MISSION LOG 3XC-0R1A7I-On-8R (1a-N),
INTERVIEWING [REMOVED AT REQUEST OF PARTICIPANT]
NOTICE: This recording and associated transcript has been flagged by Staff Counselors as potentially disturbing. Continue at your discretion.
Beginning Playback
“Oh, so I speak right into this?”
……….
“Ah yes. Understood, sir.”
“I have been informed that, as the sole witness to the scene of Dr. Sereboro’s death, I am to give my account of events leading up to me discovering the body of the aforementioned. I swear, under threat of perjury, that what I am about to say is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; so help me God.
…..God help me.
I met Dr. Sereboro almost a year ago. Though he wasn’t Dr. Sereboro to me. Despite me being a lowly grad student interning at his lab, he always treated me as an equal. Demanded I refer to him as Diego, or Professor Diego if I had to be formal about it. He was just that sort of man. Never looked down on anyone. For fuck’s sake, the guy would buy breakfast for the same homeless man every day on his way to work.”
………
“Would I say that I admired him? Absolutely! The man was brilliant! Have you read his papers on human anatomy as it relates to psychology? In the single year I’ve known him, he was awarded by the committees for the natural sciences three times over! It was a marvel to work by his side. He would ponder a question or sit on a project for weeks only to finally wrap it all up in a single night.
Regardless, it would seem he took a liking to me as well. There were only two of us in the lab alongside him and the other student was always quick to leave when her duties were done. So Professor Diego and I would often enjoy spirited conversation while I finished my schoolwork. Honestly I think I learned more from speaking with him than my actual professors.
As the months went by, Diego took me on as his full time research assistant. We became good friends and colleagues. Wasn’t uncommon to see us enjoying a few drinks and discussing our research before going home after work.
It was one of those nights at the bar that I asked him. I said ‘Professor, how do you come up with all of this? I can’t imagine what goes on inside that head of yours.’ And his answer never really sat right with me. It was the sort of answer that seems to make the warm light in the room get just that tiny bit dimmer. Cause even though he phrased it like a joke, there was something in his voice that just seemed exhausted.”
………….
“What did he say? I was getting to that, sir. He said, ‘Each time I ponder the essence of a question, it is as though the answer is wriggling inside my skull. Waiting to hatch forth and be born! Like the goddess Athena!’
We laughed then. But I could hear it then and I can still hear it now. That tired sigh behind the smile. Oh god I should have known.
The next few days at work went by normally but I couldn’t shake that strange feeling from the night at the bar. I watched the Professor carefully as he worked, curious to see what could have him so exhausted. The answer, I believed, was simple enough. As the hours dragged on into the night, the Professor would lay awake at his desk scribbling and reading and generally working but never sleeping. Whenever exhaustion took him, he would simply scratch at the back of his head and yawn before working even faster than before. The strange thing was the scratching. You’d swear the man had lice from how he scratched the back of his head. His hair was normally so neatly trimmed and slicked back but in those moments he looked more like a dark haired Einstein. And he just kept scratching; even though his nails were soaked in blood and skin. Until he simply stopped and shot up straight and started working again. Like a light bulb went off in his head.
Then one day he didn’t come in to work. The Professor usually worked from a home office whenever he was sick. So I thought nothing of it at first. But someone had left grant paperwork that needed to be signed right away on his desk in the lab. Delivering it to his home was the least I could do. I’d done it a hundred times before with a spare key he’d given me after my promotion.
The house was quiet when I got there. That eerie sort of quiet that leaves your ears ringing just to fill the air. But Diego’s car was in the driveway, and the lights were all on. No one called back when I yelled, so I started looking around. Every room in the house was empty. So I went to check the basement, where the Professor’s office was.
He was on the ground when I came in. There was blood everywhere. The man had scratched a patch of his scalp clean off of his head, down to the bone. His nails still oozed with pus and sinew, and were stuck in the leftover skin around the wound. But the strangest thing was his skull. Oh, god, his skull! There was a hole in the damned thing bigger than my fist! But it looked like it had been chipped away from the inside! Like something had tried to crawl its way out but could only scratch and writhe and dig with dozens of fingers against his skull until it could break free.”
……….
“Why did I phrase it like that?
Because I saw his brain still wriggling around on the floor! Fingers and all!”