Work Text:
[NOM]
Statement of Eloise-
[SCOTT]
Nom? Do you have a minute?
[NOM]
I'm kinda in the middle of recording a statement. Could it wait?
[SCOTT]
Uhm… no, not really… we've found new information on the Eloise statement that might be worth adding. I think we put this one off for now.
[NOM]
Oh. Then… what do we do now?
[SCOTT]
What you're gonna do, actually, is go to the break room and grab the tea that I made for you. You spend all day in here. Surely, that can't be good for you.
[NOM]
But… there's so many statements to get through… This place is such a mess.
[SCOTT]
Well yes, but we don't have anything to record now, so you can take a break.
[SIGH]
Please, Nom. 4c and Mae are worried about you. I'm worried about you.
[NOM]
Fine… I'll go take a break…
…
Aren't you coming?
[SCOTT]
Uhm… I thought I'd organise some of the statements…? As you said, it's a mess in here. Research will probably be easier if we clean up a little.
[NOM]
Right, right. So, I have to take a break but you don't? That's not fair.
[SCOTT]
I'm not the one losing sleep over my job.
[NOM]
…
Y'know what, fair enough. Probably for the best. I'll see you at lunch?
[DOOR CREAKS OPEN]
[SCOTT]
Yeah, sure. Bye.
[DOOR CLICKS]
I…
[SHAKY INHALE]
I know I should've given this statement with him here, but… I don't think I could've, really, not with his eyes staring into mine. It's not… unsettling, but… I don't think I'd be able to, not with company. He’s gonna listen to this later, anyways. I’m sorry, Nom. Keep this one out of the archives for me, okay? Wouldn’t want the students finding this, or C.K. for that matter.
How does he do this…? Uhm, statement of… me, I guess.
[EXHALE]
Statement of Scott Springwell, regarding his… odd relationship with death. Recorded live, May 20th, 2026.
Statement begins.
I will never die. I will live forever, and I will watch everything around me perish, one by one, until I am the only one standing, and I will continue to live after that. The universe could end, and I will still be tethered to this godforsaken body, in this godforsaken existence. Nothing can kill me, and to compensate, everyone around me will die.
Everything around me dies, anyways.
It started when I was young - about seven, or so. Summer had begun to peak through the parting clouds of spring, and the weather had been warm enough to spend the day in the garden. Barrowhill summers had always been pleasant, and this one brought with it birdsong and flowers, the kinds that bloomed under your feet, with hardy petals and bright colours. I’d always loved these flowers. They were always so… resilient. When everything around them wilts, they thrive. Perhaps that’s why they’re always so healthy when I grow them.
My mother had always had a fondness for the wildflowers. They weren’t the most delicate of things, she would tell me, but they were the strongest. There was beauty in survival, she’d say, that flowers were so much more than pretty little petals. It was for this reason that she ran a florist’s with my dad. I still remember how happy it made her, surrounded by colours as she tended to each individual plant with the care of someone who had a deep adoration for all that called the soil home.
My childhood was a comfortable one. Barrowhill is one of those small closely knit towns, where everyone knows everyone else, and every face is familiar. My parents in particular were quite well liked in the community, which meant that the town harboured a melancholy disdain when I finally ended up leaving for college. Took the last of what was left of the Springwells, I guess.
This peace didn't exactly last very long.
I’d been watching mom trim dead leaves off of the hibiscus when I was filled with an uncomfortable sense of panic. I’d never had anxiety before, but I knew enough to know that I needed to get out of there. Something bad would happen, I could feel it in the air around me, a sort of buzzing that crawled under my skin and into my skull, sending sharp bolts of pain down my back.
I remember tugging on her sleeve, asking her whether we could go inside. I tried to use every excuse I could think of, but it hardly worked. She only asked me what was wrong, her tone so gentle, it almost quelled the wave of fear that had washed over me. Almost.
Now that I look back on that day, I have the slightest notion that she knew what was about to happen. Her voice was subdued and soft, and there had been a sadness in her gaze. She smiled at me, but it never truly reached her eyes. She told me to go inside if I wanted to, that she had to finish something up.
I shouldn't have listened to her. I should've stayed, I could've…
[SIGH]
I went inside, and it wasn't even five minutes later that I heard the scream. I don't think I will ever forget the way it tore through her throat, a hoarse guttural sound that made way to gasps and sobs. I'd never heard her scream before, and the sound was so… ugly in contrast to the rest of her. It wasn't a sound that should've left her lips. She shouldn't have…
I ran back outside. I was screaming for her, crying her name out, but to no avail. The sight that awaited me is… it's still burnt into my eyes…
My mother was on the ground, hunched over, her hands desperately clawing at her chest. I watched in abject horror as blood dripped out of a wound that… gods, how do I describe this…? Something was growing out of her. Once green vines, now stained red, curled out of her body, writhing as though they had life of their own. Flowers bloomed from her eye, peridot overtaken by a deceptively delicate thing. Branches pierced her abdomen, sharp jagged shapes with only the motivation to kill.
I know she suffered. I watched her try to fight it. I watched as the last bit of energy left her as she collapsed, and I watched her working eye slide shut, a final tear rolling down her cheek. I watched as the thing that took her spread over her body, desecrating it until all that was left was the vaguely humanoid shape of the person I loved most in the whole world.
I don't know why I remember all this in vivid detail, but the rest of the day was a blur. I think I'd collapsed after that.
I don't know why I remember all of this in such clarity, because I don't remember much of what happened afterwards. I think my neighbours heard the screaming and came over to check on us.
The… official ruling was suicide. The investigation was short and closed far sooner than a case like this should've, and it was by general consensus that Allura Springwell faded into obscurity.
Dad was probably the most affected by all this, after me. I know he knew that my mother hadn't died that way, but I also know that he was far too scared to push it. It was probably within reason, too, given that whatever powers could cover up mom's murder, it probably wouldn't be difficult for them to cover up another. Even so, I know it haunted him for a while after.
He was there for me, though. Put me in therapy, though that didn't do anything to convince me that what I saw wasn't real.
It was middle school when the next one happened.
It had been spring this time, and I’d been hanging out with this boy I liked in the very same backyard. We'd gotten a trampoline at some point, so that was where we sat, lightly bouncing as we spoke. I remember watching his dirty blonde hair bouncing, and the awe I felt as I watched it catch the dying light of the sunset. Falling in love had been my biggest mistake. It always has been.
He didn't deserve what happened to him.
He bet me an ice cream that he could do a solid backflip on the trampoline, his tone loud and boisterous as it had always been. He seemed confident, and he'd been on the football team at the time, so it wasn't as though he wasn't athletic. I didn't have much reason to doubt his abilities.
I stepped off and watched him jump. Once, twice…
On the second jump, I was filled with an old panic, and I tried to call out to him, but his feet were already over his head by the time my wits were about me. If I'd been faster, if I hadn't agreed to it in the first place…
I heard his neck snap before I saw it. I flinched, shutting my eyes to protect my mind from the sight, but it didn't do much good against what I saw when I opened them. The crack echoed through my bones, and it was with great difficulty that I was able to look back at what was left of my friend. I screamed.
Stained vines wrapped around his neck, and in my dazed state, I had the thought that he couldn't breathe. I watched as what had taken my mother now proceeded to take him, and for a brief second, his still open eyes were no longer brown, but a familiar peridot. Wildflowers overtook his face then, bursting out of his eyes and mouth and ears, and that was when I finally ran to find my father.
I could've sworn I watched his choked mouth form a smile.
It was called a freak accident, the way my mother's death was called suicide. The same way I’d lose person after person, only for their deaths to be called mistakes and accidents and normal. I had to watch as the soil claimed every single soul I dared to love. I don't think I need to tell you how my father passed.
It was this… series of events that eventually led me to pursuing botany. You'd think I'd grow to hate plants, but I know that that thing was the furthest thing from flora. It was partially in my mother's memory, really - now my dad's, I guess - that I studied it, but also partially so that I could understand… all of it. Even after all of this, even after years of relentless research, I found nothing.
Which led me to believe that this wasn't something a biology textbook could teach me. That's how I ended up here, at an institute for the research of the paranormal and esoteric. I… haven't found anything, and at this point, I'm afraid of finding something. I think I'd rather live without knowing. It's… probably easier.
This is the part where I admit I haven't been… entirely truthful. There was an aspect to all of these encounters that I didn't mention. An aspect that might make whoever is listening to this change their perspective on me entirely.
For every single time each event occurred, I felt the soil sing to me, beg me to feed it. So what if people died? So what if I lost and lost and couldn't save them? It made me feel good, it gave me purpose that I haven't found earlier, nor haven't found since. The crushing weight of guilt and grief began to feel like a heavy blanket, one that promised to embrace me for as long as I wished, with only the illusion of an exit.
Whatever has done this to the people I love has grown a strange affection for me, and I don't think it'll let me leave so soon. It wants me to feed it, but I can't do it. I can't let another person die because I was selfish enough to want comfort from another human being. Especially not you, Nom, because I have a feeling it wants you next.
It won't let me die even if I don't feed it. I think it's decided that it wants my body to puppeteer, and I don't think it'll waste it. It wants - no, it needs - me alive.
I'll only rest when the wildflowers wilt.
Statement ends.
[QUIET SOB]
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
[NOM]
Oh god… I, uh… This statement is going to be kept off record, and no investigation will be conducted for… obvious purposes. Why on earth would he hide this from me for so long…
I need to talk to him.
Uh… recording ends, I suppose.
[CLICK]