"Nope, Martin, spiders are just objectively evil and you are going to have to accept that."

"Nooooooo. Terrible." (He's laughing.)

Some time passes!

"Squash Jane Prentiss's worms" becomes a normal if annoying part of his daily routine. He drinks too much tea. He takes too much modafinil, but gets eight hours of sleep most nights. He eats less erratically than he normally would if he were this interested in his job. He has nightmares. 

Lev creates a taxonomy of digitizable statements. (Angels. Creepy dolls. Visits from deceased pets. Things that are IDK man just kind of spooky.) He has one-on-ones with his assistants and then, managing done, mostly works alone. He mixes truths with lies creatively whenever he talks to Sasha about what he thinks about the paranormal. 

He answers emails from former students; he doesn't tell them where he works.

He does not try to teach Martin anything else; sometimes he cuts himself off halfway through a sentence before he offers. He attempts to convince Martin to explain to him how scansion works, which is mostly driven by the fact that listening to people he loves explain things is the best thing in the world, and a little bit driven by the desire for Martin to feel smarter than him about something.   

He injects testosterone in his leg in the bedroom, where Martin can see.

(Martin is allowed to touch him through his pants, then under his pants with the pants still on, then to fuck him in the ass with the lights off. Lev watches with carefulness that is almost paranoia for a sign that Martin is disgusted by him or has decided that he's a woman.)

The number of worms around the Institute increases, slowly but steadily. Martin knocks on his office one day to let him know that statement givers cannot, apparently, lie, though they still don't know whether they can avoid telling the whole truth. Elias supplies extra CO2 fire extinguishers to the Archives.

He finds more non-digitizable statements.

The first was given by Mark Bilham in 2015. His girlfriend’s roommate Natalie Ennis started spending all her time in “church,” after her mom died, and acting strangely, unscrewing all the lightbulbs and singing discordantly in a strange language at night. Even when she was out of the house, strange thumping and shuffling noises came from her room. One night, Natalie tried to convert Mark's girlfriend, Kathy Harper, saying that Kathy could still be saved; Natalie made a cold, pale, mushy dinner and said she was going to move to a new home, saying that “300 years was a long time to wait” but it was “near the end” and they would soon be “collected by Mr. Pitch.” Kathy was scared and declined politely; Natalie replied “You’re a natural for Them. You’re worshipping as we speak.” Kathy ran out of the house and went to visit Mark. Mark got angry and went to the house, but by the time he arrived, Natalie was gone. Her room was empty; even the carpeting had been torn up in order to cover the window. The only thing left in the room was piece of paper saying “Hither Green Dissenters” with a closed eye symbol. Mark drove to Hither Green Cemetery and its chapel; inside was pitch black and seemed significantly bigger than it appeared from outside. Dozens of people inside were chanting, coming together for the words Ny-Ålesund. He suddenly remembered that he had his phone, and pulled it out to use as a torch; as soon as the light is on, the chapel appears to be its normal size and entirely empty, the singing gone. Natalie was never seen again. Follow-up research reveals that a month later, on the same day that Gertrude Robinson died, police were called to the chapel because a neighbor heard screaming. They found nothing.

The second statement was given by Paul McKenzie in 2003. Since his wife died four months ago, he's had trouble sleeping. One night, he noticed someone trying to open his bedroom door; he held onto the doorknob, preventing them, and they stayed like that for twenty minutes. He called the police, who found no signs of any intruder. The next night he locked it; this time, the door shook violently but didn't open. He called the police again, but they implied that if he continued calling them without proof, they would have him put in a home, so he stopped calling them. This recurred every night, and he decided to get proof. He asked his son to stay with him for a few nights, but nothing happened those nights; he set up a camera, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary on it. Two months after giving his statement, he died of a stroke. Martin reaches out for an interview with Marcus, Paul's son, but he declined, saying that he had already given a statement. (Assuming it exists, Lev isn't able to find it easily.)

At this point, Lev receives a new statement from research, from a woman named Melanie King, who has a Youtube show called Ghost Hunt UK. She, her co-host Andy Kane, and her sound engineer Peter Warhol were set to break into Cambridge Military Hospital to look into reports of a grey lady ghost there. Peter pulled out at the last minute, forcing Melanie to contact Georgie Barker, host of the What the Ghost podcast, for a replacement. Georgie suggested Sarah Baldwin for a replacement, but admitted that she was "a little bit unsocial." Melanie contacted Sarah, who agreed. When the group arrived to pick up Sarah, she didn't come out of the house she'd said she lived in, instead knocking on the door after Melanie called her. Sarah smoked for the entire two-hour drive, and Melanie could faintly smell something sharp and floral under the cigarette smoke; when they arrived at the hospital, Sarah was angry that Melanie hadn't told her the location. They entered the building and started up the shoot; they found the graffitied phrase "Silk will not stitch the butcher's meat," along with more standard graffiti. Sarah agreed to take the 2am - 4am shift, but when Melanie went to wake her for the start of her shift she appeared to not have been sleeping, and at around 3am Melanie woke up to find Sarah missing. She took a camera with night vision settings and started to look for her; there was a strong smell of copper and ammonia. Melanie went upstairs to find Sarah in a room, pleading and gesturing wildly and apologizing for trespassing to something in the room that Melanie couldn't see. As Melanie recorded the scene Sarah was flung across the room and crashed into the wall; Sarah stood, shouted something in a language Melanie didn't recognize, and proceeded to peel back the skin from her left arm, before pulling it back on like a glove and staple it together. Melanie fled back to the camp, Sarah returned 15 minutes later, and after the shoot was over and they'd dropped Sarah off, Tony asked that they not work with Sarah again. The research department couldn't find any external proof of any of this and the footage Melanie has is mostly just distorted static, save for when it shows a figure of a tall man, who is not touching the ground, pointing at the kneeling Sarah. Notably, Sarah Baldwin had disappeared ten years prior to this statement.

The fourth statement was given by David Laylow, regarding his last day working at an industrial abattoir. At the end of the day, his coworker Tom Haan, said “You cannot stop slaughter by closing the door.” An odd silence followed; everyone seemed to be gone, even the cows, and the place was suddenly clean. David tried to exit, but instead of the door letting him out, it brought him into an unfamiliar corridor. As he walked, he noticed that all the corridors in the building had become unfamiliar, although some had rails along the top, like those used to move carcasses. Searching for a way out, he found a metal staircase leading upwards, and followed it for a long time. After going through more corridors, he found an exit door. Going through it dropped him on a conveyor belt; he screamed and ran away. He began to smell blood, and followed it through the corridors, eventually leading him into a large circular room with a pit full of bodies falling off conveyor belts -- both animal and human. Running away again, he discovered the killing floor, where Tom Haan was shooting himself repeatedly with the bolt gun. He took the bolt gun and shot Tom Haan, who went limp, and he was then able to find a corridor he recognized. He left the building and sent his resignation letter in the next day. According to colleagues, what happened was that he and Tom Haan left in the middle of a shift; Haan was never seen again. Recently, the company that employed David and Tom made plans to expand the building, but were having trouble due to four construction workers quitting in quick succession. Tim interviewed one, who refused to say anything other than that the building “already seemed to be way too big.”

The fifth statement was given by Lawrence Mortimer in 2010 about a hunting trip he took to America. While hunting, he heard someone whistling A-Hunting We Shall Go, and encountered a hiker with shaggy hair and ragged clothes who carried no pack. The hiker asked him and his friend, Arden Neeli, a bit about where they’re going; as he left, he said, “Tomorrow will be a good day for a run." At 2am that night, Lawrence heard laughter from outside his tent, but there was nobody there when he checked. The next day, while hunting, Arden suddenly vanished; Lawrence found him in a clearing with his throat torn out. The whistling started again, and Lawrence turned to see the hiker with Arden's blood on him. The hiker grinned and then began to chase Lawrence. The hiker chased him on and off for a long time, sometimes singing or whistling, and in the moonlight he looked like a wolf. Eventually, Lawrence managed to shoot the hiker. Despite emptying all his bullets, the wolf-man doesn't die, but is slowed down enough that Lawrence managed to get to a road and call for help. The hiker was never found, and no follow-up research was possible.

The sixth statement was given in 2011 by Carlita Sloane. Due to a discrepancy on the ship she was previously working on, she ended up having to search for a new ship in Brazil, which was difficult as she didn't speak any Portuguese. Eventually, she found an English ship, the Tundra, and approached the captain, Peter Lukas, at a bar. When she approached him, the bar was suddenly empty, but she had no other job prospects, so she agreed to his offer. Whilst on the ship she noticed that the crew was exceptionally quiet, not talking at all except to give orders or short replies to direct questions. They also all had blank faces and avoided eye contact. She didn't see the captain at all, but met Tadeas Dahl, the first mate, and Sean Kelly, a Scottish man who seemed scared. One day, she noticed that the shipping containers were rusted together and shut, with a new layer of paint over them. Investigating further,  she decided to open one of the containers and found it totally empty. Just after this, the first mate came around gathering the crew. They went into the lifeboats, which were regular rowing boats, and traveled away from the Tundra. When at sea, Tadeas blew the boatswain's whistle; it gave a piercing but distant sound, as though it was loud but far away. A thick sea fog rolled in, hiding the Tundra entirely. Carlita realized that Sean was not on the lifeboats with the rest of the crew. Eventually the smoke cleared and they returned to the ship. The crew became more talkative, but there was no sign of Sean, and when Carlita asked about him she was told that she should be grateful, as "it hadn't been an easy choice". She returned home safely and was paid extremely well, but decided against returning to work with them. 

If Lev tries to do the standard amount of follow-up research, he will get a tensely-worded email from Elias, informing him that the Lukases do not like to be disturbed and doing so anyway could have serious funding repercussions for the Institute. Without interviewing the Lukases, he can find that the Tundra is still active and operating for Solus Shipping PLC, a company founded and majority owned by Nathaniel Lukas. All crew records have stayed the same for 10 years, and despite being listed as a cargo ship, there are no records of any cargo ever being loaded or unloaded from it. Four months after the statement was given, and six months after the events described in it, the body of Sean Kelly washed up on the shores of Morocco; the coroner examining his body ruled that he had only been dead for five days before being found. 

The night that he gets a new statement from Research, a new woman appears in his dreams. They're in an abandoned building; she's petite, mid-twenties, and looks terrified. Her skin is torn off and then stapled back on over and over. Lev can't do anything but watch.

If he searches for Ghost Hunt UK's videos on YouTube, it will confirm that the woman in his dreams is Melanie King.

His dreams start alternating; sometimes Naomi, sometimes Melanie, sometimes both, sometimes neither.

"Christ," he says to Martin when he wakes up from another nightmare about Melanie, "this is really, really not good."

"...Well, you're not wrong, but what's really not good this time?"

"...when Research takes a statement and I read it I get nightmares of the person reliving their statement and I am pretty sure they are sharing the nightmares with me."

".....Yeah, that definitely is not great!"

"Possibly we should stop taking new statements? Or at least new statements from people who aren't working at the Institute, I don't get nightmares related to Tim or Sasha."

"That's... probably a good idea, yeah. I dunno how we'll explain it, though, taking statements is kind of the Institute's whole... thing."

"We could experiment to see if Research taking a statement and then me stuffing it in a corner gives them nightmares?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea. Or, um, hopefully it is, anyway?"

"Yeah, I'm... pretty sure the Beholding wants me to keep taking statements. And I want to have something vaguely approximating research ethics."

"I've heard research ethics are usually recommended, yeah!" Kiss. "Are you okay? With the--nightmares, and the... everything."

"It's not my favorite kind of dream in the world but I haven't exactly had nice dreams for. A while."

"Yeah, I... I guess that's fair. I'm really sorry."

"Or I did have nice dreams, and they're worse, because--" He doesn't finish the sentence. "Anyway. Research ethics, we should figure out how to have some. Kind of concerned I'm going to be compelled to read statements if Research takes them and I try not to read them."

“Let’s, uh... hope that doesn’t happen, I guess.”

"...I guess people might consent to nightmares if they knew about them. People consent to all kinds of side effects for medical research."

“I... guess that’s true? Still seems kind of, um, sketchy, since we’re not exactly doing medical research, but definitely better than not that.”

"...no, but we're doing something really really important, because the paranormal kills lots of people. --I wonder how many people it kills. I should research that."

“Yeah, that’s true, that’s— probably a good thing to research. I guess I just meant, it’s not like we’re giving them something that might cure whatever’s wrong with them? We’re only giving them side effects. But I guess people sign up for studies like that too, like, hey, get sick and we’ll pay you money! I’m definitely glad I’m not the one getting nightmares from it, though.” Shudder.

"So if we have a consent form... probably if I get research to send the live statement-givers to me I can give them a consent form. And then the people who don't want nightmares forever can just leave."

“—Yeah, okay, that makes sense. We’ll just have to write up a consent form, then, I guess?”