Work Text:
(Static. Tape begins.)
[ARCHIVIST]
-and full names, please. For the sake of clarity.
[????]
Yeah, okay.
[ARCHIVIST]
(clears throat) Statement of Will Gold, regarding…
[WILL]
…oh, uh, the possible possession of an… antique doll, belonging to my friend Thomas Simons. Tommy.
[ARCHIVIST]
Statement begins.
[WILL]
Okay, well, first of all, I’m a Twitch streamer. YouTuber too, I guess. I’m called Wilbur Soot on there if you want to look it up later.
I guess it all started when I went to America. I was attending a friend’s wedding with a lot of my other streamer friends.
[ARCHIVIST]
Names, please.
[WILL]
I’d rather leave them out of this. They- they don’t have anything to do with… any of it.
[ARCHIVIST]
…hm.
[WILL]
Tommy didn’t get invited. He said he wasn’t angry, or sad, but- we’re like brothers, you know?
( pause)
It- it was his birthday that week, too. I… we all left him, practically alone , on his eighteenth birthday. I feel like shit now, of course, but… I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to get away for a bit? It seems so… so illogical now, but it made perfect sense then. It was like… something was pulling me. Pulling me away from him…
(long pause)
Never mind. It… can’t be helped now. So I went, and it was then that Tommy… acquired the doll.
[ARCHIVIST]
Acquired?
[WILL]
He told this story- it seemed so fake- I mean, really?
(pause)
He… said he was walking on the beach. An old woman approached him, with something in her hands. Apparently he couldn’t see what it was at first, and the woman asked him… if he wanted a doll.
(shaky laugh)
I don’t know why he said yes, especially after seeing that… thing. He asked if she wanted money, but she just… smiled at him and said no. No, she said, I want a lock of your hair.
[ARCHIVIST]
Sorry, did you say a lock of his hair?
[WILL]
Yeah, um, yeah, I did. Again, I don’t know why he said yes. Or how she did it, for that matter. She must have had scissors on her somewhere. Obviously she couldn’t just- pull it out of his head or something-
(pause, deep breath)
So Tommy got the doll, and I came home. I remember my first call with him when I got back- he wouldn’t answer any in America. Probably just time zones. Doesn’t matter. He-
(shaky breath)
He sounded so happy. It sounded like nothing was wrong. He kept smiling, and laughing, and I thought everything was okay, until I saw it.
Tommy had set the doll up directly behind him, staring into the camera over his shoulder. It looked old, vintage, but it was still in good condition. Weirdly realistic, kind of uncanny valley, you know? It had brown hair, blue eyes, these over exaggeratedly rosy cheeks.
I-I asked him what it was.
Tommy smiled at me.
(voice breaks)
He sounded so gleeful as he said, ‘I’m not alone anymore, Will!’
He- ah, he called the doll Uncle Nasty.
[ARCHIVIST]
(monotone)
Uncle… Nasty.
[WILL]
Listen, I don’t know. He named it that for the viewers, who, by the way, thought it was creepy too.
Anyways, he started telling me about all the strange things that happened to him. His camera kept turning off. At one point his lights went out, I think? He was rambling by then.
I didn’t connect it to the doll then, but I was still deeply unsettled. I didn’t like the way it stared. But Tommy was so happy, I couldn’t bear to tell him to get as far away from that fucking thing as possible.
(clears throat)
I had to find another way to… investigate the wretched thing. So I proposed a stream idea to Tommy and Charlie-
[ARCHIVIST]
Full names.
[WILL]
Ah, sorry. Charles Dalgleish. Charlie. He’s American. He came back with me after the wedding.
I said, ‘What if we investigated Uncle Nasty and pretended he was possessed?’ I’m- I didn’t believe in ghosts- the paranormal at all, really, see.
(wry chuckle)
I can barely believe I’m here.
[ARCHIVIST]
Most people tend to think that way.
[WILL]
Hm, well. Charlie was on board right away, but Tommy hated the idea. He kept insisting nothing was wrong with the damned thing. I kept trying to tell him it wouldn’t even be real- which was a lie, by the way, one of necessity- and finally convinced him to bring it over to my office. I set up the stream, made sure everything was working; thermometer, spirit box, EMF reader, the lot. I know it doesn’t really work that well in detecting spirits, but anything was better than nothing.
Oh- I nearly forgot. Charlie was recovering from a fever at the time. He still had a bit of a high temperature but seemed fine otherwise.
I started the stream, explained what we were doing, and all the time Tommy was insisting nothing was wrong. We tried to play it off as a joke, but it wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. He kept saying it was his friend , that he wasn’t lonely anymore. He kept repeating that part. ‘I’m not lonely anymore. I’m not lonely anymore.’
(pause)
I won’t go through the entire stream. If you need to know that badly, you can look it up after this. It spoke through the spirit box, seemed to like Toms.
Charlie… started acting weird. I thought it was a bit at first, or maybe just the fever. He kept asking if anyone else was unusually warm, and was dazed. He… stared at Uncle Nasty a lot. Sat right next to the chair the thing was on, and just stared.
I checked his temperature.
(hushed)
It was 15 degrees. I tried to play it off, but that isn’t normal. I checked it again and it was the same.
At one point, near the end of the stream, I told them I wanted to speak to it alone. Shooed them out and hoped Charlie wouldn’t pass out because of hypothermia. Hoped Tommy wouldn’t… I don’t know.
(pause)
The moment the door swung closed behind them, I became aware of this… presence. Watching me. Now, it’s hard not to feel watched when you’re live in front of thousands of people, but this was different. It was so- so obviously malicious it was all I could do to keep my voice steady as I spoke to it. I don’t know if you understand, that feeling of being watched, the feeling that something wants to hurt you so badly but can’t , and it’s practically seething with anger -
Sorry.
[ARCHIVIST]
(quietly)
Yes, I know what you mean.
[WILL]
…
Well, it barely responded to me, and after a little while I decided to end the stream and try to convince Tommy to get rid of that thing. Charlie seemed okay after a little while, but he left a few days later, and I’ve barely heard from him since.
I hope he’s okay.
Tommy kept the thing. He wouldn’t let me even try to perform an exorcism on it. He keeps it always in view on his streams, and it just… watches.
(softly)
Sometimes I think I see it blink, and I feel that presence at my back.
I don’t feel safe anymore.
(click)
[ARCHIVIST]
End statement.
(pause, heavy sigh)
This statement is one that is very easy to fact-check, but it is impossible to confirm that the doll is a true paranormal entity. We found the many streams in which the doll was present, and Mr. Gold’s version of events appears to be true. However, we can be certain of nothing unless we can examine the doll ourselves, and I believe Mr. Simons will not allow that to happen, if he is truly influenced by whatever entity within it.
I am still in contact with Mr. Gold, and he has promised to attempt to bring Mr. Simons to us. We have been unable to contact Mr. Dalgleish.
(quietly)
This talk of a presence… I am loath to admit it, but it disturbs me. I will have to keep a close eye on this case.
End recording.
(click)