Oliver turns toward the door, and I pointedly squash the irrational urge to call out again. He exits, leaving me alone in the maze of boxes and memories.
I find a bedroom and bathroom, both overflowing with items stacked from floor to ceiling, much like the living room.
This place
isn't suitable
for anyone to
live...
Making my way through the maze of boxes and scattered belongings, I clear a spot on the couch to sit and think for a moment. My hand instinctively reaches for the vase to anchor myself as my mind threatens to spin out of control.
I reflect back on everything that has happened since waking up here... fragmented memories, Anne's message appearing out of nowhere, the second door in the office, the faceless guard on the supposedly nonexistent fourth floor... And now, finding all of my stuff in this apartment.
It makes me question the reliability of my own mind.
There have been a few times in my life that I've lost track of what I'm doing and even found myself in places I don't remember going.
But not
like this.
Never so...
drastic.
Running a hand through my hair, I'm reminded of how long it is now... at least a year or two of growth.
But how can
two years have passed?
What happened to me in
all that time?
...Could I have
been in a coma...?
I don't remember an
accident...
If it's
really been that
long, I wonder if I still have anywhere
to go home
to...
To make matters worse, I can't find the phone I had earlier, so finding a signal or making an emergency call is off the table for now.
Who would
I call anyway?
For the first time in my
life, I wish I'd made more
of an effort to find
friends.
I suppose
my only options are
to leave now, in the dead of night, or get some sleep
and find a solution in
the morning.
Though it may not be ideal, I'd much prefer a roof over my head than try my luck in the streets at this hour. Having made my decision, I lock the door and, recalling that the security team has master keys, I wedge a chair under the handle for good measure.
Can't
take any
chances...
I splash my face with water in the bathroom tiny bathroom. I'm dying for a shower, but there are too many boxes in the way. My fingers twitch with the urge to bring order to the chaotic mess. Instead, I force myself to walk away from the precariously stacked boxes, knowing I'd more likely be flattened like a bug if I tried to move anything.
By the time I'm back in the living room, I feel a headache coming on. I ease myself down onto the couch—the only remotely sleepable surface in the unit—and brace myself for an unpleasant night.
In front of me, boxes lay sideways on top of my shattered coffee table.
That could
have been me...
I turn away from the carnage that nearly claimed my life, haunted by the phantom touch of tight arms around me.
Despite having woken up not long ago, I feel inexplicably exhausted. But sleep eludes me. Every noise in the apartment makes me flinch at the thought of bugs and other creatures making their homes in the spaces between the clutter, and relentless memories of gut-wrenching screams and faceless guards replay in my mind. It feels like hours before I finally fall into a fitful sleep.
In my fevered dream, I find myself walking the corridors of the apartment complex again. There's a BOTHERSOME ITCH on my arm. When I try to scratch it, my body refuses to cooperate.
A familiar voice draws my attention. Oliver is here. He smiles and says something to me, but his words are muffled and incomprehensible as I struggle to focus on anything other than THE PERSISTENT ITCH.
Abruptly, my environment changes—I'm in the office, but sunlight now streams in through the window. I want to look outside, but I'm rooted to my seat at the desk while the itch seems to burrow deeper beneath my skin with each passing moment.
The smell of an overripe banana invades my senses and my stomach revolts as my hands and mouth conspire against me to ingest the detestable thing.
I’m looking down at the journal from before, it’s opened to the page with the splatter that resembles a faerie. The page is otherwise empty; Anne's golden message has vanished. There’s an engraved pen in my hand that reads "Bennet & Shore Law Group". I watch as my hand moves the pen over the page, my arm all the while throbbing with a peculiar heat, a constant reminder of the invisible irritant I can not reach.
October 1st, 2023
Kogan,
I wanted to introduce myself before it was too late. My name is Anne, and by the time you read this, I'll probably already be gone.
Nothing has been the same since opening that box. Honestly, I can’t be sure that any of my choices over the past two years have been mine alone. Like buying the Pandora Apartments...
I watch as the familiar message is written word for word before my eyes—only instead of gold, the ink is ordinary black. My vision swims, the words blurring together as the torturous itching
crescendos until it borders on painful.
Suddenly, my own face looks back at me through a mirror above a small sink. I’m shirtless, and for the first time, I see the source of my torment: an angry red welt surrounded by raised and blotchy skin on my upper arm. The area prickles like countless tiny claws are scraping against my flesh, demanding attention with their maddening persistence.
I will myself to move, to claw at my skin until the itch is appeased or my skin gives way, but my body simply will not obey. As I struggle for control, the edges of my vision begin to fray and dissolve into nothingness, until only the unbearable itch remains.
My arm flies free, suddenly untethered as though someone has lifted weights from my limbs without warning.
I hit myself in the eye.
AGH!
Jolting upright, holding my smarting face, something slides from my lap and flops onto the floor.
Blinking through tears of pain, I see daylight filtering in through the blinds of the windows above me...
I'm
back in the
office...
The itch is gone as I scratch at my arm in a daze. There's no mark to be seen as I pull up my sleeve either.
...Maybe an
injection...? Was
I drugged?
The T-shirt and boxers I'm wearing now are not what I went to sleep in, which means someone not only carried me back here but also changed my clothes.
...Hello?
There's no answer. I'm alone just like before.
The journal from last night lays on the floor next to the bed; the pen beside it is identical to the one I saw in my dream.
There's a slight tremor in my hands a I open the journal. The pages with the faerie mark are stiff and slightly separated, making them easy to find.
Anne's message appears in normal black ink.
October 1, 2023
Kogan,
I wanted to introduce myself before it was too late. My name is Anne, and by the time you read this, I'll probably already be gone.
Nothing has been the same since opening that box. Honestly, I can’t be sure that any of my choices over the past two years have been mine alone. Like buying the Pandora Apartments... Well, I assume you've noticed you're the property manager by now.
I should warn you that something was released here, back in the PINTV Trials. I think the so-called “mass suicide” was a cover-up to stop it from getting out. Now it's back. I don't know what it wants, but I'm beginning to believe I only see what it wants me to see... Maybe I'm only saying what it wants me to say.
-Anne
P.S. The security team can't be trusted. I don’t know what you did to draw Oliver's attention, but he's been prowling around the office since you showed up. Be careful.
Just like
my dream...
A faint golden glow seeps through the paper; I flip the page to find spatterd droplets of glowing gold ink.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I try writing something with the fountain pen, but it doesn't make a mark.
While giving the pen a few shakes to get the ink going, a splotch of black ink falls onto the page in exactly the same place and shape as the gold had been...
In fact, it covers the mark so perfectly that not a drop of gold ink remains to be seen.
As I sit here pondering the odds of such a thing occurring, more glowing words begin to appear on the page...
!?
Is there no sounds for this episode, or is that just something on my end?
I'm guessing ann also received someone's belongings in a Pandora Box, considering Kogan remembers nothing of the last two years either since getting his mom's box. So maybe something in there compelled both of them to get involved with the building.
So I'm getting the impression there's a persistent itch. Also, I wonder if it's the pen or journal that is the key. Either way, it makes you question free will.
Yeah so the journal is crealy doing some timey wimey wibbley wobbley stuff because the dates were in the future and I'm guessing the gold shows what's going to be added to the journal next? Or something? Idk, we still don't know much about Anne or how her message got here via dream-possession-puppetted Kogan rewriting what he read word for word
Ohhhh what the heck
Hmm if Anne’s only writing what the released thing wants her to, how trustworthy is her opinion of Oliver? 👀
Also very curious how different everything will look now that it’s daytime!
super cool. it seems like the journal is a type of future diary? or maybe it's connected to another journal somewhere in the world... what i think happened is that while kogan was asleep, he really did write that letter. i have so many theories and questions
Oh my god, Kogan not having any friends doesnt surprise me in the least, sorry buddy 😔 Also very very concerned about Anne mentioning, for one, that whatever is released is only letting them see what they want them to see as well as say what they want to say?? How can we trust Anne at all then??Also implying that this thing is part of the mass suicide that PinTV covered up. A lot of lore in this episode AAAAAA