As soon as he notices what's happening he immediately grabs a paper and a pencil and starts taking it down in shorthand. Without expecting this to really work, he says "Tim? Tim? Do you want to write down the statement on a piece of paper? Or use the typewriter?"

As he writes, Lev wonders if-- the Watchful Thing, the Beholding, whatever you want to call it-- is helping him write. He was always good at shorthand, but now he isn't missing a single word, and he's coming up with abbreviations on the fly for common words like 'worm.'

"Fine. Give the notebook here, then."

Lev hands it over, inwardly pleased by this unexpected opportunity to see the effect of an interrupted statement on himself. 

Tim scribbles at the paper for a while before shoving it in Lev's direction. "Here. Enjoy the new addition to your collection, I guess."

The notebook says:

Statement of Timothy Stoker, 12 March 2016

Regarding an encounter with Jane Prentiss

A couple weeks ago, I was looking into the statement about the arachnophobe. Carlos Vittery. I went to go visit his flat down in Boothby Road. It was early, and finding the building wasn't a problem. It looked just like Mr. Vittery said it did in his statement, and there’s a big thick door on the front, that looks like it leads into the hall and then to the flats. It was locked, obviously, so I tried the buzzer. Nope. Everyone's at work. The basement window was open, though, and--I know I shouldn't have gone down there, alright? I've been beating myself up about it the past two weeks for being a bad horror movie protagonist, I get it. But I wanted to know if there was anything there. I saw a worm on the way, too--it looked like a little piece of metal, at first, maybe a screw or something that someone threw away, but no. It was a worm, a silver segmented worm with a black head, about an inch long. But I looked around and it was the only one, so--I went down. Into the basement. It was a bit of a tumble, really, since the window was ground level for the outside, but I checked and I wasn't hurt, so I figured I had got off okay. It was pretty dark, but I thought, right, okay, I've got a torch, how bad can it be, it's just a basement! Stupid, I know. The air was... musty. And it was warm, which was weird, it was cold out, but I took a look around with my torch and I saw... nothing. Just some old spiderwebs, I mean real old, like, I don't think there were any spiders actually still living there old. That's when I realized how stupid it all was, that here I was, breaking in to this old house to look for ghost spiders... That's when I heard movement.

It was quiet, but I was sure I had heard it. I didn't want to check it out, I've looked into enough of these cases that I know what usually happens to the people who follow the spooky noises, and it's usually bad. But I panicked, flung my torch around, trying to see what it was, and that's when I saw her. Jane Prentiss. She was facing away from me, just staring at the corner of the wall. Her hair was long and black, though it was so twisted and dirty it was hard to tell if that was its original colour. She wore a threadbare grey overcoat, though beneath it her legs were bare, and covered with what I at first I thought were spots. In her right hand she held a stained, green handkerchief. She stood there, totally still, either not noticing the torchlight that was shining on her, or not caring. I froze. I don't think I was even shaking, I was just--completely still.

Then, with a quick, jerky movement she brought the handkerchief to her face and coughed. Or--did something that looked like a cough, because it didn’t sound like any cough I've ever heard. It sounded like... like wet meat. I saw something drop from the handkerchief onto the floor. It was about an inch long, silver, and it wriggled as it fell.

And then she turned around and saw me. Her head snapped towards me and she locked eyes with me. Her pupils seemed ragged and collapsed, and when she smiled her teeth were chipped and blackened. I started to stagger backwards, expecting at any moment for her to lunge at me, but instead she slowly reached up and… let the overcoat fall to the floor.

Her skin was pale, almost grey, and full of holes. Deep, black holes just honeycombing every bit of flesh. Like a wasp's nest. And those worms, crawling in and out of her. She didn't look human anymore. Maybe she wasn't, I don't know. I just know that seeing those worms, twitching, squirming through her, like she was a hive--I was barely able to move. 

She took a step towards me, then, and as she did the worms began to writhe out of every hole and every cavity, falling to the floor in a cascading wave and starting to crawl towards me. I'd never seen worms move that fast. I was able to move then, and I took my phone out, to call for help, but I was shaking badly enough that I dropped it. I didn't bother trying to pick it up, just left it to the worms and ran.

I made it, though. Ran all the way back to my flat. I was exhausted by the time I got there. It was the middle of the day but I just fell right back onto my bed and shook.

Must've fell asleep eventually, because the knocking woke me up. It was still bright out, so I don't think I napped for too long, but it's hard to say, because I didn't have any power. No power, no phone, and I don't own an analog clock. Maybe I'll get one after this, I don't know. But I looked out the peephole of the door and--there she was. And then I looked down, and saw those worms, making their way under my door.

I shoved a towel in place before more could get through, at least. Made my flat as close to airtight as possible. At least none of them tried the ventilation, I guess, or the pipes. 

And then I stayed there. For thirteen days, I stayed in that room. Sometimes I would think it might be safe, and then the knocking would start up again, or I'd see a worm through the peephole. I had food, but I had to ration it. Drank lots of tap water. Honestly, I think the worst part was the boredom. The isolation. No one to talk to, no power, no phone. I had books, but I didn't have light except during the day, and I wasn't exactly sleeping well. She never talked to me, did you know? I could have heard her, if she had. Could've heard her easy. But she didn't. Just... knocked.

Finally, I woke up this morning and she was gone. I don’t know exactly how I knew. The musty smell was gone, that was the first thing I noticed, and it was quiet, like, actually quiet, like--when you listen to white noise for so long your brain tunes it out, and then it disappears. And there was no knocking, and when I checked the peephole and the windows--gone. So I ran here. Statement ends.

(If Lev tries digitizing it, it doesn't work.)

"...do we know anything about how to make sure you're not, uh, full of parasites right now? --I guess Jane Prentiss's victims aren't contagious, right?"

"As far as we know, at least. And they're probably infectious at the, uh, bursting-into-worms stage. But no, you're right. The Institute has ECDC contacts, right? I should probably be... quarantined, or checked, or--whatever they do for whatever Jane Prentiss even is."

"Well, uh, don't touch anything for a couple minutes."

Lev calls the ECDC using the number which is in the extremely helpful onboarding materials he made and asks what you should do if someone has been exposed to Jane Prentiss.

The ECDC wants to know if any worms reached him, and if he’s itchy at all. When he says no to both, they say they’ll take him in for a 24-hour quarantine and see if he develops any symptoms, but if he doesn’t then he should be fine. 

While he’s on the phone with the ECDC, Lev’s phone buzzes with a text. It’s from Tim, and it says:

Keep him. We’ve had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.

.......well that's creepy! Reassuring, but creepy!

"ECDC is going to pick you up for quarantine," Lev says, "and also I've been getting texts from you for two weeks. Just got another one."

"...What does it say."

"Keep him. We’ve had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives."

"Well that's not ominous at all. Fun."

"Before that, they were mostly telling me you were out sick with a stomach bug and you thought you might have a parasite which was... thoughtful... of them... I suppose."

"I.... guess... Gonna be honest, I'm kind of glad that it sounds like they're leaving me alone. Though, uh. The fact that a bunch of worms have been apparently catfishing my boss for the last two weeks isn't exactly thrilling. --Sorry, it's been a really rough two weeks."

".....yeah I can figure. At least you can rest in quarantine. --Maybe my crimson fate will be nice. Watermelons maybe. Or roses."

“Yeah.” Snort. “That’d be nice.”

"Why does everyone m-- paranormal talk like that? Crimson fate. They could just say 'horrifying amounts of blood.' Or even tell me what my fate is. But no, they have to be cryptic, like they're doing foreshadowing for a horror podcast."

“You know what, I actually don’t know. Sure would be great if they didn’t, but what do we know, I guess, we’re just the ones who have to deal with it all the time.”

"Well. Good luck in quarantine. I hope they have good books."

“Thanks, boss.” And then the ECDC is there to pick him up!

.........Lev is going to spend today allegedly filing statements by date without checking whether they're digitizable and actually failing to not worry about what a 'crimson fate' is and scratching psychosomatic itches. And then he is going to leave work at a normal time, go home, flop on Martin, and say "I was ominously threatened by Jane Prentiss today."

He is going to be very hugged about this! “What happened?”

"Tim spent the past two weeks trapped in his apartment by Jane Prentiss. She finally left today. And she stole his phone-- that's why we got the texts about stomach flu-- and today she texted me to be like 'we've had our fun, we're going to leave him alone because he will want to see the Archivist's crimson fate. That last bit was her exact words."

“That’s....not........great.” Lev is being held very tightly. “Do we have any sort of, uh, plan, or anything?”

"Take up smoking?"