Work Text:
[click]
[Pearl]
Well! Let's hope today is more of a normal workday than yesterday! I mean, it would be a little hard to be less normal—
Well. Anyway.
... I'm already picking up the recording habit, aren't I? (laughs) Well, I suppose there are worse vices than talking to myself. Let's get started, shall we?
[papers rustle]
Statement of Bdubs, surname unknown, regarding a very long fall. Original statement given September 21st, 2019. Audio recording by Pearl E. Moon, Head Archivist of the Void Institute.
Statement begins.
[Pearl]
(read aloud from the archived witness statement of Bdubs [surname unknown])
Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff, looked down at the drop below, and felt like you were already falling even with the ground still solid beneath your feet?
No?
I didn't either, before. I never had trouble with heights as a kid. I loved them, even!
Well, okay, maybe not loved them. It was the trees I loved—the height was always secondary. But sitting up there in the canopy, surrounded by green and growing things, with shade and sun as much as you wanted... it was heaven. It was life, concentrated and rich. Up there in the green, nothing could touch me. I didn't have to worry or fear—I was free.
[Pearl]
Archivist's note: a large ink blot covers part of the page beneath this paragraph. It doesn't appear anything was written there that is now covered up, as the words are packed in around it.
Statement resumes.
[Pearl]
(read aloud from the archived witness statement of Bdubs [surname unknown])
Sorry about that. I hope it didn't stain your table.
It doesn't feel safe anymore. Not the trees, and especially not the heights. The vertigo is... exhausting, honestly. I can't even take the stairs anymore, not unless I sit and slide down them like a child. Even then I have to close my eyes. Deep water is almost as bad; it's that same feeling of there being absolutely nothing beneath my feet.
But you want to know why, don't you? You want to know what happened to change my mind. You lot always do. The short answer is, I fell.
Not down the steps. Not out of a tree. Not any of the hundred ways I'm sure you can imagine. And it's not like I was clumsy—I didn't trip or lose my balance.
I just... fell.
I was standing there with my friends, laughing and having a good time. I'd just gotten my feet back on the ground—[static] had dared me to make it to the top of this ridiculous tree without any help and conned Doc and Beef into betting on whether or not I could. Doc won, even if he only bet on me because the others thought he wouldn't, and Beef was making all kinds of excuses not to pay up because "it's not like you could spend it anyway," as if I wouldn't be perfectly happy to be a go-between, or online shopping wasn't a thing. But it was all light-hearted, everyone was smiling. Even [static]—that mask might hide a lot, but you can see it in his eyes if you look close enough. I was on my way to back up Doc—that's how it is with the four of us, you know, whenever there's a scuffle you jump in with the underdog and make it even. It's all good fun.
One moment there was ground beneath my feet. The next, there wasn't. It's as simple as that. The ground was gone, and I fell.
I saw them, you know. Their faces, when I fell. The last thing I saw in a long time, besides the clouds and the sky—their wide eyes, Beef's open mouth. [Static] tried to reach for me. I was gone before they had time to make a sound. In a way, I'm glad it was so quick. I didn't want their screams ringing in my ears for the rest of my life.
Not that I would have been able to hear them over the wind.
There's not much to say after that. Not for a while. I just fell. I don't know how long—it could have been an instant or an eternity. The sun never set, the clouds never moved despite the wind, and I never got tired or hungry or cold.
I just fell.
Eventually, I hit the ground. I don't know how I survived. Sure, I landed in water, but I'd been falling so long it shouldn't have made a difference. I should be dead.
I didn't realize I had stopped falling until someone dragged me out of the water. I didn't realize I was screaming until I tried to speak.
I think I'd forgotten how to not be afraid. Or at least I was so worked up I couldn't answer them until evening started to set in. I think I crashed a little after noon. No-one knew where I came from, not even me, but I'd just... fallen out of the sky and landed in a public pool. I don't know how it was covered up, but I didn't get in trouble and no-one talked about it, not after the lifeguards brought me inside. At least not where I could hear it.
They sent me to the emergency room. I don't think they knew what else to do. I don't blame them—they were kids, and their crisis training probably ends with "call 911". I'm sure I wasn't much help; everything was blurry around the edges, and the wind still whistled in my ears.
It was early autumn when I fell—I think that's supposed to be some kind of ironic. I landed in late summertime, after the heat started to die but before the stubbornest people let it go. I'd been gone for almost two years. I still don't know how long I'd been falling—it could have matched up perfectly, or it could have been distorted. I like to think it matches.
I'm not sure how [static] found me so fast, but when my head finally cleared enough to pay attention to my surroundings again, there he was. He wasn't smiling anymore. He didn't look like he'd smiled in a very long time.
"Beef and I have been looking out for Doc," he said. Those were the first words out of his mouth. I'll tell you, that guy knows me too well. I don't know how, but he knew everything. Not just how I'd worried over Doc, as if he needed my concern, but the pace of my recovery. When I needed to sit and watch the sunset to be sure time was passing, or when the wind was so loud I just needed some other sound to focus on. When I needed a distraction, and when I needed peace. I almost think he didn't just know, but he understood.
But that's not what you care about, is it? I've told you everything you wanted to know.
I fell, and I never really stopped.
[Pearl]
Statement ends.
Well, that was... certainly something. I can already tell this is going to be a cheery job.
Recording ends.
[click]
[click]
[Pearl]
Archivist's note: upon reviewing the tape, it appears that one name, er... refuses to be recorded correctly. I can read it clearly, I can say it with no issue, but no matter what I do, the name "[static]" is always distorted on the tape, to the point of being unintelligible. Experiments on other tapes have shown that trying to spell it out doesn't work, either, and it's not limited to just this tape, this recorder, or this room. Whatever the reason, this name just... can't be recorded on tape.
[click]