"You didn't say you would ask such pointed questions," Dr. Keaton says.

"I'm sorry, perhaps I let my curiosity get the better of me. Can you tell me where this fire happened?"

"A barn, out in the agricultural district near LA."

Writing. "Thank you. - do you you speak much to the other inmates here?"

Sad smile. "I was never really one for, uh. Talking."

"It's interesting, one of the other patients was speaking about mouths earlier. Have you gone on about them recently, or was that only immediately after being hospitalized?"

"No, I'm on the medications now and I know that all the things I remember seeing were, uh, delusions. Psychoses from being unable to handle--" He pauses.

"Right, thank you. That's good to hear. Before I go, I have looked through some of the late Mr. Winston's files, and they're a bit confusing in places. Does the word 'nyarlathotep' mean anything to you?"

"It might have meant something once."

(He is too drugged to remember any of his anthropology research.)

"I think you should tell her what really happened that night," Doctor Keaton says encouragingly.

"This one guy, with a shotgun, just... blew Echavarria away. Shot him right down." Lev pauses and is visibly hesitant to say anything more. "I stabbed that guy with Echavarria's knife. This big ugly knife. A few times. To get away. I was so sure he was going to kill me too and I had to get away from there-- there's a lot of blood? Inside a person? Did you know that? There's so much blood."

"Calm yourself," Dr. Keaton says.

"I know it was wrong. I see his face before me every night and, and the blood, and there's nothing I can do, and-- Dr. Keaton says there's nothing I can do about it so I should just move on. That's what Dr. Keaton says. And, and the stress of it was too much and with the suggestibility I started hallucinating and--"

"Yes?"

"And that's it."

"You lost consciousness, and woke up in a hospital?"

Lev's eyes flick to Dr. Keaton for permission.

"Are you interested in the character of Mr. Aarons's hallucinations?" Dr. Keaton asks, clearly expecting the answer to be "no".

"If it wouldn't be too upsetting to share?"

"Sure, if he doesn't mind. I'd like to have an account of the whole thing, start to finish, even if it's marred in places by unreliable narration."

"I hallucinated something with long weird limbs and no head and-- and mouths, lots of mouths, and I couldn't really make it out and I didn't try. And then I stabbed that guy and ran the hell out of there."

"Language."

"Sorry, ma'am. --It was-- I was already very keyed up? Because I was the central focus of the ritual, I didn't really understand all of it but Echavarria put, he put a spell on me, right before the-- right before I started hallucinating, and-- he didn't tell me what it was supposed to do."

"Had you been the focus of these rituals before?"

"No, never, it was the first time, I-- I was so excited that, that my participant observation was a success-- it probably made me suggestible. Made me hallucinate. Because magic's not real. He couldn't really put a spell on me because magic's not real."