Anglerfish

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ARCHIVIST

[ There's a pair of footsteps, crunching in a thick layer of snow, and this thick static in the air. The footsteps pause, and there's an audible movement of a pair of shoes, turning. It's thick in the Archive's own voice as it speaks, gurgly and hungry. ]

“Melissa Janssens.” [ It's crinkly, and loud. ]

STATEMENT GIVER

[ There's a gasp, and a step against the bit of exposed pavement mixed with snow as 'Janssens' moves back. A good assumption is that they do this a fear response. ]

tr. “Who are you?” Janssens replies in Dutch, a tourist, possibly.

/thread name:A tape recorder clicks on, there's no acknowledgement of its existence from the possible user. archive:There's a pair of footsteps, crunching in a thick layer of snow, and this thick static in the air. The footsteps pause, and there's an audible movement of a pair of shoes, turning. It's thick in the Archive's own voice as it speaks, gurgly and *hungry*. “*Melissa Janssens*.” It's crinkly, and *loud.* SG: There's a gasp, and a step against the bit of exposed pavement mixed with snow as 'Janssens' moves back. A good assumption is that they do this a fear response. tr. “Who are you?” Janssens replies in Dutch, a tourist, possibly. archive:tr. *“What happened to you, Melissa”* The static stays in its voice, and the Archive has a sympathetic tone as it replies back in Dutch. Low, drawling. The frown is audible in their tone as they speak. SG:tr. “Who are you—?” There's an audible struggle as the static increases. tr. “I don't have anything on me, please.” Another crunch in the snow, supposedly from Janssens. tr. “Ma- Miss?” They say , before they suddenly began yelling, tr. “*Stop! I will tell you— okay, yes—!*” archive:tr. “Thank you, Melissa. Please, tell me your story.” In a pleading tone now. SG:A shaky suck of air in, tr. “My friend– I am coming to visit him, yes? He and I met over a chatroom, on the internet. You know, yes?” Silence, and another shaky breath. “We have a very large group of friends, we all met in this chatroom about cats! It's a bit silly, but sometimes, the highlight of my day would be coming home and seeing a cat sticking his tongue out at me, and then talking to these strangers who weren't all that different from me..” A pause. tr. “Most of my friends lived here, in the United States, so I decided to fly out from Amsterdam to here. I've gone and visited most of my friends now, that live here, but.. It feels like I'm trapped in Colorado. One of my friends, I call him Bashpare— since his cat is named Ney– it's dumb, but .. Either way. He lives in the next town, but I. I needed to take a walk, you see.. Bashpare and I got relatively close, Ney was adorable, and he'd always send me images of her and she looked *so cute.*” tr. “The first day is okay, we go on what I'd call a date, and we come back home and I see Ney, and she is *adorable.* I—.. I don't remember much of the first day, at his home.. I remember us driving the next day, and him talking about how I'd suddenly changed how I'd acted entirely.. Apparently, I'd just gone completely silent and kept following her around.. He said it's apparently really common for his friends to do that, and sometimes he does it too but.. It just felt right, looking back on it right now it– sounds so weird but..” tr. “I don't question it. I've been going to his house from my hotel a few days now, and everytime he invites me in, I do this thing just— again, and again, and again.. So, I asked him to record it if it happened again, and it was so *freaky,* and just— downright *weird.*” Janssens pauses yet again. Their breath has calmed down by this point, completely trapped in whatever trance the Archive brings onto its victims. tr. “I was just laying there next to Ney, and everytime she moved I'd just trail behind her and— is that was having cats *is*? Is that was cat owners go through whenever they actually own a cat? How do those elderly ladies with so many cats even *work*? It— it scared me.. I had to take a walk.. It doesn't feel natural, there are so many strays in Amsterdam, and none of them affected me like that.. I—.. I don't know.” Another long pause. tr. “I think something is wrong with my friends' cat. Isn't there that one disorder you can get from cats? The one that mostly affects animals? Is that what it feels like to be a mouse with it?” Another long pause, and the static begins to seize. archive:tr. “Thank you for your time, Melissa. I'm so sorry that you had to deal with such an issue. I think you should refer your friend to a doctor's office for a check up, as well as Ney to a vet's office. It may be the best for both of them, we don't want mind controlling cats on the loose now, do we?” TR: The tape recorder clicks off after the Archive finished. No supplemental provided. — > “ [Am I under control?]() ”

End recording.

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