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If- if I told you that I met someone down there, someone that- someone that wasn’t a person, would you believe me?
Statement of Joseph Skott, Regardi-
I, I didn’t tell you my name. I didn’t- stop, let me- please let go-
Regarding an encounter with Something Other
The Something Other, please. And I’ve never called it that aloud, people’d laugh. Sounds like a dumb creepypasta.
Statement Begins
O- Okay, who are- who… it started with my brother. We’ve never gotten along, not in the jokey, flighty way that it usually is with brothers, it was- it felt malicious at times. People got hurt. I got hurt. Needless to say I cut contact pretty fast, when I could, and left as it were. I didn’t see him for years after. Picked up hobbies, avoided therapy. Nothing new.
I’m not like, a prophet of doom or anything, I just- I got really involved in some climate movements. Some, some kinda negative ones. Worst case scenarios and all that. I promise the people there were really nice, but they were all so convinced everything we knew and loved was going to be consumed by fire or disease or the Government or- you get the idea. End of the World club. And- and I believed it. I was terrified. It was nice to be surrounded by people that were scared to.
I’d like to think I helped, in some way. Made a difference. Ha. Like we can do anything now.
My brother reached out a few days ago. At least I think it was days. Told me he needed a hand with something. Just a text. No hi or apology or ‘Hey here’s 50 quid for putting you in hospital all those times’. Just a brief text saying he needed help, with an address. Arsehole probably wanted help moving in or something, I thought. Fat chance I was carrying a sofa up seven flights of stairs for a guy that didn’t believe in allergies. But it was- it was weird. No punctuation, more and more spelling mistakes the longer you looked, like it had been typed in a hurry. It had been years since we’d even communicated, and out of nowhere he’s asking for help.
Naturally I started assuming the worst, one of my few talents as I’m sure you’ve worked out. He’s been robbed, his house is on fire, he’s having a mental health crisis, anything. Everything. He’d sent his location, so I just- I just went. Didn’t bring anything. Didn’t call anyone. Sounds so, so stupid in hindsight, but fear was doing the driving and it was my brother. I wasn’t thinking straight. Like I was a kid again.
Didn’t question it when I rolled up to an empty underground parking garage. One of the proper huge ones with big yellow and black signs and cold white lighting. Pulled into the closest space and got out, started walking towards where I thought he was. I- I think it had me by then. I wasn’t thinking straight. Wasn’t thinking. Lights passed overhead in a regular rhythm as the garage got narrower. There was a bit in the corner coned off, where it had collapsed. Didn’t think. I climbed through rubble that was cold and still and dead. I was the only thing breathing down there.
Now I’ve watched my fair share of abandoned building exploration shitey ‘You’ll never guess what happened next’ videos. I’ve seen some shit, but it was all through my nice little phone screen. None of it was real, not in the same way I was real or my desk job was real. It was some fun fantasy that didn’t happen to people like me. And I was glad. Was glad. I pulled myself through- through a gap made from layers of insulation and long rusted rebar piled under collapsed concrete. Because I Knew my brother had done the same. Maybe today. Maybe weeks ago. But I could almost see him picking his way through, following the same path. Felt like the closest we’d been in years.
I was half blind with dust when I got to the other side. Stood up in darkness. It hit me then how alone I was, that I had no one in my life that would come looking. Except my brother. He must’ve thought the same.
Went to look at my phone, check the text, and swore. It had been on the whole time I was crawling, and the number in the corner said 19%. Not terrible, but I had no idea how long it would take to find my brother, and sort of wanted to use the torch while I was down here. I didn’t need to exactly, there was, there was light. I think. But it wasn’t enough. I knew where the walls were, but there could be anything lurking in the corners.
It was a sterile kind of corridor, like tube station almost. White tiles and a concrete floor. Made for workers, not the public. Practical, not pretty. There were maps on the walls, showing where the sea would flood first. Where the fires would get more frequent. What would happen to food production. I’d seen them all before, just never so accurate. Didn’t stop to take them in though, my brother needed help. Didn’t stop to think what the maps were doing in a tube station. That this wasn’t a tube station.
It got worse the further I walked. Pictures now, humanity strapped to machines for oxygen, fire baked bodies and flooded cities. Mosaics of my worst fears and certainties. This place felt like a museum. Like it had already happened, and this was the only thing left to document it. Like it was going to happen no matter what. I was running, I think. Too dark to see where my feet were, too cold to breathe. Vapour spilling from my mouth in sharp bursts. I had to find my brother, he wasn’t safe here.
Turned a corner -had there been any before?- and there he was. Just a silhouette outlined by a cold fluorescent light. Impossibly far away, impossibly still. He turned I think, we locked eyes. It wasn’t my brother. I don’t have one, never did.
He was tackled from the side by a man that wasn’t. Torn to pieces up against the wall and left to slide down it. Cold concrete smeared with red whenever the light flickered back on to briefly illuminate it. The man that wasn’t turned. If it was a man, which it wasn’t, it would’ve smiled.
I don’t know why it took me so long to run. Felt like a dream, where your legs move so slowly. But I was barrelling down corridors, my phone throwing shadows across the walls with its torch-beam. Breathing so hard, but the air was polluted and filled with smoke. No one was coming. Couldn’t call anyone without signal. Where was the hole? How to get out-
The man that was Something Other moved fluidly. Quickly. A pace that I couldn’t match. I fell behind, and it surrounded me. Backed up against a wall, heart thundering as I felt the bite of steel rebar digging into my back. And hands, hands so cold pulling me backwards. Through clinging insulation foam that filled my mouth and eyes.
Into a parking garage that wasn’t empty. It was quiet sure, but the occasional car sat silent in its space. A few car lights were on. Someone was playing music.
A man that was definitely a man placed a hand against my neck, over my mouth. Asked me if I knew where I was. I cried then, all quiet so It wouldn’t hear me. I couldn’t feel it anymore, but I knew it would be pacing behind the walls.
I told him my car was here. It wasn’t. My house is gone too, it’s been knocked down and built over. Industrial complex. Haha. It’s different now. Nothings the same. Sometimes it feels like I never got out.
And your brother?
Don’t have one. Most of the hospital visits were my own fault, or my parents. Only child, see. I left because they said they’d run out of sympathy if I did anything else. Were tired of making allergy safe foods only for me to have a reaction anyway. I can’t find them. Can’t find anyone from my old life. Sometimes it feels like I never got out.
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