[Claire's journal. I hope this sheds light on many of your questions.]
I’m going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. One minute I’m so happy I could scream, the next I’m so angry I could kill. Then the despair comes. The despair is the part I hate the most.
And so the cycle repeats itself.
I love It, I hate It, I love It again. I know logically, when I’m conscious, that this is part of the infection. It must be. No way I’d love the god or demon or WHATEVER that is fucking destroying my life.
But sometimes, when I’m alone, and it’s just me and the whispering in my head, I’m filled with this golden, gentle peace. And such devotion, such LOVE. Even when I wake up sometimes and can’t move my fingers or wiggle my toes.
I can feel blackouts coming sometimes. My vision goes grainy and I get mad. Sometimes all it takes is thinking about it. Like now
When Heather started dancing I started laughing. Then we were all dancing. Bared and dancing.
I could live like this.
I can’t live like this.
Kill me.
Please stop this. Stop whispering. I know you’re reading this. Please stop.
Come back. I know I asked you to go just now but I lied I want you back please you’re the only one who understands me and I can’t STAND IT I HATE YOU
FUCK WHY?? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING????
I remember youth’s beaming anguish, waiting for the peace of sweet oblivion.
Waiting for the peace.
Waiting.
The Voyager is blindly loathsome, half-knowing, helpless.
My legs didn’t work today. Had to drag myself around on my hands. Heather thought that was funny. I did too. But when Blake started crying, so did I. I’ve only seen him cry once before.
He knelt with me and cried and told me he loved me. Heather got really mad. She was smashing things.
We danced again that night. My legs didn’t work so I just braced them against the bed and pushed myself up with my hands.
It’s been weeks, I’m sure of it. Maybe even months.
Moments of lucidity are sparse, and when they’re here I’m usually too tired to write. But now I have to get this down. With every mile between Elizabeth and I, I can feel her immediate hold on me loosening.
That doesn’t mean I’m cured though. I still black out. I cannot walk. I think the muscles in my legs have atrophied. My skin is papery and pale. My ribs are jutting. It’s hard to hold this pen. Clumps of my hair are falling out.
I used the wheeled computer chair to move around once my legs gave out, but it seemed like lucidity was back. Almost like the infection wants me to witness my own degeneration.
I found out what Clayton wanted to tell me. Took him long enough to find a way to communicate. Or maybe Elizabeth was preventing him. I don’t know.
[She was indeed preventing me. I left countless notes at Claire's door and multiple photographs. It seems she was unable to recieve any of them, thanks to Elizabeth's vigilance.]
I’ve been lucid all day. But I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so I just sat in my room, watching the mold creep up the walls. I hadn’t seen the others, but I heard them mumbling through the conjoining door between our rooms. Heather was singing something, like usual. She did that a lot.
Human contact made me want to puke. It’s weird to have this aching desire in me. I want something intensely but I don’t know what it is. And what I DON’T want is to leave this room.
Around evening, just a couple hours ago, there was a sound by the door to the parking lot. A rustling, scraping sound. Startled, I looked over in time to see a thick manila envelope being pushed through the crack under the door.
I quickly wheeled myself over and scooped up the envelope. The singing in the other room stopped abruptly.
The front cover said “Claire: For Your Eyes Only.” I recognized the Voyager’s spiky handwriting.
My hands started shaking as I turned the envelope over and clumsily tried to open it. My hands don’t work so well anymore.
[This appears to be true. Claire’s handwriting has become steadily worse over the course of the journal. Some parts are nearly illegible, and others are simply scribbles. I have not transcribed the scribbles, for obvious reasons.]
It took me a good five minutes, sitting in silence, to open that envelope. But when I did, a photograph fell out. Or I should say, two pieces of a photograph. It had been torn.
The first, the larger bit, was a headshot of three people, all smiling. A blond girl with a nose ring, a familiar looking man with ashy brown hair and dimples… and Clayton. The photograph was ripped just to the left of his head, omitting someone from the photo.
There was writing on the back. I felt a deep sense of dread and turned it over.
There was a date at the top: October, 2009.
Underneath, in order from left to right, were the names of those pictured: Jess, Alan, Clayton &...
The picture was torn there. I looked down to where the other scrap had fallen face down on the floor. My whole body was shaking now. I picked it up and read the name.
Liz.
I flipped the photo over. I was finally going to look into the face of Elizabeth Hadwell, the Vessel, the girl who became one with god and started all of this shit. I was about to see what my tormentor looked like.
A pretty, smiling face looked back at me. Green eyes, short brown hair, red lipstick. An attractive, pleasant face. A face you wanted to keep looking at.
But to me, it was the most horrific thing I’d ever seen. Not because this girl was deeply evil. Not because she was the start of all of this.
It was because I recognized that face.
She was Heather.
In the other room, Elizabeth Hadwell, the girl I’d been living with for more then a month started to sing in a clear, high voice.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are gray.
Then Blake was screaming.
How had I not figured it out? How had I been so BLIND for so LONG???
In the space of an instant, just as Blake began to scream, all the clues came crashing down on me, so obvious now that the truth was in sight. It had been right in front of me, roaring at me to pay attention, and I’d ignored it.
I’d come to Infected Town only once before meeting up with Blake. While there, I explored the apartment building and the police station. This, doubtlessly, was when Elizabeth caught sight of me.
She followed me. She FOLLOWED me all the way to fucking San Francisco. She wormed her way into my life through my best friend, Blake, who could never resist gorgeous girls with a touch of bad about them. She gave off this edgy vibe. She seemed fucking COOL. She’d orchestrated running into us at that bar and weaseled her way into his bed that night.
I hadn’t cared, didn’t get jealous (Blake and I often slept together whenever we were in the same town... we'd had a good thing going) because I was drunk and distracted by a man with ashy brown hair and dimples. He didn’t stick around long, but I know thanks to that photo that it was Alan. He was doubtlessly possessed by Elizabeth, used to bait me so she could get closer to Blake.
FUCK HER. I FUCKING HATE HER.
I thought Alan escaped at the end of the Chicago series, when he jumped out the fucking hotel window to get away from her. At least, that’s what she wrote happened. It could have been a lie. Even if he did run from her, she obviously managed to catch up with him.
So then Heather became a part of our life. She came with us to the Infected Town again. She cuddled Blake and joked around with me. I liked her okay, as much as you can like the girl who’s fucking the man you love.
She kept up the charade flawlessly, which I guess isn’t all that surprising. I’ve been told and shown time and time again that Elizabeth is incredibly manipulative. She fooled all of Nosleep, as well, when she was writing as Liz. She’s a damn good actress, and now she could be anywhere.
And the thing is, she knows this. She and her Entity have been laughing at me since the beginning. She’s even been dropping clues as to who she really is. Remember how H and E were always capitalized in all the messages she sent me?
HE. Not “he.” They’re initials. Heather Engels. Elizabeth Hadwell. H.E.
Toying with us. Always has been. God, she must have laughed herself into a fucking frenzy.
And Clayton’s goddamn “fox in the henhouse”? Now we know who that is. We also know why he shot at us. Why couldn’t he have just TOLD me?! Why did it have to go down the way it did???
[I ask myself this question often. I was being overly cautious, and it ended up fucking them over. I’m so sorry, Claire. I should have told you immediately. I should have helped you get out.]
I got to the room as quickly as I could when Blake’s screams went on and on. Screams of true pain and terror. I dropped to the floor and dragged my useless legs as quickly as I could.
Opening the door was the hardest part. It was almost too much of a reach without any leg muscles. But I finally turned the knob and pushed.
Blake was on the bed, laying on his back, being pinned down by Heather
fucking ELIZABETH. She knelt over him, her claws digging into his
wrists. Her face was close enough that, had he not been yelling, I’d
have thought they were about to kiss.
As I watched, she opened her mouth. Wide, too wide, far wider than humanly possible. She unhinged her jaw, like a fucking snake, and this black… SOMETHING came pouring out. I don’t know if it was smoke or liquid or fucking WHAT. It shone like oil and it was just as black, but it floated in the air like smoke, descending too slowly and gracefully into Blake’s open mouth.
His screams cut out with a gargle when it filled his throat. It was my turn to scream.
Elizabeth turned toward me sharply, the oily stuff retracting back into her mouth. It dribbled down her chin when she closed her lips. She looked furious, like something feral and… wrong. Her face was too long. It looked distorted, unsymmetrical, like a bad acid trip. She skin around her disjointed jaw hung slack. Her eyes were completely black and huge, much too large for her face. She opened her mouth again to complete, inky darkness. Then the mouth curved into a hideous smile.
I screamed again.
[I believe what Claire saw was the closest anyone has seen to the Entity’s true form. It hides behind Elizabeth’s skin, but apparently It will show Itself at times. I don’t know what It was doing to Blake, but I believe it was something powerful.]
Elizabeth slithered off the bed dragging Blake along with her. She crawled to the center of the room, reminiscent of a spider, then dragged itself upright. She was holding Blake by the scruff of the neck, as easily as you’d pick up a wet towel. He was limp, his eyes rolled back in his head. I thought he was dead.
Elizabeth was much taller than I remembered her being, though maybe it was just my vantage point from the ground. She seemed to loom towards the ceiling, casting unnatural shadows in the already dim room. And she was smiling at me, almost benevolently.
She spoke in a voice that I’d never heard before. Like two or three voices at the same time. One was gutteral and raspy, the other high pitched as a child, the other… I don’t know. Different. It didn’t sound like it could come from her. It couldn’t come from anyone.
“What are you going to do, sweetheart?” It asked me, shaking Blake a little by the neck. He moaned a little, casting hope into my heart.
I had no response to give. I had no idea what I would do. But, slowly, almost of its own volition, my hand crept over to find a fallen lamp on the floor next to me. The Entity or Elizabeth or whatever the fuck I was looking at couldn’t see this behind the door frame.
When it spoke next, it was in Heather’s voice. Or, I supposed, Elizabeth’s voice.
“She’s not moving, my love,” she told herself.
“No,” said the Entity’s many voices.
“She’s not getting the fuck out of our way.” Elizabeth again. They took turns speaking to each other, having this fucked up little conversation. Like there were two of them there.
“No, it would seem she isn’t.”
“It’s like she has a death wish.”
“Perhaps she does.”
“Maybe we should ask her.”
“Maybe we should see how fast she can…”
“Crawl,” Elizabeth finished the Entity’s sentence with a malicious grin at me.
Knowing they were about to move at me, I took my chance and pelted the broken lamp at them. Her. It. WHAT THE FUCK EVER.
It hit her squarely in the face and she let out a roar of fury. I used her distraction to drag myself under the bed, the only hiding place I could see.
Elizabeth shuffled around in that other room for a while, breathing heavily and talking to herself. I caught snippets of a conversation about what they should do with me, what they should do with Blake.
“Let’s stick to the plan, my love,” Elizabeth’s voice said.
“Yes, darling. Yes,” the Entity responded. “Such a clever girl. Stick to the plan. My brilliant, beautiful girl.”
Christ. Self love to the extreme. The way they spoke to each other… I know it’s so fucked up, since they’re the same person, in the same body… But the way they spoke to each other was how lovers speak to each other.
I’m really scared about what they were trying to do. I’m really scared about how they want to use Blake.
They didn’t even come into my room again to look for me, like I was the least of their concerns. I probably was. Not like I could do much anyway. I laid there for eternity, listening to them thump and shuffled and mumble to themselves. Then, finally, the door to the outside opened and they were gone.
I dragged myself back into that room, frantically looking for Blake. But they’d taken him. They’d taken him from me. I broke down into tears.
I’ve been lucid since then. At least, I think I have. It’s been about a week, maybe more. The worst week of my life. It seems, when Elizabeth isn’t around, her hold loosens. Or maybe she just wants me conscious for this torture, this boredom and pain and despair. I don’t think I’m getting better; I just think the infection is progressing more slowly. It’s still going to consume me.
So now I wait for it, alone. I’ve lost everyone. I can’t ask for help. No one could help me, even if I tried. I wish the darkness would just take me. Even if I’m going to be tormented for the rest of my life, at least I wouldn’t be conscious for it.
Blake, I love you so much. I wish you were here. I wish I could help you. More than anything, I wish I could help you.
Mold climbs up the walls, over the bed, onto this notebook. Onto my hands. I’ve been laying here so long my legs are taken over with it. It covers them. I’m almost certain it’s eating them, converting them into more of its kind… I’m glad they’re numb. I think it would hurt.
My face feels stiff, and when I touch it I realize I’m smiling. Grinning, ear to ear. Even as tears roll from eyes, I smile.
I’m not getting out of this. And I’ll wait here until the mold grows over the rest of me, or until I lose myself to the infection. Until my memories stop and I Ascend.
Ha.
Ascending straight into hell.
I welcome it. I long for the peace of sweet oblivion. I will embrace it gladly.
Wait. What is that?
Someone is knocking at the door.
[Thus ends Claire's journal. I, Clayton, will take up the narrative from here. But not now. Now I am too tired. The bad memories themselves are enough to make me wish I could be Infected.]
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