:01:14
  you and to your Scott. I've done much worse than that.
• 1:01:19
  I used to not be like this.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: I reached forward and took his hand.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine what you've been through. I'm not saying
• 1:01:26
  you can fix everything, but you can make it better.
• 1:01:30
  Let me go back. You come too. If this world
• 1:01:33
  is what is making you do these bad things, maybe
• 1:01:35
  you'll be better away from it.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Let's Scott, pulled his hand away, his face hardening.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: I should have expected this kind of cozening from you.
• 1:01:42
  You're not as different as I'd hoped.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Stand it up. He wiped his eyes with the palms
• 1:01:46
  of his hands, and as he stared off, his expression
• 1:01:48
  hurt and almost embarrassed.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: You aren't leaving, and there's no real hope for me either,
• 1:01:53
  beyond embracing this world as is, letting it reshape me
• 1:01:57
  so I can survive it.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: He looked back down at me.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: You bus get to accepting your reality too. It's a
• 1:02:02
  hard world. It's going to get harder.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: After that, he talked to me a lot less, though
• 1:02:08
  Some nights he would sit with me for a while,
• 1:02:09
  say very little, but seeming to not want to be alone.
• 1:02:12
  Other nights he would seem different, a dark look on
• 1:02:15
  his face, more kin to when I first saw him.
• 1:02:16
  Upon waking those nights, I just tried to stay in,
• 1:02:19
  conspicuous and small. He didn't tell me much more about
• 1:02:22
  the world outside, other than that there were worse problems
• 1:02:26
  now than just people going crazy. I could hear signs
• 1:02:29
  of the chaos outside. Gunshots, screaming, the orange glow of
• 1:02:33
  distant fires, a regular part of life I asked about
• 1:02:37
  what had happened to the building, and he said a
• 1:02:38
  television helicopter crashed into it a couple of years back,
• 1:02:41
  taking out most of the top three floors. It only
• 1:02:44
  put the small hole in not Scott's cealing and caused
• 1:02:47
  minimal structural damage to the rest of the building. So
• 1:02:50
  he had stayed. He grinned and said he negotiated the
• 1:02:52
  rent down and decided to look at it like a skylight.
• 1:02:55
  And the days moved on. I need to stress again
• 1:02:58
  that after he got me here, he never hurt me.
• 1:03:01
  He was generally kind. In fact, he didn't threaten me.
• 1:03:04
  He didn't try to force himself on me or even
• 1:03:06
  come on to me sexually. And the things we talked
• 1:03:10
  about they seemed harmless. Combine that was the fact that
• 1:03:13
  in a lot of ways, not Scott was Scott, and
• 1:03:16
  it made it easier to be taken in. Looking back
• 1:03:19
  on it now, I see that peppered into our conversations
• 1:03:23
  were questions that would prompt me to talk about my Scott,
• 1:03:25
  to talk about my world. I told them stories of
• 1:03:28
  my parents, or my ninth birthday, or my college major.
• 1:03:31
  I was giving it to information and insight into a
• 1:03:33
  place he was desperate to learn more about. He was
• 1:03:36
  smart about it, subtle, but over time was handing him
• 1:03:40
  everything he wanted. I let myself forget. I wasn't dealing
• 1:03:45
  with my Scott, but just afflicted with some strange mental illness.
• 1:03:49
  I was dealing with a stranger. I remembered that fact
• 1:03:53
  when he brought her in, screaming and crying, not pouring
• 1:03:56
  from her nose as he tracked her by the arm
• 1:03:58
  across the living room and into the bedroom. He tried
• 1:04:01
  to shut the door back when they entered, but in
• 1:04:03
  her flailing she kicked it and swung back open. As
• 1:04:06
  he brought the knife down across her stomach, it s
• 1:04:09
  blood welled out of the wound. She raised her head
• 1:04:12
  and her eyes met mine. She couldn't have been more
• 1:04:15
  than eight years old. God damn Brough, Oh my gosh. Not.
• 1:04:21
  Scott followed her gaze and saw the door was open.
• 1:04:23
  He looked at me, his face pale and stricken.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry you saw this, Christine. I'm just doing what's
• 1:04:29
  necessary to survive.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Tim.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I left the key to your collar in my closet.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: With that, he slam the door shut, muffled the girl's
• 1:04:37
  last gurgling scream, but not nearly enough. I screamed at
• 1:04:40
  the door, begging him to stop, but I knew it
• 1:04:43
  was no use. It was more just to make myself
• 1:04:46
  feel better and to bit my frustration for the hundredth time.
• 1:04:49
  I strained my collar and tugged in my chain, but
• 1:04:51
  he had secured both well. Finally gave up my throat
• 1:04:54
  horse and my body exhausted. Even amidst my struggling and
• 1:04:57
  thrashing about, I had noticed that the bedroom had silent.
• 1:05:01
  It's only they're panting a strain to hear any sound.
• 1:05:05
  There was nothing for several minutes, and a series of
• 1:05:07
  small scuffling noises followed by the sound of something being druck.
• 1:05:10
  Silence again. I debated yelling, but I knew it was
• 1:05:13
  too late for the girl, so I stayed quiet, and
• 1:05:16
  the door suddenly burst open, let out a scream. Scott
• 1:05:20
  was standing there, his face and closed smeared with blood.
• 1:05:22
  He was squinting and seemed unsteady on his feet, but
• 1:05:25
  when he saw me, his eyes widened. Christine Well, end
• 1:05:29
  of part three. So that is so that was leading
• 1:05:32
  up to the moment where not Scott pulled Scott through
• 1:05:34
  the portal. Yeah, now they've switched places. Yeah, and he
• 1:05:37
  had to kill that eight year old girl because he
• 1:05:39
  needs blood to make the portal it sounds.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he had to like cut her. He did
• 1:05:45
  an excessive amount of blood. I'm guessing to like actually
• 1:05:47
  paint the doorway to paint a door open.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, who the story. I'm adjoining it. I'm adjoining it.
• 1:05:53
  It is rough, admittedly, but I'm a enjoining it.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: It's much much more graphic than I wrote myself a letter.
• 1:05:59
  You know, I did not expect this to be.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: I wrote this, and yeah, got your response. Eight year
• 1:06:05
  old had the blood bore. I'm dragged.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna wear this dog collar and I'm gonna
• 1:06:11
  fucking bite my own fingers off.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad did not go a sexual route, because
• 1:06:16
  that's one hundred percent what I was expecting when he
• 1:06:18
  put collar and he's talking about weird fetishes, and then
• 1:06:22
  it didn't do that, So, you know what, I'm happy.
• 1:06:25
  If the eight year old's gotta die, they gotta die.
• 1:06:28
  But as long as it doesn't become some weird second
• 1:06:30
  thing whatever.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Part four or five, We're we're moving right along.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Part four. Let's go Okay, so my assumption is gonna
• 1:06:39
  be this is back to our Scott when he got bolty.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's time to be back with regular
• 1:06:42
  Scott or e least I hope it is.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: I woke to hands around my throat, choking off my
• 1:06:47
  ear as I swam out of the black currents of
• 1:06:48
  sleep and opened my eyes to see a face early
• 1:06:50
  similar to mine staring down at me. The other Scott
• 1:06:53
  was straddling me, bearing down hard. As I started trying
• 1:06:56
  to flail and get free. His arms prevented me from
• 1:06:59
  getting a hit in on his head, so I tried
• 1:07:01
  punching him in the sides. He grunted at each impact,
• 1:07:04
  but was unmoved. I tried to make eye contact, mouth
• 1:07:08
  something to him, but he wouldn't meet my eyes, seemed
• 1:07:11
  to be avoiding them, in fact, just stared at his
• 1:07:14
  hands around my throat, lip skinned back from his teeth
• 1:07:17
  in some kind of snarler grimace below eyes that looked
• 1:07:20
  almost sorrowful that somehow scared me even worse. I started
• 1:07:24
  fighting back harder, trying to buck him off while slaying
• 1:07:27
  an elbow into his arm, hoping to break his grip.
• 1:07:30
  But he was too strong and I could already feel
• 1:07:32
  myself slipping back into the icier waters of unconsciousness. As
• 1:07:37
  I faded out, I had time to worry if my
• 1:07:39
  shoes were still on, and to hear him say he
• 1:07:41
  was sorry. When I woke next, I was face down
• 1:07:45
  on the floor, the left side of my head wet
• 1:07:47
  with some kind of viscous liquid. I wiped it the
• 1:07:50
  left eye and then opened them both experimentally. I was
• 1:07:54
  in aversion of my bedroom, but I could tell it
• 1:07:56
  wasn't mine. I looked around slowly, my throat aching with
• 1:08:00
  every breath as I set up. The room was empty
• 1:08:02
  and the door was shut, and I had to fight
• 1:08:04
  the urge to rush out and search for Christine. I
• 1:08:07
  needed to be smart, take my time, and take everything
• 1:08:10
  in with revulsion. I noticed my hand was wet with
• 1:08:13
  blood from where I had wiped my head. My entire
• 1:08:17
  side was soaked in it, in fact, as was the floor.
• 1:08:20
  Full the lurch a fear of my stomach. He had
• 1:08:23
  killed Christine before he came back across to get me,
• 1:08:26
  but I tried to hold it at bay. As I
• 1:08:27
  studied the rest.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: Of the room.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: Nothing that noteworthy other than that he had five mirrors
• 1:08:32
  hanging in different spots in the room, all of which
• 1:08:35
  were dark. I looked at the corner of the ceiling
• 1:08:38
  above the bed and breathed the sigh of relief when
• 1:08:39
  I saw no mirror there. To the wall, I saw
• 1:08:42
  that he had stripped away the paper he used to
• 1:08:44
  make the doorway on this side. I guessed he had
• 1:08:47
  replicated it on the other side so it would stay
• 1:08:49
  open while I destroyed this side. But aside from the paper,
• 1:08:52
  I still had no real idea how it was done.
• 1:08:55
  Given the fresh blood, it seemed likely that was part
• 1:08:57
  of it. Again, I had a thrill of fear for Christine.
• 1:09:01
  This time I couldn't resist it. Standing up stiffly, I
• 1:09:04
  went to the door and yanked it open. The woman screamed,
• 1:09:07
  and as I looked across the dimly lit living room,
• 1:09:09
  I saw it was Christine. She looked terrified, and she
• 1:09:13
  was chained to the wall by some kind of collar,
• 1:09:15
  but she was alive.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Christine.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: She blinked, her mouth slowly closing as she took me in.
• 1:09:21
  After a moment, she started to stand, her face shifting
• 1:09:24
  between fear and hopefulness.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Scott, is that really you?
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: I wanted to run to her, but I could tell
• 1:09:30
  she was freaked out, so I approached slowly.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: It's me, baby. Did he hurts you? Are you okay?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Her face crumpled as she ran to me, almost knocking
• 1:09:38
  me over with the force of her embrace.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Kan, I'm gone.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I stayed quiet and hugged her back. After a minute,
• 1:09:45
  she pulled back, her expression serious and more composed.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Is he gone?
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: I nodded.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: I think so. He jumped me when I was asleep
• 1:09:53
  and drug me here. I was unconscious, but I didn't
• 1:09:55
  see any sign of him when I woke up. He
• 1:09:57
  didn't come back out of the room. Did he shug
• 1:10:00
  her head? Then he must be over in our world.
• 1:10:03
  The fucker wanted to take my life, and now he has.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: I caught myself and smiled sadly at her.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: But it'll be okay. We'll figure things out.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: Reached out to stroke her hair, but she pulled back.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Scott. I'm so happy to see you, but
• 1:10:18
  he looks so much like you, and I've been stuck
• 1:10:20
  here for two weeks with him. It's gonna take me
• 1:10:22
  a bit to readjust that's all.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Took a couple of steps back, her hands holding her
• 1:10:27
  elbows as he smiled apologetically at me, but I'm okay.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: I'll be okay.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: What about you trying to hide the pain and gilt
• 1:10:36
  I felt at her words, I turned away to take
• 1:10:38
  in the living room.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, he choked me out, but I'm okay with
• 1:10:43
  the sore throat.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: He glanced back at her.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry for this. I know this is all insane,
• 1:10:49
  out of our control, but it's still a version of
• 1:10:51
  me that's doing it.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: I want to ask about the details of how he
• 1:10:54
  may have mistreated her, but I didn't want to make
• 1:10:56
  it any harder on her than it already had been.
• 1:11:00
  We could talk about it later when she was ready,
• 1:11:02
  so instead, I added, lamely.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: I know he's crazy, and I hope you know I'm
• 1:11:06
  not anything like him.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: Christine reached out and touched my arm.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Hey, I know that you're not him, and I know
• 1:11:12
  you're not like him, and honestly, I'm ast sorry for
• 1:11:15
  him at times. I haven't seen it, but from what
• 1:11:18
  I can tell when he's told me about it, this
• 1:11:21
  place is really fucked up, dangerous, fucked up. He said,
• 1:11:25
  people are going crazy here, and I think that's part
• 1:11:27
  of his problem too.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: She pulled her arm back her voice trembling slightly.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Do you know how to get us back?
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: I shook my head as I turned away again, shamed
• 1:11:36
  to look at her any longer.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to figure it out ever since you
• 1:11:39
  were taken, but I don't know yet. I communicated with
• 1:11:42
  him through that stationary my aunt gave me. He did
• 1:11:44
  the same thing with something an uncle on his side
• 1:11:47
  gave him that paper. The two combined together is how
• 1:11:51
  he makes the doorways. But no matter what I do,
• 1:11:54
  nothing seems to work out.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: The corner of my eye saw Christine's face fall with despair.
• 1:11:59
  I pointed to the bed and went on, there's blood
• 1:12:01
  in there.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: A lot of it. And there was blood in my
• 1:12:04
  bedroom when you were taken too. I was afraid it
• 1:12:07
  was yours. But it wasn't, was it.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: She hesitated and then shook her head.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's what I was thinking. The blood has to
• 1:12:16
  be a part of it. Then did you see how
• 1:12:18
  he did it?
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: Again? The strange pause, and then she gave a quick nod.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm draw the shape of a door in blood.
• 1:12:25
  It's at the paper outline, like you talked about. Is
• 1:12:29
  the paper still there?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: She looks past me into the bedroom did he take
• 1:12:33
  it when he left? Finally I had some good news.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: He did, but I have more. When I realized I
• 1:12:38
  might not figure out how to get across on my own,
• 1:12:40
  I started hoping he would come back for me. I
• 1:12:43
  took to sleep with my shoes on every night, and
• 1:12:45
  I kept the strips of paper I had saved tucked
• 1:12:47
  into the bottoms of them. But if we can figure
• 1:12:49
  out how to create the doorway, I have the paper
• 1:12:51
  to do it.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: Well. That was smart of him.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: That's very smart.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: Like that was incredibly well thought out. I wouldn't think.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: He's like, the dude's gonna come. The dude's probably gonna
• 1:12:58
  come at some random time and get me. He's got
• 1:13:01
  the upper game. I'm gonna get switched. Because he threatened
• 1:13:04
  that I need to prepare for it.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Her expression brightened for the first time, and she
• 1:13:08
  grabbed my hand, pulling me into the bedroom. Try it,
• 1:13:11
  Maybe it'll work. I took the strips of paper from
• 1:13:13
  my shoes and for the next few minutes we pasted
• 1:13:15
  them carefully in an alternating pattern of cream and blue.
• 1:13:18
  As far as I could tell, it was close to
• 1:13:20
  exactly how he had them arranged. When he took Christine,
• 1:13:23
  then dipping a pencil eraser and the thickening blood on
• 1:13:26
  the floor tracy outline as she directed. I did nothing.
• 1:13:29
  After a couple of minutes of waiting, I'll try it again,
• 1:13:32
  no change. Suddenly Christine pushed past me, her fingers dripping
• 1:13:35
  with blood. She frantically traced and retrace the outline over
• 1:13:38
  and over, but no avail. Screaming, she punched the wall
• 1:13:42
  and fell back and heap on the floor. I realized
• 1:13:44
  that her hand wasn't covered in the blood from the floor,
• 1:13:47
  but was bleeding itself.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: What happened? How did your hand get hurt?
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: Started to reach out to her, but her dark looks
• 1:13:52
  stopped me.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: I bit it just now. I thought maybe it needed
• 1:13:56
  fresher blood or something other than that fucking eraser wiping
• 1:13:59
  in it on the wall. I don't know now, Scott
• 1:14:02
  is the only one that did this bullshit, not Christine.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: She sighed deeply and seems to regain control.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I know this isn't your fault, but we
• 1:14:11
  need to figure we need to get out of here.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: Bloody hand touched her collar.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: Fuck this thing's still on, he said. The key is
• 1:14:19
  in the closet. I can't reach it.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: I swallowed and nodded, jumping up to check the closet side.
• 1:14:24
  I found a small assortment of clothes and a couple
• 1:14:26
  of pairs of shoes, but the rest of the closet
• 1:14:28
  was devoted to books. They were stacked on a shelf
• 1:14:31
  at the top and in neat piles along the closet's walls.
• 1:14:34
  Most of them look to be fantasy or science fiction,
• 1:14:37
  many by authors I had never heard of, a few
• 1:14:39
  by authors who had never written those particular books. In
• 1:14:41
  my world. On top of the closest bookstack was a key.
• 1:14:45
  After Christine was free, we searched the apartment over for
• 1:14:48
  any clues on how to reopen the door. Thirty minutes later,
• 1:14:52
  we were back in the living room, Christine staring at
• 1:14:54
  the floor forlornly while I tried to figure out something
• 1:14:58
  comforting to say, look it.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: A work out.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: We'll figure it out, but it may take some time.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: Her expression didn't change, and I went on.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I need to go out and get some get us
• 1:15:08
  some supplies, figuring it out. If this place is even
• 1:15:11
  anything like he said it was, maybe it's not half
• 1:15:13
  bad and he's just a crazy liar.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: I knew the unspoken subtext of what I was saying
• 1:15:18
  was that hopefully it would be nice because we might
• 1:15:21
  be stuck here. But I couldn't quite bear to say
• 1:15:23
  it said. The idea of being marooned in this place
• 1:15:26
  just hung between us like some kind of noxious cloud,
• 1:15:29
  soldly killing the little hope we had left. So I
• 1:15:31
  was thinking this, I realized Christine was on her feet.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: You're right, let's go and see what this place is.
• 1:15:37
  Even like, I.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: Thought about protesting, asking that she stayed at the apartment
• 1:15:41
  in case the outside world was dangerous, but I could
• 1:15:43
  tell she was determined to go, and it would be
• 1:15:45
  good if there were two of us between us. We
• 1:15:48
  managed to find a pair of long kitchen knives and
• 1:15:50
  a flashlight, along with a light jacket with pockets I
• 1:15:52
  could store the items in while we traveled, and we
• 1:15:55
  were off. Stepping out of the apartment, the iver pair
• 1:15:58
  of the hallway matched the hole in the ceiling of
• 1:15:59
  the apartartment. The only thing in sight that looked clean
• 1:16:02
  or well maintained was the elevator, the brass of which
• 1:16:05
  carried a mirror like Sheen stopped and looked at the
• 1:16:07
  reflection there, but saw nothing. Her question, look I explained
• 1:16:11
  my encounter in the hallway to Christine. She said, not Scott,
• 1:16:15
  she called him. Had told her some about mirrors, but
• 1:16:18
  not a lot. She asked how I'd been able to
• 1:16:20
  see him back in the reflection on the elevator, and
• 1:16:23
  I realized I didn't know. But by then we were
• 1:16:26
  pushing out of the downstairs outside door, and we stepped out.
• 1:16:29
  The first thing that struck me was how quiet the
• 1:16:31
  city was still. It was still early, but in our
• 1:16:35
  world there would already be people out of cars and
• 1:16:38
  bustling along the narrow lanes of the street that ran
• 1:16:40
  in front of the apartment building. There'd be sounds of
• 1:16:43
  nature mixed in as well, even if it was just
• 1:16:45
  the occasional bird song or dog bark. Here there were
• 1:16:48
  a handful of cars driving down the street, and the
• 1:16:50
  people driving them seemed to either be staring straight ahead
• 1:16:53
  so their gazes were welded to the road in front
• 1:16:56
  of them, or constantly looking in every direction, seemingly terrified
• 1:16:59
  of some prize attack. Sorry to say, which was the
• 1:17:02
  better idea. We turned to the left and made our
• 1:17:04
  way down to what would be a corner grocery store
• 1:17:06
  in our world. Along the way we passed only a
• 1:17:09
  couple of people. They were both walking determinedly on the
• 1:17:12
  far sidewalk. They shot us where he glances, but that
• 1:17:15
  was all. My attempt at waving hello to the second
• 1:17:17
  person was ignored. At the end of the block, we
• 1:17:20
  found that Patterson's grocery store was now Patterson's Package Shop,
• 1:17:24
  but when we entered we found that, aside from a
• 1:17:26
  large volume of alcohol, the place still sold various food
• 1:17:29
  and drinks. Sticking close to each other, we selected a
• 1:17:32
  small variety of items and headed towards the front. Money
• 1:17:35
  dan seemed to be an issue for the moment, as
• 1:17:38
  not Scott had left a small stack of bills and
• 1:17:40
  a debit card with a pin taped to it sitting
• 1:17:42
  on the kitchen counter. The bills were read and reminded
• 1:17:46
  me of monopoly money, but when I handed the cashier
• 1:17:48
  one hundred dollars bill, he took it without complaining gave
• 1:17:50
  me a handful of strange change in return, including another
• 1:17:53
  RFK nicol. On the way out, we were almost run
• 1:17:57
  over by a large teenage boy barreling into the store,
• 1:18:00
  pasted us as he cleared the threshold. He started yelling
• 1:18:03
  about how he needed.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Fresh Sticky's right, Mom, get them up for her, you
• 1:18:08
  coosoning fuck her.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: I propelled Christine out onto the sidewalk, but not before
• 1:18:13
  I heard the cashier screen back that the boy's mother
• 1:18:15
  had been dead for three years. We exchanged a look
• 1:18:18
  and I debated, suggesting we head back to the apartment,
• 1:18:21
  but Christine was already opening a bottle of water and
• 1:18:23
  cutting across the street. They're starting to be more traffic now,
• 1:18:26
  but the flow of people was still anemic. I made
• 1:18:29
  the comment that this was what the world would be
• 1:18:31
  like after some plague in a movie where half the
• 1:18:33
  people had been wiped out. Christina has shot me a glance,
• 1:18:36
  her face hard.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know, that's what's far from the truth.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: She pointed head to Bristow Park, which was actually called
• 1:18:43
  the same thing here as well.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: Let's go in there and see if there are any
• 1:18:46
  people out.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Our version of Bristow Park was always bustling with people
• 1:18:50
  in the morning. On the weekends it would be families
• 1:18:52
  and casual games of football or frisbee, but even the
• 1:18:55
  weekday saw a steady stream of joggers, dog walkers, and
• 1:18:58
  miscellaneous others. At first, we thought this version of the
• 1:19:01
  park was largely empty, but then Christine heard singing. The
• 1:19:05
  outer pass of the park followed cultivated hedges and trees,
• 1:19:08
  curving and winding along the park perimeter, with inlets into
• 1:19:11
  the more central areas every hundred yards or so. Even
• 1:19:14
  when you start down one of those inner paths, it
• 1:19:16
  takes more than a few steps before the large open
• 1:19:19
  spaces that at the center of the park are revealed.
• 1:19:21
  As we were walking along the outer path, Christine suddenly
• 1:19:23
  cut onto one of the inner paths, murmuring that she
• 1:19:26
  heard music. I followed, but at first I heard nothing.
• 1:19:30
  It was only when we were stepping onto the dying
• 1:19:32
  grass of the central field that I heard the faint
• 1:19:35
  singing or chanting that was coming from the throng of
• 1:19:37
  people clustered around the enormous bonfire in the distance. So
• 1:19:40
  I'm no expert in this world, right, but I would say,
• 1:19:43
  don't walk towards them.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: No, no, sir, I would say. I would say, no, thanks.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: People are here, aren't saying they kill others sporadically, And
• 1:19:53
  there's a bunch of vitagious sells. Yeah, yeah, then you
• 1:19:55
  hear chanting out of bonfire in the park.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's cool, Come on, what's gonna be a great tay?
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: It's a campfire. Christine was walking towards the group quickly,
• 1:20:05
  and after a few more paces, I grabbed her arm
• 1:20:06
  and stopped her. She turned to me, her eyes fierce
• 1:20:09
  and her voice low and trembling when she spoke, what
• 1:20:12
  are they doing?
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Do you see that?
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: I had been more focused on Christine as we had
• 1:20:17
  drawn near. As I looked again, I saw exactly what
• 1:20:19
  they were doing. The bonfire was not really a bonfire.
• 1:20:23
  It was a twenty foot metal frame in the shape
• 1:20:26
  of an X. The lower halfs water and much thicker
• 1:20:29
  than the top. Inside the frame, wood had been carefully
• 1:20:32
  inserted throughout instead of blaze. That was all very strange,
• 1:20:35
  but I only noted it in a perfunctory way as
• 1:20:38
  I watched the man catching fire. The man had been stripped,
• 1:20:41
  naked and changed at each wrist, the lengthy metal bindings
• 1:20:45
  trailing off into the crowd on each side of the
• 1:20:47
  burning X. The man was in the middle between the
• 1:20:50
  burning effigy's legs, the top of the white hot metal
• 1:20:54
  only inches from his head. The air around him shimmered
• 1:20:57
  with the heat, his skin blackening and peeling off. His
• 1:20:59
  He was jerked back and forth from one side of
• 1:21:01
  the X to the other at the whims of the
• 1:21:03
  crowd pulling the chains. We're still fifty yards away, but
• 1:21:07
  when a breeze shifted direction, I could smell the pungently
• 1:21:09
  sweet smell of his flesh cooking even as I heard
• 1:21:12
  him scream. I was about to start pulling Christine away
• 1:21:15
  when I stopped, my skin growing cold. The man wasn't screaming.
• 1:21:19
  He was laughing. Man, what God damn, what a crazy visual.
• 1:21:28
  It's a guy being hurt on a giant X, but
• 1:21:30
  the crowd gets to pull him from one side to
• 1:21:32
  the other.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: The Uh, Christine's been here for two weeks. How do
• 1:21:37
  we know she's not getting start getting all fucking That's
• 1:21:40
  what I.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: Had, that thought. I had that thought. My other thought
• 1:21:43
  was that maybe at some point, maybe maybe this isn't
• 1:21:47
  his Christine, this could be other Christina. She coundnot be dead.
• 1:21:50
  But I don't trust Christine fully. Yeah, I don't know that.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm because he still has not even seen
• 1:21:55
  his own Christine in the real world. Like I don't
• 1:21:57
  know's there's a lot going on.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: There's a bunch of there's a bunch of like unknowns
• 1:22:02
  going on. Yeah, this world's insane, though, like just a
• 1:22:05
  few people walking around, there's like a public burning in
• 1:22:08
  the shit. I tugged weekly at Christine and she glanced
• 1:22:12
  at me. Her eyes went and wide gan to back
• 1:22:14
  away slowly, and I was terrified at any moment we
• 1:22:16
  would be noticed. But the crowd was transfixed, and even
• 1:22:19
  when the man stopped laughing and slumped forward, he kept
• 1:22:22
  him aloft and dancing like some kind of cob tug
• 1:22:24
  of war. We ashed our way back to the perimeter
• 1:22:27
  of the field, and my last look before we headed
• 1:22:29
  back to the path and out of the park, I
• 1:22:31
  saw the cooked meat of the man began to pull
• 1:22:33
  apart as the mob ripped him into I swear I
• 1:22:36
  could hear the wet gasping off his skin as it ruptured,
• 1:22:40
  a greasy crackle, his weaker bones as they flexed and snapped,
• 1:22:44
  But it seemed impossible at such a distance. Really imagined
• 1:22:48
  I'd just stop and vomited on the path. Seemed Patty
• 1:22:51
  in my back and telling me to please hurry. Ooh,
• 1:22:54
  that's a crazy I like that. That's such a brutal description.
• 1:22:57
  That's awesome. Gasping up his skin as it ruptured, the
• 1:23:02
  greasy crack of weaker bones. Uh, like the way you'd
• 1:23:07
  imagine like a burnt turkey, like when you pull it.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, you know, like the human Yeah, like
• 1:23:12
  I'm popping open it, like the water kind of juicing
• 1:23:14
  out of that stuff.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. We exited the park wasted no time returning
• 1:23:21
  to the apartment. I could feel Christine's tearror knew my
• 1:23:23
  own matched it, but I felt no closer to an
• 1:23:25
  answer than I had before. We didn't talk about what
• 1:23:28
  we had seen, but Christine did take my hand and
• 1:23:31
  said silently with me. For a while, I could tell
• 1:23:33
  we were both starting to slip into shock or some
• 1:23:35
  despondent form of madness. We had to do something. Getting up,
• 1:23:39
  I started searching the apartment again for anything we might
• 1:23:42
  have missed. That's when I found a cream colored envelope
• 1:23:45
  on the bedroom desk. I opened it and read it
• 1:23:48
  and read it again, my heart pounding. I gave it
• 1:23:51
  to Christine. She studied it for a long time before
• 1:23:54
  looking up at me. She was about to speak, but
• 1:23:56
  I couldn't hold it any longer and blurt it out.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: Did he rape you?
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: Gosh, Scott, My goddamn.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe that was not the time to talk about these things.
• 1:24:10
  So I imagine the cream colored envelope is the one that
• 1:24:13
  we read in part two, right yeah? I think so, yeah,
• 1:24:18
  because it hyperlinks to part two. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
• 1:24:23
  So they read that entire one and then he says,
• 1:24:25
  I opened it, read it my heart pounding, give it
• 1:24:27
  to Christine, and he's like, did you do it? Scott's
• 1:24:32
  face was worried, hurt, and scared. So I imagine this
• 1:24:34
  is now Christine. Yep. Scott's face was worried, hurt, and
• 1:24:38
  scared at all the same time as he asked, and
• 1:24:40
  I could feel myself loving him and hating him for
• 1:24:43
  asking the question. I knew he I do like this
• 1:24:46
  position switching it does play pretty well. I knew he
• 1:24:49
  was concerned for my well being, that he loved me,
• 1:24:51
  and I knew that he felt guilty because of who
• 1:24:53
  had taken me. But there was still something so selfish
• 1:24:56
  in him asking, so childish in him needing to be comforted.
• 1:25:00
  If I had been raised this is a crazy conversation,
• 1:25:03
  or even better, him hoping I could reassure him that
• 1:25:06
  whatever brutalities I had endured, it no, not Scott's hands
• 1:25:09
  weren't as bad as all that, so he could start
• 1:25:12
  pretending this wasn't his fault, because it was his fault.
• 1:25:16
  I saw that now, not necessarily because it was an
• 1:25:19
  alternative version of him, but because he had talked to
• 1:25:22
  not Scott, responded to him, told him about me. I've
• 1:25:26
  tried not to be angry with him, but I was
• 1:25:28
  so hurt and scared and we had to get out
• 1:25:30
  of this place. Okay, I think she started to slip too.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: I think I think.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: I think also you can. I don't know if it's corrupting.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: I think you can be. I think that's I don't
• 1:25:39
  think that that's totally you think she's like a fitting.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Level of mad. I will say it is a fitting
• 1:25:44
  level of mad. After he asked that question, Well.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: It's like imagine I mean, because it is, it's a
• 1:25:50
  parallel version of you, right, but imagine like a stranger,
• 1:25:53
  you're gassing up your wife to some guy that you've
• 1:25:55
  never heard before, and then she gets kid It's like
• 1:25:57
  she gets kidnapped or whatever. To me, I'm like, I
• 1:25:59
  think that there's there's also something too about Yeah, I
• 1:26:02
  think that it's a selfish play. I don't think that
• 1:26:05
  he's like a horrible person or anything, but I do.
• 1:26:07
  I can understand the frustration. I guess from where she's
• 1:26:10
  coming from. Yeah.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had already been torn with the idea of
• 1:26:14
  lying to Scott. After reading not Scott's letter, I had
• 1:26:16
  no idea why not Scott had lied about raping me?
• 1:26:19
  Did he say that in the letter? Uh? Was there
• 1:26:23
  a line about that?
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I don't remember him saying anything like that. I sure
• 1:26:27
  the crying line, remember the crying that suggested it?
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: Oh? Was there a line about that? Yeah, Christine, I
• 1:26:34
  just wanted to say I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, I
• 1:26:40
  assume there is. If she's saying if they're talking about
• 1:26:42
  that now, Yeah, I'd already been torn the idea of
• 1:26:45
  line of Scott. After reading not Scott's letter, I had
• 1:26:46
  no idea why not Scott had lied about it. Whether
• 1:26:49
  it was due to his insanity, natural cruelty, or just
• 1:26:52
  to make Scott hate him more didn't matter. If he
• 1:26:55
  could drive Scott's guilt and his anger long enough to
• 1:26:57
  force him to do what had to be done, it
• 1:26:59
  was a blessing, Oh my gosh. And if Scott's sad
• 1:27:04
  face of worried toe made it easier to tell the lies,
• 1:27:06
  so be it. I could ask for forgiveness when we
• 1:27:08
  weren't in hell anymore.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: So he didn't do it. He lied about it.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: No, he did it. He didn't. Yeah, he lied about it.
• 1:27:15
  But she's about a lie too.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so maybe she is fucking crazy, yeah, because
• 1:27:20
  that's because that's that's insane, right.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: That's because she's saying, like he motivates him to get
• 1:27:25
  us out of here, like Jesus saying. Yeah, so so.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: We were right, we were right about that. Okay, so
• 1:27:31
  she says, she says, yes he did. He started the
• 1:27:35
  second day, and it got worse as the days went on,
• 1:27:37
  more extreme. Wow, whoa.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: I was gonna try and fake tears, but I found
• 1:27:46
  there was no need after everything, after what we had
• 1:27:49
  just witnessed, tears were going to come easily for some time.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's okay, that this is fucked.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: That's so that's insane. That is insane to be like,
• 1:27:58
  I know what will motivate him?
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, he also shouldn't have asked it, But that
• 1:28:02
  doesn't justify whatever I saw. Scott's face dark and as
• 1:28:06
  his fist bald at his sides. That's the response I
• 1:28:09
  was hoping for. I waited my own for him to
• 1:28:11
  stu and then I went on.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: Then I lied before. I do know a bit more
• 1:28:16
  about how to make the door work. Not Scott killed
• 1:28:20
  a little girl used her blood to open the door.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: Some of that was guesswork on my part, but I
• 1:28:25
  had seen enough to make an educated guess. Scott's eyes
• 1:28:29
  wide and some but he still looked hard and determined.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: Then that's what we'll do. I'll find someone and take
• 1:28:34
  blood from them.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: I winced, and he stopped.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: What is it? What's wrong?
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: I licked my lips. Ask for forgiveness when you aren't
• 1:28:44
  in hell?
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: Or Scott, I mean not Scott told me that it
• 1:28:48
  had to be from a child, and the blood over
• 1:28:51
  warned is they were dying. I didn't want to tell
• 1:28:53
  you because it's so horrible. But I don't think there's any
• 1:28:56
  way other way to get it. I don't think there's
• 1:28:58
  any way to get his home. Okay, Yes, she's slipping.
• 1:29:01
  Oh listen, I think my girl, Christine's kind of I
• 1:29:05
  think she's slipping mentally a bit.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: Oh well, I don't know, because she's saying ask for
• 1:29:09
  forgives when the yard and l because he's like, she's thinking, like,
• 1:29:12
  we have to mimic exactly what not Scott did.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand the rationalization, but it's an interesting way
• 1:29:17
  to start showing the the uh, the deconstruction mind.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, with the mic evolving basically.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: Who this too? Was a lie, of course, as not
• 1:29:29
  Scott had never told me any such thing, but it
• 1:29:31
  made sense. Leftover blood of the girl hadn't worked, and
• 1:29:34
  neither had my own fresh blood, so we needed to
• 1:29:37
  replicate what not Scott had done as closely as possible,
• 1:29:39
  as soon as possible. I didn't. We didn't have time
• 1:29:43
  for Scott to moralize, trying to think up humane alternatives
• 1:29:46
  with the edge his emotions were given him now grow
• 1:29:49
  dull with time and equivocation.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: No, we we have to get out of here. I
• 1:29:57
  have to make this right and get you out of here.
• 1:29:59
  If I have to do something horrible to do that,
• 1:30:01
  that'll be on me.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: Eyes with glamorine. But it's voice did a falter.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: We'll go find someone right now so we can get
• 1:30:08
  done with it.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: I reached out and squeezed his hand.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: Oh help man, man. End of part four into part five.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: So see.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we're starting to get the idea of, at
• 1:30:20
  least from how I write it, I think me and
• 1:30:22
  you are on the same page as Christine is kind of.
• 1:30:25
  I think that the world is starting to affect her
• 1:30:27
  in whatever way, but even in some kind of way,
• 1:30:30
  there's desperation happening with Scott where I'm I'm it's it's
• 1:30:38
  bordering on it's bordering to me on desperation, but it
• 1:30:41
  also is hints of like is he slowly kind of
• 1:30:45
  getting there too?
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't tell if it's like the world's doing
• 1:30:48
  that to them, or they're desperations doing it and the
• 1:30:51
  world does it to them or what like. Yeah, I'm
• 1:30:54
  not sure the specifics, but they're not doing too hot.
• 1:30:57
  I would argue, man, that's rough, like and he said
• 1:31:02
  it had to be a little girl who All right, Well,
• 1:31:06
  I'm ready for part five, the final part. Let's get
• 1:31:08
  it final part. I woke to something licking my face,
• 1:31:12
  reached out of my sleep fog and feeling short, soft
• 1:31:15
  fur I realized that Tricksy somehow made it onto the bed.
• 1:31:18
  So this is now bad Scott, I'm guessing, Yeah, not Scott, Yeah, yeah,
• 1:31:23
  opening my eyes I saw I was happy smashed face
• 1:31:25
  as he gave me another lick, clearly proud at having
• 1:31:28
  gotten up on the bed somehow. The girl at the
• 1:31:30
  pet store had said he was called a pug, and
• 1:31:32
  from the moment I saw him, I knew he was
• 1:31:34
  the weirdest and cutest thing I'd ever seen. I'd always
• 1:31:37
  been fascinated by dogs growing up, only in part because
• 1:31:40
  of dad stories about Rex, but I had never seen
• 1:31:42
  a dog like this in any of the old pictures.
• 1:31:45
  No hour or later, I had him home, getting his
• 1:31:48
  bed and food ready, while he explored the apartment with
• 1:31:50
  a manic, bouncy determination, ruffling his fur. I pondered trying
• 1:31:54
  to go back to sleep, but I knew it was
• 1:31:56
  a lost cause. In the five days since I wrote
• 1:31:59
  my last letter the other Scott, I've been having more
• 1:32:02
  and more trouble sleeping, a lot of guilt for what
• 1:32:04
  I had done to him and Christine. Longer I was
• 1:32:07
  out of that place, the more I felt it.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, because I feel like the
• 1:32:10
  more he's in this world, the more less insane and
• 1:32:12
  less violent he's going.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: To have, the more human he gets. Yeah, living in
• 1:32:17
  that other world, my old world, I had come to
• 1:32:19
  feel like I was trapped inside myself. When I first
• 1:32:22
  started noticing the change in myself a couple of years back,
• 1:32:25
  I was worried, but also strangely intrigued. It was like
• 1:32:29
  I was standing at the edge of some newly formed cave,
• 1:32:31
  and each day I went into it a little deeper
• 1:32:33
  and a little more frequently. Over time, the light from
• 1:32:36
  outside didn't penetrate the darkness nearly as well, and I
• 1:32:39
  would get lost in the black. I would blindly traverse
• 1:32:43
  jagged rocks, His unseen things crept around me, and when
• 1:32:46
  I finally found my way back out, I would swear
• 1:32:49
  it was the time that I would go near the thing,
• 1:32:51
  But then I would go back in. That's the funny
• 1:32:53
  thing about madness. Makes you feel like you have a choice,
• 1:32:56
  like the options you pick are reasonable or justified, and
• 1:32:59
  when you look back in horror at what you've done,
• 1:33:02
  feel completely responsible for everything. And I am. I'm not
• 1:33:06
  trying to make excuses upon off all that I've done,
• 1:33:08
  on whatever, corruption slowly eating that other world. I earn
• 1:33:12
  the skilt this taint honestly and through my own works,
• 1:33:16
  and I'll carry it with me always. But that's part
• 1:33:18
  of why I love Tricksy so much. Aside from him
• 1:33:21
  being sweet and cute and generally awesome, he also doesn't
• 1:33:24
  know what a despicable piece of shit I really am.
• 1:33:27
  For the thousandth time in the last few days, I
• 1:33:29
  look at the wall next to the desk. I both
• 1:33:31
  fear and hope to see a doorway open there. Most
• 1:33:34
  of the time, I'm terrified of going back, and if
• 1:33:36
  they ever made it through, I'm sure that others Scott
• 1:33:38
  and Christiane would either try to kill me or send
• 1:33:40
  me back through. At first, my response to that was
• 1:33:43
  that I would just kill them if they came back.
• 1:33:46
  Now I'm not so sure, and maybe we can all
• 1:33:50
  survive in this world. I can take Tricksy and move
• 1:33:52
  away somewhere, and in time they can forget that I
• 1:33:55
  even exist. I know I'm still crazy, but at least
• 1:33:58
  now I can recognize it. I do feel like I'm
• 1:34:01
  out of the cave and in the sunlight more every day,
• 1:34:03
  and I love this world so much. I figured out
• 1:34:06
  how to work Scott's cell phone after an hour or
• 1:34:09
  so on the second day I was here. Most people
• 1:34:11
  don't have cell phones where I come from because they're
• 1:34:13
  so unreliable. One of the side effects when things started
• 1:34:17
  changing for the worst A few years back was that
• 1:34:19
  most wireless transmissions stopped working with any regularity. It's like
• 1:34:23
  sun spots or solar flare, but all the time. But
• 1:34:26
  I did have a cell phone years ago, just not
• 1:34:28
  one of these fancy touchscreen things. I poked around in
• 1:34:31
  it until I figured out where the other Scott worked,
• 1:34:35
  and then I called in sick. I needed time to
• 1:34:37
  get acclimated, but I also needed money, so the following
• 1:34:40
  day I gave a sad Tricksy a hug and headed in.
• 1:34:44
  The job was at a company that made greeting cards.
• 1:34:46
  Oddly enough, greeting cards weren't much of a thing anymore
• 1:34:49
  where I was from, but apparently other Scott wrote them
• 1:34:51
  for a living. The first couple of days were rough.
• 1:34:54
  I could tell by the odd looks I got from
• 1:34:56
  some of my co workers that I wasn't producing the
• 1:34:58
  same kind of material they were expected from Scott. So
• 1:35:01
  I went through all of his old work to get
• 1:35:02
  a feel for it. Most of it was sacarine and idiotic,
• 1:35:07
  but there were some good ideas in there too. Some
• 1:35:10
  of them I felt like I could see other Scott
• 1:35:12
  in and it made me know him more, see him
• 1:35:15
  more as a person rather than just an obstacle. Or
• 1:35:18
  maybe that was just my crazy starting to wear off
• 1:35:20
  and my guilt starting to kick in. Either way, it
• 1:35:23
  didn't stop me from loving going to work. Living in
• 1:35:26
  that old world. Even when I was deep in the cave,
• 1:35:30
  it felt like everyone you met was a high voltage
• 1:35:33
  power line, just humming with dark impulses and brimming with
• 1:35:35
  potential for violence. Not everyone was, of course, and I
• 1:35:39
  certainly fell into that camp myself, but none of that
• 1:35:41
  made the constant tension of daily life any easier to bear. Here.
• 1:35:47
  People aren't always happier and ice, but they are normal
• 1:35:50
  the way I remember being when I was younger. Yesterday,
• 1:35:53
  I just sat at my desk trying to think up
• 1:35:55
  a wage to say Happy Birthday was an overly off
• 1:35:58
  put in or strange. I marveled that the sounds around
• 1:36:00
  me people gossip being eating donuts, talking about what they
• 1:36:05
  are doing for their vacation in two weeks, or about
• 1:36:07
  their daughter's wedding last month. Even the work related stuff
• 1:36:11
  was done in such a mundane and simple manner that
• 1:36:13
  it felt surreal as much as I enjoyed. Though by
• 1:36:16
  the end of that day, I have to get home
• 1:36:18
  and be alone, being around people too long, even normal
• 1:36:21
  people that probably won't suddenly start screaming or trying to
• 1:36:24
  kill you. It's hard for me. I'm not used to
• 1:36:27
  that anymore, and I may never be again. I don't know.
• 1:36:31
  I'd already have more in this world than I ever
• 1:36:33
  thought i'd have again. New movies. I've been spending a
• 1:36:37
  lot of time when I'm at home watching movies. They
• 1:36:40
  made movies out of Tolkien's The Red Book of Westmarch
• 1:36:42
  trilogy over here, called The Lord of the Rings, which
• 1:36:45
  is a dumb name, but the movies are great.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: It's a great name. He watch it, don't you talk about?
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: My favorite has to be Gollum. I read they did
• 1:37:01
  him with computer graphics, which is amazing and more advanced
• 1:37:03
  than anything I've seen in my world. I even named
• 1:37:06
  Trixie after him, albeit indirectly. He looks a little bit
• 1:37:09
  like a bug eyed golem. Anyway, He's asleep on my
• 1:37:12
  lap as I write this out. As stupid as this sounds,
• 1:37:15
  I think he's part of the reason I'm having so
• 1:37:17
  much trouble with what I did. I loved the little Guy,
• 1:37:19
  and it's the first time I've loved something since my Christine,
• 1:37:23
  just thinking about her, what we did to each other
• 1:37:25
  as it got bad. I will always hate myself for that.
• 1:37:28
  The question is how much sin do I want to
• 1:37:31
  add on top? How much more do I want to
• 1:37:33
  hate myself? I decided to write this all out as
• 1:37:36
  a way of working through all of these thoughts and feelings,
• 1:37:40
  although as though I was writing it to other Scott
• 1:37:42
  but with no intention of actually sending it. But I'm
• 1:37:45
  coming to realize I should send it to him, not
• 1:37:48
  just this either, but instructions on how to get back
• 1:37:51
  or message on sending up a time when I can
• 1:37:53
  open the door on this side. If he's not up
• 1:37:55
  to doing it on his ID, fair wait to send
• 1:37:58
  the extra paper until I know that he wants to do.
• 1:38:01
  And I hope I'm not too late for either of them.
• 1:38:03
  And yet I still hear a voice calling from that
• 1:38:06
  deep dark cave. That voice says I have to look
• 1:38:09
  out for myself, that they will kill me or force
• 1:38:12
  me back if I help them. I know that I
• 1:38:14
  can't trust that voice, but I also can't shake the
• 1:38:17
  feeling that it is part of what has kept me alive.
• 1:38:19
  Is my own world turned into some kind of hell.
• 1:38:22
  I need to think about this. I don't want to
• 1:38:25
  lose this life, but I'm not sure it won't be
• 1:38:27
  poisoned if I leave them condemned to that terrible place.
• 1:38:31
  Trixy just woke up and once to go outside. I
• 1:38:33
  think I'm going to take it for a long walk
• 1:38:35
  and see about sending a letter. Now we switch back
• 1:38:39
  to our Scott. Abducting a child isn't as easy as
• 1:38:42
  you might think.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: The fucking parallel there is so crazy.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna take my little pugs tricksie on
• 1:38:53
  a wall. Yeah, I'll talk to you guys like.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: My little pug Gole. I'm on for a walk.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll send this letter. Getting a kid isn't as
• 1:39:01
  easy thinking form.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: This is a really fun story any things, for sure.
• 1:39:09
  This is this is fun. This is good, especially in
• 1:39:12
  this place. There are fewer people, for one thing, and
• 1:39:15
  everyone is much more guarded, especially with their children. The
• 1:39:18
  first few days me and Christine went out, we only
• 1:39:20
  saw a couple of children at all. We had a
• 1:39:22
  plan of only going out for two hours at a
• 1:39:25
  time in different directions. We wanted to make sure that
• 1:39:28
  if we saw something like what happened in the park,
• 1:39:30
  we get back to the apartment relatively quickly, and this
• 1:39:33
  way we were exploring different potential places every time we went.
• 1:39:36
  We saw a number of things in those days. Much
• 1:39:39
  of it was relatively mild. People talking to themselves, are
• 1:39:43
  arguing loudly, acting erratic or strangely twitching and emotional. We
• 1:39:47
  saw a couple of fights. One guy ran out into
• 1:39:50
  the street and started stabbing a woman who was just
• 1:39:53
  quietly making her way along the crosswalk. Most troubling thing
• 1:39:56
  was very brief, and I don't think Christine saw it.
• 1:40:00
  Speaking of fights, that was you. I was with in
• 1:40:03
  New Orleans and we watched a fist fight on the
• 1:40:05
  in Bourbon Street, right yeah, we uh no, We were
• 1:40:09
  walking out of that restaurant. It was after the show.
• 1:40:12
  Was after the show, and there were the two guys
• 1:40:14
  rolling around in the street on Bourbon Street.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 3: He's like yelling good times.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They were like duzzling back before, remember they remember.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: I could also shout out those guys because they're just
• 1:40:29
  like they came watch to me and they're like, dude,
• 1:40:30
  I love your videos and then like I'm I'm joking.
• 1:40:32
  We we went into the restaurant and then I looked
• 1:40:35
  out the window and yeah, that the same guy was
• 1:40:37
  the guy like rolling on the ground with another dude.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: Didn't we go out after the fight, and like after
• 1:40:45
  he was talking to the cop and he looks over
• 1:40:47
  and he's like, can I get a picture with you?
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't remember that. All I know is
• 1:40:51
  all I know is I was just like, well, God, damn, dude,
• 1:40:53
  I'm like these young bucks ninety I not anymore.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: Almost so.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Also, that's just I'm like Bourbon and the street is
• 1:41:00
  just such a the French quarters.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 3: That's just a place. I'm like, that's it has to be.
• 1:41:06
  It has to be its own.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: Layer of hell. I mean, it's just nothing but everything.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: You've ever talked about me and me getting you stuck
• 1:41:12
  there till midnight.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: On another time. If it was, if it was a
• 1:41:17
  David King kind of story, I would keep it. I'd
• 1:41:20
  love to direct. But I'm so hyped.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: All right, let's let's finish the store on a specure store. Yeah,
• 1:41:25
  we were walking south that day, debating if we should
• 1:41:28
  push out further than normal, and the hopes we could
• 1:41:30
  reach a school that was supposed to be a few
• 1:41:31
  blocks away. There's a big risk to take a child
• 1:41:34
  from school, particularly when we had to go back all
• 1:41:37
  that way on foot with them in tow. But every
• 1:41:39
  day we were getting more desperate, and the more time
• 1:41:41
  we spent here seeing this place, the more the question
• 1:41:44
  of should we do it faded away as a question
• 1:41:46
  of how we do it became more and more oppressing.
• 1:41:49
  As we talked, I happened to glance into an alley
• 1:41:52
  we were passing saw a woman and a child of
• 1:41:54
  about ten hunched over a man who like slumped against
• 1:41:56
  the dumpster. At first I thought they were leaning down
• 1:41:59
  check on him, but then the little boy turned and
• 1:42:01
  looked at me with deep set green eyes twinkled with madness.
• 1:42:05
  His mouth was covered in blood bits of flesh from
• 1:42:08
  where they were eating the man. That's my mouth fell open.
• 1:42:11
  He smiled at me and licked his lips. I tried
• 1:42:13
  not to lose my stride so it as not to
• 1:42:15
  alert Christine, And the last glimpse I saw was the
• 1:42:18
  woman's hand on the boy's shoulder. May have been my
• 1:42:21
  fear or a trick of the shadows, but I swear
• 1:42:23
  I saw her hand going into him slowly. Ooh oh,
• 1:42:30
  I swear I saw her hand going into him slowly,
• 1:42:32
  as though they were running like as though they were
• 1:42:35
  running together like pink candlewax. So it's like they're like
• 1:42:37
  morphing into each other. That's a lot better than what
• 1:42:40
  I thought. I told Christine we should keep going. Decided
• 1:42:44
  in the back of my mind we should be taking
• 1:42:46
  a different route back to the apartment. Kept looking over
• 1:42:49
  my shoulder, but to my relief, I saw no sign
• 1:42:50
  we were being followed.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: Is that the first uncanny thing is that or like
• 1:42:54
  I guess other worldly thing that we've seen is like people.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: That is the second mention because earlier when he was
• 1:43:00
  when not Scott was talking about his dad, he said,
• 1:43:03
  my dad was attacked by a thing, some presence here.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, but this is this is the first time that
• 1:43:08
  we've actually had someone be like, I'm seeing it with
• 1:43:11
  my own eyes.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, there's like some supernatural thing.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's there's been hints of stuff, but this
• 1:43:18
  is the first time we've actually heard someone be like, oh,
• 1:43:19
  this is like bodies morphing together.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a supernatural presence has corrupted this world. Yeah,
• 1:43:25
  it's kind of rotten over it. It's giving.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: It's the parallels with this in the VHS short it's
• 1:43:31
  it's the parallels.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it actually is. Uh.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: I'd be so curious to see.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 3: If that was at all inspired by this.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: What was the story? This was seven years ago, seven
• 1:43:43
  years ago, and I want to say the AHS was
• 1:43:45
  more recent, right, but that was that was a Spanish director, right,
• 1:43:50
  he was Spanish. Yeah, something like that. It was.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: Let me see because the show.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: I remember hearing an interview with or No James A.
• 1:44:01
  Denice talked about it on Dead Meat that he said
• 1:44:05
  he just used a lot of the satanic imagery because
• 1:44:07
  he thought it was cool. So it looked creepy. He
• 1:44:10
  was like, no, it's not actually a satanism. I just
• 1:44:12
  think it it's like an evil aesthetic.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, parallel monsters is what the is? What the short is? Yeah,
• 1:44:18
  I don't know, I don't know. It's just which you know,
• 1:44:21
  very similar. It's there's horror visuals and stuff, but still
• 1:44:24
  it was just one of those things I keep coming
• 1:44:25
  back to it, just like the doorway and all that
• 1:44:27
  kind of stuff in his warness.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, there's supernatural stuff happening.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the day our luck changed. Mile down
• 1:44:34
  the road we found an elementary school and already let
• 1:44:36
  out for the day. But the next day we were
• 1:44:38
  back bright and early. After watching most of the morning,
• 1:44:41
  we had a plan. Most of the children came in
• 1:44:44
  by school bus or were dropped off by parents, but
• 1:44:47
  there were a handful that walked there in the morning,
• 1:44:50
  assuming that was true in the afternoon as well, we
• 1:44:52
  would just wait for a small child who was walking alone,
• 1:44:55
  verbly a girl, since that's what not Scott had used,
• 1:44:58
  and that would be that. It was terrible, and I
• 1:45:01
  still hated the idea of doing it, but it had
• 1:45:03
  to be done. I had to try and make all
• 1:45:05
  of this right, even though I had to do some wrong.
• 1:45:08
  To do it. Do some wrong is a very subtle
• 1:45:12
  way to describe butchering a child.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Well, I think that's also. I think I
• 1:45:17
  liked that. That's part of it. That's a part of it.
• 1:45:20
  I like that exactly. I like that here of him
• 1:45:22
  just being like, you know, sometimes you have to it's
• 1:45:25
  like a fucking he's like acting like a Robin Hood moment,
• 1:45:28
  you know, steal from the rich, that kind of vibe.
• 1:45:30
  That's they got to clock in a justifiable evil that
• 1:45:34
  I have to do.
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, And I told myself that these children had
• 1:45:38
  no real future other than a short life filled with
• 1:45:40
  pain and fear. I couldn't quite convince myself that killing
• 1:45:43
  one of them was a mercy, but it did take
• 1:45:45
  the edge off my guilt. At least, school let out,
• 1:45:48
  and it soon became clear who we were following all
• 1:45:51
  many of the children who were walking and had left
• 1:45:53
  in pairs or groups. There's one little girl who had
• 1:45:55
  headed off on her own immediately, so she couldn't wait
• 1:45:58
  to be away from all the laughing and shove and
• 1:46:00
  joking around the rest of the children were doing. So
• 1:46:02
  they got picked up her struck out on foot. She
• 1:46:06
  was overweight, flong, black hair that was stringy and unkempt.
• 1:46:10
  Clothes were clearly old and dirty in spots. Now she walked,
• 1:46:14
  I could see that the soul was starting to separate
• 1:46:17
  on the back of one of her red sneakers. This
• 1:46:19
  is so sad, dude, Oh man, oh, she looks sad
• 1:46:25
  and unloved, and I had to fight the urge to
• 1:46:28
  tell Christine that this was a mistake. But when I
• 1:46:30
  looked at her, all I saw was the grim, almost
• 1:46:33
  manic determination I had been since we had started this
• 1:46:36
  days before. She was past any mercy or equivocation at
• 1:46:40
  this point, and how could I blame her and all
• 1:46:42
  she had been through? So we followed the chop man.
• 1:46:45
  This is brutal like man of just a poor, a
• 1:46:49
  sad girl. So we followed the child until she started
• 1:46:52
  down a route different than what would lead in the
• 1:46:55
  apartment's direction, which point we approached her and told her
• 1:46:59
  she needed to come with us us. She asked why,
• 1:47:01
  and we gave our preplanginary response of.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: A member if your family has been hurt, We were
• 1:47:06
  told to get you. We don't have all the details yet.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: That's so this is so messed up, because that's like
• 1:47:11
  the classic like child predator thing, right, No, yeah, every
• 1:47:15
  child predator essays like if someone tells you that mommy
• 1:47:18
  or daddy got hurt, used the code word like you know.
• 1:47:21
  Like it was vague and lame, but we hoped it
• 1:47:25
  would be enough to at least get her down the
• 1:47:27
  road a mile or two before she started asking more questions.
• 1:47:30
  She seemed to weigh our words considering, and I could
• 1:47:32
  tell she didn't really believe us for any of a
• 1:47:36
  dozen good reasons. Still, to my surprise, she just shrugged
• 1:47:39
  with a resigned look on her face.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'll go.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: It occurred to me the children were likely going crazy
• 1:47:45
  in this place, just like the adults, and given what
• 1:47:47
  I thought I had seen in the alley, my appreciation
• 1:47:50
  for how potentially dangerous this little girl might be was
• 1:47:53
  exponentially greater. But as we walked, she didn't try to
• 1:47:56
  attack us or even complain. She moved along docilely. After
• 1:48:00
  a couple of miles, I began wondering what her life
• 1:48:02
  must be like. That she was okay with being abducted
• 1:48:06
  pushed the thought away less I thought of her as
• 1:48:08
  a person. It was a sad little girl. Better. The
• 1:48:12
  trip back was taking longer than expected, not because of
• 1:48:15
  any problems with her, but because we had gotten lost.
• 1:48:18
  As twilight came on, the semi familiar landmarks became less familiar,
• 1:48:22
  and somehow in my re routing we took a wrong turn.
• 1:48:25
  We made it to the apartment without incident, but well
• 1:48:28
  after nightfall, and the resolutely stoic little girl had started
• 1:48:32
  to murmur about being hungry and needing the bathroom. When
• 1:48:36
  we got upstairs, I shared a look with Christinas. I
• 1:48:38
  told the girl we'd fix her some dinner after we
• 1:48:40
  showed her something in the other Gosh, dude.
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: God damn, you can't make the girl ham sandwich before
• 1:48:46
  fucking making your.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: Door away, oven man. The paper and I were already
• 1:48:50
  set up in the bedroom, so it should go quickly enough.
• 1:48:54
  Then the girl asked again about going to the bathroom.
• 1:48:56
  I relented her. I relented, telling her to go on,
• 1:48:59
  but to make get quick. She nodded and went with
• 1:49:02
  dutiful haste into the hallway bathroom, closing the door behind her.
• 1:49:05
  Christine was giving me a hard look, to which I
• 1:49:08
  suggest shrugged.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: It's five minutes. I think it's loose. We can do.
• 1:49:12
  She's just a little girl.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: Godse this is brutal. Her expressions softened a little, her
• 1:49:19
  voice mimicking my hushed tone.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love I like how her expressions softened a little,
• 1:49:23
  like cause she's just like Verry. Fine, but the bigy
• 1:49:26
  better be quick.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: They better better look that that little that little blood
• 1:49:32
  bag in there, better hurry.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: That little that little fat fuck better be quick.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm going crazy in this world.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: I know. I just went over with you have to
• 1:49:44
  get back.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: I nodded and thought about reaching out to comfort her,
• 1:49:47
  but now wasn't the time. We had to stay focused
• 1:49:50
  and get past this. Then we could work on helping
• 1:49:52
  each other get back to normal. After another minute, the
• 1:49:55
  toilet flushed. Oh yeah, remember don't flush after dark.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: You dumb son of a yep. I totally forgot about that.
• 1:50:01
  I totally forgot that came.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: Back, but actually came back well. Immediately, the pipes began
• 1:50:06
  to squeal and rattle with the level of noise that
• 1:50:07
  still amazed me after nearly a week of using them.
• 1:50:10
  Christine had warned me about them, about not using them,
• 1:50:13
  it's after dark. Christine's eyes were wide with panic.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: He said to never flush after dark.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: I felt fear fluttering in my chest and try to
• 1:50:21
  ignore it.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll be okay. We're the odd Some roving
• 1:50:25
  bands is patrolling outside right now, just waiting for a
• 1:50:28
  sign of life to break in. Oh that's a fucking
• 1:50:32
  way to go, dude.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: Giant hordes of people sprinting in the building right now.
• 1:50:40
  I am legend. Shit whatever, it's.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: More people for the metal Cross. Still, I could feel
• 1:50:47
  my heart racing, and I was about to hammer on
• 1:50:49
  the bathroom door when the girl came out, looking confused
• 1:50:52
  at our excitement, grabbed her arm and pulled through.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: You're definitely getting butchered for this, exactly, you little son
• 1:51:00
  of a bitch. She's like, I did it.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 6: No.
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: I grabbed her arm pulled her across the into the bedroom.
• 1:51:07
  She was still quiet, but she was starting to physically
• 1:51:10
  resist now. Fortunately Christine was there and grabbed her from behind,
• 1:51:12
  wrapping her arms around the girl's chest.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: I've got her. Do it, hurry.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: I let go of the girl's arm and looked into
• 1:51:20
  Christine's face. She looked ten years older and like a
• 1:51:23
  different person than the woman I knew and loved. Her
• 1:51:25
  easy smile and bright, intelligent eyes had been replaced with
• 1:51:27
  a grim slash and bold stones that poured into me.
• 1:51:30
  As she waited for me to grab the knife. I
• 1:51:33
  picked it up and had time to think about how
• 1:51:35
  heavy it felt, how wrong it felt in my hand.
• 1:51:38
  Next moment, there was a crash. It sounded like it
• 1:51:40
  was coming from the front door of the apartment. As
• 1:51:41
  someone tried to bash their way in. Christine's eyes widened
• 1:51:45
  as her grip on the child tightened.
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: Do it now, fuck her, you fucking do it now
• 1:51:49
  before they're on top of us.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: Being careful to avoid the child's face, I moved my
• 1:51:53
  gaze down to the knife. Taking a deep breath, I
• 1:51:56
  shoved it into the girl's.
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: Timing, oh, goddamn it, come onno Scott or Scott, regular Scott.
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: Even then, she didn't complain, other than to make a
• 1:52:06
  whoop sound she punched in the gut. I was starting
• 1:52:11
  to cry, but the splintering sound of the front door
• 1:52:13
  finally gave way spurred me on. Put my fingers in
• 1:52:16
  the blood pouring from the knife wound, turned to trace
• 1:52:19
  the rectangle inside the paper door. Immediately a crack appeared,
• 1:52:23
  and at my touch, the door swung.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 3: Go wow, so it fucking worked.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: It worked. I shoveled away and told Christine to go through.
• 1:52:30
  Seeing two men and one woman coming into the living
• 1:52:32
  room and looking at me across the distance, I jumped
• 1:52:35
  and slammed the bedroom door shut, twisting the lock, but
• 1:52:38
  knowing the door would only hold for seconds. Turning back,
• 1:52:41
  I saw the last of Christine disappear through the door,
• 1:52:43
  and I dough behind her, scrabbling through and back into
• 1:52:45
  my world. The first thing I noticed when I passed
• 1:52:48
  through was barking. Looked up to see Christine standing nearby.
• 1:52:51
  The knife we had used on the girl in her hand.
• 1:52:55
  Standing a few feet away at the doorway to the
• 1:52:57
  room was not Scott, and bizarrely, it looked like he
• 1:53:00
  was holding a small pug puppy that was furiously barking
• 1:53:03
  at us. Get back, motherfucker, Christine growled at him. Not
• 1:53:08
  Scott was about to say something in response, but then
• 1:53:10
  I was getting pulled back through the door. Rough hands
• 1:53:13
  had me, pulling at my clothes and yanking me away
• 1:53:15
  from my way home. I looked up and saw strange
• 1:53:18
  faces with small cymbals tattooed between the eyebrows of all
• 1:53:21
  three of them. They didn't seem angry or even upset
• 1:53:24
  as they began to punch and kick me. Instead, they
• 1:53:26
  were placidly, calm, almost bored, looking as though what they
• 1:53:30
  were doing was just part of their daily routine. Most
• 1:53:33
  likely it was. I tried to ball up, but I
• 1:53:36
  was hurting badly already, and protecting my stomach only exposed
• 1:53:39
  my back more. I closed my eyes tight. I knew
• 1:53:42
  I was going to die here, beating to death by
• 1:53:44
  strangers in a strange world. But one of them started screaming.
• 1:53:48
  When I opened my eyes, I saw not Scott pulling
• 1:53:50
  the knife Christine had been holding out of one of
• 1:53:52
  the man's eyes. As the man began to fall, the
• 1:53:55
  woman left off, kicking me to jump on not Scott's
• 1:53:58
  back with furious howl. He pushed backwards, slamming her into
• 1:54:01
  the wall and jamie the knife back and into her side.
• 1:54:04
  Or Hal turned into a yell of pain as he
• 1:54:06
  yanked the knife free. He twisted around to drive at
• 1:54:08
  home and to her neck with a wet, popping sound
• 1:54:11
  that made me win. I realized that the other man
• 1:54:14
  had run out during this, and I was going to
• 1:54:16
  say so to not Scott, but he was busy looking
• 1:54:18
  at the tattoo on the woman's face.
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: Fuck, okay, you have to get out of here. Get
• 1:54:23
  back to the door. I'm going to destroy it as
• 1:54:25
  soon as you go, and then try to catch that
• 1:54:27
  fucker and his buddies.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 2: I was so confused, but I suddenly felt sure I
• 1:54:32
  shouldn't be leaving not Scott here, despite everything he had done.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: Why don't you come back with us.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: You could pay for your crimes there. He stared at
• 1:54:39
  me for a moment that shook his head.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: They can't. These aren't regular criminals. They're part of the
• 1:54:45
  one big They're part of one of the big colts
• 1:54:48
  that has sprung up in the last few years, call
• 1:54:50
  themselves the House of the Claw. If they figure out
• 1:54:53
  how to make a door. There's there's nothing stuff in them,
• 1:54:57
  and god knows what else from pouring into your world.
• 1:55:00
  There was running packs of four or five, so have
• 1:55:02
  to try and get the rest of them now. But
• 1:55:04
  thank you for offering, and please take care of my puppy.
• 1:55:08
  His name is Trixian. He's a very good boy.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: I could see he was crying, but I knew we
• 1:55:12
  didn't like it when people commented on us crying, so
• 1:55:15
  I left it alone.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: I promised Scott, if you get them.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: And I almost said survive, but I couldn't make myself
• 1:55:23
  say the word.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: You want to come over, use one of those scraps
• 1:55:28
  and send me a note. I'll send you more paper
• 1:55:30
  to make a door.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: I left out the unspoken step of him having to
• 1:55:34
  kill another child, but I saw in his eyes he
• 1:55:36
  was thinking it. He shook his head.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about that. We have to be willing to
• 1:55:41
  make sacrifices for what matters. I understand that better. Now,
• 1:55:45
  just go have a good life, both of you.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, I nodded, and rolled back onto my stomach,
• 1:55:51
  crawling as quickly as my pain would allow. As soon
• 1:55:54
  as my feet had cleared the other side the door
• 1:55:56
  was gone, looked up to see Christine holding the shaking
• 1:55:59
  puppy me for a moment before starting back to barking
• 1:56:02
  frantically and squirming. It's been six hours since then. I
• 1:56:06
  found and read what the other Scott had written and
• 1:56:08
  have included it above. To her credit, Christine was honest.
• 1:56:12
  After reading his letter, she told me she had lied
• 1:56:15
  about him abusing her, and told me what she says
• 1:56:18
  is the truthful account of her time there with him
• 1:56:20
  and with me, planning to include portions of that in
• 1:56:22
  this or earlier postings as well. She left a couple
• 1:56:25
  of hours ago to go home and clean up, get
• 1:56:28
  some rest, be hugged when we parted at my door.
• 1:56:30
  But I can tell everything's different now. Something has broken
• 1:56:34
  between us. I'm too fragile or too rigid to bear
• 1:56:37
  the weight of all we have seen and said and done.
• 1:56:40
  The saddest part is that I'm okay with that. Last
• 1:56:43
  month has given me a great deal of insight into
• 1:56:45
  what I can survive. Right now, I'm trying to make
• 1:56:49
  friends with a small puppy named Trixie. He's a cute
• 1:56:51
  little guy, but he rolls his eyes at me with
• 1:56:53
  mistrust whenever I try to go near him. I'm not
• 1:56:57
  the right Scot for him. Started to think I'm not
• 1:56:59
  the right Scott for a lot of things. I've been
• 1:57:01
  checking the desk for a sign all night, but there's
• 1:57:04
  been nothing. So finally, after taking a second long shower
• 1:57:08
  and giving Trixy some more water, tumble into bed in
• 1:57:11
  a deep slumber, start awaking. I can tell it's either
• 1:57:15
  early morning or early evening, but I have no idea
• 1:57:17
  which Tricksy is what woke me up, barking at something.
• 1:57:21
  Roll over and see he's jumping and barking at the
• 1:57:23
  desk on it is a single scrap of blue paper
• 1:57:27
  leaving out of bed. I wipe sleep from my eyes and.
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: Read it got them. Fortunately for me, the house is
• 1:57:34
  afraid to recruit young I'll be over shortly. Tell Trixy
• 1:57:38
  he's my precious.
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: Laughing and feeling stupid, I read the note to Trixie,
• 1:57:43
  who's bouncing excitedly against my leg as though he knew
• 1:57:45
  what was coming. So then I saw it. The door
• 1:57:48
  was opening one last time.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: That's the end. If I wrote myself.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 2: A letter, that is the end. Uh, so I got
• 1:58:00
  you do have to call? I was okay. So what
• 1:58:02
  I was expecting to happen is there's gonna be a
• 1:58:03
  revelation at the end that like any blood will work,
• 1:58:06
  like you could use an animal or something, and it's like, oh,
• 1:58:08
  you jumped to the kid thing or like. But I
• 1:58:10
  guess her lying to him turned out to be the
• 1:58:14
  correct thing to do because if it wasn't a child,
• 1:58:16
  because in that final note he says, good thing the
• 1:58:18
  cult recruits young and plying to he used the blood
• 1:58:20
  of a cult member. So like, I guess she was
• 1:58:24
  right to lie and say that he needed to kill.
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 3: A kid that she I mean, I don't know if
• 1:58:28
  it was right.
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: I think that I listen, I think that through what
• 1:58:31
  was happening, I think both Christine and regular Scott were
• 1:58:37
  being affected by the world. I think wholeheartedly.
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: Style to death.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, I just mean in terms of like being like,
• 1:58:46
  is it justifiable what she was saying to get a
• 1:58:49
  riled up? No, I don't think so. I think that
• 1:58:51
  I don't think it's unfortunate. I think that you had
• 1:58:53
  to like to emotionally have to be in that spot
• 1:58:57
  to kill a chubby child.
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: Ever, so I would say, is so crazy. I mean,
• 1:59:03
  like I cannot believe it went through.
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you're going to live with yourself
• 1:59:07
  after that, Like it's it's crazy and the idea too.
• 1:59:10
  I don't know, how do you feel about that ending?
• 1:59:12
  I like the door opening Again.
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not crazy about the ending. I don't like that
• 1:59:17
  unless you kind of read it as a difference. Maybe
• 1:59:20
  someone else found out how to come through, because we
• 1:59:23
  don't know that that's not Scott coming through, you know,
• 1:59:25
  it could be anything hypothetically.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, but no one else would the cult or something,
• 1:59:30
  no one else would know about the writing aspect to me.
• 1:59:34
  To me, it's like it's an it's an awesome character growth.
• 1:59:36
  How much I ended up liking not Scott and every
• 1:59:39
  day Yeah, so almost sitting there to where regular Scott
• 1:59:43
  obviously him and Christine they're probably broken up and not
• 1:59:46
  going and you just went through hell and back and
• 1:59:48
  you don't know how you're going to live with yourself
• 1:59:50
  with some of the stuff you've done, right, But it's
• 1:59:52
  almost a thing of like where it's like wanting solace
• 1:59:56
  in himself, almost like he's just like maybe like you
• 1:59:59
  know him with this and the dogs still doesn't even
• 2:00:02
  really you know it understands that's not his real Scott.
• 2:00:07
  And then like it would have been interesting if it
• 2:00:09
  would have ended with him like looking at his desk
• 2:00:10
  being like and I'm you know, every day I kind
• 2:00:12
  of wish that a blue letter would pop up or like,
• 2:00:14
  cause I think by him coming back, it kind of
• 2:00:17
  cuts that character growth he had in the story in
• 2:00:21
  my opinion, when at the end he's just like, you
• 2:00:23
  know what, yep, you have to make personal sacrifices. I
• 2:00:25
  get what my dad meant.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 3: Now to me, that's important and this is my world.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like take I'm not going to jeopardize
• 2:00:32
  other people in this world for the sake of myself.
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: But then at the end when he's just like you
• 2:00:38
  know what, they recruit young and then like everyone doing
• 2:00:41
  like you know, look who round it in a bit
• 2:00:46
  that kind of song, it feels kind of it feels
• 2:00:48
  it's like yeah, freeze frame and it's just like both
• 2:00:51
  the Scotts ended up opening a bakery together, Scott's Bakery.
• 2:00:55
  But it just felt kind of a bit like I
• 2:00:57
  don't know, but all no, I will say I had
• 2:00:59
  such a right time with a story.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, uh no, I agree. I'm not crazy about that ending,
• 2:01:08
  but I did enjoy it. It was fun. It was
• 2:01:10
  very brutal at parts, but I think a lot the
• 2:01:12
  killing the mention about like the sexual abuse and like
• 2:01:16
  killing the child was so brutal, but it was a
• 2:01:19
  very dreadful world it depicted, uh, And I think it
• 2:01:23
  was interesting in.
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: A parallel world that is like basically hell, you like,
• 2:01:28
  if you're going to go that route, like go there,
• 2:01:31
  explore it in a fun way and make it a
• 2:01:33
  fucking roller coaster ride. And trust me, it was like
• 2:01:35
  having to be with these characters where you hate not
• 2:01:38
  Scott at the beginning, then you start rooting for him,
• 2:01:41
  and then the people that you were rooting for you're
• 2:01:43
  kind of like what were you doing? That character dynamic
• 2:01:45
  and the bouncing back and forth and the way that
• 2:01:47
  the story read where it kept changing perspectives of who
• 2:01:50
  was talking to us the reader was just really fun
• 2:01:54
  and it was done in an effective way where it
• 2:01:56
  was seamless, Like it didn't feel clunky or anything because
• 2:01:59
  there's other story or is that do that? Like there's
• 2:02:01
  stories that will be like, no, I don't know, like
• 2:02:04
  my wife is peaking at me from around corners or
• 2:02:07
  something like that, not that particularly, but then it would
• 2:02:09
  be like my husband's doing this, and it's like a
• 2:02:11
  different sequel, but it's all from that perspective.
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 3: So to see a story where it's.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: Like we don't have any of those other breaks, it's
• 2:02:18
  like it's the same cohesive story, but we're jumping around
• 2:02:22
  per a character and time, you know, it's like almost
• 2:02:25
  like fucking memento or pulp fiction. It's like that plays
• 2:02:27
  with time in a really interesting way, hopping back and
• 2:02:31
  forth and getting all these different characters perspective.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: So so, going off of my jobs watching women trapped
• 2:02:38
  in the Room if you remember, that was like a
• 2:02:40
  super interconnected story. Yeah, And when we got to the
• 2:02:42
  ending with the House of the Claw, I was like, this,
• 2:02:49
  the House of the Claw seems like a super specific
• 2:02:52
  thing to just mention at the end of a story. Yeah,
• 2:02:55
  So I go to his Reddit page and then sure enough,
• 2:02:58
  house of a Claw is a theme thing from another
• 2:03:00
  from a bunch of other stories. And then it turns
• 2:03:03
  out this dude has a map that I just sent
• 2:03:05
  to you hunter that is a giant flow charge stories
• 2:03:13
  connect to each other.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I don't want to don't I don't want
• 2:03:16
  to make assumptions here.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, but Bristol might be his schizophrenic guy. This is insane.
• 2:03:23
  We'll drop a link to the diagram. I mean, but
• 2:03:26
  this is insane. And you know, here's the thing too,
• 2:03:29
  in like, this is impressive, this world building. World building
• 2:03:33
  in this way is incredible. To have thoughts that are
• 2:03:37
  interconnect in this way, you could you could also completely
• 2:03:40
  get rid of the exposition dump.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 3: Of like, yeah, well apparently it's a cult that does this.
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: You can get rid of that. But it being in
• 2:03:47
  there was not as distracting as like going through Narnia
• 2:03:50
  at the end of.
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: It was it was a one percent as bad as
• 2:03:55
  I think it affected the ending of the other story.
• 2:03:57
  But then the other sort was never was never even
• 2:04:01
  meant to exist outside of being a collaborative story. Exactly
• 2:04:06
  where is this one? Just kind of This one's more
• 2:04:07
  so like an easter egg thrown it at the end.
• 2:04:09
  So readers who are really into Beveristall's work, oh, I
• 2:04:12
  remember that.
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: If you know ver Stahl and you like his work,
• 2:04:15
  it seems like all of his stories connect together in
• 2:04:18
  a way where they can be standalone to where if
• 2:04:20
  someone had never heard of it before, they would probably
• 2:04:22
  not think much of it. But it's just a little
• 2:04:25
  other easter egg to where I'm sure it makes reading
• 2:04:27
  his work as a whole a lot more rewarding. And
• 2:04:30
  how those things play off each other, and.
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is super impressive looking at this flow trot
• 2:04:34
  right now. There's a couple that look like pure stand
• 2:04:37
  alone but most of them connect into each other one
• 2:04:40
  way or the other, which is pretty wild.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 3: When are we When are we going to get the
• 2:04:43
  veristall Iceberg?
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: Dude, that's what that's what, That's what we need from you, dude, fucking.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: And then we're gonna then we're gonna come back. I'll
• 2:04:53
  come back to an episode to be like I didn't
• 2:04:55
  like my jobs watching a woman trapped in the room
• 2:04:57
  because what I didn't realize it's the opening of third
• 2:05:00
  act of the Greater Universe of Yeah, yeah, I.
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 3: Just slip into a seizure and I just like Leo.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: Literally the white people talk about Marvel movies right now, Yeah, yeah,
• 2:05:09
  like they just they're like no, no, no.
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 7: The fourteenth spin off show is good because it gets
• 2:05:14
  a connection between the fourth and eighth movies. It connects,
• 2:05:18
  and that's what happened to the one character from the
• 2:05:19
  first Captain American movie. It's like I can't, I literally
• 2:05:23
  cannot care less.
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: Man, I had such a great time. I'm I'll be honest,
• 2:05:27
  Like I wrote myself a letter. I got a response.
• 2:05:30
  Is it the strongest hook we've had in terms of titles?
• 2:05:33
  Probably not, but I will say.
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: It did well.
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: Just I really really enjoyed the invent like the creative,
• 2:05:40
  like the creativity of hopping between characters, like the revelation
• 2:05:45
  in part two. It was just so fun, Like I
• 2:05:47
  really enjoyed that, man, and then even getting like in
• 2:05:49
  part three when you're like, oh, now this is Christine.
• 2:05:52
  It just it kept revealing itself in this fun time.
• 2:05:55
  And I don't think it overstated. It's welcome to with
• 2:05:57
  making it like some self masbratory fest of like.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 3: We're in this fucking world and people are yeah, they
• 2:06:04
  stabbed this woman to death, And it was just enough
• 2:06:06
  to just be like, well, yeah, it's a horrible fucking place.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: We get to experience it, get and get and dip
• 2:06:13
  our toes in and be like Jesus, yeah I do
• 2:06:15
  want to get out of here to where when they
• 2:06:17
  come to the conclusion of being like, well, I guess
• 2:06:19
  we're gonna kill this little girl and kill it's something
• 2:06:23
  that in their moment, as their fucking minds are being twisted, yeah,
• 2:06:26
  they're probably gonna justify.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 3: But that's one thing too in this real.
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: World that it's like you're gonna You're gonna have to
• 2:06:32
  live with that forever, which also makes sense to me
• 2:06:34
  where I was like, oh, they're gonna break up obviously
• 2:06:36
  and like probably be.
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: Like the justification for it's interesting as well because he
• 2:06:41
  kept being like, I mean, like everyone here is insane,
• 2:06:44
  so this little girl's probably insane, so we're probably doing
• 2:06:47
  her a mercy, like the way because I don't want
• 2:06:50
  to be here, Like justification was interesting. I wish the
• 2:06:52
  ending kind of leaned into that a little bit more
• 2:06:54
  of being like like he I wanted the end of
• 2:06:57
  like he becomes not Scott, which is kind of what
• 2:06:59
  it did, but I want him to be like evil
• 2:07:01
  in the other world and like not Scott's kind of
• 2:07:03
  the protagonist now or whatever, like whoever's in that world
• 2:07:06
  becomes corrupted, you know. I mean, I'm not super furious
• 2:07:10
  at the ending and anything like that, and the rest
• 2:07:11
  of the story was good that I really don't mind it.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: So yeah, well I think I don't even think not
• 2:07:16
  Scott was necessarily evil. I mean, here's the thing. Yes,
• 2:07:19
  he's a murderer. He's definitely a murder. I'm not saying
• 2:07:21
  he's a good guy. I'm just saying that he is
• 2:07:23
  conscious enough of he is not insane. I think he
• 2:07:26
  knows that he's going I think it's becoming. What's I
• 2:07:30
  mean is like, I think that he realizes that his
• 2:07:33
  mind is being corrupted and he cannot help the things
• 2:07:36
  that he's doing, and an act of desperation did this
• 2:07:38
  horrible thing, you know, and all that stuff as well,
• 2:07:42
  which I just don't know. It's it's an interesting it
• 2:07:46
  was just interesting back and forth. And there's really no
• 2:07:48
  there's no character who didn't.
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 3: Do something fucking horrible in the story.
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: Christine and regular Scott, they, I mean, everybody did did
• 2:07:55
  some fucking horrifying thing to try to get back to
• 2:07:59
  the normal world. And the normal world is basically heaven
• 2:08:02
  if you've been in that other world.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's simple. We killed the child.
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's simple, we kill the child.
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: You and I got these cards.
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 3: That's that's Scott you and I got these cars.
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: I stabbed a ten year old girl.
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 3: I stabbed him mormidly obese child.
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 2: She was she was pre type one anyway, it's she
• 2:08:26
  was pre type one and she shiit o in this bathroom.
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 3: It smelled like hell, she flushed the toilet after midnight.
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she flushed the toilet from midlight. Because where this
• 2:08:36
  is also kind of like Gremlins.
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: What an absolutely brutal I.
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: Love how that. I love I love that connectivity. If
• 2:08:43
  I wonder if he was like writing it and he's
• 2:08:45
  just like how do I get the colt hear? And
• 2:08:46
  he's like, yeah, what if I just say that you
• 2:08:47
  can't use the shitter after this time? Also basically sounds
• 2:08:51
  like the fucking Blue Man groups playing in your apartment
• 2:08:54
  building or something.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 2: It's also really funny that it's like it's like the
• 2:09:00
  little girl's like, okay, I'll come with you guys, and
• 2:09:02
  she goes to the bathroom and they're like what what
• 2:09:05
  why'd you do that? Idiot? And then they stab her
• 2:09:07
  to death.
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 3: Well they got the uh. I like that part too.
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: Actually, whenever Christine like gives him a look like are
• 2:09:14
  you fucking stupid? And he's like, dude, she has to
• 2:09:17
  take it's a she should not take a final ship.
• 2:09:20
  Come on, just a it's just a kid, which I
• 2:09:22
  think is funny because he can justify he could justify
• 2:09:26
  not feeding her, he can justify letting her ship. And
• 2:09:28
  then because of that, he's like, come on, she's a girl.
• 2:09:31
  But then he's also like, I'm gonna stab you to death.
• 2:09:33
  I'm gonna fucking stab you. Come on, Christy fox sake,
• 2:09:36
  she has to take a ship. Come on.
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 2: It's like, hey, be nice to the girl.
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Stab stab stab stab and she's like okay, okay, so.
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: So that was the story was fucking awesome. Be sure
• 2:09:51
  to check out variest all stuff.
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: An animal.
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate myself. I hate my.
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 2: So check out veristall stuff.
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: And also, I mean, like, I don't know if there's
• 2:10:08
  any viewers or listeners here who have done a deep
• 2:10:11
  dive into the rest of his stuff. I'm super curious
• 2:10:13
  to see comments of like how else the story is
• 2:10:15
  interconnect in that way, because it is fascinating, and like,
• 2:10:19
  I do think that I have an appreciation. I'm more
• 2:10:21
  of an appreciation for that universe. After reading the story,
• 2:10:23
  I just really really like this story. I think even
• 2:10:26
  I like it more than obviously I'm watching a woman
• 2:10:29
  trapped in a room, but I think that's just because
• 2:10:31
  also I liked Scott as a character more. I think
• 2:10:34
  that like just a really really fun character piece with
• 2:10:36
  three characters going through hell and back, so a lot
• 2:10:40
  of fun. Also, once again, creepcast dot store check us
• 2:10:44
  out there, get your merch there. If you're watching this
• 2:10:47
  on YouTube, consider checking us out on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
• 2:10:50
  All that shit giving us the ratings, we have to
• 2:10:52
  plug it. It just helps us out. So please, thank
• 2:10:55
  you guys so much for watching the episode. And Isaiah,
• 2:10:58
  we'll see them in the next one.
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 2: We'll see you all in the next one. Be sure
• 2:11:01
  to get the march. Get the march way you can
• 2:11:03
  eat me like a bug or any of that other stuff.
• 2:11:05
  And be sure to remember kids. Hunter made fun of
• 2:11:09
  a small overweight child that was stabbed to death and made.
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 3: Fictitious spaictitious child.
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: Fictitious No, that's I don't think that part is fictitious child.
• 2:11:19
  I think remember you as it will off. The information
• 2:11:22
  was he's gone, so I can say that he does
• 2:11:24
  that off channel to anytime it's me and him alone.
• 2:11:27
  Loves to talk about children, especially the big ones. Y'all
• 2:11:34
  can't hear it, but he's like, he starts screaming at
• 2:11:36
  me with that one. That's great. Bye,