Bryce Harnel had been paid a handsome amount of money for this job, and wasn’t interested in doing much else until he milked it dry.

It was an odd job, to be sure. But he was on his third day, and it paid handsomely. Seventeen euros an hour! Back home, that was over twenty USD. And all he had to do was sit in an empty room for six hours a night.

He had to admit, it was a sketchy job. But all those experiment jobs were a little strange, weren’t they? Having new perfume or toothpaste tested on you could end badly, which is why they paid so high. Comparatively, this seemed safe. Didn’t even seem like an experiment, to be frank.

The room resembled an indoor tennis court in size, but an office space in detail. It had two pairs of windowed double doors that were ten feet apart, but white walls and a gray-carpeted ground like the floor of some New York office. The building was underground, and he did think it was strange that it’d be all the way in Ireland’s boonies like Windle Rock, but all he had to do was stay isolated. The only other things in the room were a somewhat uncomfortable chair, a bed with only one sheet and one blanket, a tiny bathroom off to the side, and…

A strange pedestal, right in the center of the room. A statue atop it. Not to mention cameras in the corners of the ceiling.

The job listing was simple. Stay here for six hours every day for two weeks, collect your pay, and leave. He’d had to sign an NDA. Though it said “experiment,” he figured it was footage for some kind of science fiction movie. They must’ve needed a ton of it. He wasn’t certain, though, and he cared little… this much money to sit around? It was a great deal.

Only, it wasn’t such a great deal. For after the third day, he’d gotten bored.

And after the fourth, he was even more bored.

Eventually, the second week rolled around. He’d adapted to the strange job and the boredom it brought with it. He wasn’t allowed to bring anything but his clothes, so he entertained himself in other ways. All of it was recorded, so he was careful with what he did, but he sang to himself, played imaginary drums, all kinds of stuff.

Heh, he thought. I probably look like I’m going insane. That might be what they’re actually trying to capture for this movie, though.

After all, the pedestal in the room was very strange.

It had to be an electronic prop of some kind, but it was very realistic. It likely used actual stone. Shaped like a pillar, atop it some kind of squid statue, the thing was laden with symbols he didn’t understand. These symbols, as well as the eyes of the squid being, often glowed different colors. Sometimes they were white, or green. But more often than not, they didn’t glow at all.

Bryce watched it, one day. He looked into the squid-thing’s eyes.

Hm, it’s not really a squid thing, he thought. It’s more of a person with a squid-like head, I guess. A science fiction movie, indeed. Either way, it was a strange thing in a strange room.

So when it came, he couldn’t say he hadn’t been expecting it. It didn’t make sense to keep him just sitting around doing nothing, after all. He figured, at some point, something even stranger might happen, and they’d be hoping to capture his live reaction. That made sense, if he was supposed to be playing a man isolated and driven mad… although they’d never said that to him. He just assumed.

Either way, Bryce felt a cold chill go down his back when he saw it.

It had nothing to do with the pedestal, either. It was at the door.

Looking in the window was a man in a mascot costume mask.

Bryce jumped. He sat in his chair, staring.

The man’s mask was that of a fuzzy pink bear. Oversized, more than twice as big as his head. Wide, cartoonish eyes. A wide smile. Like Yogi, somewhat. But also like…

He couldn’t quite place it.

The man just stood there. Bryce, more than creeped out, made no effort to move. But he did look away.

The pedestal was glowing a shivery purple. It was a color he hadn’t seen from it before.

Bryce pursed his lips and laced his fingers, elbows on his knees. He looked down. He looked back up.

The man was still there.

Bryce waved, giving him a curt little nod.

The man did not wave back. The cartoon mask gave off the impression that he did not blink. His eyes stared endlessly, as if into a void.

Eventually, the time came in which it was Bryce’s time to leave, sounding off with a loud beep. It made him jump, but only because of his nerves. He got up, moving for the doors.

Yet the man in the mask was still there, waiting for him.

He was apprehensive, to say the least. He approached the other set of double doors instead, but couldn’t bring himself to open them.

Why? It’s just an actor. Paid like me.

But… but was it?

Ten feet away, the bear man was still staring through the window of the other double doors.

Bryce… backed off from the door.

The filming is over, he thought. The beep sounded, meaning I’m supposed to go home.

But he was suddenly taken by a horrible dread, a horrible knowing fear that if he walked through that door, something may happen to him. For he did not think this masked man another actor. After all, he’d never been explicitly told that this was all for a movie.

But… maybe it’s not a normal movie. His thoughts ran with trickles of terror. Maybe it’s a snuff film.

He turned around. Though he was now facing the back of the statue pedestal, he could still see that it was glowing a frightful purple, very deep and very bright. Its light spilled onto the ground.

Bryce backed into the room, walking backward. Wherever he went, the mascot’s head would slightly move, following him.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop looking at me. Go away.”

He could see the statue better now. It flared even brighter.

But the man in the mask did not move.

Bryce sat in his seat again. He eyed the masked man, then looked around the room before settling back on him.

“What do you want from me? Are you part of the production? Is this scripted?”

No answer.

Bryce looked down at his hands, noticed they’d started shaking.

He heard a sliding click. He whipped back up, and saw that the man was standing in the room now. He hadn’t seen him move, but the door was closing slowly behind him.

Bryce fell back in his chair. It smashed upon the ground with a horrible clatter, skittering away. He barely noticed how hard he’d landed on his rear.

The pedestal was flaring purple.

But the man didn’t come any closer. Even so, Bryce stood, backing all the way toward the bathroom at the end of the room.

The moment he touched the door, the man in the mask started sprinting.

He flung himself into the bathroom and shut the door. The mirror on the wall rattled. The man outside pounded on it, bang after bang. Thankfully, it had a lock.

Bryce sat against the wall beside the big plastic container of toilet paper, watching in horror as the man outside continuously beat the door over and over.

“Go away! Go away!”

But he would not go away. After a while Bryce noticed two shadows under the door—the man’s feet—contort and merge into the shadow of his whole body as he knelt down, trying to force his hand in the space beneath it. When he couldn’t, he laid down in front of it. Bryce cringed, and saw some tufts of pink fur poking out from beneath…

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to look down, below the door—

But the man’s breathing was too much to bear, heavy and ragged.

He looked. He saw the stitched white and black button eye of the bear mask, pressed just enough under the door to where it looked like he could see with it… and was looking…

Bryce dare not leave. So he stayed. He had no food, but he did have water from the sink. It took courage, but he was able to stand, get closer, and drink from it, then rest against the wall. But no matter how hard he tried, no sleep would come.

A day or more passed. He was stirred in the mind, frightened beyond all belief, desperately wishing the man would…

The man started shuffling.

Is he leaving?! He prayed. Please, tell me he’s leaving…

The costumed man got to his feet, and walked away. Bryce got down to the cold bathroom floor, and looked under the door. He saw his feet shuffle further into the large room, distant from the door.

He waited.

Then, the man turned around, and began to run.

Bryce panicked—sitting up off the floor—backing up—

The costumed man hurled himself against the outside of the door. It rattled in its frame. Bryce watched in horror as the hinges squeaked, splitting apart just the smallest bit—screws jangled and loose. There was nothing he could do.

The man did it again. The door shook, and the hinges pulled.

In that brief moment before the door went down, Bryce thought two things. One—that this bathroom door was either oddly light, or the man was oddly heavy—and two, that he needed to defend himself, and if the costumed man was heavy enough to knock down a thick bathroom door, then he couldn’t just do it with his fists. There was exactly one thing in the room he could grab that wasn’t a roll of toilet paper or a small trash can—

The mirror.

The same moment the door split from the frame and landed hard upon the ground, Bryce grabbed the mirror and pried it off the wall. His heart was beating hard and fast with fright, and the appearance of the costumed man nearly shot it up into his throat. But he didn’t think twice. He brought the mirror down upon the costumed man’s head, hard as he could. It shattered, falling to many sharp wedges against the ground. The costumed man was stunned, for a moment…

Bryce leaned down, thoughts racing. He grabbed a sharp edge of the mirror, cutting deep into his palm and fingers. Blood traveled down, dripping.

Then he stabbed the costumed man right in the chest. He meant to aim for the head... but the mascot mask was likely too big, and the shard too small. But he drew it out, and stabbed it again. Then again. Then again. Then again and again and again and again.

The blood ran down the mascot man’s shirt, squirting onto the floor. The man just stood there, backed against the wall.

Then he fell, face-first. Bryce hopped out the way.

Splat.

He looked down. The man was still and silent in an ever-growing puddle of blood.

Hands shaking, but pain vacant from the rush of adrenaline, Bryce stepped over the costumed man, and back out into the—

Khl’ath dro’ctelho ni nawar zhigho gozhokah’ll meiargwath’o marghkai.

Bryce stumbled. The voice had been so loud, speaking in some kind of foreign language—

Khl’ath dro’ctelho ni nawar zhigho gozhokah’ll meiargwath’o marghkai.

Bryce fell to his hands, smearing blood all over the gray carpet. His ears rang. His vision blurred. He could no longer smell or taste, and the air was stale. He soiled himself, liquid waste spilling into his pants, down his legs. He hurled chunks of vomit against the ground; after which a fiery hose of bile and stomach acid came up in a heap with a horrible, sickly, growling belch.

He slipped in his waste. It felt like his consciousness was phasing in and out of his body, floating up or down or—

Going toward—

Toward—

Khl’ath dro’ctelho ni nawar zhigho gozhokah’ll meiargwath’o marghkai.

The statue! The statue!

Its eyes glowed with a brilliant red.

Bryce’s thoughts crossed to his life before this. His home. His parents. He hadn’t a special person to love, nor many friends.

And all the better. For his mind was gone, never to return. The fewer people to miss him.

His mindless, shambling, soiled body stood up again. The statue then glowed a horrible purple. He walked toward it.

He put his hands upon the bust at the top.

And suddenly, his mindless body understood the inane, horrible speaking. It knew it needed to follow the pedestal’s command. But its command, to feed, to feed, feed—couldn’t be carried out. There was nothing to feed on. Not the body in the bathroom, for the man was dead, and this statue’s power need not feed on flesh. It had made a quick meal of Bryce, yes it did. But now it hungered for more…

…

Up in the research room, Dr. Pilfro sipped a cup of coffee.

“It took hold of him even though he killed Subject 60… not the other way around.”

Dr. Lamb was already scribbling it down on his clipboard. The monitors in the room—numbering several hundred—blinked and flashed with many recordings of Windle Rock. One of them was trained on Captain Claiken’s lighthouse. Another pointed to a mysterious dock. One was trained toward a large closed warehouse, and another to the cement, one-door rooms inside it. Many of the Facility’s doctors and scientists roamed this warehouse, keeping an eye on the subjects.

Another monitor. On it, some lab-coated men were cleaning up the mess inside of a rural home, or going into the woods with cameras and baggies to collect samples of something foul.

Of course, many of the cameras pointed to the testing room where they’d managed to trap Ilg’thar’s obelisk. The obelisk glowed a brilliant purple. Dr. Pilfro adjusted his glasses, and looked down at Dr. Lamb’s notes.

Purple X P60/P61—

Yes, thought Pilfro, it always glows purple when it’s controlling someone—

Distance—same as last, CCo—

And it can control its minion, it seems, in any place in the country, possibly in other countries too—

Dr. Lamb scratched out a number, and checked off a box. Yes, they have learned something new. The minion need not incapacitate anyone… for if they died, then the statue would be able to take over someone else. But it could only feed off one person at a time. And it caused a great struggle, sometimes. Subject 60 had been so maimed from the last fight that the Facility had needed to cover his face somehow, lest they alarm Subject 61. The mascot mask was all they could find that didn’t make him look like some kind of mummy.

So much for not frightening Subject 61. He figured the bear mask had actually made things worse.

Pilfro pulled off his glasses, setting them on the desk beside many control panels. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

At some point, he thought, we’re going to run out of money. They’d been taking it back once the statue took a victim, but that was simple pocket change, nowhere near enough to keep supporting the Facility. Other groups, like the Service and the Foundation—

Why is it always three letters with these people?

—Had many more resources. Little rural Ireland compared to America’s military budget and an underground resource network of most nations combined. It was sad, really. They were hardly closer to understanding anything more about these eldritch happenings. But they would be if they were working for someone else.

“Dr. Lamb,” said Pilfro, “have a team collect Mr. Harnel and—”

The statue started whispering. Pilfro stood in his chair. If the statue was whispering…

“TURN IT OFF!” he said. “THE CAMERAS! SHUT THEM OFF!”

Dr. Lamb wasn’t quick enough—the mindless, controlled body of Bryce looked up at the camera, right into it. Right into Pilfro’s eyes, it seemed.

Then, the statue burned red.

Flame erupted around it. He’d never seen that before.

It turned toward the camera. Toward him.

We thought it couldn’t move! We thought it—

You thought wrong, Doctor.

And in his last moments, Dr. Pilfro heard it. A horrible, ominous voice—

Khl’ath dro’ctelho ni nawar zhigho gozhokah’ll meiargwath’o marghkai.

Neither of them left the service room alive, that day.