Interviewer (4:00)

We got there fast, but it wasn't fast enough for the people in the stairwell. Multiple four story slumlord buildings. The place was about as run down as habitable can be. Real shithole. We pushed straight to the stairwell because that's where the noise was coming from. The stairwell door opened and the smell hit hard and wet. Blood on the steps. Blood on the rail. Blood on the wall. Bodies jammed on the first landing in a leaking, shredded pile. Two were crumpled up against the wall, one face down across the steps, another twisted sideways with a leg bent under him at the knee, clothing and flesh torn open in long strips. People were missing in sections, bites taken indiscriminately. Remy stepped over the pile first, careful boots sliding on the slick. He looked down at the second flight. His light caught more blood up the wall, smeared in a long arc that climbed toward the next landing. Claw marks ran up the middle of the steps, heavy and uneven. We went up, moving in a stack. Tight spacing. I called doors. We checked the cracks. People watched from behind. Peepholes of blood covered doors. No one was brave enough to open their door yet. Halfway to the second landing, the stairwell shook. A hard impact inside the wall. Dust sifted from the corner, seamless. The vent cover at shin height bowed outward and then clattered under the concrete. A wet scraping moved behind the drywall in a straight line. Fast. Remy raised a hand. We held another impact. Closer. The wall flexed. A shallow dent appeared in old plaster, then another beside it. Then it came through. It tore through the wall in an explosion of plaster, wet debris, many long multi jointed limbs. Hard black carapace slick with blood and thick slime. Ridged clamp, mouth opening wide. It hit low and fast, hooked Remy behind the knee and yanked. He went down hard and slid two steps before he got a hand on the rail. The thing trying to pull him back into the hole it made. I grabbed his vest wrap and hauled. His leg jerked. Bone popped in his joint and he made a sound through clenched teeth. The clamp mouth latched to his boot, tightened and yanked in pulses. Each pulse dragged him another inch toward the opening, drove my weight into it, and slammed it against the stair edge. The clamp mouth released and snapped again, this time for my arm, caught my forearm through my sleeve and cranked down. Pressure hit deep, crushing, steady. My hand went numb from the wrist down. Remy swung his free leg and kicked its limb joint hard, twice. The joint bent the wrong way. The grip loosened. I tore my arm free and the organism recoiled and flowed upward, using the wall and the rail, climbing in two contractions and perching above us on the landing lips. It hung there for half a second with its limbs spread, pads stuck to plaster, clamp mouth opening and closing while it tracked our movement. The moment hung in the air, seemed to last a minute, but probably only a second or two before we opened fire. Then it dropped. It landed on the second landing and lunged toward a door that was cracked open a few inches, and a face peered out from the gap. The clam mouth wedged into the gap and spread, and the chain snapped and the door flew inward. The person inside screamed once and went quiet, following the sounds of chaos and destruction. Remy moved to follow. I grabbed his shoulder and stopped him. We needed to regroup, reload, and then proceed calm and collected. It was already too late for the residential. We pushed up to the landing. The hallway beyond was a mess of torn walls and overturned furniture. No movement in the hall. We entered. The couch was torn in half, stuffing spread across the floor. The kitchen table and chairs were little more than wood splinters. Drywall covered the floor. Blood was everywhere, and low sprays and drag smears. Torso laid by the kitchen threshold. The head sat in the living room near the television stand, face turned toward the ceiling, eyes open. We swept fast. Bathroom, closet, bedroom empty. A trail led back to a wall opening thick with residue and hair and blood. The thing was tunneling through the walls faster than we could clear rooms. It leapt out from above the kitchen doorway and hooked Ortega at the shoulder, dragging him sideways into the hall. His back slammed the wall hard enough to crack plaster. He fired one handed into the space it came from. The shots, tore chunks out of drywall and sprayed wet film across the hall. The thing released and dropped him to the floor and then skittered into the living room. We cut it off before it could get back into the walls. Remy pulled his foam applicator and spread it across the wall opening and the baseboard seams in a thick band. Ortega foamed the vent returns low on the wall. We cut off its roots into the building's cavities and forced it into a confrontation. It could have ripped through the foam despite its steel, comparable hardness, or made a new hole if given time. But we didn't plan on giving it that time. It reacted fast, climbed the wall, ran two steps across the ceiling, and dropped again toward the gap that remained the hall doorway. It surprised me at the doorway, springing off the wall where it had hidden, using some kind of camouflage. Before it could bring my rifle up, it hit my chest like a sack of bricks and drove me back into the hole. The clamp mouth snapped from my throat and caught my shoulder instead. Pressure bit down through my armor. I shoved into it and pinned it against the door frame, wood cracking under our weight. Ortega brought the butt of his weapon down on its snapping jaws. Once, twice. One of the mandibles broke as its head capsule cracked and leaked a thick green substance. It thrashed and slammed its body into the frame, limbs digging into me, trying to break free. Remy stepped in close and emptied his magazine into the broken clamp mouth hinge and then drove a blade under the rigid plate and twisted. Wet resistance gave way. The clamp mouth opened and stayed open. The creature spasmed in short contractions, pads scraping against the floor, residue smearing into a wide fan. It kept moving for a few more seconds, searching for purchase, grabbing at me, digging into me, and then it weakened and slowed. We secured it while it still twitched. Wrap, strap, and bag. Ortega's hands shook from the pain and adrenaline, and he worked anyway. We moved back to the stairwell and cleared the landings. We had what we came for, and we had a building full of eyes. We bagged the bodies, took control of the lobby. Tenants were gathering near the front entrance, yelling, crying, filming with shaky hands. A few demanded answers. A few demanded to go upstairs or downstairs. We set up exposure mitigation in the entryway. We told them that there had been an incident and that we'd explain everything. We provided them with simple instructions and clear directions. People want order when exposed to chaos. They'll follow just about anything from what they believe to be an authority figure. We process them in groups, short bursts of the few garasal compound. Controlled distance. Standard script. Keep breathing. Keep your hands at your sides. Keep your eyes forward. Most of them settled within seconds. Voices dropped, hands stopped shaking. When they were all ready, we fed them the story. How many witnesses did you process? 23. We did what we could, as fast as we could. Any adverse reactions? One vomited. Two had some mild coughing. That was about it. Anyone stand out after administering? No. Everything went Precisely to script. After that, we had bodies in a building in one hell of a mess. So after mitigation, we executed sanitization. We needed a public explanation that swallowed everything in one bite. Boiler room, gas line, electrical fault, old building, bad wiring, Slumlord neglect. Fire does the rest. We staged the charge to keep the damage tight. One stack, one unit. Enough force to erase residue, collapse compromised sections, and bury the evidence on the debris. We pulled back to the perimeter, ran the sequence, and watched the front windows flash. The stairwell vents coughed smoke. Fire alarms went off. Before long, fire came and everyone did their normal jobs. We then returned with the secured package. And none of the civilians stood out to you or had any adverse reactions? Uh, no. Nothing that we saw. Why? Did something else happen?

Shelter Worker / Witness (13:52)

Nothing you need to concern yourself with. You've been very helpful, Agent. Thank you for your time. You may leave now.

Interviewer (14:07)

Do you remember the day of October 4th?

Shelter Worker / Witness (14:11)

Yes. I remember men in uniforms telling us that there had been an accident and building C being taped off. I didn't see a fire. If anything blew, it was contained quickly. I saw some smoke. Then it was just lights. Cops and fire trucks. That's pretty much it. Except for being tired. Not long day tired, more like I'd been tired for years and it finally caught up with me. I slept better than I ever had. When I woke up the next day, I felt new.

Interviewer (14:50)

Start with what happened following that morning. Don't skip anything. We already know what you did. We need to know why.

Shelter Worker / Witness (15:00)

That's fine. I'm not trying to hide anything. I didn't do anything wrong. I got up, got ready, cleaned up my apartment and made myself a quick breakfast. I didn't feel tired or upset that I had to go to work. Everything just felt fine, which was a nice change for me. On the drive, I was stopped at a red light and and saw a guy in the corner with a paper cup and a cardboard sign asking for money. He wore a thin jacket, his hands red from cold, with his eyes locked on the sidewalk. I had passed hundreds of guys like that. For some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about him. He obviously wanted help, but part of me felt like I had some kind of obligation to do something. At work. I handled what was in front of me and moved on to the next thing. All the little things that went wrong in a normal day still did, but they just didn't bother me. I could see how unimportant those small moments of frustration or irritation really were, and I simply let them pass and did my job. That night, the Local news ran the neighborhood story again. Gas leak, structural damage investigation. A drone shot had my street in frame, and I could see my apartment building in the corner. I could even see my window. I kept thinking how easily that could have been my unit and how much time we all waste while thinking we have more. Well, I didn't want to do that anymore, so I searched for places that needed volunteer help, and I signed up for the earliest intake shift they had. The shelter wasn't far, an old municipal building they'd converted over the years. Ramps, a hasty coat of paint, and heavy doors that never closed right. I showed up before sunrise that Saturday, and there were already people outside, shoulders hunched, breath hanging in the air. Some had bags, some had nothing. Some had that look like they had been awake for two days and didn't know where they were. They put me on intake first. A staff member handed me a stack of forms and a pen attached to a clipboard with a string and told me to keep it moving. Names. If they gave them birthdays, if they remembered any meds, any violent history or convictions, any kids. I did that. Each desperate face attaching itself to a name in my memory. After intake, I did whatever was left. I stripped cots, rolled blankets, wiped down soiled plastic mattresses with disinfectant, hauled bags of donated clothes from the basement and dumped trash from the bathrooms. The glamorous stuff, the kind of work nobody thanks you for because they just seem to expect it to be done. When you're surrounded by people who haven't eaten, haven't slept, haven't had a shower or clean clothes in a week, you start to realize how thin the line is between normal and suffering. Most of the people weren't good or bad. They were tired, sick, and addicted. They made the wrong choices, and many were embarrassed about it. I kept showing up. I took extra shifts because I could tell it made the place run smoother. When there was one more set of hands, the staff started recognizing me. They stopped watching me like a liability and started handing me the jobs that kept things from backing up. You work intake long enough, you stop seeing a crowd and you start seeing patterns. Some people came in wrecked and given two nights of sleep and hot meals. You could watch their identity come back. They made eye contact. They could take a suggestion without taking it as an insult. They'd ask you about a bus route, a job center, a family member they could call. You could hand them a next step, and they'd at least consider it. Other people came in like that and left like that and came Back like that. Over and over, they'd swear they were done with whatever kept chewing them up. Sometimes they'd mean it in that moment. Then the moment passed and the same thing swallowed them again. You'd see the same wounds reopening, the same infections, the same addictions taking over. You'd hear the same apologies. Not manipulative most of the time, just all they had left to offer. Then there were a few who didn't change no matter what happened. You could give them food, clean clothes, a shower, a warm bed, a phone to call someone if they had anyone who would still pick up. It didn't land. They said whatever they thought you wanted to hear and stared through you while they answered questions. They'd nod at advice and you could tell they weren't going to follow any of it. Not because they were defiant, but because nothing was connecting inside. The staff had phrases for all of it. Frequent flyers, high utilizers, non compliant. Those words made it easier for them to keep working without hating anybody. I didn't use the words much. I just started paying attention to what actually changed someone and what only delayed the next crash. That's how the idea started forming for me, even before I had a clean way to say it. There are people you can reach with comfort, and there are people comfort just means nothing to. And if you say what you're doing is helping both of those people, you're lying to yourself. The night it clicked wasn't dramatic in the way people try to sell things. There was no incident. Nothing happened to me. It was just cold outside, and the building was full past what it was designed to hold, which meant everything was tight. Space, patience, time. Intake was backed up into the lobby. The staff were triaging like they always did. Who needed medical, who needed separation, who could be turned away without ending up dead in a snowbank. There was a difference between somebody being loud and somebody being dangerous. You learn that some people get loud because it's the last thing they have. There was a man they set off to the side, not because he was violent, but because he was coming apart. Thin skin gray under fluorescent lights, hands shaking so hard he didn't seem to have control over them. He wasn't talking to anyone. He wasn't even arguing. He was just breathing fast and shallow, like something was wrong. A staff member knelt in front of him and did the normal steps. Simple questions asked if he'd taken anything. Offer water, ask if he hit his head. The man's eyes didn't lock onto the staff member's face. I was holding a clipboard at the desk and I watched the staff member touch his shoulder, gentle, just trying to anchor him. The man snapped like he'd been burned. He tried to stand too fast, but his legs didn't cooperate. He slid down the wall and his breathing got worse. He started making this thin sound through his teeth, like his lungs were getting squeezed and he couldn't stop it. The staff member signaled for medical. Another volunteer moved people back. A blanket got draped over his shoulders and he shrugged it off without looking at it, like he didn't want anything anyone had to offer. Then he hit his limit. His body locked up, shoulders hunched, tendons rigid, hands clenched into fists. His face tightened as if bracing for impact. His eyes rolled back, then forward, wide and wet. He took a shallow breath and held. Lasted only seconds, though it felt longer with everyone waiting helplessly for whatever would happen next. Then it ended with a sudden emptiness. His shoulders dropped, his hands relaxed. He exhaled slowly. His eyes remained open, but the panic behind them vanished instantly, not like someone calming down, but like a light switching off. Medical arrived and checked his pupils, his pulse asked questions that the man didn't respond to. The staff members looked relieved because the volume was down and the incident seemed to be over. To everyone else it was a crisis that had passed. I didn't see it that way. Nothing could reach him. It wasn't that he was being stubborn or angry. There just wasn't a place for it to land. There wasn't a thing any of them could do to help him. There was just a body sitting still while whatever was inside was trapped. That's when I understood the part I hadn't been able to put words to. Some people can take help because they still have access to themselves, while other people are trapped inside a mechanism that turns everything into the same output. Pain and suffering looped on an endless cycle.

Interviewer (25:00)

Warning Signal interruption detected.

Eeriecast Host / Sponsor Announcer (25:05)

This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Now that the holidays are over, your wallet and bank account might be feeling a bit light. But don't worry, Mint Mobile is here to save you cash on your monthly wireless bill and you still get great speeds and coverage. Mint Mobile's end of year sale is still going on, but only until the end of the month. Cut out Big Wireless's bloated plans and unnecessary monthly charges with 50% off 3, 6 or 12 months of unlimited. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts I love Mint Mobile. It's way more affordable than my previous carrier and I still haven't noticed any downsides with the reception, Internet speeds and so on. Plus switching was a cinch this January. Quit overspending on Wireless with 50% off. Unlimited premium wireless plans start at 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com Ericast that's mintmobile.com Ericast Limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for 3 month, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 a month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com looking to create the bath.

Shelter Worker / Witness (26:42)

You'Ve always dreamed of without all the hassle? The Home Depot makes it easier Shop fully styled rooms and curated collections to bring your vision to life. Use digital tools to preview flooring and finishes in your space and get everything you need from tubs to tile delivered fast and priced right. The Home Depot Dream Baths built here.

Interviewer (27:10)

This is pro linebacker TJ Watt and I'm back with YPB by Abercrombie for another activewear drop. My second co design collection has new shorts and tanks that keep up with all my in season and workouts. And their new Restore collection is a game changer off the field too, because even pro athletes like me need rest days. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores because your personal best is greater than anything.

Eeriecast Host / Sponsor Announcer (27:40)

Hey there, Darkness prevails here. Founder of eeriecast, my little network of scary shows. I appreciate you listening to our scary content, but did you know you can Support us? Get ad free feeds of your favorite shows, get a 20 discount code to the Eeriecast store and unlock access to members only audiobooks all at the same time. Just go to eeriecast.com/plus and become a member today. It's cheap and really helps us out. That's eeriecast.com thank you.

Interviewer (28:15)

Signal connection restored and you decided he couldn't be helped?

Shelter Worker / Witness (28:22)

I didn't decide anything. That was just the fact of the matter. I'm not saying he was a lost cause because he was inconvenient or because he didn't behave the way you want sick people to behave. I'm saying there was no point in the process where anything would have reached him. I could see it as clearly as I see you now. The staff did what they could, but watching it, I had this clear thought I hadn't let myself have before. We weren't helping him out of anything. We were keeping him intact to continue going through it. And the part that got under my skin wasn't that he suffered. It was that he wouldn't stop suffering. And then it was being called services and support while the same loop ate him alive day after day. After that shift, I felt like I'd identified a problem nobody wanted to confront. I began to notice the same thing in other people. There were those who received a hot meal and a bed, and you could see their faces come back a little. Then there were the ones who, no matter what you did, were just empty and hollow. I didn't have an explanation for it yet. I just stopped lying to myself about what I was seeing. Some people were simply lost, with no way back, and once you notice the difference, you can't Unnotice sat in my mind like a weird Everything came together on a late shift at the shelter. I stayed because they needed extra help. The building was packed, the air stale and warm from too many bodies trying to get out of the cold. There was a commotion down one of the side hallways, staff voices sharp. Something had shifted from problem to emergency. Someone had collapsed in one of the bathrooms. Same story as always, abuse of one substance or another. Paramedics were on scene. Within minutes I was standing back where they told us to stand, trying to be useful without being in the way. I watched them work on him. I watched his body lying there, unmoving. I watched the paramedic press down on his chest, over and over with a kind of calm that seemed to say he knew this was another lost cause. And while I was watching, something happened to me. My hearing narrowed to a pinpoint of disorienting sound. The room went distant, tunneling from within my head. There was a hot rush up the back of my neck and then an emptiness in my stomach like the floor had dropped out. I grabbed the wall because I thought it was going to pass out. For a few seconds I was not where I was supposed to be. I could still see the hallway, paramedics, staff, the man's body, and the dirty tile floor, but it wasn't the main thing anymore. It was like looking at it through glass while being pulled backward through a door from another place. The sounds stretched and flattened, the fluorescent lights turned into pale strips. The edges of everything softened, like the world had been reduced to its simplest components. Then that hallway widened and the sense of place broke apart and I was somewhere else. It felt like stepping into a vast space built out of the same material as thought, distance without Landmarks. Depth without structure. And through it, movement. Countless points of movement, like currents in deep water. People. Not bodies or faces, but presence, thought and intent. Some of them moved like they were being carried forward on a flowing river. They had shape. They had cohesion. Some were groups of interconnected identities gathered in a way that gave off light and love and celebration. Then I felt a weight pulling me down. It took me from that place of thought and connection into someplace dark and chaotic. It was loud. Without noise, flashes of something like disruption prevented thought and identity alike. It was pain, annoyance and discomfort in a way that never ended and found new ways to disrupt the self that was supposed to exist. There were ragged, shadowy forms everywhere, in piles, in states of disembodiment, in every way that was unpleasant to be. This wasn't the moral concept people have of an afterlife. It isn't. Good people go here. Bad people go there. The ones below weren't being judged or punished. They were just disconnected. Like a limb that no longer received signals, a wire cut inside a wall. They existed separately, unable to reach what the rest could reach. I'm not trying to scare you or hide behind religion. I'm telling you what it felt like to witness endless repetition with no exit, no fire or deliberate torture. This was suffering with no progression, no reprieve, no point and no end. And the most terrifying part was, was how familiar it felt. Because I'd already been watching it in the shelter. I'd been watching people alive in front of me who couldn't connect to people, to warmth, to hope, to tomorrow. People whose bodies kept moving while the person inside was sealed away. They weren't just impossible to help. They were at risk of losing the only thing that would eventually matter. I don't know how long it lasted. Seconds, maybe. Time isn't a part of the other side. What I do know is that I snapped back into the hallway with my hand still on the wall, my knees locked, my mouth dry, and my eyes fixed on that man on the floor as the paramedic pressed down on his chest.

Interviewer (35:10)

You're telling me you believe that you left your body.

Shelter Worker / Witness (35:13)

Call it an episode, call it a hallucination. I don't care what you call it. That was the day I learned the truth of this life. That night, for whatever reason, I became privy to something so fundamental that people have been searching for it as long as we've existed. I knew what was at the end. I knew most people would reach it. And I knew there were way too many that wouldn't. I was no longer able to just write names on a clipboard and hand someone a blanket, calling it mercy while I watched them walk into an eternal abyss of pain and suffering. I knew the truth, and it was my choice what I did with that truth. And I made my choice. A few days later, when he finally showed back up, the man who'd been having issues at the shelter previously. He was outside under an overhang on the side of the building, sitting with his shoulders tucked in like he could fold himself small enough to disappear. The cold had him red at the knuckles, raw at the cheeks. His eyes stayed fixed on the concrete, not scanning, not tracking, not asking anything from anyone. I guess he just couldn't be bothered to come in. I brought him water and something hot to eat. I offered it to him with some conversation. He wanted neither, continuing to just stare at the ground like I wasn't even there. Simple solution. Feed one of their vices. And since I didn't have any heroin, I made a more believable offer. I'm about to hit the bar. Want to come? First round's on me. He didn't look up exactly, but his feet started to search for purchase. I waited patiently until he was trailing behind me in a slow, sliding limp. There was a small annex a few blocks away that was used by the shelter a while ago when they had more staff and more funding. I had found some keys in the filing cabinets with all the facilities carryover paperwork. It took us about 15 minutes, but we made it there soon enough. I unlocked the door and let him in first. He didn't even question it, just walked in like a zombie. Inside, the air was cold and dry. The place was mostly empty except for a few pieces of old furniture left behind. The work lights I'd set up, angled at the ceiling, cast tall shadows across the walls. He stopped just inside the doorway and looked around like he was trying to understand what kind of bar this was. I shut the door. He stood there, not really moving, just waiting. There was nothing else to wait for. I picked up the small club I'd set by the door and brought it against the side of his head. He went down slow and stiff. No bleeding, just a nice lump already forming. I spent a lot of time researching how hard you have to hit someone to knock them out but not kill them. For my first time, I did it about as well as anyone could have expected. I dragged him by the feet to the room I'd already prepared with plastic, plastic sheeting. There was an old lunch table I'd brought in there and drilled four holes into that. I Fed rope through. Once I'd cut his clothes off and awkwardly lifted him onto the table. I cinched the rope around his wrists and ankles and pulled them tight to the table. His body was terrible, an outside representation of his internal condition. Emaciated, scarred, dirty, covered in scabs that looked to be infected. It surprised me a little that he'd survived this long. I didn't have to wait too long before he woke up. He didn't say anything exactly, just kind of groaned and grunted, still refusing to make eye contact with me. He didn't ask a single question. Can you believe that? No. What are you doing? Why am I naked and tied to a table? It wasn't that he didn't care. It was that he wasn't there to care. I had to bring him out and set him free. I didn't bother explaining. Even if he listened to me, he wouldn't have understood. He couldn't. I grabbed the saw from my bag of tools and started on his left leg below the knee. I was about halfway through before his expression even changed. I could see the moment he came to the surface when his eyes held something other than emptiness. It made me sad that it had to be like this. More suffering. But it would be temporary and there was no other way. I gagged his mouth as he started screaming, placed a tourniquet and finished with a leg. He passed out at the time that I got it separated and had to use the first adrenaline shot to wake him up and keep him up. I followed the same process on his other leg and arms. His screams had faded into muffled sobs. He looked at me then as I stood over him, I could see a person for the first time. Even with the tourniquets, time was very limited. He was still bleeding out and his body was going into shock. If I didn't finish and he died, it would all be for nothing. I would have just sent him to his fate early. I told him to stay with me, that it was almost over. As I traced his scalpel from his sternum to his belly button, finishing it with that Y pattern on his chest I'd seen in every crime, TV show, Autopsy. His eyes streamed with tears as his head rolled back and forth on the plastic covered table. I peeled the skin open, cutting the muscle and fat away from his chest plate until I could see the pulsing of his beating heart through a slot in his ribs. We'd made it this far. This was the moment I knew it was all going to work out. I grabbed his chin and forced his face towards mine. He fought weakly to avert his gaze, but it was different than before. He was choosing not to look at me. I told him to look at me, and when he didn't, I nearly yelled it. He did so reluctantly, afraid of what I would do next. I told him that I was sorry he had to suffer, that I didn't want to do this to him, but that it was the only way to pull him out and break the cycle, that it was over and now he would exist in a place of peace and dignity and connection. I can't be sure if he was just fading or if he knew my words to be true, but he seemed to relax as I slid the scalpel into his heart, holding his gaze with mine. In those last moments as he drifted away, I knew he'd gone to the place of peace. His spirit was whole, though his body was not. I bagged everything up and put it in the dumpster in the alley. I got it cleaned up and like it never happened, within an hour, I knew what I did that day looked and felt like the worst thing someone could do from his point of view, but the alternative for him was so much worse I can't even put it into words. After that day, it wasn't a question anymore. One thing that changed was how fast I could spot them. Once you've seen what it looks like when someone finally comes back to the surface, when there's a real person behind the eyes for a few seconds, you can recognize the opposite instantly. The ones who walk around with a body and no driver were everywhere. Not just at the shelter, not just downtown. Anywhere you can find people, you will see them. The second was a woman outside the clinic with her knees up to her chest, smoking a cigarette down to the feet, filter until it burned her fingers. She didn't flinch. The skin blistered and she stared at it like it belonged to someone else. When I spoke to her, she answered like she was reading off the wrong script. Her eyes kept missing my face by an inch. She came with me because, I don't know, the empty ones don't really question you all that much. The third was a man on the night bus who kept jerking awake every few minutes. He held his hands in front of him as if he were gripping something invisible. When he opened his eyes, he didn't look around. He stared straight through the aisle. When he stood and got off, I followed behind him. He went to an abandoned house that was clearly being used as a drug den. I buried him in the backyard. Then there were two that came as a pair they'd been living out of a motel room. Two people sharing the same bed, both alive, both empty, both feeding the same habits and the same shame and the same silence. They didn't speak to each other, and their eyes never changed when they looked at one another. They were already in that lower place while their bodies were still above ground, being used for their next fixed. The woman didn't even react when I saved the man first. There were more after that. A teenager in a hoodie I found pacing outside a convenience store and scratching in his own forearm until blood ran, not even glancing down. A man in a waiting room with a hospital bracelet still on his wrist, staring at a wall. A woman behind a grocery store dumpster humming softly to herself while her hands shook, her mouth moving over words she couldn't get out. It was rare that they even fought. Mostly they didn't register what was happening until the pain dragged them up by force. That part never stopped being abrupt. One second they were lost deep inside their own suffering and and the next they were fully awake by it. There were more after that. I learned how to do it perfectly. Perfect doesn't mean clean. It means consistent. It means recognizing the threshold and holding it long enough. It means waiting for the exact shift when they were whole. That was when I let them go. It happened enough times that I stopped feeling like I was improvising and started feeling like I'd finally found the method. The world was missing. I never lost one to the other side. I never let the moment slip away. Every time I finished it, the loop ended for good. Weeks turned into months without feeling like months. I still lived my life around it. I still went to work and stood in lines and made small talk and listened to people complain about traffic and weather like those things were real problems. I still showed up at the shelter, filled out forms and carried boxes and smiled at staff like I belonged there. I could joke with them and do the same motions everyone else did, then walk out into the night and do the only thing that really mattered, only to come back the next day and join in on the pointlessness. The strange part wasn't hiding it. The strange part was how easy the world made it. People disappear every day and everything just keeps going. A missing man becomes a story, then a shrug, then a statistic. A missing woman becomes a flyer and a pole that fades in the rain. A missing teenager becomes a common thread full of strangers guessing at reasons. Everyone wants an explanation that puts distance between their life and the person who vanished. Drugs, mental illness, runaway, bad crowd. Anything that turns it into a story that can't happen to them. After some time, I saw a story online about a string of disappearances, framed the way people frame things when they don't understand what's happening. The article used soft language. At risk transient. It quoted a spokesperson who promised the public that there was no known threat. The comments underneath argued about whether the missing people mattered enough to be news. I expected the police eventually, but that never came. I don't know who you guys are, but I know you're not police. Government maybe. Definitely not FBI. So I'll ask you the only question that matters to me now. What are you going to do with me?

Agent Conroy / Narrator (49:06)

I'm not going to give you a neat explanation for what you just heard. I don't have one. What I do have is enough context to tell you why the Bureau is treating this like a fire they can't let spread. This wasn't pulled from a clean, stamped phenomenon report. Our team built this file out of intercepted fragments. A partial interview, internal documentation that wasn't meant to leave their network, and a few pieces of project language that line up too perfect to be anything else. They've been developing a compound meant to make civilian handling Easier compliance, memory manipulation. Less mess, less cost. Fewer witnesses who remember too much. In theory, it interrupts mental loops long enough for the Bureau to control a scene without turning it into a public disaster. The Bureau's working theory on this incident is blunt. Instead of resetting the subject, it pushed his mind into instability and forced it to rebuild around a single dominant framework that may have been previously existing or formed after being dosed. Here's the part nobody can prove yet. Whether his race revelation was a psychotic break brought on by the dose, a hallucination, or an accidental glimpse at something real, the Bureau's top scientists don't know, and neither does our team. But I can tell you how the Bureau is acting. And that matters more than what they claim. In a memo, we intercepted an internal email chain from a director level account. It referenced exposure windows, probability estimates and screening criteria. Language that only makes sense if they know or assume this wasn't an isolated incident. One man can be locked away, one transcript can be buried. But ticking time bombs released into the general population are a different story. And if the Bureau has stumbled upon on to a way to chemically manufacture that type of conviction, whether it's delusion or truth, the real danger isn't what happened here. It's what they'll do with that compound next.

Mochi Health Advertiser (51:33)

This podcast is supported by MIDI Health. Are you in midlife feeling dismissed, unheard or just plain tired of the old healthcare system. You're not alone. In fact, even today, 75% of women seeking care for menopause and perimenopause issues are left entirely untreated. But it's time for a change. It's time for MITI. MITI's not just a healthcare provider, it's a women's telehealth clinic founded and supported by world class leaders in women's health. Their clinicians provide one on one face to face consultations where they truly listen to your unique needs. They offer a full range of holistic, data driven solutions that isn't one size fits all care. This is care uniquely tailored for you. At miti you will find that their mission is clear to help all women thrive in midlife, giving them access to the healthcare they deserve because they believe midlife isn't the middle at all. It is the beginning of your second act. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script? Visit joinmitty.com today to book your personalized insurance covered virtual visit. That's joinmitty.com the Care Women deserve.