Chapter Text
Miles Upshur: Okay, I started recording. Are you sure you want to put this out there?
REDACTED: …not really. But if it helps bring Murkoff down, I mean…
Miles Upshur: My goal right now is to protect you. That’s why I’m interviewing you and not letting some other reporter do it.
REDACTED: You think they’d out me to Murkoff?
Miles Upshur: The one who interviewed me was Murkoff.
REDACTED: Oh…
Miles Upshur: You don’t have to do this. I’m not forcing you. You came to me .
REDACTED: No no, I know, I…what is my name going to be listed as?
Miles Upshur: Is there anything you wanted it listed as?
REDACTED: Maybe… ████████?
Miles Upshur: We can do that if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If someone from Murkoff is still alive who figured out you █████████████ they might be able to find you pretty easily.
REDACTED: No, that’s not…okay. Just…put down whatever you want, just…not my name?
Miles Upshur: We won’t say your name in the interview and when I edit the transcript, I’ll be sure to black out your name and any other, ah, incriminating sentences. Did you already black out ██████████ in your notes?
REDACTED: Yeah.
Miles Upshur: Good. I don’t mind doing it myself, but–
REDACTED: I saved you some time.
Miles Upshur: Yeah, something like that.
REDACTED: …
Miles Upshur: Are you sure you want to do this?
REDACTED: Your account is one thing. I have to give mine too.
Miles Upshur: You don’t have to–
REDACTED: Just start reading the first one. Before I lose my nerve.
If I Die
I fucked up. Oh God. Where am I? Hours could have passed. Or weeks. Brain filled with static, they made we watch the... the engine . Have to get help. Have to call for help. ████ I'm sorry .
If I die, I know you'll find me.
I know you won't rest until you find my body. I hope you find this camera with my corpse. I hope the evidence on it does what I couldn't, exposes the truth.
████████ I'm so sorry. I fucked up. I thought I was doing the right thing. But I fucked up bad.
REDACTED: I’ve never…felt fear like that…before.
Miles Upshur: They exposed you to the Morphogenic Engine.
REDACTED: Yeah. I mean, I don’t…punishment, maybe? I don’t think they ever had any sort of intention of me actually becoming the Walrider’s host, but…I mean, I wasn’t…it was only a few seconds.
Miles Upshur: But that’s all it takes for the Engine to get in your head.
REDACTED: *nod* I still can’t sleep at night. I still see it on the back of my eyelids, sometimes. When I close my eyes or…or blink. *slight chuckle* How stupid is that? A grown man being afraid of blinking .
Miles Upshur: We went through a lot. It’s not stupid. I’m afraid of the dark. Of tight spaces and high spots and being outside, at night, when it rains and I can’t see.
REDACTED: That’s a lot worse than blinking.
Miles Upshur: I don’t think so. Because I can avoid those things. Sleep with a nightlight on, keep myself in open areas, stay on the ground and stay inside at night. Blinking though…you can’t just stop blinking.
REDACTED: I wish I could.
Miles Upshur: So do I.
A Radio in the Prison
" There's a radio. In the prison. Short wave. If it's electronic I can make it talk, make it work for me. There's hope, ██████████ My mistake was subtlety, like you always said. I thought █████████████████ was the safer way. I didn't want ███████████████ . Murkoff is dangerous, I know that. I thought I had to be subtle for your sake, ██████████████
But I should have ██████████████ , I should have shouted to anyone and everyone. I can't die. Not before I reach the radio. They can't cover this up now. It's too broken, too dangerous.
REDACTED: …
Miles Upshur: We don’t have to talk about this one.
REDACTED: Yes we do. Because this isn’t even the worst one and if I don’t talk…if I can’t talk about this one then what’s the point of this? If I can’t talk about some stupid short form radio, then what the hell can I talk about?
Miles Upshur: Then take all the time you need.
REDACTED: …I was so…confident. I’d ████████, risked my own life and freedom…I wasn’t going to just lie down and accept defeat, not when there was…not when I thought there was an easy way out…even before the radio, I thought…I thought I could just ███████ █████████████████████████████ and get out of there.
Miles Upshur: You got out eventually.
REDACTED: You and I both know that doesn’t come anywhere close to negating the hell we went through before that.
Miles Upshur: No. It doesn’t.
REDACTED: Can we move on? I know my notes only get…everything just got worse the further in I got, but the faster we get through it, the faster we get done. Right?
Miles Upshur: Of course.
The Doctors are Sick
I'd never seen a man die before today. Never seen a dead body outside of a coffin. Dozens today, murdered and worse. I looked into one man's eyes as another tore him to pieces. Claimed he was a doctor, then saw the rags they've dressed me in and changed his story, said he was a patient. Could have been either. They're all crazy. All sick. No real difference between them now. The therapy is spreading. And what am I? I watched this man die and only thought, "it's not me, thank god."
I know I'll die someday. I don't want to be murdered.
REDACTED: I think that was kind of when I realized it was…getting out wasn’t going to be as easy as I wanted it to be. It really was going to be a matter of ‘kill or be killed’, but I…I didn’t want to take any lives, I just wanted to get out, to go home, █████████████████ ██████████████████████████
Miles Upshur: Sometimes survival means doing terrible things.
REDACTED: I didn’t. I didn’t . I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t hurt anyone, I just…I just wanted to survive. There was one…I didn’t kill him, but I…he was trying to kill me , I wasn’t…I didn’t mean to…
Miles Upshur: You think he died because of you.
REDACTED: I know he did.
In The Cannibal's Kitchen
Don't ask to see my body, █████ When I die, ██████████████████████ █████████████████████████ , don't make them show you my body. Just bury it. Or burn it. ███████ remember me whole.
That man is eating human flesh. He looks at me and I see anger. A little desire. But more than anything, hunger. Please don't make them show you my body.
REDACTED: I was convinced that that was how I was going to die. They way he looked at me, watched me, the fact that he followed me, hunting me down and even…the second I started trying to get out, I was afraid I was going to die there. But I didn’t…I didn’t know how .
Miles Upshur: And when you saw him…
REDACTED: I thought that was it. There was no way I was going to get away from him, not for long and not forever. He would’ve…at least he would’ve…later he tried to cook me alive, so at least…at least I would’ve have had to live through him eating me.
Miles Upshur: You would have just burned to death instead.
REDACTED: Yeah.
Varying Effects
██████ w hoever finds this, know that Murkoff is making monsters. I'd never seen the patients after they'd gone through that German's so-called therapy. The Engine. So much worse than I could have imagined. They may still be human, but something's been ripped out of them. And too many... other things pushed back in. They were not all murderers. They were sick, but they weren't killers. Murkoff made them monsters.
Dr. Roset said that the engine had "varying effects," the variant outcomes too erratic for any sort of prediction. I took it as idle cafeteria small talk, Raul's endless chatter. I should have listened.
REDACTED: It was fucked up. It was all so fucked up, I don’t understand how Murkoff can get away with it. How do they keep getting away with it?
Miles Upshur: Deep pockets, friends in the right places, and victims who they know no one is going to look twice at, should they go disappearing.
REDACTED: It’s wrong . We have to…we have to…
Miles Upshur: We will. We are .
REDACTED: But what if we’re too late?
Satisfaction
A scream. Is it him, the cannibal? Could be pleasure or pain, I won't guess. I'm not sure he'd even know. His voice sounds like... something I wanted while watching the Engine. Its only message is hunger, to crush and consume. I'm going to try to forget it, ████ . If I get out of here, ███████████
Miles Upshur: The Walrider
REDACTED: …it must have been. That feeling…I hadn’t even watched the Engine long. To think it could have affected me that quickly…what did it do to those who watched it for longer ? To Eddie Gluskin, or Frank Manera, the cannibal, or…
Miles Upshur: Or Billy Hope. Or Chris Walker.
REDACTED: Yeah…
Miles Upshur: It destroyed them.
REDACTED: Sometimes I feel like it destroyed me, too.
This Is What The Game Is
" He's playing alone and losing. That is what the game is.
There is a mathematical proof, if you add 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 up to infinity, you can arrive at an answer. If you stop shy of infinity, you have an indescribably long number. If you continue all the way to infinity, you arrive at - 1/12. Negative 0.0833333 repeating. I'm losing my grip on things.
I'm thinking about the drive here, 400 miles in a rented truck. █████████████ ████████████████████ ████████████████ nothing but AM radio. Gospel, Country-Western, late night paranoiac talk radio. ██ sang Patsy Klein songs and laughed at conspiracies of aliens and ghosts. Mile marker numbers passing in the headlights. I don't want to die here.
REDACTED: I came to Colorado for this job. It was only temporary but it paid the bills and that was what was most important. ███████████████████████ ███████
Miles Upshur: I’m sorry.
REDACTED: I uprooted ████████ and for what? ██████████ I fucked up as soon as I realized what they were doing. I sold my soul to the devil █████████ with Murkoff and I wish I’d never had. I could’ve…what if Murkoff would’ve just killed me afterwards anyway? I was an outside force, not tied to them in the way their executives were. What would’ve stopped them from killing me █████████ as soon as all was said and done ████████████
Miles Upshur: If you’d been useful enough, they could’ve rehired you.
REDACTED: No. They wouldn’t. I think they knew █████████████████ ███████████████████████████████████████████ █████████
Miles Upshur: They needed someone disposable.
REDACTED: Yeah. That’s me. █████████ the disposable ████████ …you’re gonna edit that out, right?
Miles Upshur: Of course. Like I said, my goal is to protect you.
REDACTED: Thank you. I appreciate it. Sorry for giving you more work, I…I wasn’t thinking.
Miles Upshur: Don’t worry about it.
Down, Down, Down
" Somebody who looks as much like a priest as this place looks like as an asylum, writing instructions on the wall. Talking about God. Tells me not to be afraid.
█████████████████████████████████████ The monsters Murkoff ripped from tortured minds, the lengths their jack-booted business school worms will go to protect it. Their own men slaughtered. I've never prayed in my life, ███ , but if some small-minded interventionist god is listening, kill Jeremy Blaire before I die. Sanity and avarice. There's no pain he doesn't deserve.
There is no radio. No hope of reaching the outside world. Only escape.
REDACTED: That was when I realized help wasn’t coming. I wasn’t going to be able to just…call up the local police department, tell them what was going on, and then have SWAT there in a matter of minutes. The only way I was getting out was on my own.
Miles Upshur: Murkoff had a jammer set up to cut off any and all cell phone signal about a mile out from the asylum. They knew what they were doing was wrong and they wanted to make sure no one was able to tell anyone else about it.
REDACTED: If anyone drove into range, they’d just assume it was a lost signal and move on. They wouldn’t think it was a reason to contact police or authorities.
Miles Upshur: Leaving Murkoff’s operation at Mount Massive Asylum virtually undetectable.
REDACTED: Fuck…
Burning Lights
The power is still on. Electricity.
I need to think, ████ I thought the power was evidence that some manageable... some human force still controlled some small part of Mount Massive. But nothing human or sane can do anything here but survive, and even that not for long. ████ the reasonable one, █████████calm down, to take a larger view.
Madness and inhumanity rule this place. Whatever is keeping the electricity flowing is trying to trap me here. I need to shut it down again?
REDACTED: It’s silly. ‘Whatever is keeping the electricity flowing is trying to trap me here.’ That’s not..that doesn’t even make sense .
Miles Upshur: When you think of it that way, no. but if you figure that someone was paying the electric bill in order to ensure no one could get out, then yes. It makes sense. Without electricity, they wouldn’t have been able to continue their work in the basement. And they would have lost full control.
REDACTED: Paying the electric bill meant keeping everything in line and under control.
Miles Upshur: At least until the Walrider got out.
REDACTED: I don’t think they thought of that. I think…I think they were so confident that they were in control that they never imagined someone or something might turn against them.
Miles Upshur: Good.
An Easy Way Out
" It would be so easy. I don't believe in it any more. Getting the truth out. There is no truth, only lies we've accepted too long to double back on.
███████████ . I would take the easy way out ████████ . Damn this place to hell, I'll suffer anything to get out of it. "
REDACTED: Is it shameful that I considered suicide?
Miles Upshur: No.
REDACTED: I wanted to. I feel awful but I wanted to. The only reason I didn’t…I couldn’t. I couldn’t ██████████████████████████████████
Miles Upshur: No one would’ve thought you were weak. If they saw what we did, if they felt and heard and smelled what we did…anyone would’ve tried to take the easy way out.
REDACTED: Yeah…maybe…
………………………………..
Wise Men
" Back inside. Like the harder I try to escape the deeper I get. Dead men aren't a surprise anymore. Suicides seem wise. "
REDACTED: I think I just felt…numb at this point. Tired. I considered suicide again. A few more times. Nothing…nothing shocked me. I’d seen it all already, I expected it all already. What more was there to jump out of the darkness and surprise me?
What Fresh Hell
A man's body, mutilated and bent to mimic or... mock the moment of birth. The kind of thing that a man cannot see without changing in some irreparable way.
██████████████████████████ . It was, until recently, the most miraculous thing I had seen. Completely outside of reasonable belief and yet somehow central to everything I've come to believe since. ████████ I was too literal-minded, tried to turn everything into an if-then statement.
Lately, I've widened my horizons. How can the things I've seen here be? But I know the answer. Money. Profit. Things we made just because we could.
REDACTED: That body should’ve been my warning sign to turn around and find another way through. But like I said I was…I was numb. I just saw a corpse and…moved on. I didn’t…I didn’t realize what was coming.
An Unwilling Bride
" Still intact. I'm here, ████ . I'm still me. He... He tried to make me his bride. To cut me.
Maybe I was wrong. Telling the world would only draw it here. Should this place just die and fester here? I won't tell the world if it means spreading the infection. Let it die alone, let it rot. "
REDACTED: …
Miles Upshur: Do you need to take a break?
REDACTED: I’m kind of regretting this entire thing.
Miles Upshur: We can stop right now.
REDACTED: …the world needs to know. Needs to hear about what Murkoff is doing, but…
Miles Upshur: But what if it spreads the infection.
REDACTED: *nod*
Miles Upshur: Let’s take a break. If you still want to keep going, we’ll come back.
REDACTED:
Thank you.